The Starlight Journal

Being the sequel to what I regard as the greatest comic-book film ever made, there was a very high bar going into this one, and man did it succeed. With arguably the best, most unique animation my eyes have ever seen, and Easter eggs aplenty for Spider-Man fanatics through the excellent eye-popping Spider-Society scenes, there is so much to love here, but what brings the film together is the heart of Miles and Gwen’s story. Containing an ending that packed a powerful punch (perhaps the most effective cliffhanger since The Empire Strikes Back?), I have spent everyday since anticipating Beyond the Spider-Verse, and of course needed to race back to theater as soon as I could for another viewing.

Read my review of the film here!

The first movie of what became a triple feature for me this day, my experience with this movie was defined less by the film itself, but the atrocity that was my theater audience I was stuck with during my viewing. I think this was a good movie, but I will need another watch at some point because I just couldn’t pay attention when people were screaming, throwing things, and running up and down the aisles like the AMC suddenly became a playground. Still, as a Star Wars fanatic, it was nice to see Star Wars alum Sophie Thatcher and Vivian Lyra Blair excel here as a pair of grieving siblings. But I’ll never be able to separate this film from the awful theater experience.

Read my review of the film here!

After debating whether or not the movie theater experience was actually a good thing or not as I had been lead to believe for the 1st 25 years of my life, I needed a palate cleanser. There may be no better palate cleanser out there than watching middle-aged men do dumb shit to each other for their own amusement. I didn’t grow up with early 2000s MTV or the Jackass crew, but a viewing of this film on a vacation last year got me hooked. It’s dumb, stupid fun, and I love it. Exactly what I needed to cheer me up.

No better way to complete this unintentional triple feature than with the best a genre has ever done. After my 1st viewing of Across the Spider-Verse, there was the question of whether or not the sequel exceeded the original, and one more viewing of this masterpiece (with my sibling watching for the 1st time as well – they loved it), yeah you still can’t top the first. It’s simply the best Spider-Man story, and the best comic-book story put to film in the history of cinema.

Anyone can wear the mask.

It’s always a question of “what could have been” when it comes to The Amazing Spider-Man movies. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are both excellent together, and the movie is overall fine, but it can’t figure out its tone for the life of it. Does it want to be lighthearted and somewhat campy, almost like a new take on the style of Sam Raimi’s trilogy, or does it want to be the dark and broody style that inspired many wannabee Dark Knight duplicates? It’s enjoyable enough, but these movies could have been so, so much better than they ended up being.

Any small issues I may have had with this movie during my first watch of it vanished during my rewatch. Quite possibly the most rewarding rewatch of a movie I have ever had, and firmly put this movie into the masterpiece category for me. This was a tough day for me, as I had been in a car accident just hours prior to this showing and would be without my car for the rest of the month, but this wonderful movie took my mind off the world for a little bit, and it was glorious.

Always a nostalgia bomb whenever I watch it, 21 years later it’s still the standard for what contemporary superhero movies should be. We very likely wouldn’t have had the massive boom of the genre for the last decade plus if not for what this movie started.

*blasts Chad Kroeger’s “Hero” in the background*

The comic-book movie that made me fall in love with the genre, this was the first superhero movie I vividly remember my personal hype/excitement for, and nearly two decades later it’s still a top 10 comic-book movie ever made. Even with a new all-time great movie of the genre releasing on a seemingly yearly basis, I don’t see that ever changing. This movie is simply that good.

In prep to watch Missing after it hit Netflix, I went back and watched the first of this “screenlife mystery” series, and the presentation of the storytelling led to the most impactful viewing of a thriller I’ve had in ages. It felt almost too real at points. How this hasn’t immediately become this generation’s version of the found-footage movie and become the new go-to storytelling trend for lower-budgeted horror/thrillers is shocking to me, cause this was such a rewarding watch.

Oh hey, it’s you again! My third watch of this wonder of a film (with my sibling this time! – they loved it, but preferred the 1st) was spent looking for as many Easter eggs as I could find that I hadn’t noticed in my prior viewings, and I did find a few (finally found like one shot with Superior Spider-Man in it for my friend Jarod). There’s so much to this movie that I could teach an entire class on it. Brb, making a syllabus based on it for fun.

As a now reluctant Euphoria fanatic (we don’t talk about that other show Sam Levinson made), I was well aware of Sydney Sweeney’s talent and dynamic screen presence, and this Max original allowed her to go all-out in what is essentially a one-woman show. She excels here, portraying the real-life story of Reality Winner’s conversations with FBI agents prior to her arrest for leaking documents related to the 2016 Election. I wasn’t too familiar with the woman herself, but yeah after watching the movie, I see no crime here, if I had to constantly watch Fox News at work, I’d probably be in jail too.

Continuing the grand DCEU trend of “there’s no way this could flop but it somehow does“, it’s honestly baffling look back at The Flash now nearly a month after it’s release compared to the pre-release hype and marketing. DC and Warner Bros. Discovery really put it all into making this a success, with the trailers heavily focusing on the nostalgia of Michael Keaton’s return as Batman, and playing everyone’s favorite game of “hey let’s ignore our main star in the press tour while also committing to retaining him despite his criminal record being larger than the movie’s box office numbers”. Yet, people didn’t show up this one, and it’s not hard to see why that’s the case. While there’s quite a bit of this movie I liked, and I wouldn’t call it downright bad, especially when compared to some of the DCEU’s all-time blunders, the abysmal visual effects and downright confusing choices they make for the future of this universe make this one a big time miss for DC. Also, two Ezra Millers on screen is two too many.

Read my review of the film here!

One great thing about being movie fans is everyone has genres they like and dislike, and that’s okay, but if you don’t like a good coming-of-age story, I will think less of you. It’s no surprise that I love Hailee Steinfeld, and I always forget how incredible she is in this one. Kelly Fremon Craig is showing herself to be quite the master of coming-of-age stories, and there aren’t many better directorial debuts out there than this one.

Holy hell was I STRESSED watching this! Going in, I was expecting a straight comedy, instead my anxiety was going crazy for the entire runtime. While genuinely hilarious and incredibly well-written and acted, the main stars here are the direction and lead performance that make this a movie that makes your skin crawl more than most horror movies.

Anyways, as the Ancient Romans once said: Peace, Love, Rachel Sennott.

My relationship with Spider-Man 3 is a weird one, because I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as it’s biggest detractors claim it to be, and I do have a strong sense of nostalgia towards it like the other Raimi films, but man do I hate how almost every character is written in this film. God bless Topher Grace, I love the man, but he has no business being in this movie, an all-time miscast. If I’m doing a Spidey rewatch, I’ll never skip it, but my opinion on it varies each watch.

Something I saw in a review of this film was that it may be hard to connect with the movie’s plot if you weren’t once in the shoes of the main character. Well I am neither a woman, religious, a fan of the Judy Blume novel the movie adapts, or grew up in the early 1970s, and yet I had no problems connecting with the movie’s story. A good coming-of-age story is a good coming-of-age story, and this movie was an absolute delight from start to finish.

Ew. Talking about this movie makes me sad. Somewhere deep down there’s a good movie hidden in here, but without Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s excellent chemistry and performances, it’s just an all-out disaster. I don’t care if it’s a seminal event in the comics, killing off Gwen Stacy was a terrible idea.

I was promised Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs. I kind of got that, for about 10 minutes of the 90 minute runtime. You had one job and you didn’t go all out with it. Just for that I was massively let down despite some genuinely cool moments.

Even as someone who considers It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to be their favorite sitcom, the sentence “Oscar contender Glenn Howerton” was never something I thought I’d say, but it’s legit. Howerton’s performance is perhaps my favorite of the entire year, perfectly encapsulating the movie’s energy and tone through the retelling of the mighty rise and brutal fall of the BlackBerry mobile phone. With this and Air, this has been a good year for product-based biopics.

“Prepare to meet Kali…. in HELL!”

My catching up of the Indiana Jones movies began with Temple of Doom, and while quite a bit of this movie hasn’t aged well, like, at all, I can’t deny it’s just an incredibly fun thrill ride all throughout. The mine shaft chase scene in particular is just amazing. I appreciate Spielberg and Lucas for taking a swing with this one after Raiders and making a much darker, different adventure compared to the rest of the series, and I think it’s really fun despite it’s flaws and being a big-time product of its time.

As Spidey month continued on for me, it was time to revisit the MCU trilogy. I do love Tom Holland’s take on Spider-Man very much, quite frankly I couldn’t care less about the criticisms levied at the MCU Spidey movies on social media, I think Holland is the perfect mix of a great Peter Parker and a great Spider-Man, and I love such a great time with these movies. My theater’s reaction to the Vulture twist is a core memory of mine, I can still hear the loud audible gasp from the crowd to this day.

My Spidey kick led to me finally watching this hidden gem on Paramount+. I’m a big fan of the two leads, and meant to check this out last year, but it wasn’t until now I got to see Betty Brant be the ultimate girlboss. I expected nothing more than a simple fun watch, what I got was a coming-of-age movie I genuinely loved watching. Heart, wit, an excellent lead performance, and a twist near the end that totally blindsided me and broke my heart. Check this one out it’s a truly great modern coming-of-age film.

Quite frankly, TikTok and Twitter can kiss my ass, I will never not love this movie. While Homecoming offers the stronger coming-of-age story, it’s impossible for me to not turn into the ultimate shipper watching Peter and MJ awkwardly fall in love throughout this movie. The change in setting compared to other Spidey films makes this a refreshing watch, and I think it’s the most underrated Spider-Man film.

Surprisingly, my June didn’t conclude with a rewatch of No Way Home, so this concluded Spidey month for me, but what a time I had.

If you look up “fun” in the dictionary, you’ll see the poster for Last Crusade. While I don’t think it is as good of a film as Raiders is, I had just as good of a time, if not a better one, watching Crusade as my catch-up of the series continued on. Sean Connery is truly incredible here, working tremendously well off of Harrison Ford. Just a great movie.

This will go down as the “Welcome Back Jennifer Lawrence” movie to me. While there’s no shortage of laughs here, and some genuinely nice moments sprinkled throughout (more than I expected for an unabashed raunchy sex comedy), it’s all about J-Law here. She’s the star of the show, taking over every scene in a way only she can.

Welcome back, please never leave us again.

Read my review of the film at CinemaVixens here!

I simply cannot stand the fact that the director of this movie is a massive creep, because god damn this movie is exceptional. It gave Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar, and for damn good reason, she’s unbelievable here, her and Bradley Cooper forming a duo that works better now than it did back when this was a comfort watch for me back in the early 2010s. A simply god-tier romantic dramedy for the ages.