We Get Good Sunsets, Too

While Seattle proper (or unproper) was sweltering in 85° heat, The Island had rain, slightly cooler temperatures and a rainbow to grace the sunset.

Have a good day.

You'll Believe a Man Can Float

Driving home from "Superman Returns" in 4-story IMAX and 3-freepin'-D on Wednesday night, I was listening to KIRO Newsradio. Thousands were evacuating, fearing the cresting of the Delaware River. Andrea Yates was convicted (again) of killing her kids. A public official was lost in the Olympic Forest.

"Man!" I thought. "We could really use Superman. "

I knew I needed him. It had been a rough week of moving furniture and hauling myself from The Island to The Redmond. I was swamped at work and I had to take Tuesday off for the transfer of our big stuff from The Place What We're Selling to the current domicile, so my Wednesday started at 4 am (just in time for the sunrise) to get started early on due assignments. After all this, I was looking forward to seeing friends I hadn't seen...in ages, and seeing the new Superman movie. I was really looking forward to that. I've been pretty discouraged lately, and a new Superman movie...well, that seemed just the ticket. The previews for it were great.

So, how is it?

Good! Not as good as "Superman: The Movie." Better than "Superman II" (which I've never liked) and it's Shakespeare compared to the moronic "Superman III: Wasting Richard Pryor" and the incompetent "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" ("You'll Believe a Movie Can Stink to Highest Heaven!").

But everyone will be comparing it to the first one. As well they should. "Superman Returns" should be called "Son of Superman" (*ahem* cough!) as it's so closely tied to the first film. It recycles Marlon Brando as Father Jor-El, and recycles whole sections of the first film's Mario Puzo/Robert Benton/David Newman/Tom Mankiewicz script, including my favorite Lex Luthor line: "My father always told me..." "Get out!"

But, "Superman: The Movie" was really three films: The deadly earnest Krypton section ("This is no fantasy" intoned Brando at the beginning); the equally serious Smallville/Fortress of Solitude section (with Glenn Ford's last great performance, and a farewell to Ma Kent scene in a seemingly endless epic wheat field); and finally, the Metropolis movie, with its antic screwball comedy pace (brilliantly achieved, by the way), it's cartoonish villains ("Otis-burg? O-TIS-BURG???!!!") with their absurdly successful attempts at stealing nuclear missiles, andat its soul the "Superman Meets Girl" romantic comedy storyline. I've always felt that lurching shift in tone was a bit out of step with the rest of the film (though you could make a case for showing that stalwart Superman is needed in such a crazy, zany world). Now, I'm not so sure. Because "Superman Returns" keeps the earnest tone of the first couple sections of the original throughout its considerable length. More cohesive it may be, but it's not more entertaining. In fact, it tends to bog down the proceedings, which consists of "regrets and things unsaid" which would have made Richard Donner's "His Girl Friday" pacing inappropriate. Which only points out how large the gulf is between that first film and this one. Donner's "Superman" was a frothy entertainment, that, in the days of disco long sideburns, and flaired pants, winked at the concept of heroics. This one is heavier, darker, meaner and less entertaining. There's less joy to it. And it takes its heroes deadly seriously. You think a guy like Spiderman has great power, thus great responsibility? Hell! Try being "Superman!"

Donner's flying scenes in the first (with a lot of credit going to licensed pilot Christipher Reeve) showed the joy of flight--the freedom of it--the grace. Who wouldn't want to fly after "Superman?" "SR's" flights are rarely graceful, and powered by stress. This Superman is always in a hurry. He doesn't stop to smell the up-drafts or do a lazy roll through the clouds. He's making a bee-line from one emergency to another. There's another quality to the "SR" aerial scenes--isolation. Superman is often seen as a small speck in a big, empty sky with life going on far below him. He's not a part of this Earth, and Singer drives the point home again and again. It's no fun being Superman.

I'll bet audiences have a problem with that: if they were Superman, of course, they'd enjoy it. It brings to mind the Superman scene I'd like to see. Howard Chaykin, of "American Flagg" comics fame said in an interview how he'd like to start off a Superman comic. Lots of panels of ordinary Metropolitans going about their day only to have them interrupted by a blue-red streak going by their window. BOOM! Another about to sip his coffee. BOOM! A couple more of those until you get to the "splash" page: Superman, over the ocean, wearing a pair of shades, and popping his fingers, listening to "I Believe in You" (from "How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying)) on his Walkman. "You have the cool, clear eyes /of a seeker of wisdom and truth." Yeah. I'd love to see that Superman.

But despite "Returns'" seriousness, there are joys. Brandon Routh looks and sounds so much like Christopher Reeve that it doesn't take a big leap (or a single bound) to accept him in the role. He exhibits a bit more life as Clark Kent than the more stalwart Superman, breaking into a goofy grin at the slightest provocation, and restraining the klutz routine (he doesn't constantly punch up his glasses the way Reeves' CK did). I also like the fact that his performance doesn't have the same "I'm sharing a joke with the audience" quality that Reeve brought to the role. Kate Bosworth is damned cute as Lois Lane (as a blonde, she barely registers on the screen, but here, her hair darkened brown, she seems to have a bit more depth) and has little of the Margot Kidder neuroticism and (here's a plus!) I don't remember hearing her scream once. I do miss Kidder's whiskey baritone cracking on "Clark!," however.

There could be a bit more life to Frank Langella's Perry White and Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor. Spacey's Luthor is self-contained malice and only sparks to life during a confrontation scene with Lois. Gene Hackman expertly tred the mine-field of jokes in the first film, but it was tough to buy him as a real threat to anybody but his cronies. Spacey's Luthor is a villain who does bad things...and enjoys doing bad things. Unfortunately, here, you mostly see him prepare to do bad things, and so there's no real pay-off for the character until 2/3 of the way through the film.

There is one cracker-jack sequence involving a doomed airliner that shows that it's pretty darned hard task to stop a plane in free-fall. It's note-perfect, right down to showing the skin of the craft buckling from a lurching halt. The movie has a good bead on the concept of heroism, too. There are a lot of heroics in this film (not just from der Ubermensch) where people who could take the easy way out, go against their better judgement and do What Must Be Done, despite the jeopardy it may put them in. It makes a statement that heroism doesn't come from powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. It comes from the heart, the conscience and the will.

Good movie/bad movie? Thumbs up/Thumbs down? Hard to say at this point. There are some movies that are merely okay while you suffer through them, but are better in memory ("Napoleon Dynamite" is one of those films: I can laugh at parts of it in retrospect, but I'd have to be kidnapped and a gun placed to my skull to watch it again). "Superman Returns" was just the opposite: enjoyable while sitting through it (though I was aware of just how long it was, I didn't quite get to the point of checking the time), but the farther I get from it, I remember what's wrong with it more than what was right. If I had my "druthers," "Superman Returns" would be lighter than the "Batman Begins," the "X-men" films, "Spiderman," certainly lighter than Ang Lee's "Hulk." At least it wasn't as frivolous as the "Fantastic Four." My opinion of it is evolving, and that brings up another issue.

I've noticed an interesting trend in on-line reviews over the weekend. Initially, they're scathing, criticizing every aspect of the film..and harshly, to a ridiculous , often hysterical level. Second viewings produce a more favorable response, even admiration. I suspect that folks go, expecting to see the first film or worse yet, their idealized memory of the first...or second film. In that regards, this one will fail, but it can't help but fail. You can't fight a cherished favorite, or the memory of a cherished favorite. My advice: Go, expecting "Superman IV." I know I'm going to see it again. Through the double exposure of the 3-D glasses, I couldn't tell whether the cribbed...sorry, the "homage"...final shot of Superman flying up, up and away past the audience had its Superman smile benignly at the audience. Like the George Reeves wink at the end of some of the tv shows, and Christopher Reeve's shared smile, it would have been nice to see it in this one. The fact that I didn't disappoints me, and makes me wonder why a decision not to include it, was made. Don't we want Superman on our side? I'll have to see it again. *

My favorite sum-up is by The Stranger's Andrew Wright who grumped: "For a movie featuring a hero who can conceivably give God a wedgie, there's precious little zowie to be found." "Zowie!" as in Adam West clobbering Ceasar Romero "Zowie?"

* And, sad to say, there is no smile on the final fly-by of 2006 Superman. He merely scans the audience with his eyes on the way past, ever vigilant. He probably isn't smiling because of the relatively few bodies he sees in the seats. And the ones that were there are already heading for the Exits. Not exactly what a super-hero expects when he sets out to "watch your back."

Happy John Wilson Day

It’s the humor I remember most.

One of my favorite examples is from an Autumn day and the family raking leaves. Some sort of argument with my sister ensued and I called her a shit-head. As it was the first time I’d cursed her out she looked at me with a funny, screwed-up look and I just knew I was going to get some sort of revenge foisted on me. “Da-ad!” my sister called. “Jamie just called me a shit-head!”

My father looked up from his pruning. “He can’t do that,” he said. Then, with exquisite timing he went back to his work. “That’s my word!”

I remember the inflection to this day. Understated. Reflective. There was a hint of annoyance. It was beautiful. And just about the funniest thing I’d heard in my life. I don’t remember if I laughed, but I have ever since.

He liked to shock, to tweak the sensibilities, but gently. I remember sitting on the floor watching “Space Ghost” (I am certain of the show), and my father came in, took one look at the situation the dastardly villain had placed SG in, and he quietly snarled, “That bas-tard!” I had no idea what he was saying, but my Mother did. “John!” she’d admonish without a hint of humor. I think back on it, and it was a joke not meant for me…I had no idea what a “bastard” was…it was a joke for his own amusement, and I think he enjoyed shocking my mother.

We used to call him “Smilin’ Jack,” for the lopsided half-grin he perpetually sported. It’s there even in his baby pictures. You can see a hint of it in the promotional picture taken when he was working at Smith-Gandy Ford in Seattle. Quite the rake. And casual, while at it.

On Sundays to roust us out of bed, he’d play “The Star-Spangled Banner” on a mammoth stereo he’d won for selling the most number of fleet-trucks in a fiscal year. Again, it would be for his own amusement. We’d roll our eyes and grumble, but he’d enjoy his secret joke.

Any three year old who stopped by the house, would get a show from my Dad. He’d let his face go slack into some plasticized goon-face, and the children would shriek with horrified delight.

And he loved ritual. One thing he always laughed at was the end-credits of “Get Smart.” You know the one where Maxwell Smart walks towards the camera and turns and watches the many security doors close behind him one by one. Except for the last one. Pause. Then he approaches the door, just as it starts to close and it catches him in the nose. The timing of it is so exact, so assured that it would make my father guffaw every single time.

We had a ritual every time I went out on a date. He’d look up from his paper. “Have a good time, “ he’d say. “AND be sure to comport yourself in a way that will not bring shame to the family.” “Make up your mind!” I’d invariably say, and his chuckle would follow me out the door.

There's an audio clip of him posted in the Profile. You can hear him, but it’s not really how he sounded. In it, he is mock-seriously intoning common every day events. He knows he’s being recorded, so he’s speaking a bit too formally in the style of an announcer. His voice was not that low and his style of speech more relaxed. But if not for this one short piece of audio, the tone of his voice would have long ago left my memory. This odd distortion brings back the sound of him, and it’s the only sample I have of his voice…recorded, left unplayed and unerased in a cassette recorder, it’s batteries long corroded and useless, it was forgotten then discovered, like a treasure, years after his death. And he’s being funny in it.

Even on the day he died he did it with a joke. “I think I actually will retire,” he said in his hospital bed. And a couple hours later his heart stopped.

At Saturday get-togethers, with a couple scotch-and-waters in him he would speculate on his death. “Mary won’t come to my funeral,” he’d chortle. “She’ll be on her honeymoon with some new guy. But the Lord will say to me ‘John? You come sit here…at my right hand.”

In very sentimental moments, or when my Catholic upbringing rears its thorn-crowned head, I think that’s exactly where he is.

Good Morning

If anyone has to ask why the wife and I moved to a remote Island location, far from everything and everyone to a cabin desperate in need of tending, all you have to do is look at the view from our front window. I can't remember a time when I've enjoyed getting up so early so often.

And a good day to you.

A beginning is a very dangerous time

Precarious, too...

When the time comes to comment, I'll comment.
When a story just must be told, I'll tell it.
When I've got something to say, I'll say it.
When the fancy strikes me.....

Well, that'll probably hurt.