While everyone is showering praise on comic book movies like LOGAN and BLACK PANTHER and wondering what will happen in the next AVENGERS movie, Ethan Hawke is basically living as a walking-talking “not impressed” meme. LOGAN, in particular, got some of the best reviews of any comic book movie and became the first to get nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars, but Hawke thinks it isn’t anything more than a “fine superhero movie.”
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The star of this year’s FIRST REFORMED and JULIET, NAKED talked about superhero movies during an interview with Film Stage, where shared his thoughts on why he thinks there needs to be a differentiation between superhero movies and "real" movies
“Now we have the problem that they tell us Logan is a great movie,” he said. “Well, it’s a great superhero movie. It still involves people in tights with metal coming out of their hands. It’s not Bresson. It’s not Bergman. But they talk about it like it is.”
Now, the interview itself probably took place inside some average building, but I can imagine Hawke came upon this thought of his while circling a small spoon inside an espresso cup resting on a small saucer in front of a Parisian café.
He continued, saying the only reason we as simple-minded audience members think LOGAN is a great movie is because the big business folks behind it want us to think it is.
“I went to see ‘Logan’ ‘cause everyone was like, ‘This is a great movie’ and I was like, ‘Really? No, this is a fine superhero movie.’ There’s a difference, but big business doesn’t think there’s a difference. Big business wants you to think that this is a great film because they wanna make money off of it.”
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Hawke, a notable figure in the world of independent filmmaking, can have any opinion he wants about any movie, but when he belittles other people's opinions and love for a movie, simply because he thinks the genre is somehow lesser, he starts to come off as smug. Pretentiousness and art-house elitism ooze off his words. We can go off on this topic all day, but the fact of the matter is people will be remembering and dissecting these movies for years and years to come, and I don't think they’ll do that for what are simply "fine superhero movies."