There are few things in this life that make me feel like I’m seven years old again, but one of them is sitting in darkened movie theater in the seconds before the John Williams score introduces a new Superman movie. Of course, the last time I felt this way was just before The Phantom Menace started, so I was sort of ready to be bitterly disappointed again.

I wasn’t, although this movie is definitely a mixed bag for aficionados. As anyone who has read a review knows, Superman Returns was directed by Bryan Singer, who did a hell of a job of peppering the first two X-Men movies with winks at the comics-reading audience. Superman is a different story; the winks are at those of us who remember the first two Reeve films.

As for the comics continuity, forget it. Jonathan “Pa” Kent is dead; Lois is engaged to someone else (as opposed to being married to the Big Guy in the comics), and has a child old enough to make you wonder if she was knocked up in high school; and Superman himself has been away for the last five years or so on a homecoming jaunt to see the ruins of Krypton.

That’s the first thing that rings oddly about this flick—Superman is underpowered compared to the guy the comics readers are used to. In a breathtaking early scene, he saves both the space shuttle and a 747, but just barely; the print Kryptonian wouldn’t have strained nearly as hard. Likewise, it’s unclear why it would take five years to get to Krypton and back. In the movie he appears to have some sort of Kryptonian ship; in the comic, he gets around pretty well on his own with wormholes and the like, and can probably crack light speed on his own steam.

At the same time, he’s a bit too powerful to make for interesting movie villains. No human weapon can scratch him, as we’re shown during a great display of “faster than speeding bullet time”. Lex Luthor is dastardly as usual (and not the president, as he recently was in the comic), but all he’s got going for him is a few shards of kryptonite. Which, as per usual, is more darned easy to come by than fragments of a dead planet a galaxy away probably should be.

Kryptonite is another thing that gets the weird treatment. Canonical green-K kills Superman through radiation poisoning, but doesn’t take away his powers—although he might be too weak to use them. There was this scene recently where Superman and Batman got buried alive in a grave together after Superman got shot with a kryptonite bullet (bear with me, it made sense at the time); Batman frees them both by setting off a large explosive to blow them into the sewers, using Superman’s body as a blast shield. Naturally, both of them were in pretty bad shape by the time they made it back to the Batcave. Singer’s Superman, though, does seem to lose his powers when exposed to kryptonite; or at least, he loses them just enough for dramatic effect.

And that’s my biggest criticism of Superman Returns. This Superman just doesn’t seem all that heroic. DC has done a great job of coming up with storylines that challenge Superman’s powers, and he’s certainly gone through plenty of stretches without them—and he’s still the guy who the other heroes routinely refer to as “the best of us.” There are any number of characters flying around with Superman’s powers—off the top of my head I can think of two Supergirls, Superboy (a clone of Superman), Captain Marvel, Black Adam, Power Girl, and theoretically the entire population of Kandor if they could just get out of that bottle—but what made Superman a hero, to those who know him best, wasn’t being born on Krypton, it was being raised in Smallville.

Not so with the screen Supes. The married Lois in the comics didn’t marry Superman, she married Clark; it was only after they were engaged that he revealed his identity to her. Not so onscreen; this Lois has eyes only for Superman, and Clark Kent is as bumbling and annoying as ever. This follows in the footsteps of Christopher Reeve, but give me the comic Clark any day over this one.

Or the comic Superman. That one has too much sense of responsibility to Earth to fly away for five years. That one wouldn’t get the crap beaten out of him by three punks who wouldn’t make Batman break a sweat, kryptonite or no kryptonite. That one wouldn’t use X-ray vision and super-hearing to spy on an ex-girfriend in one particularly creepy scene.

So, you might think by now that I don’t like this movie. And you’d be wrong. I thought it was great, had a blast, looking forward to the next one. It’s just that this isn’t really the same guy I read about in the comic books, and I had a few things to get off my chest. You could say the same about Batman Begins, a great movie in which the hero clearly isn’t the Caped Crusader I know, because he wouldn’t reveal his secret identity to some floozy he used to date.

But, hey, Singer? Next time? Give the guy a proper S. This one is a little scrawny. (Illustration by Alex Ross, from JLA: Liberty and Justice.)

This is apparently my week for truly sick comedy. Warning to all readers: these are two very funny movies. Provided you like the sort of humor where you’re constantly saying, “I can’t believe she just said that.” If your sense of humor is not sufficiently twisted, then move along, there’s nothing to see here.

That line came to mind because the South Park urchins make an appearance in The Aristocrats, along with just about every other name comedian of the last two generations. Give producers Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette props for thoroughness, since this comedy documentary includes talent from the Borscht Belt, 80s “where are they now” folks, and current HBO headliners. If you missed the reviews, the movie tracks what is widely considered to be the filthiest joke in history through the improv variations given it by various comedians; along the way, we get several interesting commentaries on the nature of comedy and the business. And a mime act that nearly made me burst a lung.

For my part, the film reminded me of something I’ve learned from spending time with several insanely talented comedians, artists, and actors: it just sucks that I don’t have any talent. Because when you’re performing, you then get to hang afterwards with other professionals as they do their damnedest to make beer shoot out of your nose. Stand-up comedy is probably the hardest job on Earth, but these people seem to have more fun after the show than any one human being should have.

And if I were in the industry, I’d definitely want to meet Sarah Silverman. Sure, she’s got that cute Jewish thing working, but more importantly, she’s smart and funny. You can pick up most (but as Ebert points out, not all) of her act in Jesus Is Magic. Like the Aristocrats, this is comedy for limited (i.e., sick and twisted) tastes; Silverman does material on rape, the Holocaust, and AIDS. Oh, and infant mutilation.

The downside of this film is that it suffers from HBO-itis; has there ever been a “comedy special” where the crap they bookended the show with was funny? Here, unfunny material bookends and is interspersed throughout the movie; the show would have been far better if they just let the stand-up, er, stand up on its own.

Regardless, this is well worth 70 minutes of your time, and be sure to stick around for the encore and the funniest performance of Amazing Grace you’ll ever see.

I gave Crash a miss in the theaters last year, because a review or two suggested that I’d be wasting my time watching a formulaic race relations film. But the Best Picture Oscar got me to reconsider.

What I’m now reconsidering is my interest in seeing movies that have won Best Picture Oscars.

Which is not to say that this is a worthless film, because the acting is excellent, and the screenplay does have continual zing. But there were two things that truly set me off from this film; here the spoilers commence, so if you have not seen it yet this might be a good time to stop reading.

The first problem is that I’ve been to Los Angeles, and I thought it was a fairly large town, but according to this movie it surely can’t be more than eight square blocks. At least, that appears to be the frequency with which the characters run into each other and appear at the same locations. In the history of policing, I doubt that any detective has wandered from his own car crash to the police scene where his brother is the murder victim.

The second problem is that I’ve known a few racists, both overt and subtle, and I’ve spent my life living in the sort of urban environment where, like L.A., racism is a steady undercurrent but rarely talked about. I grew up as the sole Jewish kid in a neighborhood that was approximately 95% black. And no one talks the way these characters do. At least, not to each other. Maybe at home, or at the bar that only caters to one race or ethnicity. But not to each other. Never to each other.

Matt Dillon plays the only character I think I might meet, because he’s a bigot, and bigots frequently have a tin ear. Although most bigots have the awareness to know when not to insult people from whom they’re asking a favor.

And maybe this white Jewish guy isn’t the right judge to say whether Terrence Howard’s portrayal of a black man conflicted about “acting white” doesn’t ring true. But I can say that I don’t think that any of my friends who have discussed this with me felt the need to risk suicide by cop to absolve themselves of their guilt.

Closing the movie review, if you want to see a great movie about the human condition and our interconnectedness, try Grand Canyon. Or Thirteen Conversations About One Thing.

And to close the race commentary… a few months ago, I got hassled on the street by a plainclothes cop who had the idea that the cigarette I just finished smoking was a joint. For around five minutes, I was talking to a guy who was convinced I was wrong, who had the power to arrest me, and who—most disturbingly—I absolutely could not convince that I was one of the good guys.

I’ve almost been arrested when I was breaking the law, and it wasn’t nearly as upsetting as this was.

I’m white. I don’t expect cops to look at me twice. I tend not to think of those two being connected, but I’m told that I’m naive that way. And it wasn’t until a cop looked at me twice that I really got what that was about.

Via Boing Boing, an interesting T-shirt to describe some relationships, and some faked terrorism against (a grounded) Air Force One.

This is the infamous Orson Welles radio broadcast version, available (along with many other interesting broadcasts I’m currently downloading) here.

Thanks to a dead battery, I’m only halfway through this, but I’ve got to say — despite the fact that I’ve read the book, watched this on the silver screen twice, and own the Classics Illustrated version: this is still exciting as all heck.

Of course, any review of the show has to include the notion that its original airing caused panicked mobs to flee New Jersey. Which raises the thought that people in 1938 didn’t have a strong grasp of science. I’d love to know if anyone listening to this show on the radio was suddenly reassured when they heard that there was supposedly a radio blackout in their area.

But by that time, they had already rounded up the kids and Bessie and were heading for the hills. God help anyone who tried to escape through the Pine Barrens. That place is spooky.

For contemporary listeners, perhaps the most interesting thing is listening to government responses to disasters then and now. Between assurances from the military that the threat is under control, and official federal appeals for calm and to God Almighty, it seems that not much has changed in seventy years.

After two days of heavy rotation on my iPod substitute, I hereby nominate the Superman Theme for best piece of orchestral cheese of the 20th century. For four minutes and twelve seconds, three themes battle for dominance through a half-dozen crescendos and the grandest use of the gratuitious key change in modern music. And trust me, I know from gratuituous key changes.

Yes, I’m counting the days.

I followed up Good Night and Good Luck with this one. In case you happened to be in kindergarten the last time it was in theaters: it’s the McCarthy era, and Woody Allen is a small-time grifter who pretends to be the author of works done by people who are victims of the blacklist.

I can only recommend this film for people who are truly fascinated by that era and everything associated with it. For the rest of us, this movie is just two notches too turgid to really maintain our attention. Pathetic result for major character, check. Unlikely love interest with unlikely politics, check. Bad guy who claims he’s serving as a puppet of the system, but who obviously is out for his own self-interest, check.

The best reason to sit through this movie is a wonderfully staged (and highly out of character) denouement. It doesn’t make up for the first 90 minutes.

Man, they really knew how to make a movie 80 years ago.

Yes, you need to have a certain temperament to sit through a silent movie. But they were shorter than today’s blockbusters, so give this one 44 minutes of your life and see what you think. The lengths that Buster Keaton is willing to go for a gag are, quite literally, insane; the Jackie Chan of his day, he did all of his own stunts, and in 1924 all of the stunts were real. IMDB reports that he nearly broke his neck in one scene.

Perhaps parts of the plotline don’t resonate eight decades later, but the slapstick comedy will still make you laugh out loud.

A dystopian future where the government spies on everyone, and everyone accepts it due to fears of terrorism. Clearly escapist fiction is really off the rails these days.

I’m a big fan of the original V for Vendetta comic series, so I’ve been looking forward to the movie for months, and caught it on its first showing in DC. Verdict: a great romp. There’s plenty here for people who loved the comic, and plenty here to piss them off; I can certainly see why Alan Moore distanced himself from the final product. (Although Moore doesn’t seem to understand that movies and comics are very different media with very different audiences; it’s hard to picture a movie that would make him happy.)

I’m going to try to avoid spoilers in the rest of this review, but if you want to go into the movie cold, it’s best to stop reading now. Suffice to say, it’s recommended.

Unfortunately, some of the best parts of the original series were jettisoned for the movie. V is much more mysterious in the comics; his abilities are never quite explained, and the movie version is both more powerful and more straightforward. Anyone who sees the movie and is intrigued about this angle on the character should read the book, immediately.

Evey is a bit older in the film than she is in the series, probably because Natalie Portman isn’t 14 anymore. She’s also in less dire straits in the film, which gives her a bit of moral purity that’s less clear in the series. On the other hand, what happens to her is one of the greatest story arcs in recent fiction, and it was stunning to see this faithfully adapted for the screen.

It’s a bit of a shame to see V drop the asexual aspect to his character—and it would have been even more interesting if they had changed this and had maintained Evey’s age as a Lolita. I suppose that this will never happen in an American film, certainly not a “comic book” film. But for once I’d like to see an adaptation where the hero doesn’t give away his secret identity to the love interest in the first reel. Maybe it’s okay for Superman, since he goes on to marry her, but one of the things that makes Batman interesting is his self-sacrifice. Anyone who doubts this really needs to read Son of the Demon.

This isn’t the best of all possible V movies, but it’s pretty damn good.

I am currently watching a stunning documentary from BBC4 called The Root of All Evil?, starring scientist Richard Dawkins. Perhaps it’s enough to say that part 1 is titled “The God Delusion,” and part 2 is called “The Virus of Faith.”

I can’t even begin to summarize Dawkin’s points here, except to say that even lapsed Catholics and Rosh Hashanah Jews are likely to be outraged by what he has to say. In fact, the worst thing about the documentary is that his statements are so incendiary that it’s doubtful to me that anyone not already friendly to his point of view will make it through the first five minutes.

That being said, in Jeff’s America this would be required viewing for all school-age children. And it’s perhaps worth noting that in this theoretically secular America there is simply no way in hell that it would ever be originally aired on PBS, let alone produced by PBS or any other commercial network.

I don’t suggest that anyone bootleg this off the Internet, but I understand that it just might be available.

Summertime, and lots of things are blowing up at the movies. The Island ranked as a decent entry in this genre, in that it at least passed Jeff’s Law of Internal Consistency, wherein once you get past the idea that the good guys have the ability to survive things that would pulp a normal human, the plot holes can only accommodate a small truck. It was also a kick to see Obi-Wan Kenobi and Neelix sharing the screen, sort of like watching Patriot Games a few weeks ago and enjoying the interplay between Han Solo, Mace Windu and Darth Vader.

Minor plot spoilers ahead, as if plot was the reason to see this movie.

The one thing about the spare parts of the future idea that bugged me: did anyone else notice that the only nonwhites who are interested in clones are football players? Apparently the future has no rich black people. Perhaps it would have been less noticeable if we had any time watching Michael Duncan Clarke interacting in the Brave New White World.

And does anyone really think you can suppress sex in an adult community of a few thousand people? Or would want to? Seems to me, you spike the food with birth control, socialize them like it’s the 1960s, and let them all go at it like bunnies.