Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 05/17/20

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts, 2019)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Far From Home

Cast: Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Samuel L. Jackson, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Angourie Rice, Remy Hii, Martin Starr, J.B. Smoove, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Cobie Smulders, Numan Acar. Screenplay: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers. Cinematography: Matthew J. Lloyd. Production design: Claude Paré. Film editing: Leigh Folsom Boyd, Dan Lebental. Music: Michael Giacchino.

Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire are fine actors, but neither of them made the role of Spider-Man their own the way Tom Holland has done. His training as a dancer helped him get the moves right for the stunts as Spider-Man, and he's the right height (five-eight) and age (early 20s) to keep him credible as the adolescent Peter Parker. Beyond that, he's a gifted actor, more than holding his own in scenes with veterans like Samuel L. Jackson and Jake Gyllenhaal. It's hard to know what Marvel Studios will do when Holland eventually ages out of the role. He's the main reason I liked Spider-Man: Far From Home much more than the usual superhero movie. He makes the slam-bang special effects tolerable. It helps, too, that he's up against one of the more engaging villains in the genre, Gyllenhaal's Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio. Gyllenhaal -- who was once considered for the role of the webslinger in Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004) when Maguire was sidelined -- makes the seduction of Peter Parker into handing over the gizmo that gives him power credible, and then does a fine job of unveiling Beck's bad side. But mostly it's Holland's ability to sustain Peter's boyish gullibility, and his reluctance to give up his teenage life (and his pursuit of Zendaya's MJ) to become one of the Avengers, that brings the implausible superhero to life. The screenplay is efficient and sometimes witty, often at the expense of Peter, who gushes "Oh, I love Led Zeppelin!" when Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) plays a track by AC/DC and who gets zinged by Nick Fury (Jackson) with "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Stark said you wouldn't get that because it's not a Star Wars reference."