Zack Snyder's SUPERMAN

[Johann]

Best news of the year for me: Zack Snyder has been given the directing job on the new Superman film.

That man makes my kind of movies. (of the popcorn variety, that is)
300, Watchmen and the latest from him, Suckerpunch are all fanboy Masterpieces.
I haven't seen Suckerpunch, but I've seen the trailer and I got really jacked about it.
Love it.

That man can EXECUTE a film.

I cannot wait to see what he does with The Man of Steel. I already know it'll kick balls.
Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent? Fine by me. I have no problem with that. I'm not on the hating Kevin Costner bandwagon.
He's done some great movies.
What kinda bugs me tho is that they are YET AGAIN doing the Krypton thing, the whole Superman's origin thing.
Don't we know that already?
Why not have Supes already established? maybe 10 or 15 years into his time on earth?
And throw in some nifty surprises?
Just sayin'.


I am really really stoked that Warners is not slacking off on a marquee superhero.
And that Zack Snyder has been given the job....PERFECT.
Thank you Warners. For giving the fans what they want.
Nolan's Batman trilogy and now Snyder's Superman....Awesome.

[Johann]

Christopher Nolan is producing Zack Snyder's MAN OF STEEL.
And his own Batman writer David S. Goyer is writing the script, after both men discussed stories for The Dark Knight Rises.
Apparently Goyer had a juicy idea for a modern Superman story. He told Nolan about it and Chris pitched it to Warner Brothers.
Naturally, due to their track record, they were hired to write and produce.
Zack Snyder just has to Frankenstein the Man of Steel.
And he'll do it well. I have no doubt in my mind.

Good cast:

Julia Ormond & Russell Crowe as Kal-El's Kryptonian parents
Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as his Earth parents
Amy Adams as Lois Lane
Michael Shannon as General Zod- glad they're bringing Zod back!
and
Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman (who was in the running to play Superman for Bryan Singer but lost out to Brandon Routh).

Christopher Nolan admired Bryan Singer's faithfulness to the Christopher Reeve/Richard Donner template but said that Snyder/Goyer and himself are taking Superman in a new direction.
That's fine by me.
Superman Returns was excellent. Maybe a tad too long, but overall I loved it to death. Still love it. Hats off to Bryan Singer.
But a new Superman big-screen offering is much needed and highly anticipated by me.
Warners has the best men working on it you can get.

Let them forge Steel!

A MAN of Steel!

[Chris Knipp]

"Christopher Nolan is producing Zack Snyder's MAN OF STEEL."

This shows that Nolan is becoming a shlockmeister producer on the level of Speilberg or Luc Besson. It's funny how that happens. With Following and Memento, he seemed a maker of art films. Now he's going from A-List blockbuster maker (Inception) to B-List shlockbuster producer. Superman: the word has ceased to ring a bell for me. It's been so done to death, and there are so many Superheroes, I can no longer remember which vinyl uniard we're talking about.

"Best news of the year for me: Zack Snyder has been given the directing job on the new Superman film."

Are you really serious? All Snyder's movies have been roundly trashed by the critics:

300: Metacritic 31.
Watchmen: Meticritic 56
Suckerpunch: Metacritic 33

How you can adore stuff like this and yet admire and worship Kubrick and Herzog is a little beyond me.

[Johann]

Chris Nolan and the word "schlock" are not compatible.
I hear you that Superman has been done to death, but I want a new Superman every year.
I'd love it if there were 4 different styles of Superman film being worked on all at once. with 4 different casts and crews. Hell yeah.
To be released days apart! why not?
Hell, even 15 different directors, all doing a 5-minute short of their vision of Superman- that would also kick major ass.

Besides his Batman films, what don't you like about Chris Nolan?
He's inspired by Kubrick (one reason I'm in his corner) and he has a command of his craft.
He's not out to make crap.
He's in the service of incredible moviemaking, former Art-darling-to-blockbuster-producer though he may be.

Critics of Zack Snyder are irrelevant.
In fanboys' eyes, he's a Bitchin' Godhead.
Suckerpunch was a really trashy bad movie. But I loved it!
Saw it twice in theatres.
It's hard to explain it's appeal because it can be ripped to pieces by critics.
I guess all I can say is Zack Snyder fills a void that fanboys know was lacking.
The movies he's made can all be called failures by erudite critics.
Fanboys who like certain types of pulp fiction know that he's Bitchin' and he hits a cool nerve that can't really be explained in words.
I can wax about Kubrick & Herzog and comic books in the same breath.
I don't separate my cinephilia. It's all one.
Rambo.
Godard.
Transformers.
Ozu.
A.I.
Sam Fuller.
V For Vendetta.
Maya Deren.
Sin City.
Francois Ozon.
Yellow Submarine.
Chris Marker.
Conan the Barbarian.
Bernardo Bertolucci.
Fritz the Cat.
Matthew Barney.
Ghost in the Shell.
Jean Cocteau.
Robocop.


You dig?
:)

[Chris Knipp]

Spielberg and shlock aren't compatible either, but they come together when he produces.
I definitely dig, but don't expect me to come out and shout about Snyder's Superman.

What's wrong with admitting that you and your idols are embracing shlock? We all do at some point.
I admit "schlockmeister" has an ungly sound though. It's meant to.

[Johann]

It's OK not to come out raving about Snyder's Superman.
I'm not one to expect others to toe my line of reasoning. Feel free to go your own way on these things.
I'm a film buff but also a Fanboy.
Zack Snyder may very well have his Superman movie ripped apart just like his other movies.
I'm down with him. I totally accept other people not agreeing. Snyder is just as hated by some comics fans as George Lucas is hated by Star Wars fans. You can't please everybody. One man's whiskey is another man's vinegar.


I think Spielberg can be very schlocky.
Hook was schlocky to me, Always was schlocky to me and Minority Report was the schlockiest of all.
But he also has some seriously great movies under his belt.
(Schindler's List, A.I., Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, etc.)

His producing efforts definitely deserve more criticism than his own features.
I agree with the notion that his JJ Abrams Super 8 collaboration was not as Awesome as it could have been.
It could've been great: the promise was there. The style is too formulaic. The Spielberg "brand" was too prominently embedded.
It was obvious to me from the trailer. (I haven't seen the full movie, so I can't say with 100% certainty, but my hunches feel correct).

You'd think the man who made the first modern day blockbuster (Jaws) would have figured out how to blow every other director away by the year 2011. I expect a LOT from Spielberg and it seems he's not living up to his considerable reputation.
He said that filmmakers have always been trying to catch up to Stanley Kubrick, himself included.
He has all of the resources and knowledge to deliver something in the realm of Kubrick's stature.
He did it once with A.I., and I know it was done in honor of Stanley. Why stop at the one feature?
I can think of many more film projects that could use Steven's muscle, films that are way more worthy of his name than Super 8 and Transformers.
If that's where his head is at in these years of his career, then that's where it's at.
Certainly he's earned the right (literally and figuratively) to do whatever in the hell he pleases.
It just seems like he's not living up to his potential.
He could do way more to enhance his already legendary legacy. (IMHO)

[Chris Knipp]

Film buff and fanboy as a combination adds a note of unclassifiability that is always to be preferred to predictability. I share some of your fanboy tastes; that's why I'm floored by some of the others. You are right to allow that Spielberg works on the edge of shlock. Armond White always speaks of Spielberg in the highest possible terms, but recently has condemned him for the movies he has fostered as a producer. In his review of Super 8 White states that Spielberg is producing movies that are a shlocky version of himself that undercuts all he has done that is great. Quoting myself:

Armond White, who lists these borrowings, argues that while Spielberg himself is a humanistic film master, the movies he's produced for the most part "simply stink," and Abrams' Super 8 is a cheapening of the Spielberg style that's enough to make Spielberg's haters say "I told you so."

I recommend reading the first part at least of White's review of Super 8 linked to above. He says Super 8 is not really about kids making a zombie movie: " It’s really about Steven Spielberg, the film’s producer, embracing the hatred some people hold for him." It's worth considering this surprising view. White is often paradoxical and provocative, and also often right when everybody else is wrong -- or vice versa. In this case I think he's right to the extent that promoting (producing) work that is a cut-rate version of your own work cheapens your own legacy.

I don't quie agree with your list of Spielbergs's greatest works but we don't need lists. Obviously he has done some great movies and the one we definitely agree on is the haunting and Kubrickian A.I: Artificial Intelligence.

[Johann]

My first movie memories were of Flash Gordon, Superman II and base Petawawa theatre print of 1966's Batman: The Movie.
I remember going to the base thetare to see those and a Smurfs movie with my sister in the early 80's.
That's where my loyalty to "fanboy" movies comes from. It will never abate.
I didn't start loving art movies or director-specific films until 1992. It took another ten years to consider the whole history of cinema in totem.
That's when I started posting here.
Hope that helps a bit to explain my bizarro backing of some films.

Armond White should be singled out exactly because he's often right when everyone else is wrong.
He gets down to it.
He's like a good accountant: he doesn't just know what the numbers are. He knows what they SAY.

[Chris Knipp]

It does help to explain. We all tend to have our tastes fully formed early. You grew up, but you kept ahold of the remnants of childhood. We all do that I guess, except my first movies were crime stories.

[Johann]

I didn't grow up in a way. I will always have a fondness for comic books/superheroes.
Batman, Superman and Rambo were HUGE to me as a kid.
I still love those characters.
The mythology of superheroes appeals to me greatly.
Yes it's juvenile and maybe even puerile, if you wanna stretch it.
I won't argue too much about it.
But I also won't back down in my fanboy allegiance to these archetypes.

If all I did was talk about Kubrick, Bergman or Art films all day people would tell me to lighten up.
I do have some levity, in that I like South Park, comic book movies, Starsky & Hutch (the Glaser/Soul show) and I love to hate American Idol.
Movie snob I ain't.
I embrace LOTS of stuff. I don't limit myself.

But if a comic book movie sucks or missed the mark, I will say my piece.

[Chris Knipp]

We both are and try to be open minded. In reviewing new movies I attempt to see and be open to a varied range of them and I seem to do a fair job.

I may or may not have grown up. The child is father to the man. But then I may never have been a child. What is clear in America is that the country has not grown up. It's become nastier and cruder, and also regressed. I try to stay abreast of its fantasies.

As a fiilm culture we may be appreciably less sophisticated than in the Forties. Then, movie plots were complicated and dialogue was commonly fast and witty.

I read a lot of comic books when I was 7-12 or so; I don't read them any more. It seems my preferences then were for odd ones like Plastic Man and The Spirit (actually comic strips, and I liked some of them a lot), crime comics, and Classics Illustrated Comics, through which I gained a pretend familiarity with many literary chestnuts. I liked the graphics of superman/superwomen comic books but the action always seemed a little silly to me, so their codification into megabuck movie franchises seems a very odd development. Some of the Marvel Comics people must be awfully rich. But the artists who drew the original comics? Are they well off? Will Eisner? Jack Cole? I guess Al Capp was a right winger, but his Lil' Abner fascinated me when I was lil'.

As for lightening up, you have a choice also of movie comedies, but you never dwell on them, either the sophisticated or the crude ones, do you? You "lighten up" with some pretty dark stuff, even with the word "Dark" in the title. It is difficult to range all the way from the darkest to the lightest. I actually tended to love the dark very much in the past, but I don't like to go there as frequently any more. I've lightened up. At the moment, I have not seen any foreign films for a while. During festival times, I see almost nothing but.

In the Eighties I was watching a lot of dark movies, but at that time when Jonathan Demme was in his prime, nothing delighted me more than Something Wild and Married to the Mob. I also loved Levinson's Tin Men, and all the Brat Pack movies.

I might have turned to foreign films before you did, in age. I was watching all the art house releases and appreciating them when I was 11 and 12 and that may be a place where we differ. I also grew up with the Ealing comedies, and since I was steeped in English literature and subscribed the English comic magazine Punch, I was highly attuned to British humor. I still find something like Four Lions or The Trip much funnier than Apatow, though he has scored a few times.

[Johann]

I totally agree that America has gotten nastier and more regressive. Canada too- we aren't angels up here either. I've seen plenty of evidence of regression and dumbing down. The election results on May 2nd hammered in many 9-inch nails in the coffin of progression.

As for comics, it's club jazz. People who're really into comics are like a club. They are passionate about it, and the good thing about the medium nowadays is that the art has never been better. The cream of the crop work in the comics biz today.
However, more than one person in the business has said that the future of comic books is up in the air.
Paper stock costs more, premium artists need to be paid, and the issue price on most comics reflects that.
When I was collecting comics back in the 80's and 90's the price of a comic went up steadily. 75 cents to $1.25 to $2 to 5-6 dollars today for a single issue! It used to be somewhat affordable to collect comics. NOW? You gotta choose your comics carefully. You gotta really WANT that title and follow it. Sometimes I'll see a guy in a comic shop walk up to the register and plunk down 30 issues of brand new titles and put it on his credit card. Blows my mind. And guys like that do it EVERY MONTH! That's hardcore, because comic books are not as valuable as they were. the "investment" is really restricted to supply and demand. You won't make any money on your comics unless you have boxes and boxes of vintage Fantastic Four's or Detective Comics #27 in mint shape in your Granny's attic. Modern comics (1985-present) will garner you 10% of book listed price, usually. Depends on what's in your collection. And most serious comic collectors NEVER want to part with their good stuff.

The old artists and creators like Will Eisner and Jack Kirby probably have gotten the shaft financially. I'd have to look it up.
Stan Lee lives very comfortably, and I think even when Marvel was facing bankruptcy he was still OK money-wise.
Bob Kane got recognition and a handsome sum in his lifetime.
(and he lived to see Tim Burton's Batman- he was on the set and marvelled at it)


Chris- you're right that I don't see many comedies or dwell on them. My sense of humour is a little dark.
Generic comedies are a total waste of my time. So are Rom-Coms. You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to a romantic comedy.
I don't find anything funny about romance.
(except Pepe le Pew- his "romance" is truly hilarious)

These are my fave comedies:

The Big Lebowski
Blazing Saddles
A Very Brady Sequel
The Producers (the original w/ Zero Mostel)
South Park: bigger, longer, uncut
Team America: World Police
Dogma/Mallrats/Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
and
The Seven Year Itch

There are others, but these ones make me smile when I think of 'em

[Chris Knipp]

That's interesting. Including the economics. But you're talking about adults. Where do kids stand with comics today? They can't afford them, I guess. When I was seven I fell heir to several large piles of comics from the older boy I used to hang out with and go rowing on the creed with. Free. I think I bought Classics Illustrated comic books when I was a few years older, for a while. It was through Tom Mahone that I experienced superman and Crime Does Not Pay comics. What I liked about the latter was that they made it look like crime did pay. When comics started to become valuable I wished I had held onto some of them but I'm sure I just threw them away.

The old artists and creators like Will Eisner and Jack Kirby probably have gotten the shaft financially. I'd have to look it up.

Please do.

Those comedies you list don't appeal to me, except Mall Rats and Silent Bob. I like Smith. I haven't watched South Park. AsI mentioned I grew up with the British black and white Ealing comedies, the best of which, often with Alec Guinness, are much more than comedies, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Flannel Suit. I love classic English films of all genres, Carol Reed, The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, early Hitchcock. Unfortunately English films have gone somewhat downhill since the Seventies or so when the Angry Young Man and Kitchen Sink films drew notice, and some of John Schlesinger. I love Sunday Bloody Sunday. If you count Neil Jordan, who is Irish, as English (some are set in England), there are some great ones like Mona Lisa. And there are some good gangster movies, like The Long Good Friday, with Bob Hoskins (1980). But their great period was earlier as with the Italians.

Of course The Big Lebowski is a classic but it's not my favorite Coens movie.

Hot Tub Time Machine. Must watch that. It was highly recommended to me by Beto, one of my consultants on pop movies. He said it is very funny.

The Apatow comedies. They have to be watched simply because they are an essential expression of the zeitgeist. And some of them like Superbad and Knocked Up are actually a lot of fun to watch. Apatow was brilliant at the beginning with his TV series, Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, the seeds of what came after.

Opting out of rom-coms cuts you out of a large segment of Hollywood movies. I often enjoy them. (How about Kick-Ass. That's listed as a comedy. Some violent movies are also comedies.)

Many or most rom-coms I do not find that memorable, or even bother to see. But I see a fair number and they are not only enjoyable, and light, and fun, but another expression of the zeitgeist. Some I have watched, liked (or at least not hated) in recent years:

Wedding Crashers (2005)
Hitch (2005)
Knocked Up (2007)
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
What Happens in Vegas (2008)
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)
The Proposal (2009)
He's Just Not That Into You (2009)
It's Complicated (2009)
Killers (2010)
Going the Distance (2010)
Love and Other Drugs (2010)
How Do You Know (2010
No Strings Attached (2011)

A lot of it has to do with the actors. I would watch anything with Will Smith, Jake Gyllenhaal, or Astton Kutcher in it. No String Attached (Friends with Benefits is coming, with Timberlake) has a plot gimmick but is totally predictable: but it has Natalie Portman. She tends to be unexpected and delightful in almost every role. NOTE: American rom-coms are only a tiny fraction of the new moveis I see, most of which are in series and festivals, despite hitting the regular release circuit as much as I can.

[Johann]

I think kids would love comics if they were exposed to them. I think it's up to Mom and Dad, as they are the ones who can afford them.
If I had kids, they'd have lots of comics to look at and lots of action figures to stage epic battles with and we'd share many moments watching classic cartoons and movies.

I had lots of great action figures and toys and I'm very grateful for it. It helped me to learn about the world.
I'm no Dr. Phil (AT ALL), but I'd say you can't go wrong reading comics to your children. Involve them. Use voices! Be dramatic! Kids love that shit.
You saw Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Those scenes of Redmond telling tales of battle to his young son Brian are examples of parenting I really admire.
Kids remember that stuff.
I guess if a kid had a paper route or some other cash-raising venture (like a lemonade stand or mowing lawns or raking leaves) he/she could afford some comic books.
But then Ma & Pa may have something to say about what they are. Archie? or Preacher? Hmmm.

I've heard of Classics Illustrated. Good series there. educational.
Lots of people probably have stories of old comics they threw away or otherwise lost.
Same for sports cards I gather..

If you haven't watched South Park yet, then Don't. I can't recommend it. Sorry.
I dig it, but I have a hunch you won't. So yeah, on my advice, leave South Park for the demented and twisted..heh heh
I have a neighbor who loves the Ealing comedies and Keeping Up Appearances and Coronation Street.
I've seen a few episodes of each and it's a little lost on me. But I got nothing against it. If people dig it, then no harm done.
Sunday Bloody Sunday is great. I second that.
I can't argue with your Apatow comments. I just hope he doesn't run out of cool ideas or gets stale.

Duly noted on Hot Tub Time Machine.
What a great idea and what a great name for a movie...

[Chris Knipp]

Lemonade stand? I don't think so. Well, you don't have kids. I don't either. So we should drop that whole theme. But I have to say that I think if I read to kids I'd read good books to them -- as good books were read to me. I did my own comic book reading.

I don't think you are right to equate Ealing comedies with Keeping Up Appearances and Coronation Street. Give the Ealing film comedies a try before you dismiss them on the basis of British TV that came four decades and one decade later.