Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - 2/5

This movie is directed by a completely different team than the first film and it shows. There’s a noticeable ‘woke’ filter over everything, but even putting that aside the film has some huge flaws. It’s a 1.5 hour movie stretched out into 2.5 hours by sloppy, repetitive dialogue and a bloated script. The villain is pretty good in theory but overstays his welcome by the end, let alone anticipation for the sequel. The art styles in the first film were varied but each one was tight and well-crafted; here, most of the art styles are sloppy to the point of being unappealing and hard to read. The editing here also loses all finesse from the first film, layering audio and visual information on top of itself in a confusing, distracting mess. Some of the fights had a few good moments, though.

Closest comparison: It’s like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse gone the way of Legend of Korra.

Setting: Super hero
Plot: Sci-fi
Tone: Comedy

Always Be My Maybe (Netflix) - 3/5

This movie is a pretty standard post-modern West coast rom com with all the witty anecdotes and unusual-but-not-unbelievable situations you’d expect. Everyone is sleeping around, for one thing, and the film provides an unexpected sardonic evisceration of the high class West coast lifestyle which may hit audiences differently depending on differences in personal worldview. The humor for me was more smirk than laugh out loud, which will hit everyone differently, but the inevitable awkward humor wasn’t as forced or as awkward as I was expecting so it was a fun watch overall.

Closest comparison: It’s like The Big Sick, but with food instead of chronic illness.

Setting: Yuppie Drama
Plot: Will They Won’t They Romance
Tone: Romantic Comedy