So I saw the new Spider-Man film at a preview in Nashville tonight. I’m not sure when the review embargo gets lifted, but I’m not going to offer any judgments or spoilers here. If you saw Tom Holland’s turn as the web-slinger in his extended cameo in Captain America: Civil War you’ve got a good sense of what to expect from this Marvel Studios summer tentpole. If you liked the new Spidey in the Civil War flick you’ll love the new Spider-Man movie. If this new take on Spidey turned you off in the last Captain America outing you’ll really hate the new Spider-Man movie.

The new flick doubles-down on the notion of Spider-Man as a young teenager and it’s a fun and fresh take — the original Peter Parker was introduced to the world as a 17 year old, but in the current Marvel universe, Parker was bit by the spider that changed his life at the age of 15, and this latest iteration begins shortly after that fateful sting and the events in Civil War. But the thing I liked best about the new Spider-Man is how it shouted out the animated series from 1967, and how it felt like a love letter to the gritty New York City that those old cartoons captured so well: the classic cartoon theme song is quoted in the opening credits and the phrase “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” had me recalling the title sequence from the old cartoon which is also quoted in the lyrics of the theme song. The film also highlights music from the Ramones, and spotlights old school NYC icons like the Staten Island Ferry and the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island — all icons of pre-Giuliani Gotham when New York stood for gritty toughness instead of bundled derivatives and the effete pleasures of locally-sourced, artisanal, small batch conspicuous consumption.

Check out old school Spidey in old school New York with this playlist of a ton of episodes from the 1967 animated series that even predates me. Even if you don’t have the time to watch this right now, just leave it on in the background to dig the flat-out jams that accompanied this funkiest-ever Spider-Man…

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When I think of the films of Martin Scorsese, I’m never reminded of the music of the late, great Ramones, but between now and 2016 it’s not likely I’ll be able to make any other connection. It’s just been announced that the great director will be telling the tale of the punk pioneers in an upcoming biopic. Here’s the word on Scorsese’s busy calendar from The Film Stage…

Martin Scorsese is truly a restless force. Between The Wolf of Wall Street, a pending NYFF showing of The 50-Year Argument, and the soon-to-shoot status of his long-brewing Silence, word from Billboard tells us he’s now attached to a film about legendary rockers The Ramones, whose various estates have recently been reunited in a deal that’s sure to open floodgates holding archival material. Are you a fan of New York’s greasiest rockers? Good news: 2016, the 40th anniversary of their first album, will see remastered LPs, books, a play, a documentary, and, it would appear, a feature.

Considering how open he’s been to the prospect of documentary films, I’d initially presumed Scorsese would make them the focus of yet another such project. Presumptions, however, are sometimes wrong, and I think Billboard’s wording on this is clear enough: “The documentary is just one of several projects in the works. Among the others [... is] a film, which already has Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese attached.”

At first glance it might seem like an odd marriage, but no filmmaker has evoked the gritty 1970′s in New York better than Scorsese, and the director is one of cinema’s best magicians when it comes to his alchemical combinations of rock ‘n’ roll and moving images.

In the meantime, here’s a documentary tribute to the life and music of my favorite Ramone…

Stay Awake!

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Hey, Sport. Do you have that book I lent you?

Telephone booths are obsolete and ubiquitous. While I think it’s a good idea to have land lines I can operate with a quarter sprinkled throughout urban environments, few people agree. What if my phone dies? What if it was stolen? What if I couldn’t afford a cell phone? In many towns and cities, public payphones have already disappeared. Clearly the arguments are many and strong, but that war is already over…sort of…

In New York City, there 13,659 phone booths despite the fact that cell phone density in the place is epic. Is anyone using them? Does anyone need them? Should they be torn down or should they be re-purposed?

In one of the most kick-ass art/architecture stunts I’ve seen in a long time, this Columbia architecture grad is converting Gotham’s lonely phone booths into community libraries one rad set of bookshelves at a time.

Via The Atlantic Cities:

John Locke thinks people should read more. So in the past few months, the Columbia architecture grad has slipped around Manhattan with a sack of books and custom-made shelves, converting old pay phones into pop-up libraries.

The concept, sponsored by Locke’s imaginary Department of Urban Betterment, is that New Yorkers will pick up unfamiliar titles while running their errands and then, perhaps, replace them the next day with favorite books of their own. That’s in an ideal world. Of the two guerrilla libraries that the artist has fashioned, one has been used properly while the other has had its entire collection repeatedly ganked by sticky-fingered pedestrians. Its shelves were also stolen.

But Locke has many more libraries planned. With plywood consoles that slip over payphones as neatly as aprons, these sidewalk objets are endlessly replicable. (No doubt they’ll feature in his 2012 Columbia course, “Hacking the Urban Experience.”) I caught up with Locke over the weekend to ask him about what was and wasn’t working with these literary outposts, as well as why he started the project in the first place. Here’s what he had to say…

Read more after your call gets connected…

Joe Nolan <3

Watch this performance of my OccupySong at Occupy Congress in DC!