Silflay Hraka

I saw both “Superman Returns” and “Click” at the movies over the holiday and thought I’d share a few thoughts about each of them here.

I’ll start with Adam Sandler’s “Click” since I have fewer things to say about it. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the premise, Sandler’s character acquires a “universal” remote control from an other-worldly Christopher Walken. The remote allows him to control his life by pausing, rewinding or fast-forwarding through unpleasant bits of life. Predictably, he uses it too often and misses important bits of life with his parents, wife and kids.

I’d seen the preview several times and the premise seemed a little thin to me. The reviews I’d read weren’t exactly glowing either. So I wasn’t terribly interested in seeing the movie, but my companion, who we’ll refer to as Little Irish Stout or LIS from now on, really wanted to see it. I’m almost always willing to go sit in the dark and drink Diet Pepsi and eat popcorn and Milk Duds and I’ve generally enjoyed Sandler’s movies so I agreed.

Though the “enjoy life while you have it” message was pounded into you early and often, the film was much better than I was willing to give it credit for after seeing the trailer. LIS and I really enjoyed it and she laughed until she sprouted tears several times. I will say she’s a pretty easy laugh though. (That’s a good thing. She laughs early and often and reaffirms my belief that I’m the funniest guy in the world.)

This may be a case of having my low expectations exceeded, but I did enjoy the movie and I’d recommend it if you’ve enjoyed Adam’s other films. It was hysterical at points and very touching at others. Kehaar gives it…three-and-a-half stars on a five star scale.

I also liked “Superman Returns” but had a few more problems with it, probably because of slightly higher expectations. The film rightly ignores the third and fourth installments in the Christopher Reeve Superman series.

The story is that Superman disappeared from Earth to determine the fate of Krypton, his home world. He’s been gone for five years and returns home on a Kryptonite meteorite that was hurled into space when Krypton’s red sun exploded.

This is the first problem I had with the story. For one, Superman draws his super powers, including the power to travel through space without the need for oxygen, from Earth’s yellow sun. This is even confirmed in the dialogue of the movie. Superman loses his powers, including the power to survive the cold depths of space, in the presence of red sunlight and in the presence of Kryptonite. Maybe you’re wondering, as I did, how Superman even survived a trip to his planet, much less the return trip aboard a big hunk of Kryptonite.

There were several other holes in the story like that. Superman has his powers sapped by Kryptonite but only when it serves the story. At other times, he is free to ignore its adverse affects. It’s also obvious that Superman is wearing blue contact lenses.

The other problem I had was with Lex Luthor. Let me say that I thought Kevin Spacey did a fine job portraying the character, but the writers make Lex Luthor into comedy relief, just as they did when Lex was played by Gene Hackman in the Christopher Reeve series. In this age of dark heroes and even darker villians, it was disappointing to see Lex Luthor as little more than a viscious, but common, thug.

Lex’s motivation in the movie is apparently money and power. In order to get rich, Lex comes up with a plan to build a new continent in the middle of the Atlantic. This land will become valuable because it will eventually sink most of the United States into the ocean. Displaced peoples around the world will need Lex’s land in order to live so they’ll “pay through the nose”. This is Lex’s motivation.

Are you kidding me? That’s it? He’s going to kill billions of people just so he can be a real estate developer? Never mind that the United States Armed Forces, even in a severely depleted state, could simply seize any land necessary to keep it’s citizens alive. Nevermind that Lex has already acquired millions or billions of dollars by duping a wealthy widow into signing over her fortune while she lay dying. (That’s another problem I had with the movie. What court in land would ever consider such a document legally binding?)

The writers seem to excuse all these rather weak story devices by declaring Luthor insane. Yeah. There’s an original plot device for you.

Luthor could’ve been a much better character with much better motivation. Brian Singer, the writer and director, goes out of his way to pound the Superman-as-Christ-figure symbolism into your brain, but misses the chance to turn Lex into a truly evil counter-weight. Lex could’ve done everything he did out of sheer hatred for Superman. He could’ve been created as something of a Miltonian Satan, choosing to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. Instead he was made into something of a buffoon and I for one was very disappointed.

On the plus side, the effects were better than in previous Superman movies. I especially liked Superman’s heat vision. The film also provided a little more weighty drama than previous offerings. Maybe it was just the absense of camp. The movie also borrows heavily from comic art in terms of style and lighting. There are several scenes involving Superman that look like they were ripped right off the pages of a comic book. I can’t think of the artists name, but I could point to his art in the Barnes & Noble graphic novel section.

Overall, I think the movie was fine. But for some weakness in the story and in the character of Lex Luthor, it would be a great movie. Given the weak plot devices and the disappointing Luthor character, I give it three stars out of five. Maybe they’ll get it right in the sure-to-come sequel.

Every year I take in the Greensboro Fun Fourth Festival and every year I tell myself I’m not going to do it again. Somehow I forget my promise to myself and end up going to the “Fun” Fourth after all. This year’s festival, however, will be my last. I swear.

Not only is it always miserably hot in downtown Greensboro on the Fourth of July, but it’s a huge rip-off. Instead of paying cash for food and drinks, you have to purchase Fun Fourth “scrip” valued at $.50 cents per ticket. You turn in scrip to individual vendors for food and drink items. Because you’re no longer operating in a cash economy, vendors feel free to overvalue all of their items by something between 1 and 4 dollars. A soda ends up being a not-really-unreasonable $2.00 dollars, but almost everything else is sold at something two dollars more than I’m willing to pay. Fried dough ends up costing $5.00 and more substantive foodstuffs cost something like $7.00 apiece. Inevitably, you end up with leftover tickets that are worthless so everything really ends up costing you even more. Obviously this benefits the festivals organizers as they get to keep the money no matter what.

Not only is it overpriced, but it’s the same old stuff every half block. You get string of craft tents, two food vendors, and a music stage in endless procession for five or six blocks. The music offerings seem to be worse every year too. I guess the really popular bands are busy at other festivals or something.

I spent maybe 45 minutes at the Fun Fourth yesterday and was pretty offended from the beginning. The value of the festival falls every year as the prices for the same old fair food of hot dogs, fries and candy apples go up. This may be the reason the crowds seem to be thinner every year. The festival is always touted as a big success, but I think the crowd is perceptibly smaller every year. I’d be interested to see the statistics on that. The site above suggests the estimated attendance was about 100,000 this year. I don’t know if that was a pre-festival or post-festival estimate, but I find it very difficult to believe given the crowds I saw yesterday. Granted, I wasn’t there all day long, but the crowd was thinner than I’d ever seen it and I’ve been going for six or seven years now. (I never learn.)

And don’t get me started on the City of Greensboro’s fireworks. They did set them off last night around 10:00 p.m and they weren’t a bad show, but nearly everyone outside the stadium had given up and gone home by the time they started. I was one of the lucky few that live close enough to Grimsley to see the show from my home, but my companion for the day had already made her way home, missing the show. The crowd in the Lake Daniel park area had already decided to call it a night for the most part as well. I know there was a threatening storm, but if the fireworks had been started around 9:00 p.m., by which time it was dark and everyone in Greensboro was waiting, there wouldn’t have been any interference. As it is, the downpour began just as the finale wrapped at 10:15. It was frustrating to miss sharing the fireworks with all those who had been in such eager anticipation.

Anyway, that’s my Fourth of July rant. Next year I’m going to plan to be out of town for the holiday rather than stuck in Greensboro. No more “Fun Fourth” for me. I promise.

Ken Lay, Enron founder, dead at 64 - Jul. 5, 2006