Over at the Corner of Giggles Street and McCarthy Lane, a Bang! Kapow! Splat! underpants-over-pantyhose pillow fight is raging on the subject of James Bond, Jason Bourne, and superhero movies. And it's every bit as enlightenin' n' er-yew-dite as yew'd figger:
Jonah — Pop quiz: Who is the best-known comic-book hero who hasn't starred in his own live-action movie during the Marvel movie renaissance?
Answer: Captain America.
Apparently a Captain America movie is in development. I'll believe it when I see it. (Meantime, I nominate Will Smith for the starring role.) According to this, the working title is The First Avenger because international moviegoers won't see a film called Captain America. Or so thinks Hollywood.
Also, the Justice League of America at some point simply became the Justice League.
Never fear! NRO readers drink their Ovaltine; one of their Junior Boy Detectives squiggled his Magic Decoder Ring and jiggered his 2-Way-Wrist-Radio so as to inform Our Heroes that they really and for true do still call it the "Justice League of America," golly gee whiz. So enjoy your Kellogg's PEP, the Superdelicious Cereal! without being too terrified that somehow you've fallen prey to the Red Menace, the Yellow Peril, or, what the fuck, the Blue Meanies.
You can browse through the follow-up Corner posts for yourselves, if you care to -- frankly, I doubt you even have the guts, Star Recruit -- either you're in league with the bugs, or you're only in it for the hawt shower scenes.
It's all very tedious but for myself I'm struck by the odd coexistence on the part of the NatRev Krew of, on the one hand, a contempt for the pointy-headed Hollyweird traitors, and on the other, an inane reverence for the notion that action movies and superhero flicks must always convey Deep Moral Lessons.
I confess that I like action movies and superhero flicks. Late Capitalism may be ringing in the ruin of the human race, but there sure is some tasty shit laid out up there on the buffet table, and why not have some yummy snacks before we go? But that hardly means that I'm willing to concede that the people who make action films or superhero flicks are even remotely qualified to teach either me or my kids anything about morality or World Historical Events.
This doesn't mean that I think the people who make these films are morons -- quite the opposite; making even a shitty movie requires a kind of ingenuity I lack. Rather, it means that I think the people who make action and superhero movies are (a) confused about moral and political events, and (b) constrained by all sorts of material, marketplace, and ideological forces, only some of which they fully apprehend -- you know, just like the rest of us. But unlike the rest of us, they can still put some kickass shit on the big screen and sell some popcorn! Hence, say, The Dark Knight, a moral and ideological mess that I liked watching (at least once) even though its much-touted "meaning" and "relevance" founder on the rocks of it not making a whole lot of sense.
But to the NatRev NitWits, you always have the obsession with whether or not a film is Liberal (boo) or Conservative (yay), even though Jonah Goldberg concedes he likes The Graduate and is generously able to forgive its unfortunate Bakuninite tendencies.
Why, if I didn't know better, I'd suspect these folks' sensibilities were shaped by Rambo and Red Dawn far more than their limited self-awareness allows, and now they're desperately trying to figure out why that shit doesn't square so much with, you know, the rules of behavior in the 21st century. That it was also inane in the 1980s might come as a surprise to them, so shh.
MORE. I retract. There is, I learn, a wingnut willingness to proselytize certain deep lessons of direct-to-video Disney knockoffs. Though I say, as a parent of about 560 children at last count, my kids don't get to watch anything that isn't directly Milne-derived, motherfucker, and that if I was going to mix Orwell and Milne, I'd come up with some far more entertaining shit than that pablum. Tigger with the nuclear honeypot, Rabbit as bin Laden! HOW'S THAT FOR A FUCKING BLUSTERY DAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
MAS. Incidentally, belligerent obscenity-laced shirt-doffing is the only reason I am a Mets fan at all, and I see no good whatsoever that might come of the latest pretense towards baseball-related competence. It is all very distressing.