Thursday, July 10, 2025
A Murder of Bots
Supes of the Day
This being Lois f'ing Lane though she chooses to ignore Clark's patronizing tone and snatch at the opportunity to interview the biggest story in the world, relationship or not -- she does warn him, but he's Superman right? We've already seen him at this point take mega-punches from flying monstrosities -- surely he can handle some questions from a mere lady reporter. (That's not me talking -- you can clearly, and to the film's benefit, see Lois bristle at Clark's condescension.)
What follows is a wallop of a scene where we watch two entirely game actors slapping dialogue and actual (can you believe it) ideas back and forth at one another like a verbal Wimbledon -- it's the best action scene in the movie and it's basically two people sitting on chairs the entire time. Corenswet and Brosnahan have mega-chemistry, and what the characters are debating -- the reality of what Superman's god-like powers mean in a complicated world with borders nad laws -- sets the and tone and the story's main thrust for everything that comes after it. Point being: whoever came up with this scene deserves an enormous raise.
If all of Superman had adhered to that emotional and intellectual coherence this film would be a stone-cold insta-classic -- it's sure got a pile of great ingrediants and ideas bouncing around. The cast is pretty much head to toe wonderful -- I'll admit Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder will always be the Clark & Lois I picture when somebody asks me to picture Clark & Lois but the two here are far and away the best iteration of the greatest couple in comic-dom that we've seen since then.
And it's not that Brosnahan doesn't get stuff to do in the meantime. While the hero is off fighting kaiju and slipping into pocket dimensions she's working with what she's got to straighten out the world and it ultimately integral to its saving. And perhaps Gunn didn't want the film to solely define her in relation to Clark & Supes -- I get that. But there's no denying the film feels its most alive and meaningful when all its extra stuff (so much extra stuff) gets swept aside and it focuses on that heart. And one does wish they'd found a way to really anchor the movie around that more consistently.
But still -- a perfectly good time. Whenever the John Williams' theme swept in my tear-ducts spontaneously erupted, and adorable Krypto more than earns his keep. It's not that there's anything absolutely terrible on hand that I can point to here -- well except that maybe a couple of girly girl characters on-screen come off as an eensy bit misogynistic. It's more just a lack of focus that turns out to be Gunn's Kryptonite. How much of that is the no-doubt-suffocating pressure to reboot an entire Cinematic Universe being heaped onto him I'll leave to the business-side pundits -- as for Superman, the movie itself, it's not a fatal glitch in the matrix. But it is a Trojan Horse that splits everything at its seams somewhat. I guess that's just the movies in 2025 though -- nothing can be just itself. Everything's gotta be everything to everybody. Superman most of all.
Good Morning, World
Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Boys in the Badezimmer
Who Wore It Best?
Good Morning, World
Tuesday, July 08, 2025
I'm Just Gonna Leave...
Neon Grey Midnight Green
Guten Morgan, World
Monday, July 07, 2025
Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...
... you can learn from:
The Lighthouse (2019)
Thomas Wake: O what Protean forms swim up from men's minds, and melt in hot Promethean plunder, scorching eyes, with divine shames and horror... And casting them down to Davy Jones. The others, still blind, yet in it see all the divine graces and to Fiddler's Green sent,where no man is suffered to want or toil,but is... Ancient... Mutable and unchanging as the she who girdles 'round the globe. Them's truth.
Good Morning, David Corenswet
Friday, July 04, 2025
Thursday, July 03, 2025
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo Nine Times
Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...
Louise: Damn, Jimmy. What'd you do, take somekinda pill that makes you say all the right stuff?Jimmy: Yeah. I'm chokin' on it.