Martin Scorsese is no stranger to gangster films populated by many dishonorable characters in seedy locations, scurrying around in the dark, power-playing for any (and all) loose change and on the even looser morality of their depraved circles. Starting with 1973’s Mean Streets and later reworking the turf in the 1990s with Goodfellas and Casino, Scorsese’s examinations into the gangster lifestyle have no doubt been artistically fruitful for him, as he has been better able–or, perhaps more appropriately, more willing–to show the brutal realities perpetuated by members of the underworld. And yet, in this place of double crosses and deceptions (all for the intention of looking out for number one), as outlandish as it seems, a certain code of “noble” behavior becomes hopelessly entangled in the proceedings: that, at the very least, disreputable people ought to have the common decency to live up to that reliable classification and not turn out to be backstabbers–rats–working against fellow low lives. It’s a fascinating quandary, both absurd and unsettling to behold, and it’s one that Scorsese brings to the forefront in his (only) Oscar-winning film The Departed.

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Matthew Vaughn is adapting the comic book “The Golden Age” by Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards, and he wants some fucking starpower to do it. The comic book is about a group of retired superheroes who have to once again don the cloak to help out their grandkids when their own children fuck up the world, and Vaughn wants some big boppers to fill the roles. Atop his wishlist are “Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and Warren Beatty.”

To dream!

Thoughts? Me? Meh. I’ve seen this concept done to death in the funny books themselves, and Watchmen already took a cinematic dump on the motif.