Ethan Hawke just had a great interview with The Film Stage. He talked about his acting lengthy career -- including his early jealousy of Christian Bale, his non-McConaughey moment, River Phoenix, the Oscars, another "Before" movie, his new movie "First Reformed," and the necessity of film festivals.

But it's Hawke's comment on James Mangold's "X-Men" movie "Logan," and superhero movies in general, that got the most attention.

That part of the Q&A came toward the very end. Here's that section, and the preceding paragraph as a lead-in:

"I’m always astonished, I’m sure you are too, you can go on Apple TV now and see that Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow made a movie together that I never heard of. What? And like, Matt Damon’s in a Clint Eastwood movie I never heard of? So many things get lost in the cracks and if those big names are getting lost, where are the 'Gattacas' of right now? It might be like other art forms where it might take 50 years to curate what’s happening right now. That’s why film festivals have become so important because you guys at film festivals are like curators of, like, what does the world need to be paying attention to. What should be seen? If we didn’t have these festivals, big business would crush all these smaller movies.

Now we have the problem that they tell us 'Logan' is a great movie. 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. 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."

The fact that Hawke brought up "Logan" himself for a public shaming -- and then brought up directors Robert Bresson and Ingmar Bergman as comparisons -- ruffled a lot of feathers. He came off, to some, as being a pretentious film snob, dismissing superhero movies en masse.

("Logan" was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2018 Academy Awards, as the first live-action superhero film ever nominated for screenwriting.)

Social media took the comments and ran with them, debating both sides of the superhero issue again:

 

Well, it sure sparked a lot of conversation for something that couldn't matter less.

Meanwhile, Ethan Hawke's "First Reformed" arrived on DVD/Blu-ray/Digital on August 21.

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