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OT: Spiderman -- RDJ, Keaton, Tomei...and Hitchcock

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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You know, this has been a pretty good summer on the "comic book hero" front.

I've seen three, and all three were good in their own, distinctive ways:

Guardians of the Galaxy II kept up its "Hits of the 70's" musical brio, and its comic gusto. It fell apart in the Third CGI ridden act but...well, it reunites Tango and Cash(that's Stallone and Kurt Russell.) But they share no scenes.

Wonder Woman. Some discussion is taking place: how come it took so long to get HER on screen? I mean Supes was in '78; Batman in '89...but then a jump to Spidy in 2002. And NOW..Wonder Woman? I'm guessing the need to deal with feminist issues AND girlie show issues kept this one in development hell. But what came out was just right -- and with just the right Wonder Woman. It falls apart in the Third CGI-ridden act, too but -- the world still loves Wonder Woman.

Comes now Spiderman: Homecoming which proved to me personally that : I'm a sell-out.

Oh I whined and complained about how quickly they rebooted Spiderman(and his damn ORIGIN STORY). Andrew Garfield in for Tobey McGuire? Some unknown in for Sam Raimi. And why re-boot something so SOON?

I made a joke: "Hey how about re-booting Spiderman with a new cast EVERY YEAR?"

Hey, I thought I was kidding.

But...I read some good reviews. I checked the cast list. I went.

And I liked it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I will continue to believe that the best use of these comic book hero movies has been the use of notable "star actors" who bring their chops and charisma and "personal history" to the movie in question and make it special. They are paid big bucks to do so, but they deserve every penny.

Spiderman Homecoming has three:

Robert Downey Jr. His "Iron Man" of 2008 really started the "Marvel Comic Universe" and Iron Man was the class act. The first one had Best Actress Gwyneth Paltrow as the heroine and Best Actor Jeff Bridges as the villain. Also "Swingers" star and big shot director Jon Favreau as "Happy," Tony Stark's right hand man.

Well, RDJ and "Happy" are here enlisted to mentor Spiderman -- thereby pulling Spiderman officially away from Raimi-masterpiece status and into the MCU -- and well, its cool that the coolest Marvel hero is Spidey's mentor. In some ways, this is "Iron Man 4," and that's a good thing.

But hey, what about RDJ? I recall loving his work in "Tropic Thunder"(as a white method actor too deep into playing a black man) and especially in Zodiac(where RDJ patented his super-fast, super-cool, super-edgy line readings and basically created Tony Stark on the spot.)

But it seems that once RDJ locked into Iron Man and its sequels(for ziliions of dollars...RDJ is the leader of the pack)...he kinda stopped doing anything else. Other than that OTHER franchise(Sherlock Holmes), all I count is The Judge. It was OK. And it had Marisa Tomei in it. Are they pals? Because...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

...because Marisa Tomei is in this.

As ...Aunt May!

Some fanboys are furious , but this reboot hinges on Aunt May being late forty-something and "hot." Every damn PR piece is on the lines of "Aunt May is HOT!" Tomei has played along with the gag(why not? Its NICE to be called hot) and says that she had no idea May was originally such an old lady ("I was just interested in my deal.")

Well Tomei as Aunt May IS hot, but more to the point, she's magical. I fell in love with her in "My Cousin Vinny" and it has not diminished one bit. I determined its her voice and her smile. And her attitude. Sigh. (And she DESERVED that Vinny Oscar.)

Sidebar: Tomei was definitely hot in two movies: The Wrestler(she was a stripper, not the title role, that was Mickey Rourke, the great villain in Iron Man 2) and Sidney Lumet's final film, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead (nudity, sex scenes.) Tomei had that "courage to be a sex star" that only some actresses can get away with and survive. But she's played lots of other roles.

BTW...Tomei gets the last line in "Spiderman Homecoming" and its a lulu.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But the piece de resistance, the crème de la crème is...

...Michael Keaton.

What a cool guy. What a great actor.

Yes, he was the first major movie Batman, and we can all sit around and argue, but I'd say one reason he was the best Batman is the same reason he's a great villain here: he's got something other actors don't have.

Swagger, maybe. A gum snapping, on-the-edge "guy's guy" thing that served him well in comedies like "Night Shift" and "Mr. Mom" , where he had this immortal exchange as an unemployed dad greeting his wife's lecherous boss(Martin Mull) with a chainsaw:

Mull: Is your wife here? I'm here to take her to the airport.
Keaton: Yeah, she's comin. Wanna beer?
Mull: (Disgusted) Its seven o'clock in the morning.
Keaton: (After a long pause) SCOTCH?

Keaton was cool and hipster-like as the crazy Beetlejuice for Tim Burton ("I'm feelin' a little...ANXIOUS..you know what I mean?" before heading into a miniature brothel) and Burton awarded him with Batman over fanboy objections.

The rest is history.

Its been a hardscrabble career since then for Keaton, but he's back. Strong. (Birdman..almost an Oscar.) And as swanstep pointed out about his look in Birdman..boy is this guy BUFF.

Keaton doesn't take his shirt off in "Spiderman" but the 66 year old actor gives off a vibe of total fitness and wiry muscularity. You wouldn't want to mess with him even if he didn't wear a winged flying suit that turns him into "The Vulture"(which he isn't called until the end of the movie, as I recall.) Note in passing: as drawn in the comics, The Vulture was a dead ringer for...Larry David. Keaton homages David with white hair and some baldness. No glasses.

MORE

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Michael Keaton is just the right actor for the villain part in the new Spiderman...but the movie goes to great lengths to justify his villainy.

Keaton's a high-paid working stiff boss of a construction salvage company. He's got a contract to clean up after one of those Avengers battles that destroyed the city to save mankind(that's funny in itself.) But rich guys and bureaucrats fire him off the job and render his crew jobless. Its "1% up against the wall" time.

Put another way...the new Spiderman villain is...a Trump voter? Or a Bernie voter? Uh oh, politics. Gotta run away from that.

In any event, with RDJ(in cameo dollops), Tomei, and especially Keaton in tow..this is a class act.

Even though its about: a bunch of kids.

Tis true. Spiderman remains the "kids' superhero," starring a kid romancing kids and clashing with other kids. Whenever the kids took the screen I felt: I'm not really supposed to be here. They didn't make this movie for ME.

But then, Keaton or Tomei or RDJ show up and...nah.

MORE

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Great news: the climax of Spiderman Homecoming does NOT fall apart in a pile of CGI effects about some great "God-force disguised as a human out to anhililate 20 million people before exploding the earth."

No, its just coupla guys and a great airborne CGI set-piece.

Which is where Hitchcock comes in.

Near the end of his career especially, Hitchocck was big on peppering his movies with action set-pieces: the drunk car drive, the crop duster, Mount Rushmore, Arbogast's stair fall, the birds attacking every time...the runaway car on the cliff. And before then, things like the berserk carousel and the plane crash into the sea.

Spiderman:Homecoming remembers THAT. We get several big action set-pieces in the movie, directed ala Hitchcock for character and clarity.

And one of them is on the Washington Monument.

I always figured that, unlike Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty, you can't DO a set-piece on the Washington Monument. You can't climb it. You can't hang from it. Its tiny top windows are hermetically sealed.

But SPIDERMAN can climb it. And hang from it. And there's an elevator dangling by a thread in there (see: my 1967 favorite Hotel; see also Speed.) Voila -- set piece.

And this: there's a shot from Spiderman's tippy top view looking down from the monument where I REALLY got vertigo. I mean, for real. And it hit me:

What if someone remade Vertigo so that we REALLY got vertigo? (All Hitchcock could give us was that great stylized zoom-pullback down the bell tower.)

Anyway. Vertigo -- dizziness. For real. At the movies.

Add THAT to RDJ, Tomei and especially Keaton and...

...I had a fine time. Even with all those scenes with KIDS.

[–] swanstep (2616) 7 years ago

Thanks for the extended review of Spider-man:Homecoming ecarle.

Tomei really does just radiate being a sweetheart/completely marriage-worthy. In her character's scenes with Mr I-date-all-the-supermodels Tony Stark in Civil War it just *is* utterly believable that she could turn his head.

And Michael Keaton *is* kind of a treasure at this point. His non-Pretty-Boy, everyman looks have always been a throwback to '70s Hollywood men (Hackman, Hoffman, Dreyfuss, Scheider, et al.) and that he's got into great shape and probably looks better for his age now than he did in the '80s and '90s makes him close to a role model for every everyguy out there.

Good casting. And good writing to keep both the villain and connection-to-the-Marvel-Universe-material for S:H so personal and down-to-earth/non-Cosmic. S:H sounds eminently watchable but I'll probably be happy to wait to watch it at home.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Tomei really does just radiate being a sweetheart/completely marriage-worthy. In her character's scenes with Mr I-date-all-the-supermodels Tony Stark in Civil War it just *is* utterly believable that she could turn his head.

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Though I've seen those summer commix movies, I still miss a lot. Civil War was such a one. I guess now I'd like to see it to see RDJ and Tomei and their chemistry.

I'm reminded that after she won her Supporting Oscar for My Cousin Vinny,Tomei was put through the paces of trying to be a leading lady...the next Julia Roberts. She was good, but the movies weren't, including one called "Only You" with co-star Robert Downey Jr. Tomei was also in Chaplin, which also starred RDJ.) Given that RDJ and Tomei were in The Judge a few years ago, I can only assume they are close pals. RDJ is happily married, Tomei has famously never married.

When Tomei's leading lady career crashed, she went back to being great support -- she's sexier as the support in Mel Gibson's "What Women Want" than star Helen Hunt.

But it was the indies that saved Tomei. Oscar noms(Supporting) for In the Bedroom and The Wrestler. She was heartbreaking in In the Bedroom as a luminous single mother whose murderous ex-husband kills her new nice boyfriend. Somehow the boyfriend's family blames Tomei. In "The Wrestler," Tomei captured the weirdness of the modern day stripper (er, exotic dancer.) Warm and inviting in the club...cold and mean outside of it. Again playing a single mom, Tomei TRIES to let wrestler Mickey Rourke befriend her outside of the club(she sees a kindred spirit in a man who works with his body), but ultimately disowns him ("Look, there's a line. I can't cross it.") The Strippers Code. That she finally comes to him at the end of the film -- too late -- is devastating.

All of this work, plus her ageless face and body, have kept Tomei marketable, if not a star. She's truly a Character Actress. Of a most lovely sort.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And Michael Keaton *is* kind of a treasure at this point. His non-Pretty-Boy, everyman looks have always been a throwback to '70s Hollywood men (Hackman, Hoffman, Dreyfuss, Scheider, et al.) and that he's got into great shape and probably looks better for his age now than he did in the '80s and '90s makes him close to a role model for every everyguy out there.

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In the 80's when Keaton broke through ...with the hits "Night Shift" and "Mr. Mom" long before Batman...he had the swagger and the hipness, but he didn't quite have the looks. He was spindly, boyish, a little bit bald. His look is what drove the fanboys to fury when he got cast as Batman. But even IN Batman, he had the chops for the angry side of the guy. I love it when (as Bruce Wayne!) he roars at Nicholson's Joker: "You wanna play rough? C'MONE (rhymes with "cone")...let's play rough" and swings a poker to smash a vase.

Anyway, time was necessary to give Michael Keaton this incredible tough guy look and sound to match what was nascent back when he played Batman(though even then, his eyebrows made him LOOK like a bat).

I expect that Keaton will join Kurt Russell and Jeff Bridges in being a "necessary character actor for casting" as guys like Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones age off the screen.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Good casting.

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Yes. I would like to add that while I find Wonder Woman to be the closest thing to a "real movie classic" of the commix stuff this year, it does NOT have that kind of "charismatic support star casting" that S:H does. The unknown Gal Gadot is supported by "one of those Chris guys," and the only somewhat interesting Danny Huston(John's son) as the main villain. David Thewlis is "classy" support, but not starry support.

But the newest Spiderman reboot needed some names. And it got 'em. (Oh, Captain America keeps turning up in a comic cameo too. Plus one star I guess I shouldn't name.)

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And good writing to keep both the villain and connection-to-the-Marvel-Universe-material for S:H so personal and down-to-earth/non-Cosmic.

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I guess Spiderman was always the most "down to earth" comic, what with the angst of being a teenage boy who can't reveal his superpowers to the girl he loves or the boy who wants to kill Spiderman(for kiling his father.) There's a lot of teenage angst in Spiderman, and it turns up here, too.

The film is relentlessly diverse, too. The romances are multi-racial. One, maybe two teenage characters are overweight. (A key prejudicial pain in high school.) African-Americans are represented both on the side of good and bad.

I'll add this: a big plot twist surprise comes outta nowhere near the end -- and my audience actually GASPED. I haven't heard that in a commix movie before.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

S:H sounds eminently watchable but I'll probably be happy to wait to watch it at home.

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I remain a very ironic person: the "older audience member" who actually HAS to go to the theater to concentrate on the movie. Too often when I rent at home, my attention wanders. Plus: I want weekly entertainment. Thrillers, action, mysteries -- they don't make those so much anymore. Commix m are sometimes the only available substitute.

But I'm sure this one will make sense more as a rental than a theatrical. Its just a reboot, after all.

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They keep saying that "the comic book hero movie is to the 21st Century as the Western was to the 20th."

So: consider 1967. 50 years ago. Westerns available to watch included: El Dorado(John Wayne and Robert Mitchum); The War Wagon(John Wayne and Kirk Douglas); the Way West (Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum.) Such a weird roundelay. El Dorado(from Howard Hawks, a remake of Rio Bravo) was the best. The War Wagon was "too Universal." The Way West was as much a soap opera as a Western.

But if you wanted more serious 1967 Western fare, you could see: (ta da) Hombre! And I'm pretty sure that one of the Eastwood spaghetti Westerns debuted in the US in '67(A Few Dollars More maybe.) Plus, a holdover from late 1966 was Richard Brooks epic "men on a mission Western": The Professionals (Lancaster, Marvin, Ryan and Strode.)

So...you see? Tons of comic book movies in 2017? Well...tons of Westerns in 1967. 50 years ago.

[–] DracTarashV2 (4475) 7 years ago

In a word, great post. I agree with pretty much everything stated here, and I admire the connections to Hitch's work.

Being a bit of a youngster myself though, I have to say that I greatly enjoyed the scenes with the kids. :)