Critical Darlings

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” Enters The Money-Verse (with Griffin Newman)

Critical Darlings

Show Notes

Griffin Newman swings back from Spain, Europe, to discuss Spider-Man: Brand New Day! Brand New Day is likely the biggest movie of the year, maybe of all time, depending on how you count. From the seemingly bulletproof Spider-Man formula to the unquestionable star power of Tom Holland and Zendaya, we should have seen this coming!

On this episode, we go long to discuss the special appeal of Spider-Men of today and yesteryear, the Tom Holland phenomenon, his perpetual boyishness, The Punisher Meets Archie, spider puberty, bathhouses, the X-Men and their soon-to-be integration into the MCU, in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, and wonder if the movie is maybe a metaphor for Gen-Z lockdown FOMO. 

Next week, it’s The Sex Purge, AKA One Night Only!

Email us: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More from Critical Darlings

Oct 22, 2026

Critical Darlings is going LIVE at The Savannah Film Festival!

Oct 15, 2026

Critical Darlings is going LIVE at The Savannah Film Festival!

Oct 8, 2026

🚨🚨🚨 Big News! 🚨🚨🚨

Oct 1, 2026

Heads up to listeners, this episode includes sensitive discussions of abuse due to the nature of the film.

Sep 26, 2026

In this bonus episode: After a month of festival hopping, we're back in the studio to discuss the fall festival season, its big premieres, and paint a very rough picture of how award season is shaping up. But first, we take a question from the mailbag to demystify the fall festival circuit and how these giant star-studded events actually work.

See all episodes →