I'm a bit of a fanboy, and a huge fan of a number of minor superheroes, including Green Lantern.

But movies? Of Sub-Mariner and Green Lantern? And Thor? Thor? After "Adventures in Babysitting," there is simply nothing more to for cinema to say about the superhero Thor. And why Sub-Mariner and Green Lantern but not, say, Ant-Man and Blue Beetle? How does "The Tick" get cancelled on minor-network TV but Sub-Mariner gets greenlighted for a feature film?

If we can't get Peter Jackson to direct a four-part adaptation of "Watchmen," or a movie based on the late-1980s J.M. DeMatties comedy version of Justice League, then why the heck are we bothering with any more superhero movies at all?

What we need is a superhero whose mission it is to bring justice to the comic-book-Hollywood industrial complex.

I've read that Dark Knight clocks in over two-and-a-half hours long, which is about half as long as I wish it would be.  It looks awesome.

I think it could work.  I've always thought of old Cap as a happy warrior and casting someone with a sense of humor would probably help. Its not like they're talking Owen Wilson!

I read today that Marvel is planning a movie around Ant-Man.  Ant-Man!  Okay, within the context of the Avengers, sure.  But I'm amazed how Thor, let alone ANT-MAN! is supposed to carry a whole movie.  

I'm not a huge Captain America fan, but Matthew McConaughey in that role would be like casting Ashton Kutcher as Batman.  Oy.

Downey wasn't cast against type. Tony Stark was a well known drunk in the Marvel Universe.

Rhubarbs - I think Green Lantern is strong enough to carry a movie, but what I'd really rather see is The Brave and the Bold - G.L. and the Flash.  Always loved the Flash.

I agree, Sub-Mariner is just....baffling.  Would he even work cinematically in a third Fantastic Four movie?  Possibly, but I can't see it.

The key with a good superhero movie isn't just the hero though - you have to have a memorable villain, preferably someone mainstream audiences are familiar with.  Anyone who's heard of Batman has heard of the Joker.  Are people going to plop down 10 bucks to watch Green Lantern square off with Sinestro?  Or Thor fight....hell, I don't even know who Thor fights!  One of the reasons the FF franchise has been so crappy (one, by far not the only one) is the half-assed way they've tried to make Dr. Doom some regular guy with an alter ego, just because Julian McMahon is so gosh darned dashing, I suppose.

Okay, that's my contribution to the nation's finest journal of politics and the arts for the day.

For Captain America, maybe they could get Owen Wilson to play the Red Skull.

'Hey, dude, eat shield!'

'Whoa, dude, uncool!'

Then again, when is Hollywood going to come out with a comicbook movie based on Baby Huey?

Re: aliens in "Indiana Jones," why is it that the physical appearances of 99.9% of all aliens, monsters, et al. reflect bilateral symmetry? Haven't designers heard of French curves (let alone fractals)? I mean, they might as well just throw a sheet over somebody and cut out a couple holes for the eyes. They think having the damn thing drip snot all over the place is compelling.

That's why most of this crap just puts me to sleep: simple decisions that drive a film's core ideas show exactly zero imagination and even fewer balls.

Fantasy/SF movies and porn, once two of my favorite hobbies, have both been dumbed down so low their mamas must've replaced B12 and folic acid with crack and WPLJ when they were in utero. They're strictly special-needs genres at this point.

George Lucas.  Geeeoooooorge Lucas.  Ruiner of epic sci-fi.  Promoter of Natalie Portman as actress.  Creator of Jar Jar.  George.  Buddy.  Pal.

Keep your goddamned hack hands OFF Indiana Jones.  We already had to suffer through Kate Capshaw.  The last thing we need is additional scenes in "Raiders" featuring a computer-generated Sean Connery discussing theology with extra-terrestrial Oxford dons, or something.  You suck.  End of rant.

Oh, also, please release the un-fucked-up early versions of the original "Star Wars" trilogy on DVD.

And, finally, re: superhero movies, I think I'm alone in liking the third X-men, since it was closest to what I really want.  Minimal plot.  Familiar characters.  Mutants wailing on each other with kick-ass powers for two hours.  True, they screwed up the whole Phoenix story arc, but if it got rid of Famke Janssen's whiny, twitchy Jean Grey, then it was worth it.

Ashton Kutcher as Batman - Ashton Kutcher in Latex with erect nipples - Ashton Kutcher wrapped in a leather cape - Ashton Kutcher dressed in black tights - hmmm

Um, ah, what were y'all talking about?  Superheros?  

WilliamYard: even monsters have to be appealing, and nonsymmetrical monsters would not be appealing.  I mean, people go see Alien for the monster-within-the-monster (and I am not referring to Sigourney) and are captivated by the beautiful summetry of her appearance.  If you had a head sticking out of the side (like Richard E. Grant in "How to Get Ahead in Advertising"), rather than from inside the mouth, they would not be fun to look at.  And the action figures wouldn't sell, either.

icarusr,

I take it, then, that you are not a fan of the greatest asymmetrical-monster/thingee film of all time. I refer of course to "The Thing With Two Heads," with white bigot Ray Milland's head glued aside death-row brutha Rosey Grier's.

Subtle acting, heart-wrenching poignancy, classic ethical tension, topical social commentary, state-of-the-art special effects, uplifting message, utterly plausible plot...and asymmetrical! TTWTH is truly one of cinema's great, yet strangely unheralded, achievements.

Adaglas: An Ant  - Man movie??  Riotous posts, williamyard. A classic, "The Thing With Two Heads", especially the motorcycle jump.

adaglas, fear not.  There's an Ant-Man film already in production: www.imdb.com/.../tt0478970

Marvel I guess was the main production company behind Iron Man (which was really good, but not great).  They're going to use their newfound juice to revive much of the Avengers over the next decade or so.  

Good times.  

Well I figured they were planning to use Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor this year to set up the Avengers franchise.  But do they need to bankroll an individual project for every single member?  Is America lining up for 90 minutes of Hawkeye, Wasp, Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver?  

Two words, adaglas, two words:

Moon Knight.

With box-office gold like that just waiting to be produced, it's time to move Marvel stock to "strong buy."

adaglass, if I had the keys to the Scarlet Witch "franchise", I'd probably drop Vision in there too, and really go for an R rating with the whole "sex with alien androids" angle.

WY: sadly, never seen it - and I am a Ray Milland fan.  Especially when he played Sire Uri in the old, cheesy version of Battlestar Galactica.  I mean, is he not a man of our age, with a line like this: "Warriors are always the last to recognize the inevitability of change"?

Any way, I guess we have different conceptions of symmetry: "white bigot Ray Milland's head glued aside death-row brutha Rosey Grier's" sounds perfectly symmetrical to me, kinda like W and Condi, Cheney and Powell, Hillary and Bill, Hillary and McCain, etc.

OMG...Yard. I can't believe you brought out 'The Thing with Two Heads' as counterpoint to 'How to Get A Head In Advertising'. That movie is perhaps one of the best worst movies I've every had the pleasure of seeing on VHF late at night. Of course, having seen it and How to Get A head...yeah at least twice...I'd have to say my favorite all-time asymmetrical monster is of course...Basketcase. Belail didn't even have the luxury of a full body! And damn if I didn't have a fear of picnic baskets for a long, long time.

Be that as it may...I'd say that we really need a proper remake of the serial comic hero Flash Gordon. It never got the respect it deserved with those stunning special effects, the soundtrack by Queen, and one of the hottest, exotic off-world evil babes to turn good...Ornella Muti. Max Von Sydow as Ming is, in my opinion, one of the best renderings of a megalomaniac on the big screen. The hard part would be who plays Ming?

So, where's that Dazzler adaptation?

Rhubarbs --  No need to wait for Peter Jackson. Zack Snyder (300) is now making what's by all accounts an obsessively faithful Watchment movie:

www.imdb.com/.../tt0409459

Wow.  We're all letting our fanboy flags fly today.

I suppose this destroys any notion that in real life we're a bunch of lantern-jawed quarterbacks who spend our spare time tuning our Italian sports cars.  

Ant-Man will be directed by the guy that made Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so it will most likely be a better movie than the character's second-string status implies.

Single: Max von Sydow could play a Ming dynasty vase and he would still out act anyone on screen.

My not MvS again?  He's still alive ...

icarusr..you are 100% right. I mean if Harrison Ford can do a geriatric Indiana Jones, then Max can still do Ming. He's got the voice, he's got the look and hell I still find his roll as Brewmeister Smith in Strange Brew to be another example of his evil acting capabilities. And he won't fall into that parody of himself trap like a Jack Nicholson would.

drdannyu...I'll have you know my lantern-jawed visage spends time tuning the Italian racing bicycle I sally to and 'fro on whilst wearing my vintage spandex cycling kit. I just leave the cape at home for the long rides.

ejbenjamin, since the guy that made those two movies is amazingly skilled at crafting films that are simultaneously fantastic parodies of genre films and fantastic examples of same in their own right, I look forward to Ant-Man.

Two more words, Rhubarbs:  Martin Manhunter.  The perfect DC counterpunch.

Hey Drdan, speak for yourself.  Personally, I'm the stud of my local comic book shop.  And if you don't think the ladies swoon when I recite "In brightest day, in blackest night," well, you've got another thing coming my friend.

dan,

I'm not so much lantern-jawed as frozen-Cornish-game-hen-jawed, assuming the hen accidentally fell out of the bag and rolled over to the curb so it's no longer symmetrical. And, rather than Italian sports car, think Hitachi Magic Wand.

As for Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Buckwheat et al., you'll have to query (?) them out individually.

Sonofagun, a Watchmen adaptation....thanks for pointing that out J.J. I have high hopes.

I think Max von Sydow would be an excellent Ant-Man (or Ant-Person, if Hillary is elected).

According to Wikipedia, von Sydow is 137 years old and still masturbates daily. Those are the qualities you're looking for in an ant.

Another possibility is some really really rich actor (Cruise, Pitt, Clooney, etc.). He wouldn't actually have to make the movie; the "producers" could just flash the number of a post office box in the trailer and instead of going to the theater or adding the film to our NetFlix list we could just send money to the P.O. box, which would save everybody a lot of time.

I had no idea Robert Downey Jr was capable of looking so yummy!

Loved every second of Iron Man, bring on the Ants...

I had no idea Robert Downey Jr was capable of looking so yummy! Scrumptious.  The unconventional yet wonderful casting was the Dude as a fit, bald, wicked coporate monster.  Brill.

Loved every second of Iron Man, bring on the Ants...Ant Men, Ant People - whatever they have, roll it out.