Four for Wednesday

Superman Returns- Seems more like the sequel to an earlier Superman movie starring Brandon Routh than, you know, a real movie. He's a little too, er, 'pretty' to make an effective Superman, too. Since we're dropped in the middle of the whole story, it's up to us to play catch-up. Superman's speech about 'the father becomes the son' rings hollow, since the whole movie is dependent on us all developing a deep emotional bond with the characters. The trouble is, since these are all new interpretations of the Superman icons, we don't have any chance to develop the connection we need with the characters. Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor is pretty cool, though. Nobody does passive-aggression and the 'slow burn' in the way he does it. That final scene with him and his gun moll seems more like a bit of business thrown in to please a focus group. Also, the aforementioned gun moll's second thoughts about Luthor's plans doesn't go anywhere, does it? In the original, we at least had Valerie Perrine save Superman's bacon then pleading, "My mom lives in Hackensack"...

That's My Bush-Trey Parker and Matt Stone's homage to cheeseball 80' sitcoms. In watching it's faithful replication of those old sitcom plot chestnuts,(hero has to be in two places at the same time, hero has to get a new job, opposing characters are trapped together to resolve their differences, etc.) I'm reminded of the movie, "Permanent Midnight", starring Ben Stiller. It's based on a true story by a sitcom writer(Jerry Stahl) and his struggle with heroin addiction. I've never seen that movie, but something had occurred to me. Here you have a person stuck in the depths of a grim drug abuse problem which, from all accounts will destroy not just your life, but your personality. Your existence will consist of A) stealing,lying, robbing and selling your body to obtain money to purchase heroin with. B) finding a dealer who is 'holding' and getting the junk. C) shooting up and having a very brief window of respite from the pain and misery your junkie lifestyle has become before cycling back to A. Above.

Now, in "Permanent Midnight", the Stahl character does all this and STILL manages to crank out scripts for "Alf","thirtysomething", and "Moonlighting". Doesn't that tell you all something about the level of standards in television script-writing? As for "That's my Bush", it's funny, but I suspect the premise ran dry about the time they came up with the last episode. Which is fortunate, since 9/11 happened about this time in history, which would put Parker, Stone, and Comedy Central in an awkward position, to say the least.

Casino Royale-Blonde. James Blonde. A reimagining of the Bond franchise, and not a moment too soon, I'd say. Honestly, if they kept going the way they were, Brosnan would've had to fly to Mars without a spacesuit and shoot laser beams from his eyes. In casting Daniel Craig, they've found a Bond closer to the one depicted in Ian Fleming's books ('a face like Hoagy Carmichael') than any of the blandly handsome fellows of the last two decades. Not that Brosnan and Dalton stunk, mind you, but they seemed more like 'placemarker' Bonds than the real deal. Plus, the scripts haven't been this down to earth since From Russia with Love. (If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a Connery-as-Bond kinda guy.) I'll give Craig his day in court, but I'll hold off final judgment on him 'til the next film. Hope they don't re-do 'Dr. No'.

Brick- Film Noir shot as indie film teen drama. It's closer in tone to 'Bugsy Malone' then 'River's Edge'. The thing is, the way it's shot seems more like a conceit than an actual working premise. Two things about the classic Noir drama one must keep in mind: The plot needs a 'gotcha' at the end to tie all the loose threads together("You're good, sweetheart, Real good. But you forgot that in playin' everyone else, ya also played yerself...") and secondly, we need to feel a genuine connection to the characters. There's a reference to an earlier case the protagonist handled on behalf of the 'authorities'(in this case, the school principal) which hints at some lost innocence in him.("I gave you Jerr to see him eaten, not to see you fed.") but the whole story seems more like an exercise by a high-school drama club as opposed to a real story where there's something at stake.