Collateral Ham-age: "Stuber," reviewed.

Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani are fun together, but Stuber is a misfire. (Mark Hill/Fox)

Halfway through another summer packed with sequels and reboots and brand IP extensions, it give me no pleasure, none at all, to have to tell you that Stuber, an action comedy from an “original” screenplay and starring two very talented and appealing comic actors in Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani… is just Collateral, only not as good. My NPR review is here. Ugh! I feel terrible!

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and What's Making Us Happy

Tom Holland gets some enhanced security screening. (Sony)

Host Linda Holmes is off promoting her already New York Times-bestselling debut novel Evvie Drake Starts Over this month, so Glen and Stephen handled the hosting chores on PCHH this episode, with Mallory Yu and me in chairs three and four to talk about Spider-Man: Far From Home, the eighth movie with the proper noun “Spider-Man” in the title since 2002. (For more important data analysis, see my NPR review of the movie.)

We recorded this episode first thing in the morning on one of the most heavily-scheduled days of my adult life. Fortunately, my energy peaked early that day, which is rare. I'm sure the wise and kind Jess Reedy was doing me a favor and protecting NPR when she sensibly excised my rant about how much money I lost on my first car, a Ford Taurus, when its engine exploded in the middle of the night and the beginning of a snowstorm as my brother and I were on our way to catch a plane to my grandpa's funeral. Attentive listeners will easily pick out where in the episode that would have gone were Jess not so good at her job.

I also shamelessly plugged my Washington Post piece from Tuesday about 1970’s Honor America Day and its soundtrack album, Proudly They Came… to Honor America.

Does Whatever a Spider Can, Again, Some More: "Spider-Man: Far From Home," reviewed.

Secret identity, shmecret identity: Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland in Far From Home (Sony/Columbia)

Here's my NPR review of Spider-Man: Far From Home, a lovably shaggy vestigial tale on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Y'all are great at this. Now just stop it for a while already.

I'll be on Pop Culture Happy Hour next week to talk about the movie with the great Mallory Yu, Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon, and guest host Stephen Thompson.

Summer 1989: Todd McFarlane was a good Spider-Man artist whose fast-growing popularity convinced him he could write, but he was wrong.

The Third Time's the Charmless: "Shaft," reviewed.

Alexandra Shipp, Jessie T. Usher, Samuel L. Jackson, and Richard Roundtree in the third series entry to be called Shaft. (Kyle Kaplan)

Some stuff I didn't have space to say in my NPR review of Tim Story's not-very-good new Shaft: The distinctive feature of the Shafts is a shared contempt for crosswalks and a love for walking into traffic. And it's a shame that after Gordon Parks' Shaft hit big in 1971, newspaperman-turned-novelist-turned screenwriter Ernest Tidyman got right to work adapting his third novel about the Black Private Dick Who's a Sex Machine to All the Chicks, Shaft's Big Score!, skipping right over Shaft Among the Jews.

Royal Flush: "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," reviewed.

I really liked Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla, and I want to like any movie with the audacity to call itself Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but Michael Dougherty’s sequel is dreary drag, man. Good enough to catch on a double or triple-bill at Bengies on a gorgeous summer night, but no better than that. I reviewed G: KofM for NPR.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "John Wick Chapter 3 — Parabellum" and What's Making Us Happy"

John Wick 3 boasts the best equine motocross sequence since True Lies.

What a treat to dissect the third and gnarliest John Wick with Linda and Glen and Aisha Harris.

While recommending Brian Raftery’s Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen, I happened to name one of my most be-loathed movies from that year, the Best Picture-winning American Beauty, while omitting the names of my most beloved: Rushmore, Three Kings, Eyes Wide Shut, and so on. Raftery did not include John McTiernan’s remake of The Thomas Crown Affair in his book about 1999’s most notable and groundbreaking movies, probably because a remake of a 30-year-old thriller isn’t groundbreaking, and the movie did not have a substantial cultural impact.

But it was was the last good movie McTiernan made, I’m sorry to say, and I saw it in the theater that summer along with Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Notting Hill, American Pie, The Sixth Sense, Mystery Men, and all the rest, and I have revisited it on several occasions since.

Continental Drift: "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum," reviewed.

Unretired assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) still mourns his wife (Bridget Moynahan).

In one of these John Wick movies we’re going to learn he killed that dead spouse he’s been pining away for, aren’t we?

Forgive my cynicism. On the day I saw the new, double-punctuated John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, I walked past the taped-off scene of one violent crime on my way to the subway that morning, and past the taped off scene of another violent crime on my way home from the movie 12 hours later. So I’m not sure it’s correct to call this celebration of ultraviolence escapism.

I sure did enjoy it, though. You can read about my enjoyment and my hand-wringing in my NPR review.

Hail, Dehydration! On "Avengers: Endgame" and the Incredibly Expanding Blockbuster

Inspired by Avengers: Endgame, the 182-minute grand finale of the Marvel cinematic saga, I crunched some numbers and examined how blockbusters—especially ones not encumbered by Endgame's hefty narrative obligations, with so many characters and storylines to pay off—are expanding at a much faster rate than is the human lifespan. I am solely responsible for the math in the piece, and the jokes. You've been warned.