Up, up and go away

Hello, goodbye

I used to be a movie buff way back when. We had action thrillers, psychological thrillers, horror, romance and the list goes on. If you wanted an interconnected universe of stories – you watched TV. The whole point of a movie is that you can watch it without having to know anything beforehand.

Enter the MCU, a juggernaut in its own right that up until the last Avengers movie wasn’t too difficult to follow. Things like Wikipedia are a huge help. Anyway, the success of the MCU is unmatched and unrivalled and with the way the world is today, I doubt its success will ever be replicated. Once they took the Disney+ route, I tapped out. I’m not interested enough to sit through multiple TV shows just to make sure I can follow the plot of a movie. However, the MCU interconnection began very subtly with end-credit scenes before it evolved to where it is today. For the first three phases, no prior knowledge was needed to enjoy the films.

Enter James Gunn and his DC Slate. I already have no plans to spend any money on DC movies just based on the sloppy way they handled the Henry Cavill situation, and also the Batgirl movie.

DC’s failures have come as a direct result of trying to copy the MCU blueprint, in the sloppiest way. It didn’t work. And yet they’ve decided to do the same thing again.

The projects so far summed up:

• Young Superman. The premise sounds vague. Like, he could be describing Man of Steel. I’m also not looking forward to a Superman written by Gunn.
• Dark Supergirl? Sigh.
• Creative Commandos – never heard of them.
• The Authority – WHY? Injustice would make more sense, but it’s way too early on for either.
• Swamp Thing – nobody watched the TV show, but let’s make a horror movie.
• Waller. Eye roll.
• The Brave and The Bold, in which Batman deals with Damien Wayne as Robin. Double sigh. The fact that Gunn said Damien Wayne is his favourite Robin says it all.

Oh, and The Batman that came out last year? That’s still getting a sequel. So, there will be two Batmans. Throwing a banner on the second one is the solution to help avoid confusion. I expect one of them to be cancelled or pushed back.

The entire thing (or some of it because there’s more to come!) just sounds exhausting. And I like DC. I like comics. I like Superman. I like Batman. What I don’t like is this obsession with creating universes. Just make a good movie. That’s it. Start from there. Did we not just do this with Zach Snyder ten years ago? Literally the SAME thing. Superman movie. Batman movie. And then some others that only the diehard fans cared about (Gunn is not going to let The Suicide Squad go, ever, but I’ve never been interested in it). I haven’t been compelled to watch Shazam, let alone the sequel.

My biggest issue is that they’re not even starting from scratch. So…viewers will need to have a passing knowledge of what happened in the DCEU. Oh, and Gunn and Safran are in charge of games too (why?) and the plan is to have those bridge the gaps between movies. We won’t even have the animated stuff because that’s all going to be connected too!

I have no comment on most of the projects but Damien Wayne? WHYYYYY. Amanda Waller getting her own show? Nobody asked for it. Waller works best as a shadowy, dubious badass government figure who shows up in the shadows. I might be biased though, the only appearance I’ve seen of the DCEU Waller is in Black Adam.

Quite frankly, I think it’s bs that Gunn is picking and choosing who he wants to keep (and that most of the people he’s keeping are from his projects). I’ll watch to see how it goes, but I’m not paying to see any of these films. I’m only interested in Booster Gold and Supes (and barely). I also question the logic of dropping these projects on the same people they need to go and watch the next four movies (that may or may not be canon to the new DCU!).

Bleh.

Apparently, I feel very strongly about this.

Superman & Lois (Season 1-2)

Superman & Lois (The CW)

Note: I am angry that I am angry about a CW show with the word ‘Super’ in the year 2022. I THOUGHT I WAS PAST THIS.

Season 1 was SO GOOD. I don’t have much to say. The family moments were cute. Clark and Lois were cute. Superman was cute. Tyler was cute. Everything was on point. It wasn’t perfect, but it was entertaining, engaging and a fun way to embrace the Superman IP.

And then Season 2 entered the chat and crapped all over the place.

Superman: The Movie (1978)

Note: I watched and wrote this a while ago but never posted it because I’m lazy. Happy New Year!

First of all, Christopher Reeve is Superman and no one else has come close to portraying him that well (live-action at least, Tim Daly comes a close second to me).

I know a lot of people aren’t crazy about his Clark Kent but I think he might be my favourite Clark Kent too (Dean Cain (sigh) is second, Welling is somewhere in between because I liked his younger Clark, but as the character got older, he lost a lot of his charm (for the sake of the character arc, but I digress).

Anyway, I won’t go into an extensive recap: Clark figures out where he’s from, and the loss of his father inspires him to help people. He eventually becomes a reporter and moves to Metropolis and falls in love with Lois Lane. He saves Lois a few times, most notably on the roof of the Daily Planet and she coins the name Superman. Lex Luthor gets wind of this and decides to kill Superman and also blow up California? Superman manages to escape and stop it – but not in time to save Lois Lane (who happened to be there because why not?). He then speeds so fast he turns back time and prevents the whole thing from happening.

As silly as it sounds, there is a clear A to Z plot. The simplicity allows the audience to appreciate Superman for what he is – a hero, and also a man with feelings and emotions like everyone else. The end of the movie directly links to the beginning. He’s still so distraught over the loss of his father that he’s driven to do this crazy thing to bring Lois back. Even Lex Luthor, as crazy as he is in this, has a clear motive.

From what I’ve read, this is still considered the best Superman movie yet. Probably because it doesn’t treat Superman like an alien from Krypton desperate to fit in beyond his high school years. Nor does it do its best to run away from the fact that Superman is in red, yellow and blue Spandex and tights. I saw someone say they like the newer costumes because they muted the colours, but the whole point is that he’s in these bright colours. The cheesy costume with the cape is part of the hero – because it doesn’t matter what he wears. He’s still the most powerful man on the planet. The point is that he could do anything in the world and he’s chosen to save people.

Plus, the original costume is still all sorts of cool.

My favourite part of the movie is the sequence from when he first appears to his first meeting with Lois. Although, I still don’t understand why he allowed Lois to publish the information on how he couldn’t see through lead and specific details about how he came to Earth? It didn’t seem very smart, and it made Lex Luthor’s plan come off slightly…silly. Although, given that Lex was living underground, it wasn’t the most zany thing about the character.

It was interesting watching this after Man of Steel, a movie which never grasps what makes Superman so great. While, he always chooses to help people, he still sees himself as human. He still holds himself to that standard. Whereas in Man of Steel, we have a Superman who’s being told that he doesn’t owe anyone anything, and that it’s okay to let people die if the ends justify the means. It’s not like Superman is Batman, there are so many dark antiheroes out there. I wish they would just keep Superman the way he was intended to be – a ray of hope in a world that often seems devoid of it.

The movie still holds up pretty well. The special effects are dated, but the flying for me is quite special. I know they were on wires and whatnot, but I liked how it looked. The score is wonderful too. I was grinning every time the main theme played. Above all, the film doesn’t take itself too seriously making it a fun, easy watch.

Christopher Reeve is wonderful to watch as well, and I think his Clark to Superman transformation is the best we’ve seen on-screen so far. I loved Margot Kidder as Lois Lane too! Gene Hackman’s Lex was… interesting? The film lingers too much on Lex and his sidekicks and the exposition was excessive, still – some of it did make me laugh, so job done?

Rating 8/10.

I watched the second film too but I can’t remember much of it because I accidentally watched the Donner Cut first and then–anyway. We’ll see if I ever feel like reviewing the other three movies, lol.

that feeling when it’s really batman!

Superman is just the best.

I don’t want to turn this into an impromptu Superman is the best post, so I’ll just snark about some of the animated movies instead.

Why are they constantly retelling Superman’s origins… or pitting him against the same villains. Not that it matters because half of the movie is just Superman and the other guy pummelling each other and smashing buildings…

… and that gets old after five minutes.

Anyway, I hear there’s a new animated series coming out about Clark, Lois and Jimmy hanging out at the Daily Planet, etc. Yes, yes and yes, I’m ready for it.

In the meantime I’m watching Justice League Unlimited now and it’s perfect. PERFECT.

What I’m Watching

… because you asked (not really) and I’m here to deliver.

Anyway, how are we all doing? I feel like I never blog anymore. I don’t really know why. I think the pandemic has just quietened the part of my brain that snarks about things. Or, I’m too busy lamenting the stupidity of real people to complain about fictional characters. I’m definitely not really watching much these days. Is it me or is there just too much to watch? And a lot of it is just juvenile (*looks at The Boys*), repetitive and boring.

Ironically, I’ve turned to superheros in these dark times! I’m a genuine Superman fan now. I take back all the times I called him boring. Sure, a lot of the content is lacking, but Superman is iconic for a reason.

On to the list…

Invincible (Amazon)

I watched the first two episodes of this. It’s not bad at all. It kind of has a The Boys/Watchmen feel to it. The end of the first episode was very graphic. I’m curious to see how it all ends. I’m low-key salty that the knockoff Superman isn’t like the real Superman, though. I have problems, I know.

Smallville: Season 9 (Top 5 Episodes)

I keep abandoning this post, but I saw a video about Tom Welling talking about Erica Durance and now I want to watch season 9 all over again. Instead, I’m going to finish this post once and for all.

(All episode summaries are from IMDB.)

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I did one season out of 10 and just stopped, lol, so I’m jumping to Season 9 (which weirdly enough is my favorite season).

1. Salvation

Zod unleashes his army upon the world, forcing Chloe to call in reinforcements from old friends. Zod tells Lois he is The Blur and asks her to steal the Book of Rao from Clark. Torn between Clark and The Blur, Lois asks Clark to come clean with her about everything but he refuses. Chloe and Oliver attempt to reconnect Watchtower’s satellite system in order to fight the Kandorians but to Chloe’s horror, Oliver gets caught on site and disappears. Tess attempts to stop Zod but he leaves her clinging to life. Clark and Zod battle for control of Earth.
—CW Publicity

This is one my favourite episodes of the entire series purely because Lois finds out Clark is the mysterious hero saving people in the city AKA ‘The Blur’ aka Almost Superman. Oh, and he super punches Zod into oblivion when he tries to kill (or at least injure) Lois. What more could a girl want?

Other than that, it’s a damn good season finale. The major villain this season is a watered down Zod, and while the plot was thin in some points, the writers did a great job with the overall story arc. Clark doesn’t necessarily ‘defeat’ Zod which I thought was interesting. He chooses to sacrifice his place on Earth for the sake of peace. Interestingly enough, we know that’s not his fate – and he ends up staying on Earth and sacrificing himself anyway. The writers call back to two different episodes – Saviour (Clark fights a Kryptonian from the future who renders him powerless through Blue Kryptonite) and Pandora (Clark is stabbed by Zod with a green Kryptonite blade) which I didn’t pick up on until after I’d seen them a few times.

Smallville: Season 1 (Top 5 Episodes)

I couldn’t find anything to watch, so I decided to watch Smallville all over again. Being a huge fan of Lois, I tend to just rotate through seasons 8-10 but I have started from the beginning again and thought I’d make a top 5 for each season.

During that first viewing back in August, I loved season 1! There are a lot of hit and miss episodes, though. In fact, while I was watching them again, I came across two episodes I straight up quit halfway through during that first rewatch/watch.

One is the second episode, ‘Metamorphosis‘ – I saw spiders and bugs and I was like, NOT TODAY and never went back. The next episode was ‘Craving‘ which featured Amy Adams (before she was Lois Lane) as a meteor infected girl who literally ate people.

I’d say there are good moments in all episodes, but there are a few standouts and without further ado, here are my Top 5!

Bonus fact: We never see the students at Smallville High in class during this season despite it being a prominent setting. Apparently, they didn’t want to draw attention to the fact Tom Welling was a 24 year old actor playing 14 year old Clark Kent. Mmmhmm.

Smallville (2001-2011, The WB/CW)

An interpretation of the Superman story features young Clark Kent coming to grips with his emerging superpowers. He must hide his abilities from his friends, including Lana Lang, the girl of his dreams, and Lex Luthor, who will one day become Superman’s nemesis. Complicating matters is the presence of kryptonite throughout Smallville, which causes strange mutations in locals and cripples Clark.

I like Smallville well enough as a kid, but dismissed it after season 7… but it’s one of my favorite shows now? In a weird way, the earlier episodes reminded me of Supernatural, back when it was fresh and each episode didn’t leave me numb and questioning my life choices. I miss those days. After not watching a single episode of Supernatural for five years, I think maybe I might be able to now, LOL. Somebody save me.

There are over two hundred episodes of Smallville, and well… it probably went on for three years too long. There is a lot of WAFFLE. A lot of Lana/Clark. A lot of Chloe feeding us exposition…

…but Tom Welling as Clark gives the show a charming quality that a lot of other shows lack. He’s very seamless in the role. In a lot of my recaps, I don’t make the distinction between the actor and character because I don’t see one, but with Smallville, it genuinely feels like you are watching the day to day activities of Clark Kent.

Here’s my little season recap!

Season 1

The best season! Young Clark is coming to terms with his powers and he meets Lex Luthor for the first time. Follows a freak of the week structure, but it’s charming and fun. We get to see Clark working as a student journalist and saving the day with the help of his best friends Pete and Chloe. Oh and he’s in love with Lana Lang, his neighbour.

I’m watching Smallville and…

… I’m on Season 10 (the final season) and…

Obviously, I can rewatch it, but it won’t be the same even though I had already watched the first 5/6 seasons and forgotten everything.

Watching the opening credits for the 100th time and asking myself why are there water molecules? Or bubbles? Or whatever those things are.

Or wondering how they managed to get Tom Welling to do such a smooth turn around for his part. Or why he looks completely different from the character (I’ve had a lot of time to think about this).

Or feeling the deep wave of nostalgia when Lifehouse tells us that we’re EVERYTHIIIING.

Anyway, I both wanted to update and fangirl over Smallville, so there it is. I will probably have a longer post on it at some point.