We are knee deep in cicadas and summer sunshine now, folks, and as with any great American Independence Day Weekend it's time to check in on the vibes and rhythms that have kept our hearts pumping and our feet chattering this great season.
To be honest, hardly anything had changed in the past month, and I feel like we have a decent tie for the Top Three Songs of Summer so far. There are a couple other things coming in and our as they always do, but I'm curious what ends up having the legs to keep surging. Let's do this:
Chappel Roan / Billie Eilish
Each of a ton of songs out right now. I haven't heard any of them playing often and when I check them out I have no recognition nor desire to listen to them further. This is why this column is being dropped, people. I have just peaked and entered the long depressive valley of adulthood.
I don't know what's going on with this guy, but he has a movie, Bando Calrissian and some songs to go along with it. I like it, it's weird, rock-ish, and very determined. Not popular at all, not jammable, and not played any where. Hot jam of the week! Sounds like bad Sum 41 but soulfull.
I have never heard this song before until I clicked it to write this article because it's charting. I can't make rhyme nor reason of our lives anymore. Whatever. This ain't my bag and doesn't feel like that much of a summer earworm, either.
I mean, this such a blatant attempt at vintage Eminem, and it's not very good or catchy in any way. Em is attaching himself to the anti-woke mob like he tried to position himself as an anti-Bush leader in the mid-2000s. I mean, fine, whatever, we can see it but no one really cares, Marshall. This is not that fun.
I actually really like this, it's just the ultimate no brain song. Industry plant of summer? I haven't heard "Please Please Please" on the radio at all but it's doing well on charts. I still hear like, "Feather" and shit. I think we need a whole other category for Midwestern radio hits.
I caught all up on the Drake Beef stuff, and man it is so much stupider than I thought. The origin, to my understanding, is J. Cole saying him, Drake, and Kendrick were the Big Three, and Kendrick was just like, "Nah, I'm the best one." And there you have it. I mean, he's right, Kendrick vs. Drake is like Chappelle Show Wayne Brady against actual Wayne Brady. No one who starred in Degrassi can claim any kind of street cred. Stay in your lane, Drake, I liked "HYFR." This might be the most popular diss track of all time, and that's got to sting. Jeez the lyrics are all about Drake being a pedophile, though, it's nuts. I really love how Kendrick just played this five straight times in a row at his Juneteenth show. It's an unabashed and hitherto unforeseen level of pettiness which is great. Kendrick Lamar is the Reverse Flash of hip-hop but I'm on board.
This is really the only song that hits all three boxes for me. Played on the radio, played on Spotify, and I actually like it. It might be the Song of Summer but it needs to go on a little bit more to really earn its keep. I talked about earworms earlier, this is the only song I've really heard all year that sticks in my head. See, I like sort of country songs.
Midwestern Radio Hits
I don't know man, this is like, what I hear when I drive around. I really don't know how to even interpret the world any more. None of these are anywhere near the Billboard Hot 100 or Spotify Top 50. They just kind of exist under some long outdated model? Here we go!
"obsessed" by Olivia Rodrigo
I hear this all the time. It's not even one of her bigger hits from her last album but our radio loves it.
It was a few days ago now, but for the twentieth anniversary of Spider-Man 2 I rewatched Sam Raimi's best superhero movie with one big question in mind - does it hold up? Is it still what I'd widely acknowledge as the greatest Spider-Man movie as well as the greatest superhero movie ever?
Yeah, it does.
So let's get into that, because damn this thing really does hold up. Like all the truly great films, it's because of a variety of things and they all come together in brilliant web-laced synergy. There is great action, compelling characters, sincere drama, and significant stakes that all come together with humor and cheekiness that you'd expect.
This, Lord of the Rings, Pirates, and the Matrix dominated early 2000s. What strikes me now is how deeply bizarre and auteuristic all these movies were. The 2000s were this time when corporations became punk (this should read: exploited punk and alt aesthetics for mainstream profit), and you see this a bit in movies. There was this great trust planted in fucking Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, and the Wachowski siblings, all bizarre directors outside the mainstream who churned out really distinctive works to critical and commercial acclaim. It's just the direct opposite of what we see now. It's weird, the great irony is that as stakes get higher for studios they take less risks on auteur directors, which leads to more crap movies that don't offer that return on investment. There are obvious exceptions like Taika Waititi and James Gunn, both of whom I think have run their course for their own separate reasons.
Oh yeah, Spider-Man.
We got this a bit with Multiverse of Madness (2022), but there is so many distinctive Raimi zooms, angles, earnestness, and moments of pure horror in this. It brings such energy and zing to everything going on here. And it's not like the lighting or shot selection is very distinctive, it's lit naturally and for the most part the camera is steady with typical mid-level shots. But it's the zooms, wipes. Check out this seven seconds:
This is like, what I think of most. Robbie Robertson, played by Bill Nunn is just hanging out, he has no development at all, but you can still understand his relationship with J. Jonah Jameson as a respected dissenter and someone who defends Peter and Spider-Man. But man, that cut when Jonah waves his hand and Hoffman (Ted Raimi!) pops in is great. Hoffman is invented for the film and crowds a crowded room, but his sycophantic quisling contrasts Robbie's dissent and it adds so much color to a frenetic scene that's supposed to feel urgent and desperate.
Spider-Man 2 cuts the fat. It adds characters but doesn't become bloated both because it moves so fast and because the characters are distinctive and have purpose. They're stock but memorable. It all just works. That's a hard line to walk. I also noticed for the first time that Mr. Aziz runs Joe's Pizza. Joe Aziz! Pizza time.
There's a lot more going on here. Elizabeth Banks in an early role. So is Joel McHale! Donnell Rawlings and Hal Sparks showing up make this the most 2004 movie ever. And after a long legacy of being an art freak weirdo, Oscar nominee, stoner comedy star, and sexual abuser, James Franco popping up here is like "Oh yeah...James Franco..." I've always thought he was terrible in this. "Noble Prize, Otto, Noble Prize!" It's so rough. Part of that is an awkward script, but he really seems like he doesn't want to be here. He's here because he was in the last one and they're setting him up for the next one. Harry does drive the plot a bit, and having your best friend hate you adds tension to Peter, making him more alone, so that's something.
Let's talk comic book logic, which I really appreciate in our current Wikipedia, lore-driven age of over-explanation. So, Doc Ock robs a bank to get money to rebuild his machine, and I feel like this scene moves so fast that we tend to skip over it. He's successful in that bank robbery, and then he just acquires the parts to build his machine. Off what, eBay? Like, I guess he just kept the phone numbers of the companies he ordered parts from? Same with Spider-Man's suit, it is so damn high quality to just be ordered by some random poor pizza delivery boy / grad student. But who cares, move past it, move past it. They straight up acknowledge Dr. Strange exists in this universe, I've always thought maybe there's something bigger out there. But it feels like such a comic book, no one even thinks having four metal arms is that weird.
And fuckin A, how the hell is inventing indestructible metal arms with advanced AI that has a spinal-neural interface a side note to the fusion generator? Like, did he also just casually invent these arms? How could he be working on his reactor and think, "What is the best way to control occasional flares and handle the tritium? Probably four giant metal arms with advanced AI in 2004. And this is not a nitpick, because I don't think its a bad thing at all, it's just part of this movie saying, "Listen, this a comic book, it's pulp, it's stupid, just move on, move on, go with it." At the time I didn't realize how much I took that ethos for granted.
I also think this stuff only works in part because the drama is so real and sincere. This is a pivotal scene for everyone, Ock and Franco sure, but also Peter (How was Michael Keaton's Vulture the only one to figure out that Peter Parker is definitely Spider-Man because he always shows up where Peter is, btw), who loses yet another potential father figure, and possibly the only good thing in his life, his paper on Otto Octavius which could save his grades. It's just blow after blow for this guy.
It eschews the tropes of the genre, eliminating any kind of power fantasy but thoroughly demonstrating how much being Spider-Man absolutely sucks. The whole deal is why be Spider-Man? And the answer is entirely because of the great power and great responsibility deal. It's still a good lesson to learn. Why be good at all when everything in the world is conspiring against you? Because it's your duty, period. That's a tough lesson. Peter Parker feels like Job in this, just brutalized through and through.
There's this psychological deep dive, though. Peter doubts himself and is overladen with stress, and that starts to affect his powers. I always though, like, just test if you can climb a wall, don't jump off a building, Peter. But I know they had to do that back joke after Tobey injured himself for real. Having powers becomes the central conflict of the film.
And he really shouldn't worry about Mary Jane being in danger if she learns his secret identity or if they shack up together. She gets kidnapped plenty of times already. Also these movies do feel thinner when you put it together that the same basic plot of Mary Jane being kidnapped by a villain created by a science experiment gone awry. I mean, play the hits, why not. I think we've progressed beyond, or at least been made aware of, both the damsel in distress and woman in fridge tropes (Spider-Man 2 does both, although I'd argue that Otto losing Rosie isn't as big a motivator for him than just becoming an evil cartoonish supervillain. I think it moreso just shreds his connection to humanity, poetry, right-brained stuff. And just don't have an English professor be your self-sustaining fusion generator lab tech).
On the topic of the movie's climax, that whole famous train sequence exists story-wise solely to exhaust Spider-Man and make him an easier catch, which I'm actually not sure I've ever seen in a movie before. It's kind of an evolution of the Green Goblin's choice, fight me or save people. Spider-Man obviously always saves people, but Ock uses this to his advantage. He also gets super murdery as soon as the arms take over. Who cares, he's the bad guy, he does bad guy stuff. I don't think he ever actually kills anyone. But the threat he makes to peel the flesh from MJ's bones seems really credible.
But it's also a very New York-scale event. I like keeping Spider-Man in the "save the city" realm. It keeps him very ground level, like a Daredevil or Punisher, even though his power set always feels like it should be world-saving A-tier. I think the two most recent Tom Holland Spider-Man films stretched him that far, but Homecoming (2017) keeps him pretty limited. It's right there in the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man title, it helps because he is just a guy who needs to make it to class, catch a show, and deliver pizzas. Like, he can't be galivanting all over the world. It's because he is just a random dude who this responsibility was thrust upon. It's not his job to be a superhero, he didn't choose it, but he does it anyway, and that's really the entire point of Spider-Man.
You know what else gets that right? The Miles Morales Spider-Verse Spider-Man but we all know those are perfect movies anyway.
Maybe we'll talk leads. Molina is amazing, Tobey is always a better Peter Parker than he is a Spider-Man, he's just not that quick witted, funny, or scathing. To be honest, no live action Spider-Man has been able to nail how funny he is. Maybe because it really really contradicts with how shy and nerdy Peter is, but that's all part of the act. Or like, psychosis. He's an inverse Batman.
I really like Kirsten Dunst and where she's gone in the past twenty years, but she's sleep walking through this role, dude. Right here she really doesn't look like she knows what's going on:
I mean, I love this shit. It's so weird. Such a bizarre take to leave in. It gives the film a lot of energy, a cutting as they go kind of feel. I don't know why that doesn't make it bad. I think it's just vibes. It soars on vibes. I'd call "Raindrops Pouring on My Head" ironic, but they kind of play it straight here.
The whole movie is so earnest, shockingly so. It frees itself from the superhero origin stuff and is able to just launch you straight into everything. I mean, the moral is that you need to be heroic for heroic's sake for goodness' sake. Pace wise it's unnervingly efficient. It's really about an hour and forty of real stuff before denouement and credits. Unreal. Mostly because it's just focusing on one guy and one situation. This might inevitably bleed into why Spider-Man 3 (2007) doesn't work, but I also actually think that follows one concept. Spider-Man 2 is what happens when everything goes wrong for Peter while 3 is what happens when everything goes right. Somehow the latter is far worse, and that's what makes it a challenging Spider-Man story.
So, this is great, it's thrilling, funny, distinctive, compelling, has a great arc, stakes, and is a really great Spider-Man story. It holds up, it's still the best, I'll take any challengers.
It's time again that I was compelled to create a brand new Summer Jam List! I mean, as you can tell, this blog has fallen on rough times. I blame the birth of my son, the cause of all my problems.
Actually, it's moreso that life is made up of much more than my thoughts on why The Fall Guy (2023) faltered. Hrmmm...maybe we should bring back Road to a Blockbuster...
Anyway, I'm diggin some tunes lately, so we gotta list them here!
"Espresso" by Sabrina Carpenter
I'm realizing I've had "Feather" in my head for weeks, but "Espresso" the Ostrich is definitely the hotter jam. It just hasn't hit my hometown of Middle America yet. Sabrina Carpenter is fine, she's got a good time, some spicy attitude, definitely feels like an industry plant, but hey, Olivia Rodrigo proved me wrong. There's a sameness to all her songs but they're ethereal and catchy enough.
"Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar
This song didn't blow my mind at first, but the more I listen to it, the more it simultaneously feels like Kendrick's most mainstream, attention-grabbing song, but also very removed and isolated like his work tends to be. I don't know anything about the Drake Beef or whatever, I dunno, Drake is like the softest cat in the game, who cares. It's like beefing with an actual piece of beef. Not much on the radio yet, but that's not even a thing anymore.
"A Bar Song" by Shaboozey
I've been obsessed with this one. I can't remember a song working its way so into my brain since...well, "Old Town Road" for lack of a better Black Country Comparison. The video is captivating, too. I don't know what it is, I think it's partially the off-center framing, the escalation of dance moves corresponding to the rhythm, and the juxtaposition of these white good ol' boys in the background who are simultaneously very modern with this black guy singing country to a hip hop beat and partially remixing J-Kwon's 2004 "Tipsy" which I don't think anyone except people my age remember.
Others
Yeah, let's bust up that 16-year old eight a week formula. I just don't actually care about any other song. There's like, a lot of Billie Eilish that's the same depressed shit, Taylor which is good for Taylor, Beyonce's Country Album, which is about exactly as good as Snoop Dogg's reggae album (I actually do like that...sort of), some Morgan Wallen, Post Malone, Hozier which blows. "Million Dollar Baby" is a strong number two and I just need to be exposed to that more or something, it's not hooking me.
That's it. We'll be back next month. Maybe. Go on with your lives! Happy start of the Seventeen-Week Summer Season!
