The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Film Review by Kam Williams

If the idea behind a sequel to a summer blockbuster is to up the ante in terms of bombast and intensity, then The Amazing Spider-Man 2 certainly fits the bill. This installment is bigger and better and louder and longer, featuring more villains, next generation special f/x, more captivating action sequences, and even a fully-blossomed romance between Spidey’s alter ego Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and his girlfriend, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone).

The picture’s point of departure is a flashback filling in a bit of the back story about how Peter became an orphan. We learn that his parents’ (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) died aboard a doomed private plane hijacked by an assassin (Bill Heck) with an agenda, but not before his scientist father managed to email an explanatory message and critical computer file via satellite.

Fast-forward to the present, Peter and Gwen’s high school graduation day. We see a frustrated Gwen searching the audience for her boyfriend as she delivers a sentimental valedictory speech at the podium.

We soon learn that he’s been delayed in Manhattan where as Spider-Man he’s trying to retrieve a shipment of stolen plutonium from a Russian mobster named Aleksei Sytsevich (Paul Giamatti). In the middle of the chase, he coincidentally saves the life of Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), an engineer at Oscorp, the company responsible for supplying the city with electricity.

After securing the vials and apprehending the perpetrator for the police, Peter rushes off to his commencement ceremony, arriving right in the nick of time to receive his diploma. However, he has no idea that he hasn’t seen the last of Aleksei and Max who are fated to return later in the adventure after a combat suit of armor and a freak accident enable them to morph into the villainous Rhino and Electro, respectively.

But first, he grudgingly ends his relationship with Gwen in deference to her dad (Denis Leary) who doesn’t want his daughter dating a trouble-seeking vigilante. Next, Peter finds himself summoned to the offices of childhood pal Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), who has just inherited Oscorp Industries, but is suffering from the same hereditary affliction which claimed the life of his recently-deceased father (Chris Cooper).

Harry futilely solicits Peter’s help in locating Spider-Man, hoping that a blood transfusion might cure his affliction. Of course, that ain’t gonna happen. So, instead, he has to settle for the venom of genetically-altered spiders, which transforms him into another diabolical Spidey nemesis, the Green Goblin.

That makes a trio of worthy adversaries for the webslinging superhero to dispatch in creative fashion before the curtains come down. Provided you’re patient enough to sit through the closing credits after 2½ hours, you’ll even be treated to a tease of X-Men: Days of Future Past, opening later this month, courtesy of a Jennifer Lawrence cameo as Mystique.

A “Marvel”-ously entertaining franchise that miraculously just keeps on giving and giving!

Excellent (4 stars)

Rated PG-13 for PG-13 for action and sci-fi violence

Running time: 142 minutes

Distributor: Sony Pictures

To see a trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, visit

Moms' Night Out
Film Review by Kam Williams

Allyson Field (Sarah Drew) really can’t complain. After all, her life is the epitome of the American Dream. She has a handsome husband who adores her and is an excellent provider, too. She has a beautiful home in suburbia and her own minivan for shopping and shuttling around their hyperactive children, Beck (Zion Spargo), Bailey (Shiloh Nelson) and Brandon (Michael Leone).

Yet, she’s still overwhelmed by her domestic duties sometimes, especially when Sean’s (Sean Astin) work takes him out of town. Consider Mother’s Day, for example, which Ally recently spent cleaning up messes rather than being pampered like a princess.

Not alone in feeling frazzled, Ally hatches a plan with her BFFs, Sondra (Patricia Heaton) and Izzy (Andrea Logan White) to treat themselves to an evening of bowling and fine dining in a fancy restaurant next Saturday, assuming that their hubbies can babysit for a few hours without incident. That erroneous assumption jumpstarts the comedy of errors which ensues soon after Sean and the other hapless spouses (Alex Kendrick and Robert Amaya) do their best to fill-in.

Yet, when a baby turns-up missing, guess who’s recruited to join the frantic search party. With the help of a buff biker with a heart of gold (Trace Adkins) and an impatient cabbie (David Hunt) with a British accent, the girls put their getaway on hold as their maternal instincts kick-in.

Co-directed by Jon and Andrew Erwin, Moms’ Night Out is a wholesome, PG-rated comedy that’s actually fun for the whole family. It’s also a faith-based film, though not heavy handed, ostensibly-designed with the Christian Evangelical community in mind.

By the madcap misadventure’s happy resolution, sanity and safety are satisfactorily restored. More importantly, the wives are no longer taken for granted, but elevated to the lofty status envisioned by William Ross Wallace in the appreciative refrain “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”

A timely testament to motherhood that just might make the perfect Mother’s Day gift.

Very Good (3 stars)

Rated PG for mild action and mature themes

Running time: 98 minutes

Distributor: Sony Pictures

To see a trailer for Moms' Night Out, visit

Simon and the Oaks
(Simon och ekarna)
DVD Review by Kam Williams

Set in Sweden in 1939, Simon & the Oaks is a surrealistic, coming-of-age saga which unfolds against the backdrop of World War II. The title character, Simon (played by Jonatan S. Wachter, younger, then by Bill Skarsgard) is a youngster who, at the point of departure, has no idea he’s half-Jewish.

He was adopted at an early age by a working-class, Swedish couple (Helen Sjoholm and Stefan Godicke) who have not only hidden his roots, but done their best to shield him from the horrors unfolding across Europe. However, despite their love and support, Karin and Erik can’t help but notice their son’s growing discontent with his lowly lot in life.

Simon gradually evidences an insatiable curiosity that, as farmers, they simply aren’t sophisticated enough to address satisfactorily. In fact, he becomes so lonely that he starts talking to an oak tree in the yard and fantasizing about the rest of his natural surroundings.

Finally, his frustrated folks finally decide to enroll him in an upscale grammar school where he is likely to receive the intellectual stimulation he craves. There, he soon meets Isak (played by Karl Martin Eriksson, younger, then by Karl Linnertorp), a Jewish classmate bullied about his ethnicity whose relatively well-to-do family has recently escaped Nazi Germany.

The boys become fast friends, and their families also make acquaintances, despite the difference in social status. The plot thickens when Simon learns the truth about his ethnic background and proceeds to make the most of the opportunity to pursue an academic path. Isak, meanwhile, disappoints his dad (Jan Josef Leifers) by showing more of a desire to work with his hands than his head.

Directed by Lisa Ohlin (Seeking Temporary Wife) Simon and the Oaks is an ethereal, introspective escapade inspired by the Marianne Fredriksson novel of the same name. Besides the visual capture of some breathtaking cinematography, what makes the film engaging is the stark contrast in the personas of the blossoming, young protagonists.

A sensitive character study chronicling the considerable challenge of coming-of-age Jewish with the specter of the Third Reich lurking just over the horizon.

Very Good (3 stars)

Unrated

In Swedish, German, Hebrew and English with subtitles

Running time: 122 minutes

Distributor: RLJ Entertainment

DVD Extras: None.

Pageants, Parlors & Pretty Women:

Race and Beauty in the 20th Century South

by Blain Roberts

Book Review by Kam Williams

University of North Carolina Press

Hardcover, $39.95

378 pages, Illustrated

ISBN: 978-1-4696-1420-5

“[This book] tells us how Jim Crow and civil rights were expressed in southern women’s bodies. Using female beauty as a lens, the book brings into focus an untold social and cultural history of southern women and of the South generally...

I argue that female beauty in the American South was, more so than in the rest of the country, deeply racialized…I also emphasize the complexity inherent in the pursuit of beauty… I approach beauty as an expansive category that encompasses ideals, practices, labor, and even spaces…

Underscoring almost every conversation about beauty in the region were worries about morality and sexuality… Pageants, Parlors & Pretty Women provides a fresh perspective on the anxieties that plagued southerners from the late 19th C. through the mid-20th C. Or, put another way, it reveals how the female body both informed and reflected the challenges of life during Jim Crow.” 

-- Excerpted from the Introduction (pages 6 -10)

            America has a long, ugly legacy of promoting diametrically opposed images of black and white females. This can be traced all the way back to Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson, an adulterer who had a white wife, but fathered a half-dozen children with Sally Hemmings, one of his hundreds of slaves.

            Yet, in his only book, “Notes on the State of Virginia,” the hypocritical third President of the U.S. frowned upon race-mixing while denouncing black women as unattractive on account of their hair texture and skin color. He actually went so far as to pronounce sisters so promiscuous that they would just as soon mate with an ape as a human.

            Sadly, such racist notions continued to shape popular attitudes about African-American femininity after Emancipation, especially in the South with its strictly-enforced color line. In the wake of the Civil War, Caucasian women “were transformed into symbols of white supremacy and, eventually, massive resistance,” to integration and equal rights.

            That is the proposition put forth by Blain Roberts in Pageants, Parlors & Pretty Women: Race and Beauty in the 20th Century South. Roberts, a History Professor at California State University, Fresno, discusses at great length the role which beauty played in maintaining the racial divide.

            For, the enduring plantation myth still propagated post slavery placing white women on pedestals as paragons of virtue in need of protection proved to be the ideal tool for justifying the persistence of white supremacy ad infinitum. And Jim Crow Era bigots found affirmation in the Miss America beauty pageant which would for many decades be not only lily-white but dominated by entrants from former Confederate States.  

            The opus also delineates the black female struggle to escape the stranglehold of their stereotype as “sexually licentious” and “innately depraved and dirty.” They fought back by turning to skin lighteners and straightening combs until finally being freed by the Sixties’ “Black is beautiful!” movement to embrace their natural hair and skin tones.

            A far more sophisticated examination of black and white pulchritude than Gone with the Wind’s long unquestioned suggestion that it’s as simple as Mammy vs. Scarlett O’Hara.

To order a copy of Pageants, Parlors & Pretty Women, visit:  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00JN8AQLS/ref%3dnosim/thslfofire-20

Emma Stone

The “Spider-Man 2” Interview

with Kam Williams

Spidey’s Flawless Stone

Emily Jean Stone was born on November 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona where she started acting at an early age. With her striking beauty and sincere talent, the Golden Globe-nominated actress (for Easy A) has claimed her place as one of Hollywood’s most sought after actresses.

She recently wrapped filming a still untitled Cameron Crowe project opposite Bradley Cooper and Alec Baldwin which will be released on Christmas Day 2014. She also finished shooting the Woody Allen film Magic in the Moonlight in which she stars opposite Collin Firth, set for release later this year, too.

Besides The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Emma will soon be seen in the dark comedy Birdman, starring opposite Zack Galifinakis, Michael Keaton and Edward Norton. Previously, she lent her voice to the hit animated film, The Croods. And she will soon reprise her role as the voice of Eep for the sequel, which will hit theaters in July of 2017.

Emma’s additional film credits include the period drama Gangster Squad; Easy A, the award-winning drama The Help;the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love; Friends with Benefits; Paperman; the animated comedy, Marmaduke; Zombieland; the romantic comedy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; The House Bunny; The Rocker; and the ensemble comedy Superbad.

When not filming, Emma is an advocate for Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), a groundbreaking initiative created to accelerate innovative cancer research that will get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now. Laura Ziskin, the late producer of The Amazing Spider-Man, started the organization and got Emma involved.

In addition to SU2C, Stone is also an ambassador for Gilda’s Club New York City. Named for Gilda Radner, the late comedian and original cast member of SNL, Gilda’s Club offers a place where people dealing with cancer can join together to build social and emotional support. Stone has become an active member in the Gilda’s Club community and continues to do so by engaging with their younger departments for children and teens.

Here, she talks about her latest movie, Spider-Man 2, where she reprises her role as Spider-Man’s love interest Gwen Stacy.

Kam Williams: Hi Emma, thanks for the interview. I’m honored to have this opportunity to speak with you.

Emma Stone: Oh, thank you, Kam!

KW: I’ve admired your versatility and so much of your work, from Superbad to Zombieland to Easy A to Crazy, Stupid, Love to The Help to Gangster Squad to Spider-Man.

ES: Thanks.

KW: Now, I have a lot of questions for you from fans which I’m going to mix in with my own. Editor/Legist Patricia Turnier would like to know how it was reuniting with the cast and crew to do Spider-Man 2.

ES: It was so great! I had never worked with the same cast and crew twice in a row before. So, I had a really good time. We had a nice rapport and trust among all of us, and with the new cast members as well, like Dane [DeHaan] and Jamie [Foxx]. It was a blast!

KW: Patricia also asks: Are you at all like Gwen? 

ES: In some ways, yes, since I find things about myself that can relate to every character that I’ve played. So, yeah. But in other ways, maybe not as much. [Laughs]

KW: Harriet Pakula-Teweles asks: What’s the difference between a screen romance with a super-hero and one with an ordinary leading man?

ES: Well, I think Peter Parker in some ways is both because he’s a regular high school student, now college student, who happens to have this other life as Spider-Man. It’s sort of one and the same and this point. They’re pretty symbiotic. They’re inseparable!

KW: Harriet also asks: With so many classic films being redone, is there a remake you'd like to star in?

ES: No, not one I could think of off the top of my head. If there’s a classic I’m tempted to redo, it’s because I loved the original so much. But I wouldn’t really want to mess with it.

KW: Lisa Loving asks: Did you ever wish you had a superpower in the film, considering the fact that several other characters did? Or were you happy not to, since superheroes and villains tend to be jerkier than normal people?

ES: I feel like Gwen’s mind, her intelligence is her superpower, and her heart, too. I think if there’s any superpower I’d want her to have it would be invisibility, so she could advise Spider-Man while remaining unseen, and not get so swept up into his antics.

KW: Environmental activist Grace Sinden asks: How different was acting in Spider-Man 2 for you from the original, and is Spider-Man 3 in the works?  

ES: I know Spider-Man 3 is in the works. They’re already working on it now. Spider-Man 2 was different in the sense that the original was kind of just setting the table of the story while the second movie was sort of getting into the feast. So, it felt like we were all finding our footing on the first movie and getting to know each other and what kind of story we wanted to tell in our version of Spider-Man. Now, in the second one, we knew what the tone was, so we were able to dive deeper into the real heart and meat of the story.

KW: Grace also says: Watching a panel discussion you were on about the Spider-Man costumes, I heard that you are opposed to gender stereotypes. Is that the case?

ES: [Chuckles] It’s interesting how that whole conversation, which was just a simple conversation, has become a big deal. No, I don’t really believe in gender stereotyping, but I was genuinely just asking for a clarification of the definition of it in that circumstance.   

KW: A lotta guys didn’t exactly send in questions, but asked for dates or just went on about you, like Gil Cretney who said: “Love that girl!” and Richie the Intern who gushed: “She’s really attractive!”

ES: [Giggles] That’s nice!

KW: Obama biographer Dinesh Sharma asks: Why did you recently refer to yourself as a “bland, basic bitch” in Vogue?

ES: [LOL] Because that was a comment I read about me once, and I thought it was kind of funny.

KW: Attorney Bernadette Beekman asks: Who was your favorite superhero growing up?
ES: I loved the Tim Burton Batman movies, so I’d have to say Michael Keaton. I also enjoyed Beetlejuice, so I guess Michael Keaton characters were my superheroes.

KW: Bernadette also asks: Is there someone who does superhuman things in real life that you admire?

ES: Lot’s of people! Anyone who’s making a huge impact or speaking out about what they believe in or who’s brave enough to be themselves is a superhero to me.

KW: Pat says: I love the character Pippi Longstocking.  Would you consider playing her onscreen? I think you would be perfect for the part.

ES: Well that’s very nice of you to say, Pat. Of course I would!

KW: The Ling-Ju Yen question: What is your earliest childhood memory?

ES: Hmm… That’s a good question. [Pauses to reflect] I don’t really have one that I revisit. It’s kind of a haze of memories of the first house my family lived in, like being in the living room and the bedroom at about 2 or 3 maybe. But I don’t really remember anything too vividly.

KW: What is your favorite dish to cook?

ES: I like to bake, but I haven’t gotten all that great at cooking. So, pasta is usually my “go to” dish. I’m really good at making Kraft macaroni and cheese. [Chuckles]

KW: Do you spice it up, or just follow the instructions on the box?

ES: I don’t use any milk, but I add too much butter for human consumption. It’s pretty damn good! It’s my dad’s college recipe. He ate it every day for a year.

KW: The Uduak Oduok question: Who is your favorite clothes designer?

ES: I don’t really have one favorite. I have a few.

KW: The bookworm Troy Johnson question: What was the last book you read?

ES: I just finished re-reading The Four Agreements. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005BRS8Z6/ref=nosim/thslfofire-20   

I’m reading Lolita now for the first time. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003WUYRB8/ref=nosim/thslfofire-20 

And I’m trying to get back into The Goldfinch. I started reading it, but put it down after about 150 pages. I’m going to try to finish it, because people seem to really love that book.  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00BAXFECK/ref=nosim/thslfofire-20

KW: The music maven Heather Covington question: What was the last song you listened to? 

ES: “Cigarettes and Coffee” by Otis Redding. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00J40M2B2/ref=nosim/thslfofire-20

KW: If you could have one wish instantly granted, what would that be for?

ES: I’d wish for an infinite amount of wishes. 

KW: Is there any question no one ever asks you, that you wish someone would?

ES: I don’t know. That’s a good question. I’d have to think about it. [Chuckles]

KW: When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

ES: My face.

KW: The Anthony Mackie question: Isthere anything that you promised yourself you’d do when you became famous, that you still haven’t done yet?

ES: No, because I never thought it was going to become a reality. It’s all been pretty nuts!

KW: Thanks again for the time, Emma, and best of luck with the film.

ES: Thank you very, very much, Kam. It wasnice to talk with you.

To see a trailer for Spider-Man 2, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbp3Ra3Yp74