Matt Zoler Seitz has a fascinating interview with director, film historian Peter Bogdanovich up on RogerEbert.com. It's definitely worth a read, at the very least for Bogdanovich's incredible insight on Buster Keaton, silent cinema and the changes in American movies today. Bogdanovich thinks that the current crop of superhero flicks ravaging the silver screen today will age very badly over time. With the exception of "The Dark Knight," and a few other minor entertainments, I can't help but believe that he is correct in his assumption.
A few noteworthy quotes:
"I remember [Alfred] Hitchcock once telling me in that most movies are just pictures of people talking. Now you have movies that are just people being blown up, like in a lot of these superhero pictures. I don't even know what to say about that."
"I don't think there's any question that things have gotten worse. It's gotten even harder to get movies into theaters that are about recognizable people. There are so many of these superhero movies, various kinds of cartoon movies, that I have no interest in. Obviously, I'm alone in that opinion, because the movies make a lot of money! But they aren't of interest to me."
"I think a lot of them are going to date very badly, particularly the superhero movies, though I know people don't want to hear that."