Zack Snyder's SUPERMAN

[Chris Knipp]

That's interesting. Including the economics. But you're talking about adults. Where do kids stand with comics today? They can't afford them, I guess. When I was seven I fell heir to several large piles of comics from the older boy I used to hang out with and go rowing on the creed with. Free. I think I bought Classics Illustrated comic books when I was a few years older, for a while. It was through Tom Mahone that I experienced superman and Crime Does Not Pay comics. What I liked about the latter was that they made it look like crime did pay. When comics started to become valuable I wished I had held onto some of them but I'm sure I just threw them away.

The old artists and creators like Will Eisner and Jack Kirby probably have gotten the shaft financially. I'd have to look it up.

Please do.

Those comedies you list don't appeal to me, except Mall Rats and Silent Bob. I like Smith. I haven't watched South Park. AsI mentioned I grew up with the British black and white Ealing comedies, the best of which, often with Alec Guinness, are much more than comedies, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Flannel Suit. I love classic English films of all genres, Carol Reed, The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, early Hitchcock. Unfortunately English films have gone somewhat downhill since the Seventies or so when the Angry Young Man and Kitchen Sink films drew notice, and some of John Schlesinger. I love Sunday Bloody Sunday. If you count Neil Jordan, who is Irish, as English (some are set in England), there are some great ones like Mona Lisa. And there are some good gangster movies, like The Long Good Friday, with Bob Hoskins (1980). But their great period was earlier as with the Italians.

Of course The Big Lebowski is a classic but it's not my favorite Coens movie.

Hot Tub Time Machine. Must watch that. It was highly recommended to me by Beto, one of my consultants on pop movies. He said it is very funny.

The Apatow comedies. They have to be watched simply because they are an essential expression of the zeitgeist. And some of them like Superbad and Knocked Up are actually a lot of fun to watch. Apatow was brilliant at the beginning with his TV series, Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, the seeds of what came after.

Opting out of rom-coms cuts you out of a large segment of Hollywood movies. I often enjoy them. (How about Kick-Ass. That's listed as a comedy. Some violent movies are also comedies.)

Many or most rom-coms I do not find that memorable, or even bother to see. But I see a fair number and they are not only enjoyable, and light, and fun, but another expression of the zeitgeist. Some I have watched, liked (or at least not hated) in recent years:

Wedding Crashers (2005)
Hitch (2005)
Knocked Up (2007)
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
What Happens in Vegas (2008)
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)
The Proposal (2009)
He's Just Not That Into You (2009)
It's Complicated (2009)
Killers (2010)
Going the Distance (2010)
Love and Other Drugs (2010)
How Do You Know (2010
No Strings Attached (2011)

A lot of it has to do with the actors. I would watch anything with Will Smith, Jake Gyllenhaal, or Astton Kutcher in it. No String Attached (Friends with Benefits is coming, with Timberlake) has a plot gimmick but is totally predictable: but it has Natalie Portman. She tends to be unexpected and delightful in almost every role. NOTE: American rom-coms are only a tiny fraction of the new moveis I see, most of which are in series and festivals, despite hitting the regular release circuit as much as I can.