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Comic book Oscars!

Tony Stark

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I hope this is the right place for this, mods you can move it if you need.

However I couldn't help notice with the Oscar nominations today, how many "comic book" movie actors either currently or in the past are getting recognized for their work. It just goes to show that comic book movies are no longer "B stock" films but how seriously the film makers are taking these movies.

Just from this year, James Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Jeremy Renner and of course Jeff Bridges. And IMO, Andrew Garfield got screwed because he should have been nominated for the Social Network.

In the past we've had Robert Downey Jr., Willam Dafoe, Michael Caine, Frank Langella, Halle Berry, Ian McKellum, Gene Hackman, Michael Keaton, Marlon Brando and Heath Ledger, among others.

Now I'm probably missing several names, but the great thing in all of this is that the quality of actors has gone up in these films, and the seriousness in tone of these films has gone up. I still love the original Superman, but there are parts of it, that are done with quite a bit of camp. Still, it's somewhat of the gold standard for Super hero movies. I don't mean that every film has to mimic that formula, but really it was the first time a major production on one of these characters was done, and was taken seriously.

Now we are seeing more and more of the actors in these current crop of films getting recognized for their work, with the big breakthrough being Heath Ledger because he actually was the first to win in a performance for a comic book movie.

I think that Iron Man 1 and The Dark Knight both pushed the bar for comic book films. There is an expectation now that we don't want camp, we want these characters taken seriously, and we want to see the characters treated with the respect that all the writers and artists of the source material took them with.

Just in my lifetime I've seen a change in attitude toward Superheros. When I was a kid, it was considered by most, throw away material. But now this is our "Greek Mythology", it's a part of the American culture, and culture all around the world.

When Superman 1 was made, I don't think anyone would have thought of making a movie like the Dark Knight or Iron Man. They would have been laughed out of the boardroom.
 

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