News Snapshot:
The fourth installment of the action movie franchise The Expendables arrived in theaters on Sept. 22, under a ridiculous title, Expend4bles. But the film’s tagline, splashed in bold sans serifs across the lobby poster, is pure poetry: “They’ll die when they’re dead.” It is a koan, the kind of metaphysical puzzle you could spend years pondering. It’s also a wisecrack about The Expendables series, whose titular heroes, a group of well-muscled mercenaries led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), are subjected in scene after scene to outrageous violence—beatings, stabbings, assault rifle fusillades, car and train and plane crashes, and bomb detonations,...
