The Pitch: It’s very very hard to make specific references to much of what happens in Spider-Man: No Way Home without spoilers. But at one point, while discussing the memory spell that Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has agreed to perform for Peter Parker (Tom Holland), Peter voices his concern over his beloved MJ (Zendaya) forgetting that he’s Spider-Man. Doctor Strange then points out that if MJ is only Peter’s girlfriend because he’s Spider-Man, then what does that say about their relationship? It’s perhaps the smartest thing Doctor Strange says in the entire movie, and evaluating No Way Home leads to a similar dilemma. What director Jon Watts and writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers have done with this film is an unprecedented piece of corporate-produced art. But attempting to ...
The Pitch: There’s not much distance between The King of Staten Island, the sixth feature film from comedy legend and super-producer Judd Apatow, and Pete Davidson’s much-publicized real-life. The circumstances are different — Davidson’s character in the film isn’t a comedy star on the most-watched sketch comedy show in the world, nor has he ever dated the world’s most famous pop star — but the background details are largely the same. Essentially, the movie is a fictional dramedy based on the real-life of 26-year-old Pete Davidson, comedian and the youngest cast member currently on Saturday Night Live. Art Imitating Life: On Saturday Night Live, Davidson traditionally opts to appear as himself, often riffing about his actual mental health issues and sobriety. When he became tabloid fo...
Pete Davidson is a Saturday Night Live breakout comedian from Staten Island whose firefighter father died during 9/11. Now, he’s channeled that real-life story through Judd Apatow’s lens for the new movie The King of Staten Island, the trailer for which has just been released. Co-written by Davidson, Apatow, and Dave Sirus (an SNL writing alum), the film centers on Scott, a 20-something slacker with big dreams of being a tattoo artist and a bigger weed habit. Like Davidson, Scott’s dad was killed on the job as a firefighter, and the grief from that loss 17 years earlier still weighs on him. When his mother (Marisa Tomei) begins dating another firefighter (Bill Burr) named Ray, Scott is forced to finally confront his own stagnation. The King of Staten Island also stars Steve Buscemi as a ve...