Guardian are all about Whedon this week.

[ edited by Andy Dufresne on 2012-05-12 20:35 ]

Andy Dufresne | May 12, 20:31 CET

They really are. At least this article had a point, unlike that pointless fluff about his "miracle year".

TheHellOfItAll | May 12, 20:45 CET

I like the cut of the author's jib. Witty.

viewingfigures | May 12, 20:49 CET

At first I thought that this was a bit of a filler article - a desperate bit to have anything related to the Avengers. But it wasn't bad; witty and interesting in parts. Perhaps I had forgotten it, but the Walter Benjamin quote was unfamiliar. In context, perhaps it is more plausible, but, while striking, I don't think it is correct. It isn't self-alienation that enables us to enjoy the representation of our own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure. On the contrary, it is surely a healthy sense of who and what we are that keeps our fascination with death and destruction alive. And which fuels our need to try to make something meaningful out of it.

Maclay | May 12, 21:03 CET

My wife pointed out that New York got wiped out in I Am Legend and The Day After Tomorrow. Two mainstream disaster movies which got released after 9/11.

Simon | May 12, 22:54 CET

Uh, I think Sacha Baron Cohen's "The Dictator" is a lot more fearless in regard to 9/11. Just because there's an aerial battle in New York doesn't mean it's evocative. I mean, I at least didn't see it like that.

WhatsAStevedore | May 12, 23:05 CET

Well, the author kinda admits that the Transformer movies woulda made the point redundant, but that is what made me like the wit so much. Satire rules. K.O.

viewingfigures | May 12, 23:21 CET

Simon, I guess the difference with I Am Legend & The Day After Tomorrow is that they didn't have building blowing up and destroyed like Avengers. I Am Legend had New York abandoned and slowly rotting away with nature taking over. While The Day After Tomorrow had the city hit by a tsunami and then frozen. Both very different imagery from 9/11, which Avengers hits a bit closer but still not quite with alien invasion and superheroes protecting it.

Matt_Fabb | May 13, 07:11 CET

It was mentioned in the article, but I don't actually think we'll get much closer in these types of films than Cloverfield did.

Jaymii | May 13, 13:30 CET

The Cloverfield trailer alone reminded me so much of footage from 9/11 that I couldn't finish watching it.

But I wouldn't mind if movies would stop being mean to NYC in general. Aliens, tsunamis, monsters... geez. ;)

NYPinTA | May 14, 02:24 CET

J. Hoberman is a legend among film critics who was, alas, recently laid off from his long-time home at the Village Voice, which has become less than a shadow of its former self.

bobster | May 14, 18:42 CET