Spider Man

Lee brought the idea of superheroes with ordinary characteristics into the mainstream, a trope that led to the large-scale popularization of his stories. With that came the widespread consumption of his comics and, eventually, films.

Somewhere between witnessing a sweaty Tom Hardy chomp on a live lobster and seeing the character of Venom soulfully tell Eddie Brock that he’d made him change his mind about humanity, I realized that “Venom” was not the version of the story that I’d grown up with.

A Sam Raimi stan and recent graduate who missed UC Berkeley’s film and media commencement ceremony to screen his short film, “Life in Color,” at the Cannes Film Festival.

I love you, Westchester. I may have left for bigger places and Bay Area snobs, but you’ll always be No. 1 in my heart. Don’t forget me while I'm gone.

Are you as smart as Tony Stark in class? Do you lose your temper when your roommate eats your food like the Hulk would? You’ll find out!

Kyle’s excitement made my heart flutter. The movie was his — he sent me blocks of exclamation marks and little hearts, unwittingly coloring in magic marker hues over my tangle of nerves.

It’s the height of summer, but theaters around the Bay Area are currently resplendent in a wide variety of amazing pictures right now, from tentpole superhero movies to quiet, meditative micro-budget films

The normalcy of Peter Parker (excellently portrayed by bright-eyed Tom Holland) carries this film and helps create a new blueprint for superhero movies — movies more interested in the lives of all of the people, rather than the spectacle of putting those lives at stake.

“One of the things I've noticed is, the films have allowed audiences who didn't feel welcome in comics spaces to start reading,” said Juliette Capra, events manager of Fantastic Comics.

Even though “Gifted” merely repackages familiar sentiments, the characters delivering them are interesting enough to maintain our engagement.