Look at these jowly, bearded, T-shirt-wearing lowlifes…here they are, the joyful, good-natured fanboys whose appetites have helped to degrade if not destroy the commerciality of adult-angled, quality-aspiring theatrical cinema over the last decade or so. You know…movies about actual human beings and their lives…stories that don’t involve CG or super-powers or flying around or destroying cities?

You can chuckle or shrug your shoulders and say “whatever” about the 31-hour Marvel movie marathon that began four days ago at Manhattan’s AMC 25, and ended Thursday evening with a screening of Avengers: Infinity War. Justa buncha goobers having a good time, right? Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger (my second favorite Marvel flick after Ant-Man), The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Spider Man: Homecoming and Black Panther. Sleeping bags, energy bars, spare iPhone batteries, water bottles.

But these are the bad guys — slap-happy geeks whose tastes and ticket-buying power have re-shaped and all but poisoned the theatrical realm, congregating at a kind of ground zero movie temple. Yes, HE-favored films still play at the plexes between October and December. Yes, civilized cinema can still be found here and there. And when that doesn’t work, it’s simply a matter of flopping onto the couch and watching cable and streaming in this, a golden era for home-viewing.

About the marathon itself, here’s (a) a 4.27 N.Y. Times piece by Jason Bailey and (b) a David Ehrlich Indiewire piece about the same, also posted on 4.27.