Experiencing “Black Widow” (2021) at our ad-hoc home movie theater…

Our Pandemic Movie Theater. As I already mentioned in a previous column I did last year (“At-home projection: How I learned to love my movie collection all over again…“), the COVID pandemic put the kibosh on movie attendance for me—and going to the movies was once a favorite pastime of mine. However, a safely-masked visit…

“Avengers: Endgame” (2019): Spoiler-free musings…

****NO SPOILERS!***** This particular entry of “Musings…” is going to be a challenge for me, as I’m not writing a plot synopsis, and I will resist the temptation to drop any spoilers (which would be impossible if I wrote a synopsis). Instead, I will try to give you the overall gestalt of the movie through…

A few words for Stan Lee (1922-2018)…

The highlighted link from the New York Times does a nice job of summing up Stan Lee’s life:  Stan Lee, dead at 95. Superhero of Marvel Comics/New York Times.  I never really knew Stan Lee, since I only met him once very briefly.  I can offer the following…   My own two cents. I used to…

Marvel’s “Iron Man” ten years later…

The Marvel shared cinematic universe first came online with 2008’s “Iron Man.”   There’d been many other Marvel Comics properties adapted as films (“X-Men”, “SpiderMan”, “Hulk”) but “Iron Man” was the first that was deliberately designed to be part of a greater whole. It’s a universe that (10 years and 19 or so movies later) shows no…

“Deadpool 2”: Electric Boogaloo…

“Deadpool”, the unapologetically R-rated clown prince of superheroes, has spawned a sequel that’s even more outrageously meta (and perversely funny) than its parent. “Deadpool 2” is the second in cowriter/producer/star Ryan Reynolds’ series of passion project-atonements for the grotesque misfire of 2011’s “Green Lantern” (words can’t convey my loathing of that movie) and his much maligned…

“Avengers: Infinity War” is a rollicking rollercoaster ride on a tightrope track…

In my previous reviews of “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Black Panther” , I’d noted my acute case of ‘Marvel fatigue.’  Too often these movies are ridiculously top-heavy with CGI eye-candy, Dolby Digital-booming explosions, and butt-numbingly long sequences of flying super-people punching away at cars, planes and buildings like so many LEGOs. Dialogue in these kinds of films consists mainly…