Jon Favreau

[7] Tom Holland, my personal favorite Spider-Man, returns in his third official film — although his character has also appeared in many other Marvel movies that don’t have his name in the title. This time, the young webslinger is dealing with the fallout from the last film, chiefly that his secret identity has been revealed to the world and everyone thinks he’s a bad guy. …

[8] Will Ferrell stars as a human adopted by Santa Claus and raised as an elf in this absurd but disarmingly sweet comedy from director Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Mandalorian). At the ripe old age of thirty, Ferrell’s character learns he’s really a human and departs the North Pole to find his birth father in New York City. But convincing dear dad (James Caan) …

[6] Tom Holland is far and away the best reason to ever see a Spider-Man movie these days. He’s charming, charismatic, funny and incredibly watchable. So as long as he’s our Spidey/Peter Parker, I guess I’ll keep watching these spider flicks. What else is good about Far From Home? It’s nice to see parts of Venice and Prague. Some of Peter Parker’s friends have cute …

[7] The superhero film movement happened in spurts dating all the way back to Richard Donner’s 1978 film Superman: The Movie, but with Iron Man, Marvel Studios declared the genre was here to stay. Iron Man lays groundwork for a greater franchise effort, and indeed, nine years later (this review is written in 2017), that franchise shows no sign of slowing down. For better or for …

[7] Hey, it’s another Spider-Man movie! Before I’ve even finished processing the previous two incarnations of the franchise. Tom Holland takes over the title role after making an appearance as Spidey in Captain America: Civil War. The best thing about this new Spider-Man is Tom Holland. He’s by far the most immature and effervescent Peter Parker/Spider-Man we’ve seen, and I really enjoyed watching his youthful …

[2] Swingers is the reason we cannot let college students with broken hearts have movie cameras. If I had to say something nice about the movie, which somehow launched the careers of director Doug Liman and writer Jon Favreau, it’s that Heather Graham has probably never been photographed more beautifully. And I guess the male leads, including super-skinny Vince Vaughn, are all attractive. But that’s …

[7] Martin Scorsese remakes Casino, only instead of the Las Vegas gambling backdrop, we now have the shady thievery of Wall Street. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jordan Belfort in this true story of Belfort’s rise to highly successful stock-broker and his fall into federal crimes and drug use. The Wolf of Wall Street is three hours long, but it moves briskly and is never boring. …