This week:
- My Tom Holland Spidey obsession grows.
- A roller coaster week with my Bravo shows.
- The comedy special you need to watch.
- Who is how old now???
Tom Holland’s Big Swing
Spandex has never been more out of fashion.
Well, at the cinema that is. (Boys, keep on keepin’ on with those compression shorts.)
Superhero movie fatigue, which has been limping along in an endless marathon for a while now, seemed to have reached the stomping, pouting, “I don’t wanna!” collapse-to-the-floor toddler hissy-fit stage these last few years. Whereas audiences used to flock to see just about anything that goes up, up, and away, box-office receipts revealed a new Kryptonite for the genre: exhaustion over so many of these damn movies.
The list of underperforming disappointments and straight-up bombs was getting CVS receipt-level long: Supergirl, Masters of the Universe, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Thunderbolts*, Venom: The Last Dance, Kraven the Hunter…
But then here comes Spider-Man, swinging in with the already box-office record-breaking Spider-Man: Brand New Day, not just bucking the trend but web-blasting it to oblivion.
Superhero movies might have been struggling, but there’s a difference this time. You see, no one fills out spandex quite like Tom Holland.
The 30-year-old actor, back in the Spidey suit for the seventh time—the fourth in a standalone Spider-Man movie—gives his best performance yet in Brand New Day.
Whereas so many comic-book movies use kaleidoscopic CGI, kooky villains, and complicated lore to dazzle and distract, this one is centered wholly on Peter Parker, relying almost entirely on Holland’s performance for it to work. As boyish and skittish as the character was supposed to be when Spider-Man: Homecoming came out in 2017, with then-21-year-old Holland playing a teenager spiraling over his great power and great responsibility, the Peter in Brand New Day is a man.
Holland—and, by extension, his Spidey—is confident and assured. His emotional crisis is profound and earned, after years of watching him grow. It is a bona fide movie-star performance.
That might be silly to say about an actual superhero an actor’s been playing for almost a decade to the tune of billions of dollars in box-office receipts, but there’s an assuredness, charm, and, let’s just say it, hunkiness that stands apart this time. (They really s--tted Holland out in this movie, too, with multiple shirtless underwear scenes; this go-round, lil Petey is a sex symbol.)
Opens in new windowProjections for opening weekend of Brand New Day have scaled up to as high as $300 million in North American theaters alone. Spider-Man will be the second blockbuster Holland has in theaters this weekend, selling out screenings and racking in enough money to pay off a small nation’s debt. He’s the second lead of The Odyssey, which has already grossed over $727 million worldwide.
For years now, there’s been industry anxiety over the death of the traditional movie star. There are certainly caveats to the coronation, but I do wonder: Is Tom Holland as close as we have to one right now? Is he, to be hyperbolic, the closest thing we have to a new Tom Cruise?
It’s not just that, by year’s end, he’ll have starred in two of the biggest, cinema-saving movies of the year. It’s the, for lack of a better word (but also one of my favorite words), hoopla that surrounded it all.
Between the two movies, he’s been on a press tour for what seems like my entire lifetime (OK, the last few months), with each appearance dialing up the “oh, I get it” likability quotient. His marriage to Zendaya sped right past the exasperating Taylor-and-Travis of it all to become Young Hollywood’s most endearing, easy-to-root-for relationship. And, with appearances on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast and the Celebrity Substitute YouTube series, he’s managed a way to juggle the traditional tenets of being mega-famous with the digital accessibility fans crave.
Sure, there are arguments that the success of Spider-Man movies is owed to the character itself, but Holland’s rocketing star power sure helps matters. Yes, with The Odyssey it is Matt Damon, Christopher Nolan, and, um, Homer who are the “names” selling tickets. But Holland’s huge role in the star-studded film, positive notices for his acting in it, and key part in the marketing and press hint at his value as a next-generation major movie star for an industry starving for one.
There’s always been a question whether Holland alone can get people excited for a project, the way that Cruise, Damon, or Ryan Gosling can. The action movie Uncharted was a disappointment, and his foray into prestige television, The Crowded Room, came and went with a whimper. But I think skeptics using those as isolated examples are ignoring the factors working in his favor.
Holland’s a major star in a viral era; the amount of goodwill that will be afforded his career off of his performance of “Umbrella” alone should never be discounted. His industry launch, which people often forget, was based on his talent, not his participation in a popular franchise. After playing Billy Elliott in the West End, he was selected to star opposite Naomi Watts in the Oscar-nominated The Impossible, marking one of the most astonishing young acting debuts of the last 15 years.
The swinging around and the action is fun and all in Brand New Day. But there are some scenes that Holland has with Zendaya —and one with Sadie Sink that we won’t spoil—that made me a little weepy…and the Spidey superfan sitting next to me sob. He’s an impressive actor.
There have been a few false starts in the hunt for the next movie star. Glen Powell was at one point tipped as Cruise’s successor, but that his next project is Season 2 of the underwhelming Hulu series Chad Powers takes that likelihood down a peg. Miles Teller hasn’t made himself any friends in the business with his reputation, despite a promising start.
Holland, who is so likable and riding a hot streak, seems like the best candidate. His next project will be playing Fred Astaire in a biopic, which is exactly the right move for a star at this point in his career: a gambit to be taken more seriously as an actor and show off his dancing skills. Plus, if the Brand New Day post-credits are to be believed, we’ll likely be seeing him again in the new Avengers movie.
Tom Holland may even be altering the fame game: your friendly neighborhood movie star.
My Week in Bravo
I have so many thoughts about the Bravo shows I watched this week, but, first and foremost, I need to admonish the network, Andy Cohen, and everyone involved with this week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County for their negligence.
Where was the trigger warning before the reveal that Vicki Gunvalson’s son, the one whose college frat party she crashed and did a keg stand at in Season 2, is now 40? To just spring it on us like that is sheer violence—intentional trauma, even. I’m getting the police involved.
Of course, it logically tracks considering my clear memory of watching that episode in my own dorm room (do not do the math on my age), but it’s still not polite or tasteful to remind viewers of it.
My other strong reaction was to the reunion finale of In the City, the Summer House spinoff. I think I’ve finally diagnosed my complicated feelings about this show. As a reality TV lover, I’m used to watching delusional old ladies or hot-mess twentysomethings run amok. On In the City, these are people my own age, in the city where I live, working jobs where we could feasibly be friends…behaving in ways I find it way too easy to judge and find abhorrent.
It’s led to some soul-searching. Am I reacting so viscerally to this show because it’s holding up a mirror and I’m unsettled by the reflection? Have my friends and I been acting like this the whole time, and I’m just in it and oblivious? Or, because these are the rare reality TV personalities who are tangible in my life, am I jealous of their lifestyles? Their glamour? Even their drama?
In any case, especially after a highly entertaining reunion—honestly, the best episodes of the season—I’m on board for another season of the show, and whatever existential crisis it might inflict.
Finally, there has been a multi-episode storyline on Below Deck: Mediterranean in which an Adonis-looking deck crew member hooks up with a stew in his bunkmate’s bed, ejaculates on the sheets, and then doesn’t change them or tell his bunkmate. For days! What I’m saying is I don’t know how this isn’t the most-talked-about thing in pop culture right now.
It’s Time to Giggle
Mary Beth Barone’s new Netflix special Galaxy Brain has one of the best openings for a televised stand-up set that I’ve seen in a long time. It’s clever and quite meta, given the conceit is how execs pressured her to win over viewers in the first three minutes, or she and the special are screwed.
Then, it leads up to a punchline that is, randomly, the best joke about Oppenheimer I’ve ever heard, followed by the world’s most, again, random dig at Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport—which, if you’ve ever dated a Canadian, you get it.
The point is that Galaxy Brain is an impressively joke-dense special, with Barone layering provocative stories about sex, body image, and politics with jab after jab of these hilarious asides—all delivered in deadpan while barely moving from center stage—that results in an incredibly, for lack of a better word, cool set.
Oh, and she’s got something to say, too: “All of the comedians I loved growing up are either disgraced or racist or obsessed with trans people or d all of the above. Ever since Katy Perry went to space, I have no heroes left.”
That’s among the tamest of her grand pronouncements. You should check it out. I really enjoyed it.
See If the Old Folks’ Home Has Any Beds
It was announced that former child actor Jacob Tremblay will be playing Ted Kaczynski in a Netflix series opposite Russell Crowe. Yes, we are so old that the cute little boy from Room is now the Unabomber.
More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
I’m far too old to love this show as much as I do. Read more.
Did reality TV’s biggest villain just vindicate herself? Read more.
Jordan Klepper reveals how MAGA lost the plot. Watch here.
What to Watch This Week:
Spider-Man: Brand New Day: One of the best entries yet in my favorite superhero franchise. (Now in theaters)
Furious: This INTENSE crime thriller is hard to watch, and also hard to stop watching. (Now on Hulu)
I Want Your Sex: Olivia Wilde’s hot streak continues, both literally and figuratively. (Now in theaters)
What to Skip This Week:
Sharkzilla Takes New York: We’re going through enough now, thank you. (It’s rained a lot, and we can’t eat lettuce.) (Fri. on Discovery)
