Summer Under the Stars 2025: Some Thoughts

 

This year's Summer Under the Stars has a couple of major surprises in its slate of stars. This is the second time in three years where we have no silent films or silent film stars. It also is the second time in three years where there are no purely non-English language performers. Last year, you had one silent film star (John Gilbert) and one foreign-language film star (Jean-Paul Belmondo). This year, there will be neither.

You do have two foreign stars, both making their debuts on SUTS: Pedro Armendariz and Gina Lollobrigida. In a surprise, both of them will have their foreign-language work features alongside their English-language films. This is, to my mind, the first time that TCM has featured a greater representation of a foreign star's body of work. When Dolores del Rio was a SUTS player, all her films were in English. This year, we will see a mix of Armendariz's Mexican and American work. Lollobrigida will have only one French film on her day. Hedy Lamarr and Joan Crawford have silent films in their filmography, but they will not be shown for their days. 

One player also making his debut, Donald O'Connor, will have his salute coincide with the centennial of his birth. Another debut player, Tom Courtnay, is one of three living players to be featured this month. The other two living players at the time of this writing have been featured before. Curiously, both are Shirleys: Shirley MacLaine and Shirley Jones. Along with Armendariz, Lollobrigida, O'Connor, and Courtnay, the other debuts for this year are Christopher Plummer, Ruby Dee, Charles Bronson and James Gleason. This Class of 2025 has eight members, which is a far cry from last year's thirteen debuts.

It is also curious that Lollobrigida, Plummer and Dee could easily have been honored prior to their deaths in 2023, 2021 and 2014 respectively. Moreover, I am surprised that there are no memorial Summer Under the Stars days for people who died recently. No SUTS for Maggie Smith, Gene Hackman, Gena Rowlands or James Earl Jones. They could easily have received SUTS days while they were still alive (I believe Hackman and Smith were featured in previous Summer Under the Stars salutes).

They did feature George Segal in the 2021 Summer Under the Stars lineup to note his death that year. They did feature Stella Stevens in the 2023 Summer Under the Stars lineup to note her death that year. I do not understand why George Segal can receive a SUTS tribute day, but Janis Paige (1922-2024) cannot. 

You also still have some stars who could see their films featured: Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Joanne Woodward, Joan Collins, Diane Ladd, Ellen Burstyn. To my knowledge, none of them have been SUTS players. Perhaps we could have slipped in one of them in place of Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and/or Joan Crawford (who were all featured in 2022). Perhaps we could do with a kind of moratorium on certain SUTS players. Why could we not go three years without moving on to another actor? 

Even if we needed to have Hepburn, Taylor or Crawford, why not be a little more adventurous with their selected films? A showing of 1989's Always, 1973's Night Watch and 1964's Strait-Jacket would have been interesting choices for Hepburn, Taylor and Crawford respectively. I would have found that better than yet another screening of The Comedians, which I reviewed for Taylor's SUTS day in 2022. 

Again, I understand the issue about broadcast rights. That, I believe, was a major holdup for not having Meryl Streep showcased until last year. Still, it is disheartening to not see some players not be shown while being treated to many-seen films from many-seen stars. It kind of takes the anticipation out of things.

In a curious or perhaps intentional plan, we have Ruby Dee be 2025's black SUTS player. Last year, her husband, Ossie Davis, was the black featured performer. It is interesting that when Paul Newman was saluted in 2023, Turner Classic Movies did not opt to salute his wife, fellow Academy Award winner Joanne Woodward the following year. Most curious.

I cannot say that this year's slate is thrilling. Some of the omissions are strange.

You could have a bit of counterprogramming by showing 1953's House of Wax, where Charles Bronson (billed as Charles Buchinsky) played a mute. In an interesting twist, the original Mystery of the Wax Museum had in its cast Glenda Farrell, who is also a SUTS player. That film won't be shown for her day. It might have made for a nice compare/contrast. 

I am also dubious that Turner Classic Movies could not get broadcast rights for either or both Mystery of the Wax Museum and/or House of Wax. To their credit, both the 1936 and 1951 versions of Show Boat will be shown for Irene Dunne and Howard Keel respectively.

This year's slate features twelve competitive Oscar winners (Judy Garland and Kirk Douglas being Honorary winners). Along with already named Plummer, Hepburn, Taylor, MacLaine, Jones, and Crawford, you have Clark Gable, Jennifer Jones, James Cagney, Patricia Neal, Frank Sinatra and Henry Fonda. Oddly, eight of those SUTS players will not have their Academy Award winning performances screened. Only Gable, MacLaine, Neal and Jones will have their Best Actor/Actress films shown. MacLaine's win for 1983's Terms of Endearment along with Courtnay's Oscar-nominated turn in The Dresser the same year will be some of the "newer" films shown for the still-living players. 

Still, credit where credit is due. Turner Classic Movies has managed to bring two films made more recently: 1990's The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson and the most recent film listed for screening, 2009's The Last Station for Ruby Dee and Christopher Plummer respectively. I might quibble that The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson is a television movie. I also note that Turner Classic Movies' sister station Turner Network Television produced it. Still, it makes for nice symmetry for Dee, who played Jackie Robinson's wife in The Jackie Robinson Story and his mother in The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson. 

There is also the nice surprise that one of Plummer's best-known films, The Sound of Music, will be shown for his day. It is a bigger surprise that this will be The Sound of Music's premiere on TCM. Last year, TCM chose to show Around the World in 80 Days for Marlene Dietrich's day despite Dietrich merely making a cameo appearance. I'm surprised that they didn't do that for Christopher Plummer and shown Malcolm X.  

My question is why could TCM not screen On Golden Pond for Henry Fonda? It is from 1981, so it cannot be the time frame. 1985's Murphy's Romance, which earned James Garner a Best Actor nomination, is a mere two years after the most recent films for the still-working MacLaine and Courtnay. The case to not screen 2010's Beginners, the film that won Christopher Plummer his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, is weakened by them showing The Last Station, made a year earlier. However, to not feature either of Elizabeth Taylor's wins for Butterfield 8 or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? seems a curious choice. 

As I look at both the features and stars for this year's Summer Under the Stars, I find a mix of good and bad. It is always nice to see some new faces pop up. It is a bit disappointing to see the same films shown for the same players. I am a bit of an addict in that I enjoy Summer Under the Stars. 

I do see it more as an exercise rather than an experience. 

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace. The Television Movie

HARRY & MEGHAN: ESCAPING THE PALACE

I often say that a Part III will be either a disaster or the harbinger of a greater disaster. The third and final part of the Sussex Trilogy more than lives up to that idea. Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace is one of the worst things ever to be broadcast in human history. This love letter to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has no redeeming qualities, nothing to say that anyone should watch it outside of psychological torture.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (Jordan Dean) is still haunted by the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales (Bonnie Soper). It is to where when he dreams of his mother's fatal car accident, it is not Diana whom he sees crumpled. It is his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (Sydney Morton). All that Meghan and Harry want to do is make the world a beautiful place. Unfortunately, all criticism against them is based purely and solely on racism. Harry is enraged that his brother William (Jordan Whalen) will not release endless statements against the racists who criticize Meghan. For his part, William is at most noncommittal on the subject.

Meghan, for her part, is collapsing emotionally. The strain of the never-ending racism, sexism and anti-Americanism within and without the British Royal Family and its supporting institution is leaving her emotionally spent. Just like his mother, Meghan is on the verge of a total meltdown. Soon other resentments come the Sussex's way. Harry is displeased at the criticism that they get for spending three million pounds on their small Frogmore home while William and his wife Catherine (Laura Mitchell) can spend five million. On their trip to Africa, Harry realizes that they have to leave The Firm. Surprisingly, it is Meghan who thinks this is wrong.

Nonetheless, the blocks against all the good that the Sussexes want to do leave them no choice. The Firm will not grant them permission to have a "Sussex Royal" brand that they can market, not even a Sussex Royal webpage. Harry is desperate to get out. Dropping a bombshell on his father, Prince Charles (Steve Coulter), the Duke of Sussex gives his father, the Prince of Wales, a ten-minute warning before announcing what was dubbed "Megxit". 

William is quietly enraged at his younger brother. Harry is more popular than William. William is jealous of his sister-in-law: her intelligence, her class, her compassionate, her kindness. The so-called Sandringham Summit did not please everyone, but now Harry & Meghan will now be free. At last, they in their California exile can speak "their truth" to Oprah, a final mirror between Harry's mother and wife.

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace premiered on August 6, 2021. Oprah with Meghan and Harry premiered on March 7, 2021. This is an important, if not vital detail. I figure that the two previous Harry & Meghan Lifetime films were rushed into production to cash in on the wedding and anniversary. This five-month difference, however, is a surprising turnaround time. I figure that you need time to cast, write a screenplay, gather your crew, make the film and edit it before releasing it; five months to my mind seems an incredibly fast production.

As such, I am highly, highly suspect that Escaping the Palace was de facto Sussex propaganda. It is so openly and shamelessly pro-Harry & Meghan that at one point, I did ask, "Who produced this, Harry and Meghan?". Everything that Harry and Meghan did was good. Everything that everyone else did was bad. I do not know a production where the protagonists were painted in such a way that you end up surprised that you did not see them literally walk on water. 

As a side note, I cannot help noticing that in the Oprah interview, Meghan gets top billing. I do not know why that detail stands out to me. It just does.

Escaping the Palace went out of its way to showcase that the villain in this drama was none other than Prince William. I'm genuinely surprised that screenwriter Scarlett Lacey and director Menhaj Huda did not give the-then Duke of Cambridge a mustache to twirl. I'm also suprised that Lacey and Huda were not taking literal dictation from Harry and Meghan about what to put in the film. It would not surprise me if it ended up that Lacey and Huda collaborated with the Sussexes the same way that they allegedly collaborated with Omid Scobie, a British reporter who cowrote Finding Freedom, which is seen as favorable to them.

William's scowl, his lack of sympathy for the almost divine Meghan Markle, his refusal or reluctance to welcome our bright light of California sunshine, all show him as a cold man. If Escaping the Palace is to be believed, William comes dangerously close to agreeing with all the racists who mock his sister-in-law. This William is a cold, emotionally disengaged figure, one who will not bend on anything. He, for example, refuses flat-out to have lunch with his brother prior to the Sandringham Summit. William does not even want to go and would like to see them cut off entirely.

The villainy of Prince William is such that on their final official engagement, he very pettily had the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's names removed from the program. He also had them sit with Commonwealth officials rather than the Royal Family if memory serves right. All this one-sided animosity, from what I understand, is driven by William's blinding jealousy towards Meghan. Meghan, in short, can be a star, while William will have nothing. 

I cannot help but think that Escaping the Palace had almost a vendetta against the-now Prince of Wales. "You're a disruptor," he tells Meghan to her face when the Sussexes learn their names were stricken off the program. Honestly, it would have been easier if Escaping the Palace had shown William literally shooting at Meghan. 

Even if all that Escaping the Palace showed was true, the entire production has such cringe to it that it was genuinely painful to watch. The film has some truly awful bits of dialogue that no actor could have made them sound anything other than pretty groan-inducing. Meghan has been made guest editor of British Vogue magazine, where she will profile history-making women. Ever professional, we see her typing away, laser-focused on her work.  Harry comes in to see his wife looking admiringly at the various females who will be profiled as Forces of Change. "All these women are going to bend the arc of history," Meghan wistfully notes. Harry, looking like a besotted puppy, adds, "Just like you".

It is a pretty nauseating moment. I do not know of any husband who would make such a statement short of coercion. Many things will Meghan Markle, or Sussex, or Mountbatten-Windsor, or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha will do. "Bend the arc of history" is not one that comes to mind. Become a failed podcaster, she will do. Host a lifestyle show where her guests will praise her, she will do. Sell jam online, she will do. Bend the arc of history, though?

As if that was not laughable enough, we get this monstrous bit of dialogue when news of them stepping back as senior royals hits the headlines. "Megxit. Like it's all your doing. Like you're the wicked witch, stealing their beloved prince because he's no mind of his own". Thus spoke Harry, and that bit is all kinds of wrong. I understand that this is meant to communicate what Harry thinks is the public impression. However, it is too on-the-nose to be believable. It suggests less genuine thought than it does the production's perceptions about the public's perceptions. 

Escaping the Palace has so many awful bits of dialogue. Perhaps the nadir of all this is when they go on that African tour. Surprisingly, it is not Meghan's lament of "I couldn't even speak my truth without all these caveats", the Firm pushing against Meghan's insistence on reminding people that she is a woman of color. It is when Harry decides that they must leave the Firm. As portrayed in Escaping the Palace, Meghan is the voice of reason, urging her husband against even the mere suggestion of stepping away. He insists that he is leaving the Firm, not the family.

"But the Monarchy is a family," she says. Harry responds with "So is the Mafia". It is a ghastly thing to say. Had I been Prince William, I would have been incensed that my brother was comparing my family to a criminal organization.

Escaping the Palace hammers hard on making Meghan the new Diana. We see constant flashbacks and flashforwards between the two, whether suffering breakdowns while pregnant or speaking candidly to the press about their troubled lives inside the Palace. Oddly, the effect is not to make one sympathetic and see the parallels between the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Sussex. It ends up coming across as calculating on Meghan's part, attempting to force a parallel to her very stupid husband.

There are no performances in Escaping the Palace. I want desperately to believe that Jordan Dean can actually act and was not cast because he is a pale man with bright red hair. Again, the dialogue would test the skills of any actor. However, there were times when I genuinely wondered if Dean was trying to make Prince Harry Scottish. He and Sydney Morton are out third Harry & Meghan, and both are awful. Simply awful. Morton is so blank as Meghan that one would have liked for her to go on a rampage just to see her be anything other than saintly.

We do have some returning cast members from past Sussex films. Jordan Whaley is back as Prince William, making him the villain of the film. Laura Mitchell completes the trilogy as Catherine Middleton. She still looks more like Sarah Brightman than Catherine, Princess of Wales to me. She also made Catherine this bit of a dimwit. One scene has her having her nails done while Meghan discusses important matters. 

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace is as close to pro-Sussex propaganda as one can find outside Sussex Squad fanfic. Terrible in every way (acting, writing, directing, the sappy score), this is enough to make one yearn for the evenhanded tone of With Love, Meghan. As I conclude this Sussex Trilogy, I never figured that each succeeding production would get progressively worse. Then again, perhaps that is a reflection of how the general public sees Harry & Meghan now.

0/10

Godzilla (1998): A Review (Review #2003)

GODZILLA

It can be said that Godzilla is a disaster movie in more ways than one. Perhaps something got lost in the translation. I put it down to something simpler: everyone involved in Godzilla made all the wrong choices.    

What would nuclear bomb tests in French Polynesia matter to researcher Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick)? He is too busy investigating worms in Chernobyl to pay attention to such things. That is until the U.S. government pulls him out to look into the potential of a strange creature literally leaving its footprints all over the world. He seems perpetually perplexed about this oddball investigation. He is more perplexed by the strange presence of men claiming to be French insurance agents, headed by the mysterious Phillipe Roache (Jean Reno). 

The creature is now racing to The City That Never Sleeps (which if memory serves right, is the actual name that appears on-screen). Colonel Hicks (Kevin Dunn) orders a mass evacuation of the city, over the loud objections of Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner) and Mayor Ebert's aide, Gene (Lorry Goldman). Mayor Ebert is in the midst of a reelection campaign and fears that this will wreck his chances. Nick offers a plan to capture the creature, but it fails. 

He also, albeit unintentionally, brings more panic when his Nick's ex-girlfriend Audrey Timmons (Maria Pitillo) finds a secret tape revealing that the creature has a name and has been seen before. Eager to advance, she tries to be the one to break the news. However, she is thwarted by her boss, arrogant and egocentric television reporter Charles Caiman (Harry Shearer). Thus, we learn about "Godzilla".

The army and scientists continue to battle against this giant lizard in the perpetual rainstorm. As a side note, it should have been known as The City That Has Endless Rain given how it always seemed to be raining. Not even Seattle gets this much rain. No one will listen to Tatopoulos' warning that Godzilla is pregnant and laying eggs all over the place. While the army, under the bumbling command of Sergeant O'Neal (Doug Savant) attempts to battle Godzilla, the French do listen to Nick. 

Audrey and her cameraman, Victor "Animal" Palotti (Hank Azaria) also go down into the bowels of the big city to find these eggs. Will the army as well as Mayor Ebert and Gene finally see that Nick Tatopoulos is right? Will Godzilla be defeated? Will all the eggs be found, or will one egg escape to hatch for a sequel?

Alas, we will never know, for Godzilla was such a disaster that we never got the trilogy this Godzilla was setting up. This is the first time that I have seen this American adaptation of the long-running Toho series. I think that it is a terrible, terrible film. There are so many reasons for Godzilla being a terrible, terrible film.

I think I will start with the screenplay written by producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich. Judging from the final product, I do not think that Devlin and Emmerich ever decided if Godzilla was a comedy or a drama. There was this running gag of people constantly mispronouncing or struggling to pronounce "Tatopoulos". Those repeated flubbings, along with Broderick's childlike corrections, consistently fell flat.

The situation, I figure, should be serious. However, it was not taken seriously. Worse, Godzilla could not have fun with the premise either. Savant's scaredy-cat O'Neal seems at odds with the no-nonsense Colonel Hicks. You question Hicks' sanity by appointing O'Neal to be in charge on the ground. Worse, Godzilla ends with O'Neal at what looks like a party with "Animal's" wife Lucy (Arabella Field). Was that another running gag, how Animal was afraid of his wife?

I think this would be a good place to briefly touch on Mayor Ebert and his aide, Gene. This is clearly a swipe at film reviewers (Roger) Ebert and Gene (Siskel). Here is where Godzilla's inability to decide if it is a comedy or drama comes into play. Devlin and Emmerich were getting their frustrations out against Siskel and Ebert by making the characters of Ebert and Gene these incompetent boobs. Fine, I suppose that some fun can be had at the expense of two influential people who have not liked their work. That being said, the casting of Lerner and Goldman is deliberately meant to remind audiences of who they really are supposed to be.

Lerner and Goldman were made to look so much like Ebert and Siskel that no one could have missed what they thought was a clever joke. If you didn't get the joke by the end, their screentime ends with Gene walking out on Ebert, giving him two thumbs down when he tells the Mayor what he thinks of his campaign. I do/did not often agree with Gene Siskel, but here he is right: it was petty. I also agree with Siskel and Ebert that they set up this duo to stand in for Devlin and Emmerich's bête noirs, yet they could not bother to have Godzilla stomp on them. I do not know if audiences really expected Godzilla to stomp on them. I do think that they could have gone all the way with that.

I also think that if they had made Mayor Ebert very thin and attractive, and given perhaps City Councilman or Deputy Mayor Gene a full head of hair, that might have been clever. Instead, they went the easy way but ended up giving everyone nothing.

Another reason why Godzilla failed is in its visual effects. I was reminded of something said, ironically enough by Siskel and Ebert. They held that many visual effects take place in the rain because it makes it easier to obscure the monsters, or something to that effect. Godzilla has a near-permanent rainfall. Granted, I think that there was mention of a hurricane or superstorm beating down on the City That Never Sleeps. However, it does become almost laughable to always have rain. When we do see Godzilla, which I figure is the reason people went to see it, Godzilla is a disappointment. One scene in particular had it look like Godzilla was dry-humping a building. 

It is a bad thing also when the audience is led to think that Godzilla has been killed, but there is still an hour and a half to go in this two hour snoozefest. 

Finally, Godzilla fails because of its performances. Matthew Broderick looks like a child in the film. He also pretty much behaves like one, with a near-permanent look of confusion at whatever happens to be going on. Hank Azaria embarrasses himself with his broad Nuw Yawk accent. That he is actually from New York makes it more embarrassing. His Simpsons costar Harry Shearer was also bad as the obnoxious reporter who was not above sexual harassment of Audrey. I suppose that I should recognize that Shearer was playing obnoxious correctly. As such, he wasn't meant to be likeable. He just never made the case that Charles Caiman would be the premiere news anchor in New York.

Jean Reno was there just for the cash. I figure he was there also to appeal to foreign markets. He was directed to play Godzilla as a comedy. How else to explain his adopting of an Elvis accent to fool U.S. troops that he was a downhome country boy. 

One feels for Maria Patillo, as Godzilla was meant to be her big breakout role. Instead, it became her career death knell, making only two more films and several guest appearances on television since. To be fair, she had a long-running stint on television's Providence, and it is unfair to blame Patillo exclusively for Godzilla ending up a flop. She was given a pretty thankless role as this mix of ninny and shrewd reporter. It was not a good performance, but it was not a good character. I think that Doug Savant gave a worse performance. Savant, coming off a run on Melrose Place, had a similar issue that many in the cast had. He played it as if Godzilla was a comedy. If there were any justice, Savant would have received a Razzie for his performance, not Patillo.

Again, this is not to say that anyone gave a good performance in Godzilla. It is merely to say that some were singled out that perhaps should not have been.

Godzilla is a disaster. It is worse than that. It is boring, visually unappealing and downright moronic. The big lizard deserves so much better. So does the audience. 

DECISION: F

Godzilla: King of the Monsters. A Review

GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS

I was not impressed with the 2014 Godzilla reboot. I was not the only one who noted that a major issue in Godzilla was the absence of Godzilla himself. The production crew of its sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, decided to course correct by heavily featuring our title character. That is a step in the right direction. Pity that everything else is a slog.

Still traumatized from the death of her son, Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) channels her grief through her work with the shadowy group known as Monarch. In Monarch's vast facilities, she manages to use her new device, ORCA, to calm down the newest creature birthed at the facility. It is called "Mothra". To everyone's shock, a group of ecoterrorists, headed by Alan Jonah (Charles Dance) storms the facility. They abduct Dr. Russell and her daughter, Madison (Millie Bobby Brown). 

Madison's father, Dr. Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) is desperate to find his ex-wife and only surviving child. Monarch scientists Drs. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) for their part want to find ORCA. Yes, they do want to also rescue Emma and Madison, but ORCA will help them with the other Titans, the various creatures now emerging throughout the world. Mark, Serizawa and Graham go to a secret Monarch base in Antartica, where a super-creature dubbed "Monster Zero" is being held. Unfortunately, Jonah got there first. More shocking is that Emma is helping Jonah and his group to release Monster Zero, unleashing a wave of worldwide destruction.

Is this a case of Stockholm syndrome? No, for Emma is firmly in cahoots with Jonah. She has decided that the only way to save the earth from ecological disaster is to purge the human population by letting the Titans run loose. Now it becomes an endless battle between Emma/Jonah and Mark/Monarch to see who will triumph. 

This will mean a literal Clash of the Titans. Monster Zero, revealed as King Ghidorah, takes its many heads to do battle against none other than Godzilla. Mothra and Rodan also join the battle. This battle royale will cost some of our characters' lives, but who will ultimately win: Ghidorah or Godzilla? Who will in the end be King of the Monsters?

If anything, I can give Godzilla: King of the Monsters credit for playing all of this so seriously. There was no winking to the camera. There was no real sense of fun save perhaps for Bradley Whitford's Dr. Rick Stanton. Godzilla: King of the Monsters was going to play all this straight. That perhaps was why it ended up being, well, a bit boring.

Granted, not as boring as its predecessor. However, its two-hour-plus runtime meant that it became a bit convoluted at times. Perhaps screenwriters Zach Shields and Michael Dougherty (the latter directing) would have done better to not give the audience a bit of a bait-and-switch with the kidnapping part. If Emma is working with Jonah to essentially wipe out much of humanity to start the world fresh, it might have been better to have her steal the ORCA from the get-go. 

King of the Monsters has a major handicap in that it expects the audience to have vast knowledge of the various monsters flapping about. I'm sure those well-versed in Godzilla lore were excited to see Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah battling it out. For most, I figure, we would be a bit perplexed.

The performances enhance the serious nature of King of the Monsters. Vera Farmiga is such an underused talent. It is almost a shame to see her in schlock like this. She does take all this seriously, her scene explaining the need to let the Titans run rampant as good an effort to play giant lizards on a rampage straightforward. However, it seemed to be a bit too serious to where it is dour.

Kyle Chandler, ever youthful, was so intensely angry as to veer close to parody. I honestly cannot remember Millie Bobby Brown in this. She was, I figure, meant to be her parents' conscience. I did not get the sense that she was anything. Watanabe kept to the serious tone King of the Monsters had. His sacrifice, I figure, was meant to be moving and tragic. I just figured this was a way to save him from more Godzilla movies. I thought that of every major character who met their doom. 

Godzilla: King of the Monsters was big. It was loud. It pushed to being spectacle and exciting. I will concede that it was a step better than the first film of this revived franchise. Amid all the destruction, I did not care about the humans. I do not think that is a good thing. It is not a terrible film. If it is on, it will serve as background noise. It just falls a bit short, which is something not often associated with Titans.

DECISION: C-

Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation. A Review

TRUMAN AND TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION

Had the term existed in their time, Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams would have probably referred to each other as a frenemy. These two openly gay Southern writers respected and detested the other, loved and hated in equal measure. Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation, puts these two titans of American literature as friends, rivals, and what one was to the other.

The documentary uses archival footage and off-screen interviews. We also have their personal writings read by Jim Parsons as Truman Capote and Zachary Quinto as Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote were more alike than merely their shared heritage. Both of them, for example, had drunk parents: Williams his father, Capote his mother. Both of them found inspiration in the writings that they discovered early in their lives: Moby Dick for Capote, the works of Chekov for Williams.

Their lives continued to have parallels as they built up their literary careers. Despite being Southern to their core, their great success came once they hit New York City. Capote loved the Big Apple and loathed Gore Vidal. Williams was the opposite: have great respect and admiration for Vidal but finding New York less to his liking. The two wordsmiths soon hit the big time with their works, celebrated and feted by high society and critics. 

Those critics, however, would eventually, perhaps inevitably, turn against them. Capote and Williams were left slightly dumbfounded on how they went out of fashion. Things got worse when both lost their long-term partners and started flitting from one pretty young thing to another. They also fell into their separate addictions to booze and pills. 

Truman and Tennessee had a curious relationship, part admiration, part irritation. Through their letters and words, we find that they could be very bitchy about the other. Williams had no issue referring to his frenemy as "Miss Capote". Tennessee, according to Truman, "is not intelligent". To be fair, Tennessee unlike Truman was wise enough to try and break into his frenemy's home and get caught. Eventually, the adoration both public and private faded from view for these two figures. Truman Capote outlived Tennessee Williams by merely a year and a half, Capote dead at 59, Williams at 71.

I wonder, in retrospect, if Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation went a bit overboard in painting a portrait of parallel lives. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland certainly wants to show how they both were almost twins. Everything from their family histories to their eventual fall into addiction is shown as being similar and happening at similar times. I do not think that Capote and Williams were mirroring the other person. These two were different and distinct people. As such, I wonder if Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is less about what one thought of the other. It is more like it is trying to make a case that somehow, Capote and Williams are almost the same because they lived the same series of situations. 

A major flaw is the voiceover work. Jim Parsons sounded like a thinner-voiced Jim Parsons. He sounded nothing like Truman Capote. Especially in the beginning, Parsons felt too forced in trying to come across as Capote. While I can see how Truman & Tennessee was not attempting to do mimicry. However, I think Parsons struggled to sound like Capote. As such, I never heard Capote's distinct voice both artistically and vocally. Quinto was better as Tennessee Williams, his Southern drawl closer to Williams' voice.

It was easier to hear Williams' words than Capote's words because Quinto sounded better than Parsons. That is not to say that Zachary Quinto sounded exactly like Tennessee Williams. He just sounded better than Parsons. 

Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation at times is a bit too fixated on making their lives parallel ones. This is especially true when we see both of them interviewed by David Frost on separate occasions. I do not think that it would be surprising that both of these writers would be interviewed on the same program. Again, whether Truman & Tennessee wanted to push the idea that they were going through the same situations I cannot say for certain. It just looked that way.

I hope that people do not think that I disliked the documentary. On the contrary, for I thought that Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is a well-crafted documentary that will give viewers good insight into these figures. I just do not think that because both were gay Southern writers that they are parallels. Each was his own man. Each was creative. Their friendship, at times their cattiness towards the other, is an interesting subject. Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation does much to bring their own stories to the viewer. It is a conversation worth listening in on.

DECISION: B+

Paris is Burning: A Review (Review #2000)

PARIS IS BURNING

Long before Madonna told us to "strike a pose and Vogue", there was an underground world doing just that, filled with glamour and outrageousness. Director Jennie Livingston takes into the demimonde of fierce queens who throw shade to their rivals in Paris Is Burning, capturing the decadence and tragedy of this formerly hidden subculture. 

It is New York City, 1987. We learn that to be black, gay and male is a hard burden in the world. However, there is a place, a very special place, where those are not impediments to taking the spotlight. That world is the New York ball circuit. These balls are where black and Hispanic drag queens can strut their stuff for trophies and recognition. The various personalities have something of a sponsorship with various "Houses", a formed family that can be considered something like a gay street gang. The houses provide training and guidance for these warriors of glamour.

One of the queens of the New York ball scene is Pepper LaBeija, who is the "Mother" of House of LaBeija. There are other Houses, like House of Xtravaganza. The various competitions at the balls are a wide-ranging set. There are those who aspire to be like the characters on the television soap opera Dynasty. However, there are other categories, some quite surprising to those on the outside. A group of ball participants compete in a Military category, where one competitor tells us, "Simple wins". The realness (to be able to pass for whatever you are dressing as) is a major factor in winning various competitions.

It is not just about the most beautiful or glamorous. It is also about being the most authentic looking. This world of balls has their own nomenclature. "Throwing shade" is knocking out your competitor with subtle insults. Being able to "read" someone is trash talking someone but with specific quips. If you want to have a dance off, you have to do some voguing (the name coming from Vogue magazine). 

Two years later, we learn a few things. This world has now attracted such figures as Fran Lebowitz, Geoffrey Holder and Gwen Vernon, who love the voguing. However, some old school ballers like Dorian Corey see these changes with a disdainful eye, preferring the glamour over the realness. We also learn that Venus Xtravangaza, a young aspiring ball queen, was murdered. Venus had been dead for four days when found under a bed in a sleazy motel, strangled.

The world of Paris is Burning is a fascinating one, almost like an alternate universe. The various figures that are profiled would probably be quickly rejected in the straight world. They would especially be rejected in a black or Hispanic macho world. Yet here, the various Houses could be seen as a variation of street gangs. You are loyal to them. They take the place of your biological family. The rumbles are not done on the street. They are done on the dance floor. I think one of the participants interviewed even said that walking at the ball (going down to compete) was like getting jumped. 

The viewer sees the ball contestants strip away from the stereotype of drag queens attempting to look as glamorous, if not as outrageous, as one can. Yes, there are those who do go all-out in elegant to elaborate costumes. However, there are also competitions where it is more about how much you mirror the world that rejects you than about how elegant you appear. I think many, me included, would be surprised to learn that some of the house members can win trophies for looking downright bourgeoise. Who would think that one could win a drag ball competition for looking like a businessman on Wall Street?

It is almost as if the world of Paris is Burning is a reaction and mockery of the world that has excluded the participants. Even in the drag world, the black and Hispanic men felt exclusion due to their race. Here, they created their own universe, one where they not only fit in but rule. The world bends to their will. Here, they can both integrate and be separate from the straight world. Paris is Burning not only captures this world of men strutting their stuff for the world to marvel at. It is an affirmation of themselves and an open mockery of those who reject them due to race or sexual orientation. In some ways, the drag balls are an act of resistance, a successor to cakewalks danced to mock dominant white culture.

Paris is Burning probably did not create some of the vernacular that is fully part of everyday American speech. I figure that perhaps it introduced it to a wider audience. Being able to "read" someone, delighting in "throwing shade" at a rival, these are things that we say without thinking where they came from. 

Paris is Burning is an extraordinary look into an almost lost world. While I figure that balls still exist, we saw at the end how they were coming out into the mainstream. Some of the old school ball members did not like it. The film also does not hide the tragedy and danger in this world. Venus Xtravaganza was the most extreme example, murdered during the filming. However, the specter of AIDS hangs over this world, which would claim some of the people interviewed. 

The men and women in Paris is Burning are fierce, fabulous and unafraid. They are masters and mistresses of throwing shade and not answering to anyone other than their housemates. 

DECISION: B+ (8/10)

1984: A Review

1984

The term "1984" has been bandied about for a few years now. The Right and the Left have adopted the George Orwell novel to describe what their political opponents would do if in power. The temptation to release a film adaptation of Orwell's 1984 in 1984 was probably too great to resist. 1984 has excellent performances, including a farewell from one of best actors never to reach his full potential.

60796 Citizen Winston Smith (John Hurt) lives in Oceania, which he and his fellow citizens are told is a paradise of plenty. This bucolic world is in sharp contrast to what they are told about their arch-nemesis, Eurasia, which they have been at war since time immemorial. Smith's job at the Ministry of Information is to alter history, take heroes and make them villains and vice versa when needed. All citizens of Oceania are united against their great enemy within, Goldstein, who is lurking under every bed.

Smith, unlike the other citizens, is secretly not content. He has memories of a world different from Oceania, with a mother and brother. He records his unauthorized thoughts in a secret diary, doing his best to keep out of sight of the omnipresent ruler of Oceani, Big Brother. He also meets the alluring Julia (Suzanna Hamilton). She is outwardly compliant to Big Brother's commands, but she in her manner has a mind of her own. Soon, they begin a passionate affair of body and mind.

However, Big Brother is watching you. Their affair is unmasked, and Smith must answer to the apparatchik O'Brien (Richard Burton), who has fooled Smith into thinking that he was also not with Big Brother. O'Brien coldly and cruelly tortures Smith to eventually confess on himself. What horrors does Room 101, deep within the Ministry of Love, hold for Smith and Julia? Will Smith be rehabilitated to O'Brien and Big Brother's satisfaction? 

I have yet to read Orwell's novel, so I cannot say how close or far it strays from the original. I think, however, that those who watch 1984 will get a firm idea of the mad world that Smith lives through. The world of 1984, at least to me, reminded me of what North Korea and Hamas are. Like Oceania, the North Korean dictatorship has tabs on all of its citizen. They have also convinced the North Korean people that they are living in a land of plenty, safe from the horrors outside. Like Hamas, it brooks no dissent and worships endless war.

We also sadly see 1984 reflected in our world. "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words," someone says. I cannot help but think of how terminology is used, misused and abused today. We also have lived through effort to if not change at least focus to other aspects of history. The story of 1984, at least from this film, is still very much a real one.

This sense of dystopian despair is enhanced by the work in front and behind the camera. John Hurt has this great, haunted quality that makes Smith's need for freedom and eventual collapse. Hurt makes Smith into someone who knows something is off but cannot fully free himself. He changes history. He knows he is changing history. He is aware that razor and candy production has not gone up, even if everyone around him truly believes it. 

Hurt is our guide through this world, and he gives an excellent performance. The same goes for Suzanna Hamilton as Julia, the woman who sparks his mind and his body.  

The best performance in 1984 is probably the least expected on. I do not think that Richard Burton was a bad actor. He, however, seemed lost in a fog of self-parody, expecting his shouting to be thought of as great acting. Here, writer/director Michael Radford did something that no director before had managed: get Richard Burton to tone things down. 

Burton had a distinct, rich voice which he used to great effect. At times though, Burton's voice made his performances at times bordering on unhinged. Sometimes he could go so over-the-top that he came across as literally crazed. In 1984, however, he spoke calmly and more surprisingly softly. O'Brien is not a raging, angry man. He is eerily calm. That is what makes him more terrifying. 1984 is wise to keep Burton hidden early on. I think it is close to half an hour into the film before we see even a bit of him, almost 40 minutes before we hear his voice.

In an ironic twist, Burton did so well because he went against what he normally did. This was a very controlled performance. As such, we got to see O'Brien, this soft-mannered monster. Burton did not have to go off to show that he could hold your attention.

1984 is also enhanced by the production elements. The cinematography captured this seemingly empty and dour world with only occasional moments of greenery. The art direction too gets that this is a world coming apart, the population simultaneously lying to itself and being lied to.

Again, I cannot verify how accurate this 1984 adaptation is. However, I think that as a film, 1984 is a strong one. It is visually arresting, with strong performances and a story that is still sadly relevant to how things are today. Julia, I believe, says "It's not so much staying alive as staying human that's important". Those are very true words, perhaps truer than ever. Whatever one's political leanings, it might be wise to take heed of the warnings within 1984. 

DECISION: B+ (8/10) 

Still Alice: A Review

STILL ALICE

Sometimes, you just want to get things over with. This thought came to me after finishing Still Alice, the film for which Julianne Moore won an Academy Award on her fifth nomination. Moore felt overdue for a win, especially given that she is the rare person to receive a Lead and Supporting nomination in the same year (2003). Still Alice is fine, I suppose. That, however, may be the problem. It is fine. It is not good.

Dr. Alice Howland (Moore) is a brilliant linguistics professor at Columbia University. She has just turned fifty and is approaching the zenith of her academic career. Alice is happily married to her husband John (Alec Baldwin) a successful surgeon. She also has three children: Anna (Kate Bosworth), Tom (Hunter Parrish) and Lydia (Kristen Stewart). Lydia is the one causing Alice something of a headache, her acting aspirations at odds with Alice's ideas of success.

One day, Alice struggles through a presentation. She jokingly plays it off as the aftereffects of too much wine. However, other troubling elements start emerging. She gets lost jogging in familiar areas. She forgets more words. She confuses her daughter for her sister. What is the matter with Alice?

It is not a brain tumor, as she initially suspects. It is early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Alice takes the news surprisingly well, showing no emotion to the diagnosis. She also starts slipping further into the disease. She greets a guest twice, unaware that they have met at the most a half-hour prior. She forgets dinner dates and meetings. She gets lost more often. Alice will not let the disease defeat her, though it does inevitably cost her the loss of her job.

She starts speaking publicly about her diagnosis, requiring a marker to note what she has previously said. It is time for the Howland family to make tough decision. Will John decline an offer from the Mayo Institute to keep Alice in familiar territory? Will Alice and Lydia reconcile their differences? Will Lydia put aside her own acting dreams to care for her mother? Will Alice make a difficult choice about her life if she finds that she can no longer care for herself?

I imagine that Alzheimer's disease is an extremely difficult diagnosis, not just for the person afflicted but also for that person's family. It is painful to see someone fade out into a shadow world, unable to help your loved one in any way. It is painful too to know that you are doomed to fade out yourself, condemned to losing your very identity and ability to function. Each person handles these things differently: denial, anger, sadness. 

What did surprise me about Still Alice is an emotion that I did not expect: dispassion. I suppose that I can give co-directors/writers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland credit. They opted to not make Still Alice into a sensational or overly sentimental adaptation of Lisa Genova's novel. They did not give the actors big moments of emotional outbursts or histrionics. Instead, I think that they went the opposite way and made the whole thing rather cold and remote. 

It is one thing to be eerily calm when you are given an Alzheimer's diagnosis. It is, I find, quite another to be almost disengaged when you are told that it might be a brain tumor. Alice as played by Moore at times never seemed to display any emotion. I found this surprising given that the character was, I presume, meant to be seen as intellectual and strong. 

I can concede that perhaps that was how Alice Howland was supposed to be: disengaged, remote, dispassionate about her declining health. However, I found her too remote, removed and almost inhuman. To be fair, she did display a little prickliness when dealing with her doctor. That prickliness seemed more for his own calm manner than from any struggle she had.

I cannot shake the idea that Still Alice was going to get Julianne Moore her long-awaited Oscar no matter how good or bad her performance was. Do I think that it was a bad performance? No, but I did find it very "actory". To me, that means calculated, methodical, planned out. Her performance was professional but distant. I never saw the character of Alice Howland. I saw Julianne Moore.

There were times when I thought that Alice was using Alzheimer's as an excuse to get out of things like dinners that she was not keen on. It is strange that what I figure was meant as an emotionally devasting scene where she cries because she can't find the restroom, I thought that it was veering towards parody. 

Her insistence on continuing to try and teach despite her growing inability to do so did not come across as courageous. It came across as arrogant. For someone who is meant to be highly intelligent, she came across as stupid in not seeing that her class was a muddle. 

The rest of the cast save one made Still Alice, well, still in their actions. I found very little emotion in every actor except Kristen Stewart. Again, I was not looking for big moments where people throw things and go into shouting tirades. I was also not expecting the exact opposite: no emotion, no reaction to what I figure would be a difficult thing to live through. 

Stewart, as noted, was the exception. That, however, is not a good thing. She played a struggling actress. I saw an actress struggling. I have never thought that Kristen Stewart is a good actress. Still Alice did not convince me to change my mind.

One of Still Alice's greatest flaws is Ilan Eshkeri's score, which was syrupy and getting on my nerves. Perhaps Eshkeri's score was meant to make up for the lack of emotion that the characters had. That's as good a guess as to why I found it unbearable to listen to.

None of this is to say that the attention that Still Alice brings to Alzheimer's disease is not a good thing. Alice in her speech to an Alzheimer's Association group tells them, "I am not suffering. I am struggling", which is a good way of phrasing things. However, I still would have liked to have seen there be any emotion, even overdone ones, to none at all.

Still Alice, I think, will be remembered for being the film that finally got the talented Julianne Moore an Oscar. It should be noted that Moore has not received an Oscar nomination since Still Alice as of this writing. That makes me think that the Academy figured that they got that over with and could move on. Still Alice is not terrible. It is fine. It also could have been more.

DECISION: C- (4/10)

Cabaret: A Review

CABARET

Cabaret has the distinction of winning the most Academy Awards without winning Best Picture, eight in total. That's impressive, especially given that its main competition was The Godfather. Weimar Germany was never so decadent and doomed as it was in Cabaret, a brilliant musical with standout performances.

In the final years of the Weimar Republic, young Brian Roberts (Michael York) arrives in Berlin to serve as an English teacher to eager Germans. Here, he is soon caught up in the hedonistic demimonde of the Kit Kat Klub, which is watched over by the club's Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey). Brian is introduced to the Kit Kat Klub by his neighbor, American chanteuse Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), who works there. She dreams of being a great and famous film actress. She also dreams of having an affair with Brian, who does not reciprocate her attraction. 

Brian soon starts attracting students. Two of them are Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper), a young man with financial troubles, and Natalia Landauer (Maria Berenson), a young woman with no financial troubles. Fritz wants to make her into a mistress but ends up falling in love with the innocent Natalia. There is a problem, however. Natalia is Jewish, Fritz is not, and this is a dangerous time for Jews as Nazism begins taking sway over Germany.

Neither the Master of Ceremonies nor Sally seem to care about the troubles outside the Kit Kat Klub. Sally and Brian do eventually begin an affair, but a new player has entered the field. He is Baron Maximilian (Helmut Griem), who begins squiring the tawdry Sally around town and country, much to Brian's displeasure. Brian is also equally displeased to appalled about Max's dismissiveness of Nazis, whom Max believes can be controlled as used to counter Communism. 

Sally and Brian find that they have Max in common. Fritz reveals his true identity to Natalia. Natalia finds the antisemitism growing more dangerous and deadly. Will Brian and Sally ultimately end up together, or will Sally find that life is a Cabaret even when it truly isn't?

Cabaret upends your expectations straight from the beginning. As the Emcee bids us welcome in German, French and English with the opening number, Willkommen, the dichotomy between the divine decadence at the Kit Kat Klub and the harsh reality of the dying Weimar Republic slap us again and again. There is when in a brilliant bit of editing the Emcee is delightfully, almost gleefully, getting slapped around and slapping the Kit Kat dancers countered against the club's owner getting beaten up by the Nazis whom he threw out of the club earlier. 

The picnic which Sally, Max and Brian go to features a lovely song, Tomorrow Belongs to Me, sung by a young man. Tomorrow Belongs to Me soon makes clear that the clean-cut young man is a member of the Hitler Youth. That alone transforms the scene from a bucolic moment into one of almost terror, the lyrics taking on a sinister meaning. What elevates this moment (the only song not sung at the Kit Kat Klub) is how soon everyone at the picnic except for Max and Brian join in. Sally, asleep in the car, does not notice. This seems fitting for Sally Bowles, who has no interest in the troubles of the world beyond her garishly green fingernails.

The final title musical number is also an example of how what we hear is counter to the reality. Cabaret is an upbeat, joyful number, whose music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb make it sound as such. "What good is sitting all alone in your room? Come here the music play. Life is a cabaret, old chum. Come to the cabaret". Despite the frivolity Cabaret has on the surface, we know that the party is coming to a violent end. Brian has left Berlin, so he will be safe. The fate of everyone else, however, is left to our imagination. It is doubtful that Fritz and Natalia will be allowed to live. The Emcee may survive by becoming a Nazi himself despite being the overlord of this crazed world of debauchery and wild abandon. As for Sally Bowles? Will she end up being one of those "happy corpses" she sings about? Who can say.

Cabaret is filled with some exceptional performances. Liza Minnelli more than emerged from the shadow of her famous parents Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli. She dominated the musical numbers and made them standout moments. There is the brazenness of Mein Herr, where she sings about the end of an affair. There is also the tender and moving Maybe This Time, which I understand like Mein Herr was written by Kander & Ebb for the film. In most musicals, the songs are sung to move the story along by the characters. In Cabaret, all but one are sung on a stage. Even the one song not sung at the club, the previously mentioned Tomorrow Belongs to Me, the performance at the picnic would not be thought of as out of the ordinary. I would argue that contrary to what is argued about the Cabaret songbook, the songs do express the character's emotions. Maybe This Time may be a song performed at the Kit Kat Klub stage. However, it also reflects Sally's growing optimism and feelings of actual love versus her usual love-them-and-leave-them manner. The intercutting between her performance and her encounters with Brian, I think, underscore that connection.

Yet I digress.

Minnelli certainly excels at these moments, belting the numbers with gusto. It is in the non-singing moments that Minnelli reveals a strong actress. She makes Sally Bowles into a mix of worldliness and naivete, a sophisticated innocent if you like. Near the end of the film, she and Brian argue about Max. Brian has a mix of jealousy and disgust at how Max is misleading and using Sally. At the climax, he angrily yells out, "Screw Maximilian!". She almost nonchalantly says, "I do". Brian then begins chuckling to himself, then looks Sally directly and says, "So do I". The look Minnelli gives Sally is a mix of shock and disappointment, but also of innocence. It is almost as if she cannot understand that such a thing is possible despite Brian having been open about his past experiences. It is a dynamic performance.

Liza Minnelli is matched by Joel Grey as the Master of Ceremonies. Impish, almost demonic, Grey recreated his role from the original Broadway production for the film. He is frightening in his almost malevolent glee at the demented, debauched, decadent world that he oversees. His Emcee is one who as he says in Willkommen, tells the Kit Kat Klub denizens to leave your troubles outside. He makes the Emcee almost inhuman, a strange amoral creature who mocks everything.

What makes Grey more impressive in Cabaret is that he never utters a single word of dialogue in the film. His performance consists entirely of singing and dancing. It is his sinister presence that makes one almost frightened whenever he appears. In his gaudy makeup and at times outlandish costumes, Grey's Master of Ceremonies is sinister, off-putting and off kilter.

Michael York does well as Brian, the man who sees the decadence of Weimar slipping into the authoritarianism of the Third Reich. He may have been part of the former, but he also saw that no one was seeing how the latter was coming. 

Bob Fosse blended the various technical elements in Cabaret while getting masterful performances from his cast. One never feels the two-hour runtime. This world is seedy, coming apart, and Cabaret under Fosse's direction brought it all to life in an exceptional manner.

Cabaret is a tragedy. This is a debauched world, filled with too much decadence and self-centeredness to see the danger even after it was too late. It also has excellent performances and a fantastic score. Like Sally Bowles, people will always love a Cabaret.

DECISION: A+ (10/10)

Superman (2025): A Review

SUPERMAN (2025)

When Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, was working on the story and script for the original Superman, he remarked that Kal-El's origin story was a great tragedy. I got a similar feeling while watching the newest Superman, that it too was a great tragedy. However, I did not mean it the same way as Puzo. Superman is a great tragedy because the people behind it lost a great opportunity to reinvigorate this character. 

Superman (David Corenswet) has been defeated by the "Hammer of Boravia", a machine sent by the malevolent country to stop Superman from interfering with its invasion of neighboring Jarhanpur. His loyal dog, Krypto, spirits him away to the Fortress of Solitude, where Superman's robots help him recover. Once more into the breach, Superman takes on the Hammer which is really Ultraman. Ultraman is controlled by tech billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), who harbors a passionate hatred for the Man of Steel.

One person who does not hold a passionate hatred for the Man of Steel is intrepid Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). Lois is so intrepid that she is fully aware that Superman is the true identity of her fellow Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, with whom she is having a clandestine affair. She is not pleased that Clark interviews himself as he is essentially interviewing himself. She also is not keen on him getting involved in the Barista/Jodhpur war (by this time I stopped bothering to remember the nations and started calling them "Barista" and "Jodhpur"). 

A battle between a new monster and the combined forces of Superman and the "Justice Gang" is really a distraction for Luthor, his main henchman the Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria) and Luthor's Instagram-mad mistress Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampio) to break into the Fortress of Solitude. Here, they come upon the message that Kal-El (Superman on his native planet of Krypton) had from his parents Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Sara (Angela Sarafyan) sent with him. That message has been garbled, but The Engineer has figured it out. 

Superman was not sent to Earth to escape Krypton's destruction or help the Tellurians. He was sent to knock up every woman and rule over humanity as their overlord. This news shocks the world. It shocks Superman as well. This news, however, causes Superman to allow himself to be taken into custody. To his shock and horror, the custody will be run by Luthor, who imprisons Superman in a pocket universe.

Now it is up to Lois and the Justice Gang members to save the world and Superman. Justice Gang ringleader Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), a Green Lantern, is not keen on involvement. His fellow Justice Gang member Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) alleges that he too is not interested in involvement, but he does so in part to spite Gardner. The final Justice Gang member, Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) is generally uninterested in either side. Mr. Terrific and Lois eventually manage to get Superman and Krypto out of the pocket universe. 

That, however, leads to the pocket universe starting to enter our world. This will mean the end of the world as we know it, but no one save Luthor is feeling fine. Will Superman, along with the Daily Planet staff and the Justice Gang, be able to defeat Luthor? Will they also stop Israel, I mean Boravia, from destroying Gaza, I mean, Jarhanpur?

I cannot say that writer/director James Gunn intended for Superman to go wrong but go wrong it did. My sense is that Gunn and everyone involved behind the scenes in Superman went against what original Superman creative consultant Tom Mankiewicz observed. He said that (the filmmakers) cannot be smarter than the material. You have to take the premise seriously, though you can have funny moments. 

Superman, conversely, has plenty of moments that are meant to be funny, but which are not. The quipping between Superman and his various robots was not funny. Krypto's dominance in the film was not funny. The commenting about the name "Justice Gang" (which no one apart from Gardner liked) was not funny. Sight gags, such as how Mr. Terrific's garage door opened slowly, were not funny. When the second monster was unleashed, I thought they had brought in Stich to do battle with Superman. 

It is surprising to me that people could botch such a simple assignment as Superman. I think it goes to again, the idea that they thought they had to be smarter than the material. It might also be the current notion to make this expansive universe versus a straightforward Superman vehicle. We had cameos from John Cena as Peacemaker. The film started with Superman being beaten down. You had Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) being some sort of sexual catnip to all the women. He had Eve Teschmacher under his spell. 

All that is already curious. The problem that I saw is that Superman is essentially a supporting character in his own film. I presume that the Justice Gang was not actually the more dominant part of Superman. However, it felt that way at times. In a strange way, I felt that Superman was less about Superman and more about Krypto. A lot of time and energy were spent focused on the Super Dog versus the Super Man.

It did not help that Superman has him beaten and battered often. The film starts with him getting battered by Ultraman. He gets beaten by the Justice Gang. He gets beaten by both Luthor and Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), a fellow alien in the pocket universe who can turn himself into Kryptonite. He gets beaten up by what we discover are Superman clones, created by Luthor to anticipate all his actions. This is not a Superman. This is a Super Wimp.

As a side note, the way that Lex Luthor managed to create these clones is, intentionally or not, reminiscent of how Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor did the same thing in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. 

One thing that was quite frustrating was how we are told one thing only to see that violated. When Mr. Terrific and Lois are looking into the pocket universe, we are told that a river within that universe would kill anything that comes into contact with it. Guess who falls into that river and manages to survive.  

I think the actors did their best with what they had. David Corenswet does look the part. He does have an earnestness and sincerity that the character should have. I do question why, as Clark Kent, he has such a deep and commanding voice. I am aware that Lois is fully aware of Clark Kent's other identity. However, there was very little of Clark Kent in Superman. 

As another side note, I do wonder why Gunn decided to essentially start our story in medias res. How DOES Lois discover Superman's other identity? Why, apart from what I understood to be jealousy, does Luthor harbor such hatred towards the Man of Steel? How did Jimmy Olsen of all people turn into such a super-slut where women find him irresistible? When it came to Luthor's mistress Eve Teschmacher, I spent much of the film wondering if she was his girlfriend or his sister. Either way, I got flashbacks to the two female roles in Superman III as she could have been either.

Corenswet was well-matched with Nicholas Hoult. Hoult was appropriate in his raging and malevolent turn as Lex Luthor. Brosnahan, conversely, was blank as Lois Lane. I did not care for Nathan Fillion or Isabela Merced's Hawkgirl. The former worked too hard to be abrasive, the latter was almost an afterthought. Gathegi was, along with Corenswet and Hoult, a standout as Mr. Terrific. He has a serious manner that works within the film. Mr. Terrific is not introduced in Superman, though to be fair no one is. As such, his mix of deadpan seriousness with actual skills showcases an interesting character. 

Superman, to my mind, is a lost opportunity. You can't thrill to a film that has a pocket universe where monkeys are typing out anti-Superman tweets. You don't care about the conflict that Superman is attempting to stop. If people want to draw a parallel between the Barista/Jodhpur war and Israel/Hamas, they are free to do so. I did not care and don't understand why Superman would side with one side over the other. At one point in the film, Superman insists that he is punk rock.

Superman is less punk rock as he is yacht rock. 

DECISION: D+ (3/10)