Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (2017)

Hasan Minhaj was always my favorite correspondent on The Daily Show, so it’s only fitting that, since there’s no News Satire Roundup this week and the show’s last new episode featured his goodbye piece, I should review his standup special.  This is a special that fell through a “so much good stuff to watch, so little time” crack for me, even though I’d heard nothing but great things about it, and I’m glad to have (finally) gotten around to seeing it.

This was my first time seeing Hasan perform outside of The Daily Show or things like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  I like that, taking a comedian that you’ve only seen within a very specific context and then seeing what they’re like when they’re calling all the shots.  Obviously, aspects of his overall vibe and performance style remain the same, but it’s cool to see how he’s different in a standup context.

This is such well-put-together standup.  There’s the fact that Hasan has come armed with family photos, rudimentary charts, key Hindi phrases, old social media messages, and national spelling bee footage, all projected onto the wall behind him, but it’s more than that.  It’s the construction of the entire piece.  The anecdotes and routines flow effortlessly into one another – really, it feels like one continuous story, following a natural progression and featuring numerous callbacks and full-circle moments.  Hasan begins with his immigrant parents and his upbringing, spinning us a tale of conditional love, racism, prom dates, and professional struggles/successes, straddling that millennial dichotomy of being raised on dial-up and coming of age with social media.

Hasan makes an early observation that every conversation with his father is like “an M. Night Shyamalan movie” (because immigrant parents love secrets,) and there’s an aspect of that to his standup as well.  His stories are peppered with twists – not just the usual deployment of comic surprise but genuine “can you believe this shit?!” moments from his life, along with sudden changes in tone as his accounts flit from hilarious to sobering and back again.

As for the content, there’s so much amazing stuff here.  I won’t spoil any of the big twists in the stories, but I’ll hit on some of my favorite non-spoilery parts of the special.  Hasan’s earliest birthday memory with his immigrant father.  His explanation of the phrase “log kya kyenge,” which causes a star to fall from the sky every time it’s uttered.  His riff on older and younger siblings.  Watching his father sweep up broken glass from the hate crime committed outside their home after 9/11, especially looking at their different reactions to what happened – his father expecting to pay the “American dream tax,” racism in exchange for opportunity, while the American-born Hasan has the “audacity” to expect equality.  The turn of events taken in adulthood with Bethany Reed.  His experience of meeting John Stewart for the first time.

So, so awesome.  I’m going to miss Hasan on The Daily Show, but I know he’s got more stuff of his own lined up, so good for him.

Warnings

Language (including racial slurs,) sexual references, references to violence, and strong thematic elements.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017, PG-13)

I still won’t deny that we didn’t need another Spider-Man reboot so soon, but I also can’t deny being grateful for this one, ‘cause it’s the bomb.  It’s fast, funny, an all-around good time, and it feels like the most “Spider-Man” Spider-Man movie ever.

After the events of Civil War, Peter Parker is champing at the bit to be a full-fledged Avenger, but Tony Stark, his unofficial mentor, wants him to take it slow.  Despite outfitting him with a new, technologically-suped-up suit and appointing Happy as his liaison, Tony’s not eager for Peter to get involved in anything too dangerous, and Peter goes all out trying to prove himself.  When he discovers criminals in Queens with alien weaponry, he takes it upon himself to track down and stop the suppliers, in the hopes of finally earning a seat at the grown-up table.

I’ve said it before, but it has to be said again:  Tom Holland is just a balls-out incredible Spider-Man.  He has the geekiness mixed with the cockiness, the nervous jokes, the teen angst, the acrobatic chops – everything.  And his youth makes the “teenage” part of this teenage superhero really hit home.  We get so used to seeing 25-year-olds play high schoolers that whenever an actor who’s even 18 or 19 comes along to play a teen, it’s astounding how young they are.  And that’s Holland’s Spidey all over.  Whether it’s his awkwardness around girls, his short attention span, or his helpless fear when he really gets in over his head, this Spidey feels genuines in a way that his predecessors, despite their own merits, can’t manage.

The film continues Marvel’s habit of mixing different genres into their superhero movies, giving us part superhero-action and part high-school comedy in the spirit of John Hughes.  I love how well it shows the balance (or lack thereof) between Peter’s ordinary life at high school and his extracurricular crime-fighting activities.  The strong emphasis on his non-Spidey life also gives us probably our best look so far into what a world with superheroes in it looks like.  The casual inclusion of a group of girls playing “Eff, Marry, Kill” with Avengers or teachers showing hilariously-awkward PSAs for teens from Captain America shows how the rest of the world has been reshaping itself since Tony first revealed himself as Iron Man.  The comedy comes fast and furious, taking full advantage of one-liners, comic sequences, and sight gags, and the Vulture is one of the better villains of the franchise.  If I have one critique, it’s that Tony/Iron Man is just a bit too involved for my tastes.  I understand the whole “somewhat emotionally-distant mentor” thing they have going on, and that’s mostly fine, but I’m a little wary of Tony designing toys for Spider-Man.  Watching him in action with the suit Tony made, it feels less like we’re seeing Spider-Man’s specific skills and more like a Spidey/Iron Man hybrid – unnecessary.

In addition to the absolutely wonderful Tom Holland, the rest of the cast is stuffed with even more awesome goodness.  Zendaya is a deadpan blast as Peter’s friend Michelle, Michael Keaton does a nice, complex job with the Vulture, and the cast also includes such gems as Donald Glover, Marisa Tomei, Martin Starr, Selenis Leyva (Gloria from Orange is the New Black,) Tyne Daly, and Abraham Attah (Agu from Beasts for No Nation!)

Warnings

Comic book violence, language, and thematic elements.