10:45 pm: My fears and premonitions about Jon Watts, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers‘ Spider-Man: No Way Home were unfounded.. I’m not saying that a big chunk of it, particularly during the first 60 to 65 minutes, didn’t numb me out and at times bore me to death. I looked at my watch at 9:15 pm and went “oh, God, another whole hour to go!” But a tiny bit later everything started to change and advance and coagulate, and the trippier, hall-of-mirrors aspects of the “multiverse” plot started to kick in, and the movie got quieter and more reflective and then joyful…the crowd broke out in cheers three times…and I was suddenly going “holy shit, this is really working!”

Ridiculous as this may sound, it is HE’s conviction that McKenna and Sommers’ SM:NWH script has resulted in one of the most cosmically out-there meta-Marvel experiences ever, not to mention one of the most emotional Marvel sink-ins (and that includes Avengers: Endgame).

As much as I hate to admit this, Spider-Man: No Way Home — despite all the flash-bang-jizz-whizz-whomp-thromp crap that occupies much of the first 60 to 65 minutes, which I hated — is easily one of 2021’s best films. It actually should be nominated for Best Picture because it turns the proverbial magic key — it turns audiences on. I was there and I felt it, dammit. This is what people go to the movies for. It even ends a little bit like Warren Beatty‘s Heaven Can Wait…almost. At the finish everyone applauded.

Yes, the early sections are an unfortunate lesson in FX chaos action editing, and at times the film felt like a fan-service mechanism, a machine, a greatest hits service tray. But the last 45 to 50 minutes are really good. I was totally sold. Call me flabbergasted.

No thoughts. Just this crowd reaction to #SpiderManNoWayHome pic.twitter.com/MQZN9l3822

— Spider-Man: No Way Home Updates (@spideyupdated) December 17, 2021

No thoughts. Just this crowd reaction to #SpiderManNoWayHome pic.twitter.com/MQZN9l3822

— Spider-Man: No Way Home Updates (@spideyupdated) December 17, 2021

..to the teaser for Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson‘s Severance (Apple TV+, 2.18.22) is something along the lines of “this is obviously a dry and intelligent limited series, and I’m there.” Getting a bit of a Downsizing meets 1984 meets THX-1138 vibe…who wouldn’t? About a mass man (Adam Scott) willfully submitting to corporate-think — “a group of office employees who have agreed to have their memories severed through an experimental medical brain procedure that will permanently separate their work and personal lives.,” etc.

Costarring John Turturro, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken. Exec producer Stiller directed some episodes.

Mr. President — Ever since you began posting your best-movies-of-the-year lists (when was that, late ’16 or early ’17?), Hollywood wags have doubted that they represented your own personal tastes. The assumption was that younger folks on your staff chose the right “tasteful” films and you signed off on them. I, for one, have always (naively?) trusted that your lists represented your own actual preferences, so I’m going to address my comments directly to you, the 44th president of the United States. Here they are…

(1) I’m going to assume you haven’t seen Pedro Almodovar‘s Parallel Mothers. Because if you had, there’s no way you would have omitted it in favor of Old Henry (who’s even seen that film?) or Passing (c’mon…a 1920s Manhattan-Harlem drama, one that barely had a pulse, about a completely unbelievable interracial marriage…the film’s admirers pretended that Ruth Negga‘s facial features could have passed as European-descended, even to a toxic racist husband who was hyper-attuned to such matters) or Pig (a movie about great organic cooking for the ages vs. blandly catering to to the know-nothings). These are all passable or pretty good films, but Almodovar’s is masterful. Did you not see it or something?

(2) Why did you choose 14 films? Why not 15? Why not 10? Nobody chooses their top 14 films of the year.

(3) Did you honestly feel that Drive My Car needed three hours to make the points that it made? Did you think that the director’s wife had betrayed him just that one time (which is what N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott thought) or did you come to realize that she had numerous other sexual partners as a way of coping with the death of their child?

(4) Hat tip to your including The Worst Person in the World and Quo Vadis, Aida — both triple-grade-A, European-made films.

(5) In The Power of the Dog, did you honestly understand what had happened to Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Phil Burbank during the final reel? Because I didn’t. I had to ask friends and research it before I realized what had happened. Director Jane Campion certainly didn’t make it plain to the dumb people in the audience. This, to me, is not the mark of a triple-A film.

(6) Did you honestly think that the Robert Bresson-like prison ending of The Card Counter worked? Did you honestly think there was a compelling romantic current between Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish? Did you really believe Haddish “was” who she was playing, a sharp casino talent scout?

(7) I thought you would have included the excellent King Richard on your list of 14, but it didn’t make the cut. Why not? It’s the only 2021 film that said “this is what it takes to make it in a difficult realm….only the devoted and highly disciplined succeed.” Plus it has a fascinating lead character, which is arguably Will Smith‘s best performance. You can’t tell me you saw King Richard and didn’t greatly admire it.

(8) In sum, no King Richard and no Parallel Mothers constitute, no offense, a pair of glaring WTFs.

A husband or boyfriend, weak or guilty or both, begging for help or forgiveness or both from a wife or girlfriend who’s angry and disapproves but still loves him. And who’s the up-to-no-good silhouette guy in the doorway?

You don’t hear much about A Hatful of Rain these days. An addiction drama, it was co-written by Michael V. Gazzo (aka “Frank Pantangeli”) and directed by Fred Zinnemann. Shot in black-and-white Scope (2.39:1). Don Murray, Eva Marie Saint, Anthony Francoisa and Lloyd Nolan costarred. Music by Bernard Herrmann.

And the second most romantic scene Tom Cruise ever performed, the most romantic being the Jerry Maguire finale (“You had me at hello”).

What makes this Born on the Fourth of July scene so poignant is that it seems so unreal. You’ve got a naive and patriotic nerd who doesn’t attend the Massapequa High School senior prom because his dream girl (Kyra Sedgwick) is going with another guy, but at the last minute the nerd runs through a rainstorm to attend on his lonesome. He strolls soaking through the gymnasium, finds the dream girl (who of course is bored with her date), asks her to dance and then kisses her, and she’s totally into it.

Awkward high-school romances never experience this kind of perfect romantic climax…I know this for a fact! I went through high school and it was nothing but frustration and heartbreak. But that’s what makes this scene so sweet. Because we want to believe it even though it’s bullshit. (And I don’t care if this actually happened to poor Ron Kovic — it’s still a fantasy.)

Released on 12.20.89, BOTFOJ cost $17.8 million after reshoots. The blistering, well-reviewed anti-war drama grossed over $161 million worldwide, and received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Cruise; Stone won for Best Director. It also nabbed four Golden Globe Awards — Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Today it wouldn’t even open in theatres, and if it did the teens and 20somethings who blew off West Side Story would ignore it. But they would definitely support Spider-Man: No Way Home.

A couple of friends invited me to join them for dinner during the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. I forget the name of the place but it was near a busy walk-street crossroads and adjacent to other eateries, and it had lots of outdoor tables and exquisite food and quite the vibe. You had to be somewhat in the know to know about this place, and I remember approaching and noticing as I scanned the crowd that Jane Campion, the festival’s jury president, was sitting and smiling and laughing with a table of friends.

The reason I spotted her as quickly and easily as I did were those two signatures — that shock of thick white hair and those dark-rimmed glasses.

If legendary caricaturist Al Hirschfeld was still with us, you know what his drawing of Campion would look like. How many famous people over the decades have been known for their dark-rimmed glasses? Campion, Phil Silvers, Woody Allen and who else? I’m asking.

The thing that Campion and Guillermo del Toro have in common is that GDT’s films have often focused on monsters while Campion’s latest film, The Power of the Dog, focuses on one particular monster, Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Phil Burbank.