PREMIERE

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Super hero movies might save the box office, but they fail fans of good movies.

That’s because movies based on comic book super heroes are the worst of Hollywood’s modern genres. These flashy passion plays that celebrate the redeeming powers of violence are more loathsome than torture porn, fratboy fart operas, or mopey boomer spawn tearjerkers. The brooding, misunderstood heroes are boring. The erotic, computer generated fisticuffs between demigods is boring.  The secret identities, costume fetishes, and the super powers – the grappling-hook bazookas, and lightening sneezes and berserker gorilla rages – are boring. The genre is exhausted. And this is coming from a dude who is currently plowing through three comic book series (Ex Machina, The Walking Dead, and Top Ten.)

The best days of the super hero movie are now past.

Movies lie, which is today’s important public service announcement. And science has proof!

Romantic comedies, those frothy multiplex mainstays with their happy ends, are ruining actual love lives, according to a recent survey. Of 1,000 Australians polled, almost half admitted that fictional film romances have influenced their own relationship expectations.
 
There are a couple ways of interpreting this sociological data. For one, it suggests that modern civilizations are increasingly unable to separate reality from fantasy. Sophisticated, media-saturated societies are producing entitled, impatient narcissists who feel betrayed when life doesn’t unfold tidily, favorably, or according to a simplistic, predetermined script.

There’s one more conclusion:

The title says it all.

The Pitch:

Two long-time NYPD partners—the seasoned Bruce Willis and the emotional Tracy Morgan—sort out a host of personal problems while going up against a Latin drug cartel.

What It Really Is: Proof that Kevin Smith doesn’t know how to direct a movie. We were pulling for the big guy, stepping out of his comfort zone to direct a script that wasn’t his, but this is an unforgivable piece of shit. Positioned as an homage to great 80s action-comedy-buddy flicks, this fails on every possible level. It’s not funny as a comedy and it’s not exciting as an action flick. This is one of those movies they probably had a blast shooting, but viewers are completely excluded from that fun since we only get what’s on the screen. It feels like a string of deleted scenes, Willis barely manages to care, and Morgan SHOUTS THE ENTIRE TIME. Some people might find that amusing, we wanted to punch our speakers. The lone bright spot is Seann William Scott as a hapless burglar, but even his spacey demeanor couldn’t save this abortion of our favorite childhood movies.

Completely Unjustifiable:

Lately the Web has been abuzz with people referring to a new Xbox 360 glitch as “the red-dot-of-death.” Not true. The real real red-dot-of-death is a gun with a laser sight, targeting a victim moments before a killshot. It’s often used as a gimmick, or for shooters with bad aim (Dirty Harry never needed one), but it almost always provides an on-screen thrill. This is why Predators chose to close the trailer with Adrien Brody being showered in red dots, only to disappoint film-goers by not having it in the actual film.

(WTF, Robert Rodriguez? That’s cheap and you know it.) But here are 12 flicks that don’t skimp on the red. 

You want me to make you an amazing list about movie mystics? Poof! You’re an amazing list about movie mystics.

You know what the difference is between a sorcerer and a wizard? There isn’t one. Nerd debate over. (I’m talking to you @DarthDungeonMaster) Much the way a sub sandwich is a hero is a grinder, a sorcerer is a wizard is a warlock is a necromancer is a shaman. There’s no need to be gender specific either: a sorceress is a witch.

Movies are magic, which might explain why there are so many magical characters in them. Hollywood loves them. Disney’s new teen action flick The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is nothing but. It stars Jay Baruchel as the title character and Nicolas Cage as his magical mentor. They’re not on this list of memorable screen mystics. Yet. Check back in a few years. Who am I missing? That’s right. No one.

Ed Norton won’t be reprising the role of Bruce Banner in Joss Whedon’s upcoming movie The Avengers, the super sequel that will weave together Marvel Comic’s characters from multiple blockbusters including Iron Man, and the upcoming Thor and Captain America.

Norton did a fine job playing the role of Bruce Banner in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. He was cerebral, heroic, and simmering with rage. But according to a spokesman for Marvel Studios, Ed Norton just wasn’t enough of a team player. The blog chatter paints Norton as either a meddlesome diva, or die-hard fan.

Either way, he will not be playing the famous victim of gamma ray radiation.