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“That is so cool!”   So exclaims our hero Peter Parker/Spider-Man at one point in the Marvel movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day. He’s awestruck at a particularly graceful and impressive maneuver by his enemies. It’s professional respect; superhuman prowess acknowledging superhuman prowess.   There are quite a few such magical moments in the film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton from a script by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Tom Holland is back as Pete/Spidey, whose existence,...

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  In the late 1970s, a young woman I dated a few times in high school once informed me that, should she ever get the opportunity to sleep with Robby Benson, she was taking it. She wasn’t delusional; she recognized the unlikelihood of this, and wasn’t working to bring it about. But she wanted to make it clear that if circumstances ever happened to align and the chance presented itself, it was happening, and any...