Read This: The Onion’s A.V. Club Likes ‘The Rocketeer,’ Loves America

November 1, 2008

Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Disney, Comic/Superhero/Geek

If you’re a regular reader of on the internet film criticism, then chances are you’re already aware of the super-sharp crew over at The Onion’s A.V. Club, and if indeed you are, then you know that these guys can put together a mean motion picture retrospective, with titles ranging from this day all the way back to the mid-’90s. (I kid, I kid; Scott Tobias’ The New Cult Canon did get around to the likes of I Am Cuba.)

An equally fascinating recurring feature is Nathan Rabin’s My Year of Flops, and the opening paragraphs to this week’s entry on 1991’s The Rocketeer are among the strongest testament to that column, that critic, and that team that I’ve read to date. Here’s a taste:

“Anyone who tells you the appeal of moviegoing isn’t at least partially voyeuristic is a goddamned liar and should be punched in the face repeatedly. We go to the movies in no small part to watch uncommonly beautiful people woo, romance, or reject other preternaturally fetching creatures in photogenic settings. As a young boy, I embraced movies as a socially acceptable way of looking at boobs. The fact that films were capable of art and truth was a neat bonus.”

It only gets more graphic from there — in all the ideal ways, natch — before Rabin finally settles down to the film at hand (which just dashed up my Netflix Queue from the relative depths). Regardless, isn’t that paragraph alone really just… something else?