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In “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” Actor Tom Holland Capably Expresses the Webbed Wonder’s Existential Crises While Fighting Multiple Threats

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 04 August 2026 14:27; Written by Brad Balfour

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo

It seems like the only way to make an epic feature film these days is to pack it on with multiple plot turns and odd secondary characters. That was certainly the case with “The Odyssey,” “Disclosure Day,” and “Supergirl.” Now we have “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” It’s much the same in this case as well. It goes from one twist to another with one Marvel Cinematic Universe character after another joining the fray with various and complicated plot twists as well.

This is the fourth edition of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man iteration. In the earlier editions of his Spider-Man, the character too often fell back on a cliched emotionality. “Ahhh, teen angst;” ahhh, the great responsibilities of being a super powered being; Ahhh the coping with all the teen cliches.”

When Spidey was first invented by artist/writer Steve Ditko — with Marvel’s master Stan Lee — he was a character truly coping with personal and social traumas, some of his own making, some societally driven and a lot due to the radioactive spider bite that transformed him into Spider-Man. When Sam Raimi directed Tobey Maguire as Spidey, their versions emphasized Peter Parker’s nerd side, that teen he was originally meant to be in the comic books.

In the earlier three films of the Tom Holland cycle, Spider-Man was fraught with sorting himself out while the world around him gets more complex with multi-verses, deceptive villains and magic spells. As young as he was, Holland’s version of Spider-Man had to grow into one nurturing an on-going existential crisis, but one that was less teen-driven.

Now with this fourth go-round, director Destin Daniel Cretton can reset him without the world knowing his secret identity of Peter Parker. That leaves Spider-Man to become a great crime-fighting machine — albeit a perplexing one without any apparent source of financing — which brings him back to ground zero without any additional identity crisis.

There’s still the matter of this film as a continuation of the previous one. With Spider-Man’s reset in the world at large, after the debacle of the previous film, he gets an opportunity to re-do his life and become the hero he was trying to be in the first place. Albeit, this time, without his former best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), which leaves him with an empty space he struggles to fill. He is determined somehow, to bring them back into his life. Alone without his high school buddy or best girl, he nonetheless is more focused.

In "Brand New Day," the villains and enhanced beings populating this film are, for the most part, neither as heroic nor villainous. Jon Bernthal’s Punisher and Mark Ruffalo’s the Hulk are certainly ambiguous as to their hero status. Oh, Scorpion and Tombstone are clearly villains, but they’re not the real threats in this film. This edition really addresses a far more ambiguous and serious menace — ultimately one of the government’s own doing.

Once Spider-man becomes absorbed in finding this mysterious villain who can jump into anyone’s mind and control them -- a villain bent of attacking Damage Control, the government agency meant to address superhero and supervillain messes -- the film shifts focus. It then brings to the fore, an important character from another part of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, a mutant.

To make us feel he is the superhero he is, the film includes many dynamic scenes of swinging action and fight sequences rendered with overwhelming angles and motion. Incorporated into the narrative is a side of Spider-Man not seen before — his arachnid side is now trying to take over his life adding further to the existential crisis he’s fraught with throughout this film. He starts to develop arachnid-generated organic web shooters instead of the mechanical ones he had created adding to Parker's confusion.

Besides being Spider-Man, Parker is one hell of a scientist so he’s capable of addressing the arachnid threat leading him to create an inhibitor as a solution — one that can be used with The Hulk and the mutant threat as well. Without addressing all the quirks and narrative glitches to this film — and there are many — this film still succeeds as a humanistic thriller as well as an absurd costumed hero drama.

That aside, when the film focuses on the mysterious psychic villain, one who confounds Parker, he seeks out his old friends and begins to incorporate them again in his life. As this expands the film, it lends itself to the integration of this new Spider-Man — as a crime fighter and as a person.

Of course, it takes some time to set up who this villain is other than a mysterious “someone” capable of switching bodies and taking over minds. Once revealed as Jean Grey, the X-Men mutant whose psychic powers rival Professor X’s, Sadie Sink’s character’s identity may be the worst kept secret in MCU history. Nonetheless, it adds a whole new dimension as to where the Spider-Man saga sits in the larger Marvel universe.

All of this — Parker’s existential struggle, a rigorous crime-fighting persona and a more fully evolved emotional identity — makes “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” an inspired take on a superhero film. It demands a lot more acting from Holland to make it feel convincing. And with a rich cast of supporting characters, it offers a wealth of personalities for him to bounce these identity crises off of.

July '26 Digital Week IV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 23 July 2026 20:25; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Releases of the Week

I Want Your Sex

(Magnolia Pictures)

Gregg Araki has been making weirdly off-kilter sex comedies-cum-dramas for more than three decades, and his latest shows that, for better or worse, he’s still at it, combining trenchant social commentary and crude sexual antics, all wrapped in sentimentality. Olivia Wilde is intoxicating as Erika, a performance artist and dominatrix who makes her latest assistant, young and naïve Elliott (a well-cast Cooper Hoffman), her sexual slave.

But that’s the only the tip of this provocatively ridiculous satire of sexual consent, modern art, social media and whatever else Araki and cowriter Karley Sciortino toss in—including possible murder. In the end, it’s both too much and not enough, its bullseyes weighed down shallow silliness. But Wilde gives an eye-opening performance that helps negotiate the bumpy parts.

Lost Chapters/Los capítulos perdidos

(Several Futures)

This modest but affecting documentary/fiction hybrid was made by Venezuelan Lorena Alvarado, who cast her grandmother Adela, her father Ignacio and her sister Ena as versions of themselves to tell a poignant family-history story that is both introspective and universally accessible.

The 67-minute feature shows the beauty in the everyday alongside the attempt to hang onto one’s cultural history, with neighborhoods of Caracas shown lovingly by Alvarado and her cinematographer José Ostos. (Alvarado also shot parts of her film, and she’s responsible for the subtle editing as well.)

Brunello—The Gracious Visionary

(Blue Fox Entertainment)

While watching this hagiography of Italian designer Brunello Cucinelli by director Giuseppe Tornatore—best known for his Oscar-winning foreign film Cinema Paradiso—I kept thinking that there’s material for a decent documentary, but since Brunello is the producer as well as the “star,” there’s no way Tornatore had free rein to show the warts and all of Brunello’s life and career.

There are beautifully cinematic moments, notably when Tornatore visualizes the world of the young Brunello through the older’s memory, but this basically sanitized look at a genial billionaire celebrity relies too heavily on reenactments and fawning interviews with family and celebrity cheerleaders like Oprah.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Mortal Kombat II

(Warner Bros)

Based on the hugely popular video-game series comes a sequel to the 2021 reboot that, despite its overlength (it’s nearly exhausting two hours), has some excitement in its well-paced martial-arts battle sequences, which help keep the dreary melodramatics among its characters to a minimum.

Director Simon McQuoid (who also directed the reboot) and writer Jeremy Slater balance the inherent self-seriousness with a cleverness that makes it watchable and entertaining. The film looks fantastic in 4K; extras include several making-of featurettes.

Streaming Release of the Week

Due West

(Cineverse)

This earnest to a fault melodrama stars an appropriately stern-looking Adrianne Palicki as a bartender who desperately tries to have an abortion in one of the most repressive places on earth for women: rural West Texas. She asks for monetary help from her brother and gets a visit from the bothersome Pastor Mike, played by a game Henry Thomas, but the deck is stacked against her and even the very air carries around an aura of stifling masculinity.

Director Evan Miller and cowriter Hardy Janson shrewdly underplay their heroine’s dilemma in a place where politics is never brought up, it’s Palicki’s memorably no-nonsense portrayal that makes this more than mere propaganda.

Rock Album Review—“Dear God” by the Pretty Reckless

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Saturday, 18 July 2026 22:00; Written by Kevin Filipski

Pretty Reckless—Dear God

(Fearless Records)

If 2021’s Death by Rock and Roll was an unsparing self-portrait of Pretty Reckless singer-lyricist Taylor Momsen’s descent into depression and drug abuse after the shocking deaths of Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell and the band’s producer Kato Khandwala less than a year apart, the band’s new album, Dear God, is another musically diverse and emotionally varied group of songs that deal honestly with the consequences of a life lived in excess.

Although recorded in spurts over the past couple years in between world stadium tours as an opening act for AC/DC, Dear God sounds remarkably cohesive. From the slashing chords of “For I Am Death”—one of the band’s most potent slabs of devilish mayhem—to the mournfully hymnal conclusion, “Dark Days,” this powerful exploration of self-abuse, self-denial and self-discovery
explodes from the speakers.

Momsen, who sings and writes the songs with lead guitarist Ben Phillips—who plays in superb lockstep with bassist Mark Damon and drummer Jamie Perkins—has said that the Beatles and Soundgarden are her favorite artists of all time, and the Pretty Reckless’ now-patented blend of grunge influence, heavy-rock riffs and Beatlesque melody, coupled with Momsen’s confessional lyrics and commanding vocal ability, is on display throughout Dear God.

The irresistible punk-pop sizzle of “When I Wake Up” and the exquisitely soulful prayer “Love Me” give way to the killer Fleetwood Mac-meets-Heart cut “Dragonfire,” which chugs along on Perkins’ propulsive drumming. Then there’s the epic, six-minute title track, a glorious Momsen vocal workout on what she has called desperation set to music; the subtle arrangement, with each verse giving way more quickly to the anguished chorus, underlines that torment brilliantly.

“About You” blisteringly describes an acrimonious breakup, while the seductive “Spell on You” nods back to Death by Rock and Roll’s incendiary “Witches Burn” to defiantly get revenge on a faithless partner. In the stirring “Eye of the Storm,” Momsen opens with a snapshot of universal despair (“Everything has gone to hell/While the rich get rich/And the poor get, well/Nothing at all, it seems to me”) before movingly tackling her own brush with mortality:

Tell the band I’m doing fine

Even though I

Almost died

But I’m still alive, alive, alive

Momsen sings those lines with a quiet poignancy that’s turns into stark defiance. It’s no coincidence that “Devil in Disguise”—a lovely eulogy to actress Michelle Trachtenberg, one of Momsen’s best friends, who died last year at age 39—follows, covering similar emotional territory with equal intimacy.

Momsen has said that the lyrics for Dear God came from her journal, and it’s true that there are guileless lines like the chorus for “Rollercoaster of Life”:

The rollercoaster of life is so nice

If you do it well, you can go through it twice

But the song itself is so infectious—and includes a wonderful Easter egg of sorts during the funky middle section, as Momsen sings about “that chili pepper heat” and Mark Damon slyly plays a Flea-inspired bass line—that all is forgiven. Dear God is as candid, aggressive and raw as its predecessor, no mean feat in today’s assembly-line pop and rock world.

July '26 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 16 July 2026 20:25; Written by Kevin Filipski

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

The Crying Game

(Criterion Collection)

Neil Jordan’s best film is brilliantly directed and written (he won the 1992 Oscar for best original screenplay), starting out as a thriller, then shifting gears into a tentative romance until becoming a quasi-mystery for its startling finish. All these disparate parts are melded into a seamless whole by Jordan, who combines standard plot elements with refreshing twists and psychologically acute characterizations and motivations as well as uncannily juggling disparate moods and rhythms.

And let’s not forget the estimable acting by Stephen Rea, Forrest Whittaker, Natasha Richardson and Jaye Davidson, right down to the smallest parts. Criterion’s UHD transfer superbly accentuates Ian Watson’s tangy cinematography; extras are Jordan’s 2005 commentary, new interviews with Jordan and Rea, 2005 making-of documentary and an alternate ending with Jordan’s commentary.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

(Warner Bros)

For 135 messy minutes, writer-director Lee Cronin slogs through several excruciatingly insipid storylines that tie standard mummy legend to obscure Egyptian mythmaking and, of all things, demonic possession films, especially The Exorcist, which could sue for defamation.

Sequence after limp sequence marches in front of the camera, and it’s all sadly risible—and the end threatens a sequel. Including his name in the title is quite the flex, as if anyone else would want to take credit. The film does look impressive in UHD; extras comprise Cronin’s commentary, deleted scenes and three making-of featurettes.

In-Theater Releases of the Week

The Floaters

(Brainstorm Media)

Director Rachel Israel and a cohort of writers concocted this genial comedy set in a Jewish summer camp that brings together former besties Nomi and Mara, who attended as kids; Nomi takes a job as a counselor from camp director Mara after being kicked out of her own rock band and is told to supervise the “floaters,” camp kids considered misfits.

Those who are familiar with—or attended—summer camps might get more laughs and nods of recognition from this, but it is certainly likable, especially when the floaters unsurprisingly win over their critics, and nicely-acted by Jackie Tohn (Nomi), Sarah Podemski (Mara) and Judah Lewis, Nina Bloomgarden and Jake Ryan as the head floaters.

Hadestown

(Bleecker Street Media)

Orpheus and Eurydice have been fodder for artists for centuries, but this musical—which opened on Broadway in 2019—by book writer-lyricist-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, isn’t a patch on Offenbach or Cocteau. Set in a Depression-era burg that recalls the French Quarter, the show at times spits out the swampy, jazzy Big Easy sounds; at its most original, Mitchell’s music grooves robustly.

The men (Orpheus, Hades and Hermes) have more to work with vocally than the women (Eurydice and Persephone). That’s no slight on Eva Noblezada and Amber Gray, who sound comfortable in their middle range, but the male leads’ voices—Reeve Carney’s high tenor, Patrick Page’s rumblingly low bass and ageless Andre de Shields in between—go on a more satisfying vocal ride. Although Mitchell’s derivative music, lyrics and book don’t come close to their mythical forebears, director Rachel Chavkin makes the show move, literally—a trio of onstage turntables, combined with Rachel Hauck’s seedy set, Michael Krauss’s sober costumes and Bradley King’s savvy lighting, conjures a sweaty musical purgatory.

Night Nurse

(IFC Midnight)

Writer-director Georgia Bernstein’s glossy drama about Eleni, a young nurse at a retirement home who becomes entangled in a sordid emotional and criminal relationship with Douglas, one of her elderly patients, tries to be so many things at once—erotic thriller, crime drama, psychological character study—that it ends up flailing unsatisfactorily.

As Bernstein loses control, the film’s moodiness becomes a liability, as scenes of Eleni and Douglas in various stages of their mutually harmful kinship start to become perfunctory and dull—even a surprising murder seems more a desperate way to end things. On the plus side, Cemre Paksoy gives a commanding performance as the needy Eleni and Bruce McKenzie is nearly as good as the dementia-addled but virile Douglas.

CD Releases of the Week

Ottorino Respighi—Chamber Music

(Brilliant Classics)

Italian composer Ottorino Respighi’s prodigious and impressive output has been reduced over the decades to his best-known orchestral tone poems like Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome; as this excellent disc shows, Respighi was much more than his most popular works. (He even composed several flavorful operas.)

The DaVinci Ensemble plays two of Respighi’s string quartets and the masterly F-minor piano quintet—with an assurance that showcases the composer’s characteristic melodic sense and musical structure.

John Williams/Bernard Herrmann—Orchestral Works

(Pentatone)

John Williams and Bernard Herrmann were two of the greatest film composers—Williams’ long collaboration with Steven Spielberg is equaled by Herrmann’s with Alfred Hitchcock—so this disc, comprising concert works by both composers, is an intriguing left turn.

Williams’ Essay for Strings (1965) and Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion (1969) contain the attractive melodies and ear-catching rhythms associated with his later film scores. Herrmann’s 1967 Clarinet Quintet (subtitled Souvenirs de Voyage), adapted by Hans Sorensen for clarinet and string orchestra, is a pensive late work. The soloists (flutist Jin Ta and clarinetist Ma Yue) and Singapore Symphony Orchestra under conductors Darrell Ang and Joshua Tan play with sensitivity to both composers.

Reviews

In “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” Actor Tom Holland Capably Expresses the Webbed Wonder’s Existential Crises While Fighting Multiple Threats

July '26 Digital Week IV

Rock Album Review—“Dear God” by the Pretty Reckless

July '26 Digital Week III

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