The least interesting thing about superheroes are pretty much always the superheroes. Superhero comics are endlessly juvenile power fantasies, which makes their continued patronage by old men (like myself) all the more embarrassing. But what people like Alan Moore realized years ago was that the most interesting things about superheroes are what they say about us.
A friend sent me a link to a very great trailer for a very interesting movie called Special, which played at Sundance this year. In the film Michael Rapaport plays not yet another jive talking honkey but rather a man who has a bad reaction to his medication and becomes convinced that he’s a superhero. I enjoyed the first half of the trailer, with its Hot Butter soundtrack and great supporting actors, but when the second half hit I was sold. It features Rapaport’s character meeting his superhero altar ego from the future, and I knew that the guys behind this film had to be real comic book fans to stick that wonderful trope in there.
Keep your eyes peeled for more info on Special as we get it – it’s a movie that I’m pretty psyched about.
Check out the trailer for yourself at http://www.specialthemovie.com/index.html.