Tag: Kimiko Glenn

“At least the DC animated films are great!” says some internet people when it comes to the great movie comic wars.

And sure, that might have been true. I haven’t seen like any of them. Except The Killing Joke, which apparently was an exception to that rule.

But why not some Marvel animated films finally? Not Marvel Studios, but at least one of their superheroes. Sony has had a lot of terrible ideas lately on what to do with this franchise they own, and they figure, screw it, why not just throw a bunch of Spider-people in a movie and hope it works. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. People not familiar with Spider-man will probably think it is a joke.

A joke eh? Let’s get those joke people to do the movie, they do solid work. You know, The LEGO Movie guys, yeah! Well, at least Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are producers, and that might lead to a solid product.

Basically, this might be the first good move Sony has made besides teaming up with the MCU to get some of that ad money.

An idea that is maybe crazy enough to work. Like two spiderpeople.

The movie begins with an intro by our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (Chris Pine), who goes over his past decade plus of success. He has a wife, has saved the day countless times, and apparently, he is the same one from the Sam Raimi films. Fun!

But this movie is only a little about him. Really, it is about Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a young man who is still in school, with a lot of emotions. He lives in the hood, but goes to a nice school. His dad is a cop, but he wants to be a graffiti artist. His uncle is really cool and helps him, but might have some law problems as well. And he is just extremely emotional and nervous, despite being a smart kid.

Needless to say, he likes Spider-Man too. Everyone does. And Miles gets bit by a different fucked up spider. Not the same one, a different one. One that grants similar, yet different abilities.

And thanks to some villains, they are making a big dimensional portal vortex thing, because they want to mess up the multi-verse. Or change the past. Either way, this brings in a lot of confusion, unwanted death, and some more power/responsibility things.

Featuring other various Spider-men from different dimensions, like SpiderGwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson)!

Also the voices of Zoë Kravitz, Luna Lauren Velez, Lily Tomlin, Liev Schrieber, Lake Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Mahershala Ali, and Brian Tyree Henry.

Two is not enough. We need diversity. Ladies. Cartoons. Animals. Time travel. All of it, damn it.

Hands down, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is one of the better superhero films of the last decade. I didn’t say animated films, I said Super-Hero. That is compared to all of the Marvel movies, to all the Fox, the DC, the other Sony ones. At least decade.

I am not saying it is better than The Dark Knights or the early X-Men films, but it is also better than most of the super hero ones in the 2000s.

Now, sure, that is a bold claim for animated films this year. I don’t know if I like it more than Isle of Dogs, but probably, I’d have to watch it again.

Why is this film great? It is just such a game changer and tries so much. It has emotion (I cried), wall to wall comedy, and fantastic fight scenes. Plenty of character development, especially this serves as Morales’ introduction to movies. I assume a lot of people still were unaware of him before this film, and it is a fabulous introduction.

When I say it tries so much, it is not going the safe route. The animation at first was off putting, very out there, reminding me a bit of the Spider-Man: The New Animated Series that premiered on MTV in 2003. But after a little bit, it was easy to go with the flow, and accept the weirdness of the animation. It was also a nice cross with actual comic books, and really immersed the viewer.

The voice acting was great with the large cast. They have award winning actors in roles that suit them, Cage being the best PI Spider-Man ever created, Mulaney with his regular awkward voice handling the pig, and more. Everyone completely morphs into their role. Even though Moore isn’t as young as Morales, it never felt disjointed and I hope he can voice this character for awhile (and be given more roles in more projects!).

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is the gift that keeps on giving. For Spider-fans, you will be blown away. For comic fans, you will appreciate the story and craft. For animated fans, you should be stoked that there is something that isn’t another Disney/Pixar sequel. And for everyone else, well, hopefully you like to laugh.

Nerve is another of those films that I have thankfully been able to avoid any real information about.

On a first glance of the plot, it seemed to be some sort of combination of the Indie Horror Cheap Thrills and the Underwhelming Block Buster Gamer.

But it features the youthful cast of the future! Like Emma Roberts, straight out of Scream Queens! And Dave Franco, straight out of, I dunno, Neighbors and some James Franco pet project probably.

Sex Sells!

Nerve is a real life, 24 hour game that is invite only, super popular, but also secretive. It takes place in a big city and people can sign up in the city to be a Player or a Watcher. Also people outside of the city can be a watcher as well. It costs a fee to be a watcher, but then you can watch the players compete dares over a 24 hour period, earning cash prizes, doing stunts, getting sexy and who knows what else. The Player has to record the dares with their phones for them to count, and if they bail or fail a dare in the time limit, they are out of the competition.

After 24 hours, the two highest players in terms of viewers get to go to the finals and the winner will become super famous and decently wealthy. It is also completely anonymous for the watchers and no real one person is in control. And now the game has hit New York City.

Vee (Emma Roberts) is not an outgoing individual. She takes pictures and hides in the background. But when her best friend, Sydney (Emily Meade) embarrasses her in front of a crush (Brian Marc), she decides to finally live a little and screw it, time to be a player.

So she does one dare. And she brings along Tommy (Miles Heizer), her guy friend who clearly crushes hardcore on her. She just has to prove herself. But then she meets Ian (Dave Franco), someone who ends up being another player. And the dares get them closer together, so sure, why not, he is cute, why not hang out with him and earn some more money. Strangers aren’t really scary in real life.

Juliette Lewis plays Vee’s mom, Machine Gun Kelly another player, and Kimiko Glenn and Marc John Jefferies as two more friends of Sydney.

Don’t worry, they get to kiss before they take their clothes off.

Nerve was directed by the people who did Catfish and a couple terrible Paranormal Activity Films. So they have both experience with creepy things and technology, so in this film they wanted to bring it a bit together.

Early in the film, it felt a lot like Unfriended as our entire point of view if Vee’s computer screen, which lasts only a few minutes. And a lot of recent films that incorporate texting and technology into the movie to show the always connected parts of life have tended to feel tacky, but it really works in this movie. It feels unique with its cinematography and for the most part throughout the film it was a nice ride to be on.

The biggest problem with the movie just was the ending to me. It felt like a cop out, the plan was a bit silly and everything seemed to work out to well. The entire film ramps up quickly near the end, getting far too ahead of itself. Before the end, I thought this would make a decent franchise with a lot of potential, but the ending ruins even that for me. Also, for whatever reason, halfway through we find out that if they ever fail or bail on a dare, they lose all the money they earned. Which uhh, makes the fact that they earn money for tasks seem kind of pointless and makes absolutely no sense.

On another note, which will totally date this review in the future, it reminded me of Pokemon Go. At the time of writing, the game is only three weeks old. It became a phenomenon and now everywhere you can see people out and about, glued to their phone and playing it. And in the movie, there are tons of watchers, racing around NYC, with their phones out to film the players on their dares and see them in person. Before Pokemon Go it would have seemed silly and made the whole movie feel unbelievable. But now, hell, it is really easy to see this type of thing blow up and get popular. Nerve picked a really fucking good time come out, go figur.

Nerve is interesting, has a disappointing finale, and yet, I still kind of want some more.