Tag: Superman

The Boys and I Give Superman (1978) a Try

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Because of the new Superman movie coming out I had a showing of the 1978 Christopher Reeve version for the two younger grandsons.  I was curious to see how they reacted to the somewhat slow startup to this version.  After all I think half the movie is gone before Superman actually dons the suit.  But from all appearances they liked it.

Now the youngest one is a very analytical viewer of science fiction and fantasy so he gave me a short lecture on why kryptonite kills Superman.  Come to think of it he gave me several lectures about various esoteric aspects of the Man of Steel; how he could fly, how he got from one galaxy to another so quickly, why he could never die of old age, how he was able to handle people without killing them by accident.  It was very interesting to find out he had worked out all of these theories in just the time since the beginning of the movie.

I could sense the greatest annoyance with the movie when Lois Lane was on the screen.  Apparently, the love story wasn’t intensely popular with this part of the audience.  But somehow, they soldiered through.  By the time Superman was flying around Earth at ludicrous speed to turn back time and save Lois from death I think they were prepared for the end.  I’m not sure they felt Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor and Ned Beatty as his mentally challenged henchman were sufficiently serious to be credible enemies for Superman.

But by the time the (extremely long) credits were rolling they seemed to forgive some of the weaknesses of the production and wanted to discuss viewing (at least) Superman 2.  Apparently, they wanted to see the return of General Zod after I hinted that he was much more formidable a foe than Luthor.  So maybe we’ll have a second Superman feature this month.

It was funny seeing this movie for the first time in forty-seven years.  What struck me most was how odd Margot Kidder was as Lois.  The rest of the actors and actresses came across as much more professional.  Kidder seemed almost like a fish out of water.  Maybe that was the vibe they were going for.  Probably the worst acting and dialog was Marlon Brando as Jor-El; Superman’s Kryptonian father.  All of the exposition and lecturing about his duty to help humans and his fate is a bit boring.  But I guess some introduction is necessary to establish how he ends up as the man flying around in the suit.

My impression of Christopher Reeve in the movie is very positive.  He brings enormous likeability to the character and he does the comedy part of the role very deftly.  As far as the special effects in the film, this was 1978.  All of the effects are non-CGI.  To a modern audience some of them are less than overwhelming.  There is a scene where Superman is causing an avalanche to stop a flooded river from washing away a town.  But the scene is so obviously done with a miniature set using some sand and pebbles that it’s kind of silly.  But that couldn’t be helped back then.

All in all, the boys and I gave a thumbs up to Superman (1978).  Now bring on General Zod and “Planet Hooston!”

Gene Hackman – A Film Career Retrospective

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I guess everyone has heard that Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their home under what the police are calling “suspicious” circumstances.  The 95-year-old retired actor and his 66-year-old wife were found in different parts of the house deceased and in reportedly advanced decomposition.  The news sources hint it may have been a multiple suicide or some other unfortunate situation.  Well, we’ll probably get the gruesome and sad details soon enough.

I guess I wish I had written a post on Hackman’s career under happier circumstances.  But better late than never.  I had a chance to review his career over at IMDB and made a list of the movies that I had seen and either liked or at least considered good.

1969 Marooned
1971 The French Connection
1974 The Conversation
1974 Young Frankenstein
1978 Superman
1886 Hoosiers
1992 Unforgiven
1994 Wyatt Earp
1995 Get Shorty
1998 Enemy of the State
2001 The Royal Tenenbaums

 

It’s a surprisingly broad cross-section of genres.  He was equally skilled as a comic actor, an action/adventure star and even a few dramatic roles.  What I would say about his talent as an actor was that he would use his considerable acting abilities to take whatever part he was given, no matter how threadbare and make it memorable.  You could see this in Young Frankenstein and Get Shorty where he’s playing minor parts and yet he owns the movie while he’s on the screen.

My favorite of his films was “The French Connection.”  I was a freshman in high school and my homeroom picked the movie as our class trip.  We went into Manhattan and saw it on a big screen on Broadway and riding there on the subway it was surreal just how close to reality the scenes on the subway resembled reality.  Graffiti and drunks passed out on the trains were the perfect intro for the movie.  And Hackman was the perfect Popeye Doyle.  Brutalizing his drug suspects, antagonizing his chain of command and chasing a runaway subway train in a muscle car down the wrong side of the street under the 86th St elevated subway line through my old neighborhood in Brooklyn.  It didn’t get better than that.  I used to walk past the housing project where Popeye supposedly lived.  If he had, he would’ve been the only white man living there at the time.  It was a very tough place.

I enjoyed Hackman’s Lex Luthor in the first Superman movie.  It might have been the only discernible acting talent in the series but he managed to make it fun.  He was good in Unforgiven.  He was pretty over the top in the techno-thriller Enemy of the State alongside Will Smith but he gave it his all.  I’ve been told by film aficionados that “The Royal Tenenbaums” is a very good movie.  Well, I saw it but didn’t really “get it.”  But I’m unsophisticated.  That was the last movie I saw with Hackman.

Based on his versatility and skill I would say Hackman is one of the best acting talents I ever watched.  Maybe Brando or Pacino played more dramatic parts.  Robin Williams was a funnier clown.  Maybe Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis blew up more stuff than Popeye Doyle.  But on balance Gene Hackman was the consummate professional.  He made the character real and he always stole the show for me.

Well done, Mr. Hackman.

Great Caesar’s Ghost!

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Long ago, there was a tv show called the Adventures of Superman. Perry White, was played by the well-known character actor John Hamilton. And in one episode, after all of his reporters run out of the room before he can tell them what he wants them to do, he sits there staring into the space in front of him and says, “I know people say you’re crazy when you talk to yourself, but by Great Caesar’s Ghost, there’s no one else around here sane enough to talk to!”

Well, now I’m in the same situation. I’m talking to myself in order to use this program that Microsoft has on Windows called Voice Typing.  It works quite well. But what I notice is that it’s difficult for me to get used to the fact that I’m talking to myself.  I mean, when I type typically, I guess I’m silently talking to myself but this is a completely different thing. Uh, you have to think on the fly. Because I can speak a lot more quickly than I can type. So, I don’t have enough time to think of what I want to say.  If you see what I mean.

So, look at those last few sentences.  They’re pretty stilted.  That was me trying to dictate to the computer.  It’s not pretty.  And so, I’ll have to see if this works for me.  I’m guessing I’ll have to practice with it until I can think comfortably at the speed of my speech instead of at the speed of my typing.

But one interesting thing has come out of this experiment.  I can see now how some of the mistakes I’ve seen on other people’s blogs happen. They’re using a dictation program. That seems apparent.  The machine is mistaking certain similarly sounding words for others that have a completely different meaning.  And then afterwards, when the human edited it, he’s missed some of these problems.

So here we have a technological change.  Dictation replacing typing.  I remember reading that the ancients when they read something, they read it aloud.  I think it was something about Julius Caesar I remember, that he was able to read silently and at the time this was considered a radical departure from normal behavior.  Great Caesar’s Ghost!  Maybe I’m too old and inflexible to change how I produce text.  Maybe my brain is too canalized to change.  Well, it’ll be an experiment.

This has been an interesting week.  All the coverage of the Trump verdicts and the fines has further revealed the clear divide in the United States.  Once again there is no middle ground.  The Left has abandoned all pretense at objectivity.  Any and every attack on Trump is justified and reasonable in their eyes.  Even when the result of this thinking frightens even their allies.  The enormous fine against Trump’s commercial interests and the obvious fictitious nature of the “crime” has frightened other businessmen in New York.  The realization that prosecutors and judges can easily fabricate charges that will basically allow confiscation of all their wealth has panicked many of these ultra-wealthy individuals.  And Governor Hochul reacted by trying to soothe the nerves of the rich.

But if there’s one thing billionaires hate is the threat of confiscation of their wealth.  Recently Elon Musk was denied a huge payment from Tesla because the State of Delaware stepped in and forbade it.  Almost immediately Musk had the incorporation of Tesla moved out of Delaware.  I fully expect to see similar moves by many public and private corporations to preempt any possible chicanery by Letitia James or any of the other bloodsucking ghouls in New York State.

And this is on top of an already desperate fiscal situation in both New York City and New York State.  Things like the feeding and housing of illegal aliens is starting to put a real hole in their budgets.  So, could the lawfare against Trump hasten the unravelling of the Empire State?  Great Caesar’s Ghost!