I'm hitting the movie theater opening night to confirm or deny Ebert's two star assessment of the alien in blue and red, Superman Returns. Unluckily, work held me until late, so with a two plus hour running time I'm going to be home with my Earthling darling (and occasional Kryptonite, especially when she melts my heart) Brandi. Luckily, I've got a seat at the rail. It's twenty more minutes until they even start rolling the ads and I'm within striking distance of the skinny comic book kid who thinks he's hilarious because he can quote the entire Superman oevre and blend it seamlessly with his infinite Simpsons wisdom. Even his voice sounds like it has braces. Do other people see me like that? I swear all the reference comedy comes from a less arrogant space. Really?
Oh, now he's telling his date (again, really?) that he can show her all his downloaded, pirated movie clips except that she would have to spend the night in his bedroom. Boy, silk gets jealous that he's so smooth.
"I read enough comic books that I've learned something: my life is a comic book..." ==> direct quote
Good gravy, he's talking about and handing out tips on dating now. Apparently, when he starts seeing women, they can't stick to his plan of keeping things casual and they wind up seeing each other every day. He's looking for a middle ground between friends and marriage. Actually, I think he's looking for middle ground between World of Warcraft and Tomb Raider, a mythical paradise that might also include real live girls wearing revealing outfits.
More pearls of wisdom. How can he still be talking such pap? This time it's Miss Manners' guide to the teenage social scene: "I'm sorry, but texting me on the phone is the least-appropriate thing to do." Okay. Somehow, waxing poetic about how awesome he is with women to the woman he's with falls outside of his irony radar.
"I would rather a singer do bad acting than the other way around." Our friend weighing in on the age-old debate of singing versus acting.
"When you talk about puppets, I'm saying to myself, 'You and I miss marionettes...'" I can't even guess at the context.
I understand at last, what makes bullies go nuts around guys like this (me? Less so, now that I work out.) This guy seriously needs to get hit in the face with a dodgeball. Speaking of! ComedySportz held a "Sportz" rehearsal last night where we played, some of us for the first time since middle school humiliation. Yes, people got hit in the face... accidentally, the thrower felt really bad. Yes, I throw ridiculously bad and catch worse. I'm still replaying the movie in my head of the moment when someone in front of me stepped to the left, dodging/revealing a ball too late for me to do anything. Nailed. Someone on my team caught a ball. Back in, I threw a ball. Caught, handily. Out again. Friend, that is the circle of life. The only thing that suxors about it is that I wanted to be so much better at the game. I've spent more than half of my life since training for some sport or another. It should carry over.
Ads have started. Movie ads are looking more like movies, but they still suck. I can see why people want to move the movie back to the living room. It's sort of a reverse Catholic church. (Footnote: in the early days of Christianity, back when it was a flavor of Judaism and a little after, services were held in the home. How much altar do you need to speak to an infinite being who knows your every movement, hears your every thought? It wasn't until the Council of Nicea when St. Nick consolidated power specifically into churches, in the process deciding what exactly was Jesus' mix of god and human. Churches sprang up.) Okay, you probably should punch me in the face now. I deserve it.
AFTERMATH
The move is sawn. Seen. Whatever. It's over.
Funny moments:
1) Between preview and movie, two guys wedge into the two courtesy seats I left between me and the couple next to me. They talk through the entire movie. But that doesn't bother me because...
2) A family sits down in the seats in front of me about two minutes after the movie starts. They obviously have nowhere else to sit. Also important: they're not that into the idea of sitting still and not talking through the movie. I think the youngest slept through the whole thing. I'm not sure the movie is appropriate for the under-six crowd. There probably should be an age cutoff for Kevin Spacey movies. Otherwise I'm worried they're going to change all the packaging to "Se7en": starring THAT GUY from "Superman Returns". No, not the Namibian love child guy. Not the guy with the freckles. Head guy. Now you're talking.
Anyways, they didn't bother me that much because...
3) Some guy next to me wouldn't stop sneezing/coughing and he wouldn't cover his mouth. And any fan of Kevin Spacey movies remembers that moment in "Outbreak" when you follow Ebola-esque germs from cougher to all the other people in the movie theater. Remember? Anyone?
Anyways, that didn't bother me that much either because...
4) The movie deserved two stars, maybe less. Ever have a talented friend take himself way too seriously? He's a good artist but all of a sudden he treats every napkin doodle like the Sistine Chapel? That's this movie. To Brian Singer's credit, I think he faithfully reproduced every iconic Superman comic book moment from 50 years of comics, and that's pretty much every frame, but oh! that dialogue stank. We get that Superman is terse. He's not Spider-Man with a quip for every villain vanquished. He's a little nerdy. But Singer took so many colors away from his word palette that we weren't looking at a barebones black and white so much as just white... like the bread but less filling.
Even worse was the way the powers played out. Perhaps it's five years of Smallville talking, but once you establish limits, even simple ones, like, "Superman can be harmed by and has reduced powers in the proximity of kryptonite" should be abided by. Also, once you have (metaphorically-speaking) fired off a gun in a scene or at least revealed that something is a weapon, leaving it unfired for the remainder of the movie because you want to show the heroism of ordinary people is just hack. Everything becomes a matter of convenience then.
Finally: Kryptonian technology made from crystals? Cool. That it always makes the same crappy seventies chandeliers in small, medium, large and continent-sized? Not so nifty. Also, if water makes it grow, what's it take to make it stop growing? How can Lex chart that? And even if it's growing a new continent on the eastern coast of North America, how does that take away from the coastlines of all the other continents? Is there only so much basalt to go around?
I'd give you the answers, but then I would have to invite you into my bedroom, place of Geek Mystery, and we all know what that can lead to.
Babies? Somehow?
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