Monday, June 29, 2015

Happy Anniversary to My Folks

Here's to The Admiral and KareBear, two of the finest people I know and the best parents I ever had.
Today marks their 46th Wedding Anniversary, I think.  Something like that.  I'm sure someone will tell me if my math is wrong.

Like all great romances, my parents met at a bar.  My dad was in the Air Force, post-Vietnam, stationed in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  My mom was a local, finishing up college.  I guess romance blossomed or some such.  Booze will do that for you.

Soon, my dad got out of the Air Force and my mom married my dad and she moved to live with him in Miami, which I figure had to have been a heck of a culture shock.  He was from Hialeah and went to community college for a while and my mom worked, then they both got into the University of Florida where my mom got her Masters in Education while teaching and my dad went straight from his undergrad to his Masters in Business.  I think he was working at a 7-11.

Anyway, they've really managed to make this marriage business work.  It ain't Ozzie and Harriet, but they do that teamwork thing as well or better than anyone I know.

In addition, they basically didn't mess up raising two kids of their own while helping with countless other kids and grown-ups via my mom's jobs teaching, through their church work, through philanthropic work, through friends, random people they meet, and countless other activities.   And that's not to mention all the stuff they did for me and Jamie over the years (and my brother and his wife, too).  And now they've stepped up as terrific grandparents for my nephew, Raylan.

If you want to know why I think a do-gooder like Superman is a pretty good idea, I grew up living with these two.  They never asked for recognition or thought they were doing much more than what you were supposed to if you had the ability to do so.  Good folks, my folks.  Hard standard to live up to.

Happy Anniversary to a great set of parents.

I forgot to get you a card.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Monster Watch: Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956)

The film classic Gojira (1954) has a completely different version known stateside as Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956).  Released a while after the movie's initial Japanese showing, it features Raymond Burr cut into the movie as journalist Steve Martin - providing US audiences with an American-minded perspective on Godzilla's debut Tokyo stomping.

I feel like I must have talked about Gojira at length in the past, so I'll shorten the plot synopsis:  a giant monster shows up in Japan, reaches Tokyo, f's it up something royal, a very cute girl is caught in a love triangle between a square and an eye-patched rogue scientist, they figure out how to kill Godzilla.  Until the sequel.

Lifetime Watch: A Deadly Adoption (2015)

I have now seen A Deadly Adoption, and... I can only tell you, it is something you must witness for yourself.

The thing about the movie is...  it's totally a Lifetime movie.  With other actors, nobody would bat an eye.  It's some of the particulars of the algorithmic dialog of the script and the presence of Ferrell and Wiig that tip the game in any way, shape or form.   There's no mugging, no pauses for laughs, just...  you know, that's Ferrell and Wiig and completely bizarre style of high-stakes domestic melodrama that Lifetime has made their trademark.

Not too long ago, Wiig and Ferrell participated in a short series called The Spoils of Babylon that emulated the epic TV miniseries of the 1970s and 80s.   There was no mistake what was going on there, and the framing device of Ferrell as fictional author/ director/ wine-enthusiast Eric Jonrosh reminiscing about the creation of the series just took it to the next level.

If this is the next phase in the Wiig/ Ferrell evolution, I'm all for it.

And, really, it says a lot about the network that they seem to have financed the movie and they're broadcasting it.  I tip my hat.

Super Watch: Superman (1978)

So, yesterday, I journeyed to the Alamo South Lamar for a "Kid's Club" screening of Superman: The Movie (1978).

It's impossible to know how many times I've seen Superman, but I figure I'm pushing triple-digits at this point.  Or maybe it's been a mere 70 times.  Who knows?  I've seen it in the theater so many times I've lost count - but I figure it's at least 10 at this point, and I would have skipped this one, but after going to Metropolis and reading that Larry Tye book, it just felt like serendipity that the movie was screening, and I should probably go.

"Kid's Club" screenings are always fun.  As much as I enjoy the evening throw-back screenings of movies at the Paramount and Alamo, seeing movies with the original intended audience is always amazing.  Superman runs something like two and a half hours, and I didn't hear a single anxious kid nor a peep out of anyone aside from some mild excitement during properly exciting scenes.  There's a sweet spot you can hit where the movies are not as dull as some kids movies, but without over-stimulating kids with just too darn much going on up there on the screen - because I have absolutely witnessed that phenomenon, even in a Harry Potter movie, and the kids start just blanking out and futzing with their chairs or asking for Cheerios or whatever.  And despite our weird idea that "kids are so advanced these days"*, the kids certainly don't know about or understand the difference between CGI FX and in-camera or practical effects.  They just don't care, even if they're vaguely aware this doesn't look like other movies.  And I've seen this again and again, including favorites like The Time MachineFantastic Voyage and Batman '66.

The kids even totally dealt with the "Can You Read My Mind" scene at face value.  No ironic snickering, no groans of disapproval.  It was kind of nice.

One other weird factoid about "Kid's Club" - they show the movies in 35mm, so the print yesterday was beat to hell, discolored in places and had audio issues, but nobody cared, including the kids.  It may be the last time I get to see Superman in 35mm, so it was a nice treat.

Anyhow, it was a fun screening.  I may want a break between screenings for a while as I did just watch the movie, like, three months ago, but I didn't regret going.  Got to hang with Simon and his lady-friend, Tiffany, and we got some nifty plastic Superman rings from Toy Joy.

*what?  Kids got better at being kids?  That doesn't even make sense.  They're just fine with adapting to the world they were born into that has stuff their parents didn't have at the same age.

Signal Reads: Superman - The High Flying History of the Man of Steel (audiobook)

When I was driving between Indianapolis and Metropolis, Illinois, I cooked up a plan to listen to the audiobook of the fairly recent Larry Tye book Superman: The High Flying History of the Man of Steel.  I've read a few comic and Superman histories before, and still hold of the Les Daniels book as the gold standard, with Gerald Jones' Men of Tomorrow:  Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book as absolute and required reading.  But it'd been a while since I read either and there's been a lot of history since then.

The book is very well researched and is a fairly complete and comprehensive but detached history of the character as a property, focusing on the origins and multiple iterations of the character from the influences on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to the multiple forms of media the character has taken on and arguably conquered, to the ever-changing nature of Superman and the societal factors at play.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Superman 41 and giving up on The Man of Tomorrow

I just read issue #41 of the post Flashpoint/ New 52/ DC You Superman series, and...  I mean...  Okay.

There's some decent Superman-action, and I like the Jimmy and Clark pairing well enough.  I think the idea of "Superman's Pal" actually knowing his identity is worth exploring if Jimmy's his peer.  It substitutes the 90's and 00's problem of Superman not having anyone to talk to in his own titles which the Lois-marriage resolved.

But we know where this storyline is headed, right?  I mean, all of the other titles and solicitations tell us Lois will blow Superman's cover.  He gets a haircut.  He goes back to the t-shirt and jeans.  But we already have the broad strokes for how this will play out.  There's not a lot of places for this story to go, it seems.  Or, at least, if we know the effect, any surprises in how we got there seem a little moot at best.

After finishing the issues, I am sorry to say that I think I'm done reading any Superman comics for a while.  Which kind of kills me.  But I feel like I'm spending money on something that isn't what I signed up for or what the name of the comic is selling me.

This Moment In History: Supreme Court Rules for Equality for Same-Sex Marriage

Taking a break from pop-culture commentary and irrelevant minutia to reflect on the overall cultural thunderstrike that came across the internet this morning.  The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, has legalized same-sex marriage in the United States.  

No doubt the armies of lawyers and pundits are lining up to stoke the fires and make some money off good old fashioned rage.  It's to be expected.  But today I think we broke through another barrier.  We abandoned separate rules for a class of our citizenry for a common definition of the most important conscious relationship most people ever enter.

I am aware not all of my readership shares my belief that this ruling reflects part of America's steady progress in recognizing the rights of all its citizens.  Here I have to break with you, but I hope you know, it's with an olive branch extended.  Recognizing the equality of love between two people as they define that relationship, not hemmed in by concepts of gender or adherence to non-legal codes, whether the Supreme Court had stepped in or not, seems to me an act of human decency.  At the heart of that of all of this is the word "love", and it seems that a victory for love should only be amplified by an extension of some of the same with an open hand rather than a closed fist.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Shark Watch: Jaws (1975)

I kind of said everything I had to say about Jaws (1975) the other night, but hadn't had opportunity to watch the movie.  Apparently my post readied Jamie for a viewing, so I popped a disc in the ol' DVD player and gave it a whirl.

Not much else to add, so, enjoy your own screening.  Or don't.  I don't know why you wouldn't.  It's a pretty good movie.

Of course, you can't go wrong with the sequel.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Sci-Fi Watch: Logan's Run (1976)

I watched Logan's Run one other time, circa 1999, but a bottle of something with an angry animal printed on the label was consumed then and stood between me and any firm memories of the movie.  Except for Carousel.  And, if I'm being honest, Jenny Agutter.

In the future, we'll all live in airports

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

James Horner Merges With The Infinite

I don't need to tell anyone who follows this site how important music is to a movie.  You guys know.  And I know I don't need to tell you how important James Horner was to movies of the last few decades.  The man's IMDB page reads like a list of movies we've all seen in the theater since we were kids.

Tragically, Horner seems to have died in a plane crash.  

Rather than talk about who James Horner was and what he worked on, I'm going to invite you to drop your favorite of his works in the comments.  If you want to add a why and wherefore, feel free to do so.

I will say the first score of his that I remember consciously really paying attention to and wondering "who did that?" was the score for the 1989 Civil War film, Glory.  Certainly the score wasn't the only thing Glory had going for it. but it set a new standard for the music in historical epics and I often feel like both documentaries and more recent movies have lifted from that score, or at least learned its lessons.

and, of course, I'm a fan of many more of his works.