Madame Web (4 Stars)

"Madame Web" (2024) is an origin story set within Sony's Spider-Man Universe. Rather than centring on an established superhero, the film follows Cassandra "Cassie" Webb, a paramedic in New York City who gradually discovers that her life has been shaped by forces connected to clairvoyance, fate and a web of interlocking destinies.

The film opens in the Peruvian Amazon in 1973. A pregnant researcher, Constance Webb, is searching the jungle for a rare spider species rumoured to possess extraordinary properties. She is betrayed by her colleague Ezekiel Sims, who murders members of the expedition and steals the spider. Constance is fatally wounded but is saved temporarily by members of an indigenous tribe who use the spider's abilities to try to preserve her life. She gives birth to Cassie before dying, and the baby is taken back to the United States.

Decades later, Cassie Webb is a hardened, emotionally distant paramedic in Manhattan. She has grown up in foster care and believes her mother died in a plane crash while researching spiders, unaware of the true circumstances. Cassie avoids personal attachments and lives a solitary life. During a rescue operation on a bridge, she nearly drowns while saving a driver from a submerged car. After being resuscitated, she begins experiencing vivid flashes of the future. At first, these episodes are disorienting and brief; she sees moments seconds before they occur and realises she can alter events by acting on her visions.

Cassie's powers intensify when she encounters three teenage girls on a train: Julia Cornwall, Anya Corazon and Mattie Franklin. In a sudden vision, Cassie sees them murdered by a masked, superpowered man wearing a spider-themed suit. The attacker is revealed to be Ezekiel Sims, now a wealthy and influential businessman who gained enhanced strength and agility from the spider in Peru. He has been haunted by recurring dreams in which three spider-powered women kill him. Through his own research and access to advanced surveillance technology, he identifies the girls as the future threat and sets out to eliminate them before they can develop their abilities.

Realising the girls are in imminent danger, Cassie kidnaps them from the train to save their lives, though they initially see her as a threat. As Ezekiel hunts them across New York, Cassie gradually accepts her role as their protector. She uses her precognitive visions to anticipate his moves, repeatedly altering events to keep one step ahead. The group hides in various locations, including a diner and a fireworks warehouse, while Cassie tries to piece together her mother's past and the origin of her own powers.

Through research and conversations with her colleague Ben Parker, Cassie learns more about Ezekiel's background and about her mother's expedition. She comes to understand that her near-death experience activated latent abilities connected to the same spider species. Unlike Ezekiel, whose powers are physical and driven by fear of his prophesied death, Cassie's gift is psychic; she can perceive branching timelines and subtly shift outcomes.

As Ezekiel closes in, Cassie's visions become more expansive, showing possible futures in which the three girls grow into powerful spider-heroes. Julia is shown with psychic spider abilities, Anya with acrobatic combat skills and Mattie with enhanced strength. These glimpses of their future selves reinforce Cassie's determination to ensure their survival.

The climax takes place at an abandoned Pepsi-Cola sign factory during a Fourth of July celebration. Cassie foresees multiple deadly scenarios and repeatedly tests different actions in rapid succession, effectively rehearsing the fight in her mind. When Ezekiel attacks, she coordinates the girls' escape with precision timing based on her visions. In the chaos of collapsing fireworks scaffolding, Ezekiel is crushed and killed, seemingly fulfilling his own prophecy in an ironic reversal; his attempt to prevent the future directly causes it.

Cassie is gravely injured during the confrontation and loses her eyesight, but her psychic abilities expand further, allowing her to perceive the world through visions of the web of life and time. In the aftermath, she adopts a mentorship role toward Julia, Anya and Mattie, hinting at their eventual transformation into spider-powered heroes. The film ends with Cassie in a wheelchair, now fully embracing the mantle of Madame Web, calmly guiding the girls as she looks ahead into the vast network of possible futures, aware that this is only the beginning of a larger destiny.

Success Rate:  - 0.7

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The Housemaid (4½ Stars)

Millie Calloway is a young woman who's been released on parole after being in prison for murder. It was a crime of passion, as we later discover. She's desperate for a new life, so she fakes her CV in order to get a job as a live-in maid with a wealthy family. She soon realises that the woman in the house is neurotic, frequently forgetting the instructions she gave Millie an hour earlier, but she desperately needs somewhere to live and puts up with everything. The longer she stays, the more hidden secrets she discovers.

This is a fascinating film with brilliant performances by Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney. You'll be sitting on the edge of your seat as the mysteries unravel.

At the end there's a hook for a sequel. It's possible that it could become a franchise. I just hope that the sequels are different enough to be worth watching.

Madame Web (4 Stars)

Netflix Thursday #41

After watching "Madame Web" in the cinema I read many reviews that said it's a bad film. The reviewers said that the film is illogical. I can see their point, but I disagree. Or rather, I agree that the film is illogical, but I disagree that this makes the film bad. Comics are illogical. They present many fantastic things that can only be accepted by children or naive adults. A man is exposed to gamma rays, and from then on he keeps growing into a green monster and reverting to a man at random intervals. Where does the additional body mass come from? Where does it disappear to? This contradicts the laws of physics, but who cares? I'm a naive adult who can accept whatever he reads in comics.

In the same way, I accept what happens in "Madame Web". There's a man who can climb walls and a woman who has visions. There are three teenage girls destined to acquire spider powers. It all makes sense to me. I'm too naive to question it.

I hope there will be a sequel. Or better still, three sequels. I want to see what happens to the three girls. They all deserve their own film, but alas, the box office failure of "Madame Web" makes it unlikely.

Success Rate:  - 0.7

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Immaculate (2 Stars)

Sydney Sweeney plays Cecelia, a young American woman who enters a convent in Italy. The convent contains a hospital for elderly nuns who are in their last years and are no longer able to serve. Many of the old nuns are demented.

Cecelia is an outsider in the convent. Everyone else is Italian. Things change when she's discovered to be pregnant, despite still being a virgin. The other nuns begin to worship her, and it's expected that she will be the mother of the new saviour.

I'll stop there. I have nothing against religious films. "Immaculate" could have been a good film, but many of the final scenes were so horrific that I felt like walking out. Somehow I remained until the end. I was surprised that there was applause when the film ended. How could anyone possibly have enjoyed the film? It's well crafted, a visual splendour, but so tasteless.

Madame Web (4 Stars)

I'm a Marvel fan. Everyone knows that. For this reason it breaks my heart that recent Marvel films haven't been as good as they used to be. Since 2021 I've only given one Marvel film, "Spider-Man: No Way Home", a five star rating. I rated all the other films two or three stars when I saw them in the cinema, but in retrospect I think I should have rated them lower. Marvel isn't what it used to be.

When I walked into the cinema to see "Madame Web" I was hoping it would be a masterpiece. I always do. I had no knowledge of the character. She wasn't introduced into the comics until the 1980's, at which time I hardly read any comics, so I didn't know her. I'll leave it to others to tell me whether or not she's accurately portrayed.

The film takes place in 1973 and 2003, at a time when neither Spider-Man nor any of the other super-heroes existed. Cassandra Web has random visions of things that will happen in the immediate future. A man called Ezekiel Sims has recurring dreams about three women who will kill him. He steals NSA software to search for these women, and he finds they're all still teenagers. He sets out to kill them, but Cassandra has visions of his threats and does all she can to protect them.

"Madame Web" isn't a bad film. It's better than "The Marvels", "The Eternals" and all the other films that have been made in the last three years. It's not a great film, but it's the first step towards recovery. I found Dakota Johnson convincing as the overworked paramedic Cassandra Web, and the three teenagers hanging out with her were refreshingly immature. It offers promise for a sequel.

Under the Silver Lake (3½ Stars)

Conspiracy theories! I love them! It's not that I believe them, I just find them fascinating. It's beautiful the way random facts can be linked together to create a new truth. Just to take one example, the theory that the Moon landing was faked. Clues are strung together from Stan Kubrick's films which are supposed to be a confession that he created the Moon landing in a film studio. Of course, it's nonsensical for anyone to say "I believe the conspiracy theory that <fill-in-the-blank>". As soon as you believe something, you no longer call it a conspiracy theory, you call it a fact.

That's what "Under the Silver Lake" is about. A young man called Sam who lives in Hollywood observes things happening around him. The richest man in Los Angeles has gone missing. Dogs are being killed. His neighbour moves out of her apartment overnight, after she's seen with a man dressed as a pirate. He thinks they're connected, and his investigations lead him into contact with a comic book writer who's a walking encyclopaedia of Los Angeles conspiracy theories; except he doesn't call them conspiracy theories, he calls them facts. A woman who's naked apart from a bird mask has been killing men for hundreds of years. A free gift in a cereal packet is a map of secret locations in Los Angeles. A new pop group, Jesus and the Brides of Dracula, has been putting secret messages in their songs. There's a secret society, an elite in Los Angeles, that can read the messages. Everyone else is blissfully ignorant.

When I watched the film the first time I gave it a high rating. It doesn't seem so good the second time round. What I like is the atmosphere and the mystery. When the mystery is unravelled, the explanations are so absurd that I can't accept them. I don't want to go into them, except to say that the explanations are more absurd than the theories themselves. Let me give a parallel: In the case of the faked Moon landing, someone finds out that Stanley Kubrick was hired to make the film by inhabitants of the Moon who wanted to remain secret. That's a similar level of insanity.

On the other hand, I've read film reviews that claim that the final scenes aren't really happening. Sam is so obsessed with his conspiracy theories that he imagines things that justify them. In general, I reject film interpretations that claim everything is imagined or dreamt or the visions of a psychotic breakdown. In this case it makes better sense than accepting the final scenes at face value. Did Sam kill the neighbour that he thought had moved out? Anything is possible in a film like this.

Success Rate:  - 3.9

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Once upon a time in Hollywood (4½ Stars)

I gave this film five stars when I saw it in the cinema last year, but I've decided to lower the rating after watching it again today. The film is disjointed. In 2017 it was announced that Quentin Tarantino was going to make a film about the Manson Family murders. As the release date came closer, it was reported that the film was about Hollywood at the end of the 1960's. It's actually about both. The first two hours are about the golden days of Hollywood, while the last half hour is about the Manson Family murders. Both parts of the film are perfect in themselves, but it looks like the second part has been tagged on as an afterthought. It's true, the Manson Family also appears in a scene in the first part, but the Family doesn't seem to have any great importance, along all the other things that are happening.

There's a lot that I could write about the relationship between the actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). I'll leave my thoughts on them until I watch the film again. In this review I'll concentrate on women's feet.

Margot Robbie is sitting in the cinema watching "The Wrecking Crew" with her feet up. I have no problems with that. When I went to see "Emerald Green" there was a teenage girl with her legs up sitting next to me, and I allowed myself a few looks. The problem is that Margot's feet are dirty. I've heard that some men like dirty feet, but not me! I find them revolting, not sexy at all.

This is Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) hitching a ride from Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

Pussycat has beautiful feet, and even more beautiful legs, but I have to offer her some advice: when she's hitching a ride, she shouldn't lay her head on the driver's lap. It's not safe.

Dakota Fanning plays Squeaky, the Manson Family member keeping ranch owner George Spahn as a sex slave. The other recent film about the Manson Family, "Charlie Says", goes into more detail on their relationship, but only Quentin Tarantino shows us Squeaky's feet.

"George is that way, Cliff". Why should Squeaky point with her finger when she can use her toes?

I don't know who these two girls are, but they have nice feet.

I have difficulty rating Quentin Tarantino's films in order, but this film is easy to rate. Out of his nine films, I put this in eighth place. (His weakest film is "Hateful Eight"). Apart from the film being disjointed, I have two other slight criticisms. The first is the portrayal of Bruce Lee. Why is he so arrogant? It's also shocking that a random stunt man is able to beat him in a fight.

My second criticism is the rewriting of history. When Quentin Tarantino rewrote history in "Inglourious Basterds" it didn't bother me. It had a purpose that suited the movie well. The rewriting of history in "Once upon a time in Hollywood" is puzzling. Is there a purpose behind saving Sharon Tate's life? She's saved by the random meeting of Cliff and Tex in the first part of the film. Does Tarantino want to say that random events, however minor, can change history? That's the message of "Run Lola Run". If he's ever commented on this in interviews, please let me know in the comments box below.

Success Rate:  + 2.2

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Once upon a time in Hollywood (5 Stars)

Some films are too good to watch just once. Any Quentin Tarantino film is too good to watch just once. That's why I returned to the cinema today to watch "Once upon a time in Hollywood" a second time. The cinema wasn't quite as full as it was two days ago, but let's be fair, today is a weekday, and I went to an early showing. Some people work while others are watching films. I feel sorry for them.

Watching today, I made an attempt to compare it with Tarantino's other films. There's less of a narrative, as I pointed out in my first review. It's his most self-indulgent film to date. It's all about nostalgia for a past era, in films, television and music. I'm including music, because the music that we hear on the radio is essential to the film, even more than it was in his early films ("Reservoir Dogs", "Jackie Brown" and "Death Proof"). I recognised most, but not all of the songs. I grew up in England, and England has always had a different pop music scene to America. Maybe the two music scenes are merging now, in the YouTube generation, but in the 1960's the music played on the radio in the two countries was very different.

Where does "Once upon a time in Hollywood" rank among Tarantino's films? Ask me again next time I watch it. It's difficult to compare his films. I can never decide which one I like most, they're all so good. It's not his best film, but it's definitely not his worst. I already know that it'll get a high place in my top 10 list for 2019. I'm glad I started doing a top 10 in 2015. Think of it as a snapshot of my opinion at the end of each year. When I look back at my old lists, I'd rate the films differently today. I'd put "The Walk" at the top of the list for 2015. My tastes change. Slightly.

Once upon a time in Hollywood (5 Stars)

Hollywood is the place of dreams. The problem with dreams is that they don't last. When you wake up in the morning they're gone. This is what we see in "Once upon a time in Hollywood", the 9th film by Quentin Tarantino. Sharon Tate is at the beginning of a successful career. After six years of minor roles she's finally become a face that people recognise. She expects her career to continue to dizzying heights, and her marriage to Roman Polanski is additional help.

Rick Dalton's success is waning. After years as a successful film and television actor he's having to play smaller roles. He's advised to go to Italy to make spaghetti westerns, but he thinks it's below him. The only person who believes in him is his stunt double and best friend Cliff Booth, but Cliff is on his way out as well. His bad temper makes him unpopular on film sets.

While I was sitting in the cinema I was asking myself what the film was about. When I walked out at the end I still didn't know. There doesn't seem to be a plot that leads from A to B. There are no recognisable character arcs. The story just rambles on, in a way typical for a true story, but in this case Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth are fictional characters. I'm sure they're composites of well known actors from the 1960's, but I won't know who Quentin Tarantino is thinking of until he names them in an interview. I can see some similarity between Rick Dalton and Lee Van Cleef, but I'm sure Tarantino is thinking of other actors as well.

Nevertheless, the story, or rather the non-story, is overwhelming. We're immersed in the good old days of Hollywood. Was 1969 the turning point? I don't know. I really want to hear Tarantino himself talk about the film.

I'm going to see the film again next week. Maybe I'll understand it better the second time.

Under the Silver Lake (4½ Stars)

This is the 20th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

"Under the Silver Lake" is the film I was most looking forward to in this year's film festival. The trailer (which I'd seen at least five times in the cinema) fascinated me. The film almost lived up to my expectations. Almost, but not quite. I think the film has too much humour. I would have preferred it if it had been played completely seriously. That's the only reason I've deducted half a star.

Andrew Garfield plays Sam, a young man who lives in an apartment building in Los Angeles. He falls in love with another resident that he sees in the building's swimming pool late at night. They arrange to meet again the next day, but when he arrives at her apartment the next morning, only a few hours later, she's moved out. Her furniture and everything else is gone. Who moves out in the middle of the night?

Sam becomes convinced that there's a giant conspiracy going on around him. He thinks that there are secret messages being passed around that only a rich and powerful elite can understand. He finds clues in symbols scribbled on walls, in comic books and in song texts. Someone is killing dogs in Los Angeles in order to fulfil an ancient prophecy. A new rock band, Jesus and the Daughters of Dracula, seems to be involved. The prostitutes in an elite escort agency know more than they admit.

There's a parallel world in Los Angeles. While normal people go about their lives there are others who are living in a different world. Sam wants to find out the truth.