Movie superheroes miss their Jewish roots; a hard Italian winter en route from the USSR to America

Follow Tablet Magazine: July 21, 2011   U.S. Debt Default Could Threaten Israel Bonds And Rep. Cantor is a crucial player in the negotiations Daybreak: Europe in Charge of Peace Plus Levi Aron indicted, schmucks, and more in the news TFA in TLV With school out for summer, U.S. teachers head to Israel The Semi-Free City of Hama But the Syrian regime and its domestic opponents share a view of Israel More from THE SCROLL Superbad Recent superhero movies—the Green Lantern, Thor, even the reboot of Superman—are terrible. The solution? Hollywood should get back to the source material and make these heroes more Jewish. BY JACOB SILVERMAN Pity the comic-book fan who, with plucky optimism, skips to the movie theater to see one of this summer's superhero flicks, only to leave two-and-a-half hours later with a CGI-induced hangover. Green Lantern was a travesty—you could feel the producers looming just off-camera, pleading with whatever fallen deities they pray to that this overdone stew of a movie would earn enough money to enable a franchise. Thor had moments of levity, and its star, Chris Hemsworth, appears to know his way around a Shake Weight, but the title character and his brother Loki seemed more like cosseted brats than Norse immortals locked in fratricidal conflict. Captain America, which will be released this Friday, is directed by Joe Johnston, a man who would probably rather forget the aughts (when he brought us Jurassic Park III, Hidalgo, and The Wolfman), and stars an actor, Chris Evans, whose best performance—by far—was a 10-minute cameo as an imbecilic action star in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Need we even bother? More Our Heroes What if movie superheroes—Thor, Wolverine, The Fantastic Four, and Captain America—got in touch with their Jewish roots? More BY MIKE REDDY AND LIEL LEIBOVITZ Southwest Passage Leaving the Soviet Union in 1989, my mother and I took the so-called Passage of Guilt through Italy, waiting for permission to enter America. Surviving a Southern European winter was the hard part. More BY NIKITA NELIN This email was sent to you by Tablet Magazine. To ensure delivery to your inbox, please add digest@tabletmag.com to your address book. To unsubscribe to this email, reply to this email with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line. Tablet Magazine | 37 West 28th Street, 8th floor | New York, NY 10001 Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend