Seen any good movies lately? How about Aquaman? Or Spider-Man? Who is excited for the upcoming release, Captain Marvel? Or the upcoming release, Hellboy? Hey, anyone got some poison, for me to drink, to gain sweet release?
Once upon a time comic books were a subculture for nerds. Today comic books are just a huge scratchpad of ideas for Hollywood. All of these superheroes are an endless well of #content that will haunt our movie screens, forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, until no movie can be made unless it is either about a comic book super hero, about a group of super heroes from different imaginary universes, about a new super hero, or about a “dark” version of a super hero to prove that super heroes aren’t just for kids, they are also for grown-ups who like sex and drinking and suicide and other “dark” topics, okay.
None of these super heroes are even real. It’s all made up garbage.
It’s one thing when they were making one damn Batman movie as a lark and it was kind of a quirky thing to see in the midst of all the other regular movies. Nowadays it’s choosing between the Batman movie and Superman movie and Spider-Man movie and Wonder Woman movie and Captain America movie and Avengers and several other, made-up super heroes, when all you really want to see is a real move for grown-ups and I don’t mean porn. I mean a regular kind of movie that doesn’t involve a comic book character flying and throwing trucks around. A real movie. But no, you can’t, because marketing analysts and film studios have determined that Americans, who are very simple people, will all come out and watch super-hero movies, which already have a built-in brand recognition.
Way to be a pawn in a game of marketing metrics, American moviegoers. Great job idiots.
“Hey, what do you have against super hero movies, I really like [INSERT LITERALLY ANY ONE HERE—DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER].” Here’s what I have against them: I have a brain. They’re all the same. There’s a super hero, they have challenges, there’s a villain, in the end they beat the villain. Blah blah blah. Don’t you ever get tired of the same plot being grafted onto cartoon characters aided by $100 million worth of CGI, for christ’s sake? Are we all doomed to spend the rest of our lives lined up at multiplexes to watch a muscly guy, then a charming “normal” guy, then a beautiful woman adopt various personas made up by comic book people decades ago? Will we ever be able to watch a movie again in which someone does not wear a latex suit and mask? Is that too much to freaking ask? You bastards?
“Hey, you don’t even understand the DC vs. Marvel divide, and....” I beg you to shut up now. I will do anything for a moment’s peace.
Why another super hero movie? Why not a movie about a baker who’s famous for making the best bread in town—until a competing baker with a dark secret opens up right next door? Why not a movie about the people who work in a cell phone store and their surprisingly complex personal lives? Why not a movie about a dog that digs up a dead body and drags it into the middle of a child’s birthday party? Why not a movie about hot air balloonists stranded in the Sahara? Why not a movie about a harrowing prison escape by two men chained together by a sadistic guard? Why not a movie about a homeless former exterminator? Or a teacher at a clown school? Or a motorcycle that learns to speak due to magical realism? You may be shocked to learn that I just made up all these ideas in about forty seconds. It ain’t so hard. Take a memo, Hollywood chieftains: there’s plenty of ideas out there, just waiting to be featured on the big screen. But we’ll never get to see them, because the money is all going to produce a $647 million version of when the Silver Surfer Meets The Riddler (In Space).
One of the top ways to know that super hero movies are dumb is that our website Dead Spin has an entire private chat room where they spend hours of the work day dissecting these types of movies as if they have real plots, or are somehow worthy of critical thought. If you were to gaze into this chat room for five minutes you would never again want to see a super hero movie as long as you live, I guarantee it. My own website hired a guy from Dead Spin and all he talks about is Avengers. This is what I am subjected to in the workplace environment, because our culture has become absolutely flooded with cheap opiates and super hero movies, and many people do not feel that they have anything else to talk about it. It is sad, really. I wish that Dead Spin would read a book for once but we can’t hope for that. All we can do, realistically, is to spread the word that comic book movies are such an embarrassing signal of a sick and dying culture that maybe these people will go back to watching sports (a.k.a., doing their actual jobs, which your tax dollars pay for).
But I ain’t holding my breath.
If you know any movie studio execs, please print out this blog post, wrap it around a Molotov cocktail, and throw it through the grand picture window in their Beverly Hills home. As the flames spread across their modern art and Scandinavian furniture, the distressed movie maker will cry out for help. But they need not despair—I’m sure Spider-Man will be here, any moment. At least that’s what I’ve been led to believe.