"Just like an old time movie, 'bout a ghost from a wishing well"

Weeks ago, I delved into the dangerous terrain of SUPERMAN III, and in my travel I was able to glean some insight about the nature of Superman and the character's hold over us. As stated in that previous essay, the most interesting aspect of the otherwise dismal movie is Superman's choice to either revel in his superiority to humanity, or to keep it in check, the better to relate to the citizens he has chosen to live among. It's a conflict that many of us go through every single day - we may not have extraordinary powers, but we have those moments like choosing whether to embarrass the office dullard when he has facts wrong or otherwise let him have his moment, whether to have it out with that rude store clerk or try to be nice and empathize with what is making them so grouchy - and thus we can relate to feeling like we're the superior person, but choosing not to be a dick about it in public, even if the result is having to watch someone else continue in their own dickitude.

So much credit for that relatability must go to Christopher Reeve. Probably not since Leonard Nimoy put on pointed ears or Boris Karloff wore bolts and platform boots did an actor so perfectly inhabit a character to the point where fans were hard pressed to separate man from role, and while initially chafing at the typecasting, the actor would ultimately embrace how much that portrayal transformed into positive energy for the whole world. Reeve understood this quite well, and used it to a practical advantage when producers coaxed him to return for one more flight with the cape: he not only leveraged the making of his pet project STREET SMART as a condition to appear in SUPERMAN IV, he also came up with the film's central theme of Superman as world pacifier, attempting to calm the planet by eradicating nuclear weapons, an issue which meant a lot to Reeve and millions of others in the waning-but-still-tense days of the first Cold War. The film ultimately became an infamous disappointment, even more reviled than SUPERMAN III, both due to the inherent real-world limitations of the story (Superman determines that unilateral disarmament is impossible without the will of all rulers), and the ridiculously cheap budget, script, and shooting schedule afforded him by Cannon Films. But aside from a little ribbing in the press, Reeve still enjoyed enormous public goodwill, and had he chosen to make another appearance as the gregarious superhero (which, for a short time, looked possible with a finished script and contract negotiations), fans would have eagerly lined up to see the return.

Thus, when the world grasped the enormity of Reeve's horse-jumping accident, that barring a miracle he would never walk or raise a finger again, not only was there enormous sadness that a nice fellow like him suffered such a terrible misfortune, there was probably also some less-relevant (but no less heartfelt) dejection that Reeve would not get to redeem the Superman legacy that he had so skillfully created onscreen. And as we all watched him demonstrate genuine, amazing heroics in his campaign for fresh thought on paralysis treatment and in his physical rehabilitation, including, yes, lifting a finger on command, we shared humongous pride in his achievements, but still felt a little wistfulness that were he to beat the odds and stand tall again (as so tantalizingly suggested by his 2000 Super Bowl commercial for Nuveen Investments), he would change the history of spinal injuries, but he would never be able to change that SUPERMAN IV was his finale as the Man of Steel, a fate neither the fictional hero or this real-life hero deserved. Sure, there would be attempts to continue or relaunch the series without him (including the notorious debacle of SUPERMAN REBORN, where despite the participation of Kevin Smith, Tim Burton, and Nicolas Cage, Warner Brothers spent $30 million with not a single frame of film shot), and there would be respectful acknowledgements to what he established (In the TV series "SMALLVILLE," Reeve appeared twice as a doctor and spiritual counselor to collegeiate Clark Kent, essentially passing the torch for a new generation of fans), but for everyone who grew up with Reeve as Superman, neither of these felt quite right. Despite every bit of logic that hit us like a speeding bullet, we wanted Reeve's Superman, our Superman, back.

Five years ago, around this time of summer, is when SUPERMAN RETURNS played in American theatres. Producer/director Bryan Singer, who had been successfully navigating the rival comic book movie franchise X-MEN for Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox, had come up with the story idea for the film, and more importantly, was the first of the almost dozens of screenwriters that had passed under the WB watertower to seriously suggest that the first two SUPERMAN films directed by Richard Donner serve as canonical backstory for this new movie; that for all purposes, it would be a true "threequel" to those films, and completely ignore the unloved parts III and IV. In contrast to Christopher Nolan, who wisely intuited that Batman fans had enough of the elements from the previous 4-film series and were ready for him to start from zero with BATMAN BEGINS, Singer wisely intuited that the primary audience for a new Superman film very much still loved what had been established previously, and wanted more of the same. Newcomer Brandon Routh clearly carried the appearance, and to a lesser degree, the demeanor, of a young Christopher Reeve; co-star Kevin Spacey had the natural mix of smarm and charm that fit the template for Lex Luthor established by Gene Hackman. Naturally, he also insisted on the use of elements from John Williams' legendary score. Also, taking advantage of the approval of Donner and the nullification by death of Marlon Brando's longstanding contractual gripes with the studio, Singer was able to integrate previously unused footage and dialogue of Brando as Superman's Kryptonian father Jor-El into this project. This was already a wedding cake of Comic-Con-Cosmic levels, with cameos by TV's original "ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN" stars Noel Neill and Jack Larson as jordan almonds on the table. Again, Singer was hardly being altruistic by his choices. Everyone involved in its creation wanted to see this film make Superman a viable franchise again, so he was making what he thought were the best choices to get the mythical four quadrants into the theatre: familiar images for the older crowd, modern action staging for the younger crowd. And for all the linking to the older series, this was to be the start of a new storytelling line, with almost all the main creative personnel locked under contract for sequels, so this was less about continuing Donner & Reeve's legacy but transitioning it into Singer & company's future.

Most observers have determined that ultimately, SUPERMAN RETURNS delivered a push: hardly a failure, but not the success the studio suits wanted. The movie delivered good, though often mixed, critical reviews, and delivered very good box office returns for Warner Brothers, though still not good enough for them to muster complete enthusiasm into putting the planned followup into production. It did not make leading man Brandon Routh a sensation as the first SUPERMAN did for its rising star, but he continued to deliver great performances in later films like ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO and SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD, so it hardly hurt him either. But these dry data readings ignore an admittedly quiet detail that makes the movie significant to me years after it has been mostly forgotten. What it delivered to me, and I suspect, to many of the people who went to see it, was something that from all public appearances, was an unintended by-product, yet I believe in my heart was a secret goal for its producer/director/originator Bryan Singer: to everyone for whom the death of Christopher Reeve was still a gaping emotional wound, it provided closure.

If Superman is the hero we count on to fix things which we believe cannot done by ourselves, then SUPERMAN RETURNS is the movie that is trying to fix a filmic past that had been thought irreparable. Which is problematic because if Superman previously left movie screens looking foolish, this movie often gets weighted by gravitas. While there is certainly lightness and humor to be found, especially in all scenes with Parker Posey as Lex Luthor's half-hearted henchwoman, there is an attempt at a more serious tone to the performances and story, no doubt to counterract the forced slapstick of III and IV, so much so that it put off some critics, notably previous Superman partisan Roger Ebert, who described the movie as "glum...dutiful instead of exhilarating." Ebert's assessment is most applicable to the film's particularly somber third act, where Superman, weakened both by being stabbed by Kryptonite and launching the giant land mass created by Lex Luthor into space, must be rescued by Lois Lane's husband, and spends time comatose in hospital, with doctors attempting surgery but unable to penetrate his body to examine or operate, as the world waits in vigil for him to recover. Understandably, since Old and New Testament Messianic metaphors have been integral to the history of Superman since he emerged from Siegel and Shuster's inkwell, most viewers and critics took this story thread as Singer making heavy-handed allusion to the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...which, let's be honest, is almost always a buzzkiller or at the least a tired pretense. But there's actually more to this particular segment that puts the whole movie in perspective.

What Singer must have understood in his original treatment, and consequently puts into practice in his execution, is that since Reeve's life has been haunting the Superman legacy, this movie must perform an exorcism. However, unlike most haunting stories, where the ghost won't leave until he finishes the business left behind by untimely death, it is we, the living, who are keeping his ghost captive until we feel the business is finished. SUPERMAN RETURNS begins with a dedication to Christopher and Dana Reeve that a packed Westwood Village midnight show audience applauded more noisily than one would expect for your average onscreen honorarium, and as it unfolds to tell how Metropolis goes from resigned cynicism to a renewed civic involvement upon his return, for as much as the movie is ostensibly about welcoming Superman home, it is also very much about offering Reeve a proper goodbye. Again, since Routh was chosen because of his resemblence to Reeve, one senses that the casting choice is not just to offer a familiar-looking face to the audience, but on a subliminal level, to initiate a gentleman's agreement between Singer and the audience that Routh will be portraying both Superman and Reeve. Therefore, in the last Sirkian quarter of the film, Singer is depicting an alternate history for our beloved superhero and movie star...where we as ordinary mortals came to his aid when he was near death, we did everything in our power to heal him, and we were able to see our devotion succeed: his hospital bed is empty, he leaves under his own power. Our hero is whole again, and we helped make it happen. That too, is a bit of a Biblical concept ("When I was naked, you gave me your coat; When I was sick, you looked after me..."), but it is also an effective element in the better superhero films (SPIDER-MAN 2 is elevated to greatness in its scene where a very vulnerable Peter Parker finds unlikely help from the public), and most importantly, it understands our relationship with Reeve the man: after his accident, if we as fans believed there was an action we could do to help him, we did it. We wrote him letters of support, contributed to his favored charities, and certainly would have given him even more direct help if the opportunity arose. Thus even after his death, we were tightly clinging to the ghost of Reeve because he was so good in the movies and so enormously great in his most challenging hours, and because Superman looked a little silly in III taking on a weak villain and frankly got punked in IV because he had to defer to all the governments (including our own) who wanted to keep their nukes. So to alleviate these residual regrets, Singer allows us one last chance to see the serious and strong hero that Reeve was in reality and that Superman should have been on screen, and we watch that image walk, jump, and fly away one more time; all we had to do was agree to believe in this kindest of illusions, to pretend that it wasn't Brandon Routh in the costume. And when it was over, like Demi uttering "Ditto" into the white light, we could let his ghost go now.



The Superman saga is now truly starting again from zero, as the upcoming film MAN OF STEEL, to be directed by Zack Snyder from a David S. Goyer screenplay, has announced casting for Jor-El, Clark Kent's parents, and other characters associated with his origin story. Fans are divided as to whether having the screenwriter of other successful comic book adaptations will make the series fresh, or if having the director of SUCKER PUNCH will plunge the franchise into a swamp so deadly not even Solomon Grundy could emerge from it. The underlying suggestion by this new project is that Singer and Routh failed to make moviegoers accept their new Superman. But in the most heartfelt moments of SUPERMAN RETURNS, they did the next best thing, which was to put the spectre of Christopher Reeve to rest and make it possible for moviegoers to accept any new Superman in the first place.

Watching the Seductives

The following is my yet-again-under-the-wire contribution for today's Queer Film Blogathon, mounted by Caroline at her Garbo Laughs blog, in celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month. I may be more of an occasional dinner guest of Dorothy than a full-on friend, but to paraphrase the old bumper sticker, I remember when "queer" meant "unusual and arousing curiosity," and as far as I'm concerned, it still does. As such, I'm eager to put my $3 bill's worth into this discussion.

Aside from my personal affinities, I have a particularly interesting history with LGBTQ media. For a period of about 2 years in the mid-'90's, I was the resident film critic, and only straight male writer, for a lesbian-themed 'zine in Columbus called Sovreignty for Women, a position given to me most generously by its publisher, who cared more about my talent as a film lover than my gender or sexual identity. The inherent humor and ironies within such a position notwithstanding, I did not shy away from rankling the potential readership with my opinions on film in general, and gay film in particular. In an introduction for an fall '95 article on my favorite portrayals of gay people in then-recent film, I opened up with this toss of the gauntlet:

After the first two installments of my column, I know some readers somewhere must be asking, “If this magazine is published by and for gay women, why aren’t you writing about gay movies?” And upon first thought, I find this question moot. To believe that gay people are only interested in gay movies is an insulting stereotype, as ludicrous as believing that African-Americans are only interested in rap music or Japanese people are only interested in Kabuki plays. Just because Hollywood seems to be controlled by straight white men does not make the entire enterprise sick.
There’s a bigger reason for me, though. Most “gay” films bore me. They coast on their subject matter alone, with no regard to compelling plot, characters, or arresting visuals. They play like grown-up ABC Afterschool Specials, thinking as long as they keep mentioning homosexuality, the homosexuals will watch. AAANK, wrong answer. Tom Hanks deserved his Oscar for PHILADELPHIA, but the movie itself is a long “Gays are our friends” morality play. For every lesbian I’ve met who enjoyed CLAIRE OF THE MOON, I’ve met two who would rather watch karate films. EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES is best described by Lea DeLaria as “Even Worse than You Think.” And as much as I love Sandra Bernhard, INSIDE MONKEY ZETTERLAND is a pretentious, self-righteous yawn.
To me, I don’t really give a damn about the sexual orientation of the characters in the movies I watch. I care about the characters. Sure, perhaps the monopoly of straight characters over gay ones in films would appear to the average radical as being some sort of “Only straight is good” conspiracy, and I object to the previously caricatured portrayals of gays and lesbians in the past, just as I do stereotyped minority portrayals. But I am also tired of how the pendulum has swung to make every minority angelic and politically correct, such as the black police superintendent that must bench the white loose-cannon cop. If a non-sympathetic movie character happens to be gay, such as Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK, or even suspected of being gay, like serial killer Jame Gumb in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, loud wearying protests arise. Using that logic, shouldn’t straights be protesting their buffoonish portrayals in gay films? Everybody chill!

I still hold to that standard today. Postive gays, negative gays, dysconjugate gaze, just don't preach, pander, or bore me.

Also, I spent a significant chunk of my 20's working in a 24-hour video store, owned by gay men, and which featured an adult section with a healthy selection of male/male porn. And during that time, I learned something about myself, which is that the men that were being featured on the covers of gay porn did not turn me on. That is not to say that men period did not turn me on, just those being sold to me as a gay ideal. Consequently, while I have been open and often eager to watch gay sex on film as an abstract, in practice it has happened very rarely, because...most guys who have been doing it with each other on film are not my type. I'm hard-pressed to tell you what my type is, though I certainly don't have that "Masculine guys only, no femmes or fatties" hangup one sees in the Men Seeking Men section of the personals.

But back to the critical matters at hand. This whole month, in anticiption of the blogathon, Caroline has been taking a film containing signficant gay content from each decade of the 20th century once narrative film became a commercial medium, and analyzing it as both entertainment and historical document. It's interesting stuff to read. And in an oddly appropriate way, I like the fact that while her posts are looking at the history of gay portrayal on film, mine is looking at the future, and a rather promising future in the case of my particular choice. In full disclosure, I came upon this film because of the involvement of a close friend in its postproduction, but I promise that my enjoyment of the finished product was solely due to its artistic merits and not just because of my relationship to one of the creative contributors.

For decades, a common story theme in gay-themed films, from the arthouse to the grindhouse, has been the journey of the Hustler, the Rent Boy, the handsome, anonymous young man who goes from one sexual encounter to another, bearing Voltairean witness to all the partners' tales and desires. In skillful hands, this has served for great drama, as in Pier Paolo Pasolini's TEOREMA with Terence Stamp, where the stranger seduces male and female members of the same household, unlocking their buried ids, but more often, the trope has been employed either in the service of simplistic titilation for the viewer, watching multiple types of guys get it on, or for cheap moralization, with degradation and despair compounding from the hollow sex and abusive johns until the protagonist is left ruined or dead.

As such, anyone quickly browsing the gay DVD section (because, sadly, we aren't open-minded enough to integrate movies with gay protagonists into the ordinary genre categories) would be forgiven if they glanced at the advertising for STRAPPED, with its image of fetching lead Ben Bonenfant teasing the reveal of a bare chest, and initially wrote it off as yet another man-pageant posing as a drama. That was the initial concern of author and blogger Ian Rosales Casocot, who pretty well spoke for myself and most casual movie hunters in the opening paragraphs of his rave review of the film...

When I first began viewing Joseph Graham's STRAPPED, I was ready to dismiss it as one of those mindless gay films that serves more as a flesh buffet without paying much attention to story, to character, to insight about the human condition. We've all seen pictures seemingly like this, and they've all been fruitless exercises in gay excess for the most part. [It] centers, after all, on an unnamed male hustler who follows a trick to his apartment complex, and then after the tryst...meets assorted characters, all gay...The premise sounds like it was made for a porn movie...

Well, you know that old joke about what the difference is between a romance novel and a pornographic manuscript: the lighting. And writer/director Joseph Graham knows a lot about lighting, not just in a literal fashion, since STRAPPED has a beautiful look that transcends its ultra-low-budget, but also in a spiritual fashion, because his approach to the proceedings is, yes, illuminating! Immediately at the film's opening, during the first appointment for our never-christian-named hustler, the staging is tender and unexploitative, playing like the ending of a short story, but it's only the beginning. And as the protagonist leaves, and changes names and refashions himself to the roles suggested to him by the colorful series of men he meets that night, we feel that we are not only learning about the different experiences and lives all these men have led, we also are actually learning something about this proverbial blank slate in his dealings with them, instead of just watching the act of prostitutional pretense. The other characters, who to an extent are representing familiar types of gay men - the self-hating closet case, the hedonist, the wizened pioneer - play like real people and not just attributes. Graham, forgive me for abusing the metaphor one last time, puts the spotlight on a whole group of people that we have heard about but few of us have known, and made us care about them. I would be interested in how any one of their stories played out long after our hustler has left them.

Let's talk about star Ben Bonenfant. He's terrific in this role that always keeps one last card unrevealed. He's playing a faker, but nothing ever feels fake. He could be all of these boys, he could be none of them. It doesn't matter: as actor playing actor, he nails it. And, yes, it helps that he is very attractive, not just to his hook-ups, but to us the audience, because we know what it feels like to want to believe in him and what he represents to each man he meets. It's that feeling of deep and widespread audience empathy that has quite often been missing from other gay films, and what makes STRAPPED such a special treat.

And in the spirit of the personal admissions from above, when he became intimate with his most compatible companion of the evening, I not only felt an emotional elevation from a story turn that depicted two wandering souls were finding mutual happiness, I also felt a primal excitement that these two good-looking guys were going to make out! And I think this is one of Graham's most significant successes in this movie, and why I think he has the potential to create more great movies. Which is clearly what he was after, as he told to Gaydar Nation in an interview this past winter:

"I do wish straight men did not have such a difficult time looking at gay sex in the movies. Gay men look at straight sex in the movies all the time. I think human sexuality is fascinating. All of it."

Graham is not only correct, but he's done something about it. It's not something as trivial as casting two hot boys and stripping them naked, though I suppose that's what I'm making it sound like. It's that he's taken what is a fait accompli - after all, if he blue-balled the primary audience, and didn't have a really good lovemaking scene, this would end up being his only feature film - and created real suspense and emotion around the moment everyone has been waiting for. Which is what every great director does in the genres they excel in. Like Radley Metzger with SCORE, or John Cameron Mitchell with SHORTBUS, he presents gay sex in a way that it transcends any sort of straight viewer's trepidations, and makes it as joyous as any heterosexual climax in a standard movie romance. In short, as I demanded before, Joseph Graham did not preach, pander, or bore me. He entertained me.

I don't think I would recommend this to every single straight person I know, not because of the subject matter or the sex, but because its low budget and mostly-conversational story would probably not satisfy a palate that is used to more polish and action. But for anyone who likes to step outside of their comfort zone, is interested in affairs of the heart, and wants to see the debuts of a charismatic actor and a gifted filmmaker, you should definitely take a chance on STRAPPED. It has not gotten much coverage beyond the gay media, though it did receive very good mainstream reviews fromThe New York Times and DVDTalk. I'm going out on a limb and predicting great things for Graham and Bonenfant, so anyone who is in a position to give them work, help prove me right!

And to bring things full circle, what brought me to STRAPPED in the first place was Graham's extremely wise choice (winking) to enlist one of my favorite friend-fronted bands, Windows to Sky, to provide a few songs for the film. I was already grateful to him for giving my colleague's band a gig. Now I'm even more grateful that it was in the service of such a very good movie. Here is one of their songs, specifically written for the film:

"Look what you've done to the rock'n'roll clown"

To all you pimps makin' money on his name
How do you sleep, don't you feel ashamed?
He went through the test, he's outta this mess
Be my guest, and let him rest

We are coming up on a date that still manages to shock and sadden multiple generations around the world. The sudden and questionable death of Michael Jackson may have ended his life and body of work, but the speculations about that life will likely never abate, nor will we likely ever learn the true answers to those questions, which even the most otherwise indifferent spectators to this never-ending circus would certainly listen to when presented. Though that has not stopped, nor will it stop, dozens of authors, pundits, former acolytes, and anyone with a tangential connection to his life to weigh in and give you what they think is the real story, and naturally, those "real" stories will have to be filtered through multiple prisms of self-interest and intent, thus rendering their truths to the granules of sodium chloride.

That being said, anyone who has expressed heavy interest in Jackson, either for his staggering talent or as ugly symbol of celebrity culture unrestrained, would be better served by viewing a pair of movies that were made while Jackson himself was still a child, when he was famous but hardly the obelisk of polarized opinion he would become in adulthood. In short, both of these films frighteningly predicted the arc of Michael Jackson's life - before he even had a chance to live it.

PRIVILEGE, from 1967, is a documentary-like story about a futuristic London where government, church, and big business have quietly come to cabal-like agreements in regard to Steven Shorter (Paul Jones, former lead singer for Manfred Mann - the "Doo Wah Diddy" incarnation, not the "Blinded by the Light" Earth Band), the country's most popular singer. Shorter is used to sell all manner of products, to help to boost church attendance, and overall placate the youthful masses and divert them from any sort of real rebellion. Naturally, this takes a large emotional toll on the performer himself, who spends most of his time sullenly going through the motions, though he occasionally brightens in the company of an artist (Jean Shrimpton, an early "supermodel" then romantically linked to Terence Stamp, and later immortalized in "Behind the Wall of Sleep" by The Smithereens) hired to paint his portrait. Shorter will ultimately reach his breaking point, but the powers that be already have a contingency plan for that.

PRIVILEGE was made by a former documentarian named Peter Watkins, who arguably perfected the dramatic device of the "mockumentary," albeit for hard and serious storytelling, long before Christopher Guest spun the genre and made it synonymous with semi-improvisational comedy. Many elements in the film were liberally borrowed from a National Film Board of Canada documentary on pop star/songwriter Paul Anka called LONELY BOY, which depicted the gradual toll fame as business can exact on an otherwise well-meaning performer: thankfully, the short has been included on the current U.S. DVD of the film. Watkins previously made a nuclear war docudrama for the BBC called THE WAR GAME, about life after the bomb, that was so intense the BBC refused to air it; it was ultimately screened in some theatres in the U.S. and U.K. Another fiction film of his, PUNISHMENT PARK, took on the premise of youths isolated to play a kill-or-be-killed game for the benefit of polite society a good two decades before BATTLE ROYALE. [Watkins in fact was a guest professor at OSU while I attended their film program, although I never had a class with him--Rats!]

As such, PRIVILEGE is at its heart political agitprop drama rather than pop culture critique, and some of it now plays rather earnestly to modern tastes. But it is dead-on in its vision of how we would see rock co-opted by the establishment in the present day, and it's extremely perceptive about how easy it is to buy and sell both rebellion and people. And yes, its observation that rock stars at the height of their fame become less people and more corporate behemoth is very applicable to the later years of Michael Jackson. When the consortium decides to change Shorter's image from persecuted rebel to obedient choir boy, they position his "conversion" within a huge religious rally in Wembley Stadium, complete with a firebrand reverend leading the crowd in a chant for conformity, disabled children brought to the stage for potential healing, and pageantry reminiscent of images from Riefenstahl's TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. Years later, Jackson employed similar "messianic" staging for a performance of "Earth Song" at the 1996 Brit Awards, leading Pulp lead singer Jarvis Cocker to cheekily disrupt the performance; while he considered himself a fan of his music, Cocker explained his actions by saying, "He was pretending to be Jesus - I'm not religious but I think, as a performer myself, the idea of someone pretending to have the power of healing is just not right."

Though quickly abandoned by Universal, PRIVILEGE did manage to find a devoted group of fans, most visibly the multi-gifted Patti Smith, who covered the film's signature song "Set Me Free" on her EASTER album, which also features her original version of "Because the Night." Another high-profile fan, writer/director Allison Anders, who has told much more hopeful stories of rock'n'roll living in GRACE OF MY HEART, SUGAR TOWN, and THINGS BEHIND THE SUN, and presented PRIVILEGE at her first "Don't Knock the Rock" film festival, explains her love of PRIVILEGE in this Trailers From Hell commentary.

STARDUST is a quasi-sequel to an earlier film called THAT'LL BE THE DAY, about Jim MacLaine, an aspiring rocker modeled on John Lennon and played by David Essex, singer of the glam rock standard "Rock On". However, you do not need to have seen that film beforehand: this film stands alone with or without its predecessor. Moreover, this movie so strongly builds and heightens upon the first, and has such an epic sweep, it's like THE GODFATHER PART II of rock dramas. Both films were written by novelist Ray Connolly, who began his career as a rock journalist, and before that, a schoolmate of Mick Jagger, and thus brings an insider's eye to the subject matter. The film is a sophomore narrative work by Michael Apted, who also began his career in documentaries by creating the epic 7 UP series (the latest installment, 56 UP, is expected in Spring of 2012), then moved on to acclaimed films as COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, and THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, and still returns to the documentary form in BRING ON THE NIGHT and INCIDENT AT OGLALA. While I was already a fan of Apted as director, when I finally saw this at the first "Don't Knock the Rock" festival in 2003, I sat there in awe, amazed that he had this kind of Scorsesian vision, and so early in his career.

Essex plays the same character from the earlier film, and tells a large if somewhat painfully familiar story of the rise of Jim MacLaine's career and the cost to his soul. It shows the path of going from living in a van playing from pub to pub, to eclipsing the original front man of his band, to record company corruption, to solo stardom and pretentious artistic ambitions, to public alienation and erratic behavior, and finally reaching such insane detachment that it eventually drives him to seclusion and possible madness. As we get the public tragedy writ large, we also witness the private tragedy, as MacLaine finds his bad choices enabled by those who stand to make money on him, or being unable to attend a family funeral without being beseiged by the tabloid press, and watching his longest friendship, with his road manager Mike, turn into a curdled, Albee-esque duet of cruel one-upsmanship. To paraphrase the poster above, it's not the story of John Lennon or Jim Morrison...or for that matter, Michael Jackson or Axl Rose or Whitney Houston, but it easily could be.

The supporting cast features a staggering amount of musical Who's Whos, including Keith Moon, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Marty "Abergavenny" Wilde, Paul "Heaven on the Seventh Floor" Nicholas, and Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, along with Larry Hagman as a U.S. record company weasel. It has an incredible soundtrack of songs, including recordings by Carole King, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles...so incredible that to clear it all for DVD would be too cost-prohibitive for the likely demand, so a stateside home video release by Columbia is very unlikely. (In the U.K., StudioCanal did put out a double feature DVD with THAT'LL BE THE DAY, though it is currently out of print) However, it is currently available for streaming on Hulu and Crackle, albeit in an old monophonic, non-widescreen transfer. But like Smokey sang, beggars can't be choosey, I know.

So, if you're a genuine fan of The King of Pop, or if you just want some sort of explanation as to why the people who have everything always seem to be unhappy, you have a couple cinematic treatises to give you some insight on the pitfalls within the cult of personality.

For the record, I was a fan. Still am. And I wish life had not imitated art in his case.

Dé a Diablo Cody su deuda

I am not Charlie Kaufman or Sofia Coppola (much as I supplicate at their Cannes-weary feet.) I'm not Paul Thomas Anderson. I'm not even Paul W.S. Anderson. I am middle-class trash from the Midwest. I'm a competent nonfiction writer, an admittedly green screenwriter, and a product of Hollywood, USA. I am "Diablo Cody" and if you're not a fan, go rent PROSPERO'S BOOKS again and leave me the fuck alone.

Indeed, at this moment of time, three years after the wide success of JUNO, one month after the abrupt cancellation announcement of "THE UNITED STATES OF TARA", and a hypothetical three months before the first open screenings of her newest screenplay collaboration with director Jason Reitman, the territorial battle lines over the most visibly successful (and well-compensated) female screenwriter in Hollywood are in essentially the same place: there is the contingent that takes pleasure in her loquacious characters, in the same manner that previous generations lapped up the urbane banter of Preston Sturges or Hal Hartley, and the immovable regiment that insists her career advancement is due only to a series of fornicate events that would make Xaviera Hollander look like a Lutheran minister. And much like 9/11 Truthers or Obama Birthers, there is no reasoning with the latter camp, because as writer/entrepreneur Tim Ferriss said on Chris Hardwick's Nerdist podcast, "You can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into."

I have been privileged to keep company with Diablo Cody in the past, and on at least one occasion she actively promoted an event of mine, so I am not here to play august scholar on why she is in fact a vital and welcome voice in Hollywood, because the opposition can rightfully say I do not have enough critical distance from my subject. It's pretty obvious my opinion is prejudiced at best. But I can point to stuff in her work that has stuck with me long after viewing it, and say why it is good, and hope that I've earned enough trust with you that you'll believe it as the voice of a film lover and not a sycophant.

Let's start with the big one, the gold winner. Something that few people have ever picked up on in the ongoing debate about JUNO is the unique nature of the friendship between Juno and her best friend Leah (played by the criminally underrated Olivia Thirlby). Leah, by all outward appearances, is the more classically attractive girl, is on the cheerleading squad...in a typical Hollywood film, she would be the protagonist, and Juno would be the wacky bohemian sidekick, and of course there would be the standard boilerplate "ABC AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL" conflicts over her being prettier or more popular that would launch the third act. Cody not only flips the paradigm by making Leah the sidekick, she also flattens it by never making their differences an issue - there is no heavyhanded preaching about how misfits and princesses can get along: they just do. Juno is doing her thing, Leah hers, and they have their happy common ground. In fact, there's no hackneyed teen conflicts anywhere in the environment: even when Juno is speculating about the buried lust that hot girls have for older teachers, it's from a state of precocious amusement and not hostility. There are some high school environments where everyone may not be friends, but no one is actively starting shit either: the organism works. Coming from my own experience of high school, which started out with some hazing but ultimately settled into an easygoing mutual acceptance, it's nice to see that represented on screen.

As for the often-maligned follow-up screenplay, JENNIFER'S BODY, while I don't think it's effective as a horror film, it is definitely entertaining as a seriocomic metaphor on how troublesome it is to extricate yourself from a bad friendship. Unlike the dynamic between Juno and Leah, the relationship between Needy and Jennifer is a definitely one-sided one, even before the incident that turns Jennifer into a flesh-hungry succubus, with Jennifer getting all the benefits. Yet for as long as she can stand it, Needy stays loyal to Jennifer. Most readings of the film suggest that this is partly a romantic motivation - at a recent screening hosted by maverick San Francisco programmer Jesse Ficks, Cody openly declared as such, though in an interview with the website AfterEllen, she was able to go at length and describe it as less of a lesbian attraction and more of a simple teenage intensity, of being so enamored of your best friend you want to bond with them in as many ways possible [Peter Jackson's HEAVENLY CREATURES explores this concept also]. But I also saw in Needy the feeling that she's Jennifer's only good influence, that as long as she is there to be her Jiminy Cricket, Jennifer can never be all bad. I'm sheepish but not ashamed to say I stayed in some long bad friendships for the same reasons: When you side with a man, you stay with him. And if you can't do that, you're like some animal - you're finished!. And sure enough, Jennifer does not "stay" with Needy, and she does become an animal, feeding herself on Needy's clothes, then her man, and ultimately Needy herself, until she finally summons the strength to end this otherworldly power grab. But even after that, when their friendship is decisively over (the manner in which I won't detail lest I rile the Spoiler Police), Needy stays loyal to Jennifer's memory by hunting down the treacherous parties that caused her demonic possession in the first place. As wily ol' Sam Spade once said, in perhaps the first cinematic explanation of "bro's before ho's", "When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it." Again, Cody spins the gender around, throws in some blood and bon mots, and makes it fresh.

For reasons of my own legal protection, I can't provide any of the specific details as to why I am about to state that on Febrary 27, 2012, Diablo Cody will likely have another molten gold humanoid holding court in her home. Just know that I would never make that kind of brash statement without something to back it up. Watch this space.

Well, you are 33 today, Ms. Cody. You have outlived Christ, Hicks, Belushi, and Bangs, and I'm certain your generous words of dialogue are going to live a lot longer than the gutteral words of diatribe the haters still fill their favorite echochamber messageboards with. Happy Birthday from another arguably competent nonfiction writer from the Midwest.

Burned Hard for Bernhard

I have had a long, strange, frustrating, moving, and very laugh-filled love affair for over 25 years with a woman who doesn't know I exist. That sounds like the words of obsessive stalkers, I grant you, but really, it's just how I express that I am more than a fan but obviously less than a realistic equal to one of my favorite entertainers. And since yesterday was her birthday, I guess it's okay to go into detail

I don't quite know what the turning point was that made my teenage self fall in love with Sandra Bernhard. I was too young to have seen her on Richard Pryor's short-lived variety show, and I did not remember her specifically from the dozens of comedians who worked their material on the late '70's incarnation of "MAKE ME LAUGH," so that can't come into play, though it has been fun to revisit those appearances years later. I definitely enjoyed her numerous visits to "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN," where she was perfecting her unique style of reviling and reveling in celebrity culture, but I can't zero in on a certain episode where it went from "She's funny!" to "She's my ideal woman!" I know that from puberty onward as a Nice White Catholic Suburban Boy From Cincinnati, I was fervently attracted to girls who were outside of any or all of those adjectives, and Sandra was definitely penciled outside of the Scantron circle, so to speak. As such there may not be a firm date of origin, but midway through high school, I got infatuated - much to the eternal bewilderment of my father who could not see her beyond two lips and an attitude - and to this day, I still dig her.

In college, I had an eye-opening friendship with an older woman who also enjoyed Sandra a lot, and from her I received her first book, CONFESSIONS OF A PRETTY LADY, which made me an even bigger fan, with its combination of legitimate autobiographical details and saucy, teasing "did this happen/is this fiction" gossip. I felt a kinship with this girl from Detroit who drove to L.A. in a crummy car with a dream in her bag, whose parents had broken up and who liked to be funny in dark moments, who could alternately hate and love the excesses of show business, who could be tough and biting yet have a sweet and vulnerable soul. Much like the ethereal Kira from XANADU, Sandra straddled that fuzzy line between infatuation object and big sister to me, someone flying the freak flag with panache in advance while I slowly brought up the rear. From said friend I would also receive the cassette tape of Sandra's one-woman show WITHOUT YOU, I'M NOTHING, and I wore that tape out memorizing those great monologues, including this favorite one, which somewhat mirrored my eventual clumsy exploration of gender identity:




(since some of you are wondering now, to quote my friend Phil Porter,
"Marc is not gay. It just took him three tries." I'll let you ponder that a while...)

My attraction began to receive a little more acceptance from my friends in adulthood, primarily because of those few years at the end of the '80's/dawn of the '90's when she was palling around with Madonna; girls were interested in this otherwise cult figure she was hanging with, and the guys were wondering if they were doing it. Despite having a public friendship of really less than four years that ended 20 years ago, it is a linking that continues to this day to be discussed by press, columnists, and fans alike when they interview Bernhard. Oftentimes inquiries are in the quest for good dishy dirt (Did Madonna "steal" Sandra's girlfriend? Was she just looking to borrow a dream as it said on page 140?) But on a November 2010 appearance on "THE WENDY WILLIAMS SHOW," she encapsulated what made their time together so enticing to me and other fans, and recently repeated it today to another online interviewer:

"I see why people still link us. It's so rare that two really strong women become good friends and play it out the way we did on the public stage. I'm sorry that the friendship didn't flourish and continue but these things happen with showbiz people. But we really had fun.

Indeed. We do still live in a media environment where the press and the gossip vultures would rather report on (and often themselves incite) catfights and feuds between two female stars, rather than present them working together and mutually elevating themselves. And rewatching that Letterman appearance reminded me of what a great comic team they were, riffing and one-upping each other as David all but yields the floor to them. They could have been the MTV Generation's Martin & Lewis - Madge the smooth unflappable one, Sandra the manic loudmouth. Hollywood seriously screwed up by not putting them in a screwball comedy after this appearance! My first attempt at screenwriting was in fact a buddy movie intended for them.

Which leads to the "frustrating" part of this essay. I have come sooooooooooo tantalizingly close to having a significant encounter with my idol over these decades, but always missed it by that much! Shall I count the ways...

Sandra does a combination spoken word/Q&A at Ohio State around '92. I get my turn at the mic, and after I ask my primary question, I then ask if I can hand up the script I wrote for her. Since she's been making jokes during the show about not getting better roles, she says sure. Audience laughs at my audacity. [Note to craven young screenwriters: This was the early '90's, when this sort of tactic was rare and funny. If you do this today in any public event with your favorite star, you will be booed and castigated, and you will deserve it because this sort of tactic is not cool anymore. DON'T EVER DO THIS!] 20 minutes later, she gets bored with the questions...and begins to read the script out loud! AUDIENCE ROARS! She only gets a few pages in, none of which involve her character, sadly, but her guitarist knows the music cue I wrote in, and plays it underneath her reading. She claims to be intrigued from what she's read, but I never hear back from her despite having all my contact info on the title page.

In '96, a local gay newspaper is sponsoring another Bernhard appearance, and holding a contest for readers to describe what they would do in order to obtain a personal audience with her. I submit that because her words have been so influential to me, I would stand in front of the theatre and have one of her essays painted onto my body, Peter Greenaway/PILLOW BOOK-style. The newspaper declared me as one of the winners of the backstage passes...but the show was cancelled due to illness and never rescheduled.

2000, Sandra does a show at the now-shuttered Knitting Factory in Hollywood. It's a small enough venue I that could cross paths with her if I just find the right exit. But I don't. I do experience a nice moment during the performance, when I notice that standing next to me is her longtime friend and stand-up mentor Mr. Paul Mooney. Within a long audience applause break, I just lean over to him and whisper, "You must be very proud." He smiled and nodded.

Finally, on Halloween 2005, close friend and czarina of the L.A. underworld Lenora Claire gets me a last-minute invite as a costumed "party guest" during a live broadcast of "Queer Edge" with Jack E. Jett on the now-defunct pay-cable channel QTN, because the big prize is that she who smells like angels ought to smell, the goddess, the perfect woman...Sandra Bernhard is the special guest! This is going to be the closest I'd ever get to her. I throw together a makeshift Angus Young costume and race to the studio. As "party guests" we are supposed to be dancing it up during the house band's musical interludes, so I make sure that I throw around lots of energy to sell the concept. It gets a little comical in that every time I try to steal away from the set to hit craft service, the show is about to go back to "the party" and the floor is barren, so we get herded back to fill it up. But hey, them's the rules of being background, so I just start skanking again when the music starts. Sandra stays the whole three hours, and of course she was perfect. Unfortunately...I don't actually get to be that close to her. We are on the same set the whole time of course, but I am...here...and she is...there. And like a good background player, I am not going to overstep my bounds. When the show wraps, I manage to get a few words of admiration to her as she leaves the studio. I mention the Ohio State incident, hoping it will open the door to conversation, and while she laughs, she doesn't stop walking. So...foiled again. But I can't blame her for wanting to get out of Dodge: it was a long shoot, and she probably wanted to go back home to her daughter and share the holiday properly.

No, at this point I am more likely to catch scurvy from Andy Dick than I am to ever have a full, dinner-length conversation with Sandra Bernhard; it's been sufficiently proven that Elijah, Loki, or Yehudi will not stop jockblocking me. But at least nobody can say that I didn't do my damndest...whether or not I should have will be up to you, and hopefully not the Police department, to decide. And I'll always have my vinyl copy of I'M YOUR WOMAN.

So, wherever you've been on your special day - meditating at Kabbalah, cavorting with the kid, crying for Elaine's - thank you, Miss Sandra. You inspired a long-haired, big-nosed misfit kid to take chances and believe in himself. I've been kissed hundreds of times by your words, it's alright if I don't get one from those actual legendary lips.

When the Captain Was Left Out to Sea

On Memorial day, we honor all the fallen heroes in the nation's service who made sacrifices for us as civilians. And as we are in the midst of another bloody culture war, I'd like to celebrate one of our greatest heroes of that front.

If you spend enough time listening to the mutterings of ordinary people, sooner or later you will hear that things are in a bollix. It's a timeless rant, to be sure, but to an extent, I am in agreement with that complaint. Consequently, everyone wants to know when this country went down the toilet, to pin it down to a single event. Depending on the political stripe of the complainant, it is usually attributed to when the rival party achieved certain power or passed certain legislation. Some like to pin it to a certain social sea change, usually involving the increased influence of an "other." And as such, I have my theory.

We as a nation became damned when CBS cancelled "CAPTAIN KANGAROO."



Up until that moment, on national television, there was still something front and center that was geared for a purpose other than money and ratings. Sure, TV networks and stations had public interest programs, but those were usually buried in deep programming holes guaranteed to be found by no one. (See: SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE"'s dead-on "Perspectives" sketches with Tim Meadows). Sure, there was ostensible children's programming, but those were increasingly turning into garish, half-hour toy commercials with a clumsy 30-second "morals" segment to fulfill the contractual obligation of being "educational." (See: "Knowing is half the battle: Go JOE!") Yes, of course there was "SESAME STREET," but PBS programming still had trouble reaching many households due to poor UHF reception, and this was a TV show that depended on government support (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting) and generous benefactors (Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and grants from almost everybody but the Chubb Group) precisely to keep it protected from the kinds of mercenarial market forces that could dilute its mandate.

But "CAPTAIN KANGAROO" was right there on CBS at 8 AM, five days a week. It was a beacon that told America that their growing children, easily succeptible to the lure of television, would have a place to go to where they were safe. There would be sweetness, but it never felt contrived or saccharine. There would be stimulating images, but he always pushed the young viewer to create their own images later on. There would be slapstick and maybe some embarassment for the Captain, getting pelted with ping pong balls by Mr. Moose, but no humiliation or degradation. Offscreen, Bob Keeshan strictly monitored what ads the show ran: he was businessman enough to know that you had to sell stuff, but he made sure the kids weren't being exploited, so sugary foods were kept to a minimum, and violent war toys were flat out not welcome. Even the opening montage, where you might see anyone from kids to adults, farmers to bankers, and famous people like Tom Brokaw or The Fonz or even the President saying "Good morning, Captain," sent a subtle message to kids at home that grown-ups knew the Captain was an important man and someone to respect. Even when you reached 3rd grade and were too cool to watch those baby shows any more, if you were home sick from school, you probably sneaked a look at the show and laughed at Mr. Moose still, because, well, ping pong balls are always funny.

And then, despite multiple Emmy nominations for the show and host, and Keeshan quickly recuperating from a heart attack that required triple-bypass surgery (where he receved thousands of get-well cards), CBS unceremoniously tampered with his program. First, in September 1981, the show was cut to a half hour and moved up an hour earlier to 7 AM, which affected the leisurely pacing that had made him so soothing. They literally renamed the show, "WAKE UP WITH THE CAPTAIN," suggesting that instead of having time to contemplate the day and hang around, kids had to snap to it, get dressed, and out the door. Then six months later they moved him to 6:30 AM, when most kids were still asleep! A year later, he was moved to Saturday mornings, where most affiliates couldn't be bothered to even run the show and yanked him off the air. Despite all of this, Keeshan and the show continued to win Emmys and accolades. But he clearly got tired of the constant heaving from CBS [and if I may interject, I know firsthand about the practice of a network constantly changing a program's timeslot to insure nobody will watch it and thus justify cancelling it], so he let his contract expire and "CAPTAIN KANGAROO" was gone for good by 1984, just shy of its 30th anniversary on television.

Why would CBS give the bum's rush to an American institution, a personality that had been as synonymous with their identity as the Eye logo? Why would they jerk around the man second only to Fred Rogers who demonstrated the positive power of TV on society?

To expand their morning news, so they could compete with "TODAY" and "GOOD MORNING AMERICA" for an already finite audience, and more impotantly, the advertising dollars.



With one act, a major television network told America's children, "Fuck off. We can make more money running a program for adults that is exactly the same as its competition, where we can sell ads for snow tires and Maalox. Because adults have disposable income, and you don't. You kids are not important, go somewhere else." The ultimate exclamation point upon the Me Decade.

Today, there's lots of good shows for children on cable and satellite. But you have to pay for cable and satellite...it's called PAY TV for a reason. Maybe the saturation is such that only 24% of U.S. households don't have subscriptions, but that's still 30.7 million households relying solely on over-the-air broadcasting for their television viewing. (And that of course, is provided that those crappy digital converters--and don't get me started on those!--even work) Also consider that while kids could conceivably watch stuff on the internet, 40% of households don't have the broadband or high-speed connections required to watch longform streaming media, and 30% have no internet access at all. Which means those kids, who need positive TV programming the most, are shit out of luck.

Some shows are still available for free on PBS. But PBS depends on outside money, which is getting harder to come by every year, especially in this intense partisan climate where it has become a convenient political football. And much of the shows are just pleasant white noise ("TELETUBBIES"), or dumbed-down pandering ("BARNEY"), while "SESAME STREET" has drastically cut down on new episodes and sadly, Mister Rogers doesn't even surivive in reruns.

What little programming the major over-the-air networks offer to satisfy the FCC's mandatory 3 hours of Educational and Informative content for kids are mostly more of the same loud glorified toy commercials. NBC repuposes a few semi-educational series from the "qubo" collective on Saturday mornings...and if you're lucky, maybe you can find an affiliate who actually airs that lineup instead of pre-empting it for their own syndicated sports, news, or lifestyle programs for adults. To say that enforcement of this rule has been lax is not only a given, but would prompt Mr. Moose to notice that the FCC "lax" balls and thus bring a shower of them on their heads.

And by the way...CBS has never, ever, EVER...prove me wrong, TV heads...NEVER been able to dominate NBC or ABC's daily morning news shows, not with Bryant Gumbel, not with Paula Zahn, not with Martha Stewart...nothing.

When CBS devoted an hour each day to "CAPTAIN KANGAROO," they told kids that it was great to be a kid, there were all manner of possibilities in the world to explore, and there were friendly adults to help them navigate it.

Somebody at the network decided they couldn't spare an hour a day for America's kids. And to me, that's obviously where things go wrong.

Supe for Wan

In late April, a tempest in an inkpot erupted when it was announced that in DC Action Comics issue #900, Superman would stand before the United Nations and renounce his U.S. citizenship. Lest anyone think the Man of Steel is about to become a Kryptonite-munching hippie subversive, first off, it is only one of many self-contained stories in this landmark anniversary issue, and the storyline by David S. Goyer is quite thoughtful in its real-world implications, essentially putting forth the question of whether Superman's mandate for justice and peace is not just for the United States, but for all the universe and its citizens. The Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman wrote a further thought-provoking essay about this story, and meanwhile, comics websites, message boards and talk radio are fired up about what is really just a great hook to sell more copies of a collector's item, a thread that will surely be tidied up to everyone's satisfaction in a few more issues, faster than it took for him to return from his "death" via Doomsday.

The increased news coverage being heaped upon the finely chiseled ubermensch, along with the ongoing debate about the onslaught of superhero origin films to arrive this summer, put me to thinking about the first significant time I witnessed Superman asking serious questions about his identity. Granted, it was within the confines of a movie that severely tarnished the image of comic book movies for years afterward, but the question was there regardless.

   

SUPERMAN III, released in 1983, has served as a prime example of what is both interesting and irritating about "threequels" - the perception that this is where the franchise can go into heretofore unseen directions, bring up details heretofore ignored, and potentially here-and-now go off the rails. As far as superhero movies go, it's rather uncanny that future threequels SPIDER-MAN III and BATMAN FOREVER would also explore a similar sort of identity crisis plotline, thus making it a harbinger of things to come...especially since those threequels were not very good. And make no mistake, SUPERMAN III is not very good. You will find some brave souls ready to defend it, and the distinction of worst Superman outing ever still belongs to the moth-eaten SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, but do not for a minute think this is some sort of misunderstood crystal in the Fortress of Solitude. 

SUPERMAN III is the cinematic equivalent of fugu: on the whole, it is a poisonous beast that will suck the oxygen out of you and bring death. But if you carefully carve it up, there is some tasty meat within that can be enjoyed. 

Before discussing any of its merits, we must acknowledge it is nigh impossible to watch the movie in the present day and not be cognizant of the loss of both of its above-the-title stars, and the long, heartbreaking exits they took - Christopher Reeve from quadriplegic paralysis, Richard Pryor from Multiple Sclerosis. Both men, previously icons of energy and youth that repeatedly drew in audiences, ultimately became noble representatives for dealing with their abrupt misfortune with calm humor and determination to continue working until death. As such, the viewer wishes that their one shared movie offered them better material to work with. But thankfully, it is their respective skills that provide what good points the movie has.

  

First, the film provides a well-needed stretch for Reeve, taking him beyond the established polite nebbish/confident hero dynamic of the first two films. It is forgotten that in his first national exposure, on the TV soap opera "LOVE OF LIFE," his character was often so callous viewers would openly castigate him in person. Thus, when tainted Kryptonite infects Superman and drives him to mean-spirited selfish acts, Reeve throws himself into the bad behavior with relish; Metropolis may be horrified to see Superman being such a colossal dick, but it's a lot of fun for us to watch his heel turn. Which, of course, climaxes in the movie's best set piece, the junkyard brawl between "bad" Superman and "good" Clark Kent, a well-choreographed arragement of camera trickery and stunt doubling that manages to be funny and still inspire a degree of suspense as to how the hero will overcome his dark side. (Surely Sam Raimi, who would go on to helm all three SPIDER-MAN films, took inspiration from this sequence for his similar, albeit completely for laughs, smackdown between good and bad Bruce Campbell in ARMY OF DARKNESS.)

Then, there is the matter of Pryor's oft-maligned performance. Pryor himself was very harsh in his assessment of the experience: the movie merits only one page in his autobiography PRYOR CONVICTIONS, where he concedes the script was terrible but as it was then the highest salary ever offered to a black actor ($4 million) he took the part anyway. He also acknowledges he was still abusing crack during production, and it was shortly after filming when, on vacation with his children, he finally quit drugs for good. For fans who wanted to see the animated, take-no-bullshit persona that Pryor perfected on stage, earlier movies, and in his short-lived TV series, it is certainly a disappointment to witness the beginning of what would become an unwelcome trademark of his later movie roles, what the sketch comedy series "IN LIVING COLOR" (featuring his longtime friend Mr. Paul Mooney as a staff writer) derided as "Richard Pryor is...'SCARED FOR NO GOOD REASON!'" It is also the blueprint that in the present-day has similarly hobbled other great comic actors - Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Jack Black - who start out transgressive and dangerous but get stuck in a rut of making repetitive and bland movies "for the kids" and can't seem to recapture their adult glory. 

But while revisiting the film a few weeks ago, I was reminded of a quote Pryor provided author Arthur Grace for his photo-essay book COMEDIANS...

"I see Laurel and Hardy up there with van Gogh. I do, really. Cause they were just there, man, you what I'm saying. They had a love. They had a magic together."

 

And as I watched Pryor playing the soft-spoken and often-reluctant criminal sub-genius Gus Gorman, it hit me. Pryor's approach to the role - the half-baked bravado, the physical slapstick, the quick retreats upon confrontation, the occasional squeak of fear - is to emulate Stan Laurel. You even see a sort of Oliver Hardy-ish bluster to Robert Vaughn's industrialist villain for Pryor to play his Laurelisms against. And, considering that Reeve's Clark Kent, a modest bespectacled gent secretly capable of feats of strength, owes more than a little debt to silent comedian Harold Lloyd, a similarly mild-mannered fellow who literally climbed a tall building in a single bound in SAFETY LAST, I find it rather charming that the work of such comedy pioneers is quietly being reenacted decades later. It's not completely effective, especially when you know it goes against his better comedic impulses, but it is interesting because of the contrast, as if trying to prove to the world (and himself) that he could be funny without any of his earthier hallmarks, to use the template of the comedians that he had grown up enjoying to demonstrate his versatility. There is also the harsh reality that, in a family-friendly franchise film which he was receiving a cool $4 million to appear in, there would be no room for the dirty stuff anyway. 

But again, perhaps this is what Pryor wanted at the time. Initially, Pryor had practically begged to be involved in the franchise, excitedly talking about his love for the first film on "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JOHNNY CARSON," an incident which first inspired producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind to make the large money offer to Pryor in the first place. The offer came after accepting a starring role in another family-friendly comedy, the American remake of Francis Veber's THE TOY, oddly enough directed by original SUPERMAN director Richard Donner. A couple of years earlier, Pryor had taken a trip to Africa, where, as memorably depicted in LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP, he was inspired to renounce his use of the racial epithet that he had previously played to the hilt, and while his first interests were still big paychecks (and his drug addiction), he definitely wanted to be a world entertainer and not just a black comedian. All these circumstances suggest that contrary to the dismissal in his book, SUPERMAN III to Pryor was less a cavalier cash grab and more of a sincere desire to pay tribute to things that brought him happiness as a kid, and maybe repay the favor for his own and the next generation. Again, that doesn't make it a good movie, but it provides a new lens with which to observe the mess. 

And that brings things around to the beginning of this essay and the element of the movie that I do find still holds my interest. Superman, in his most passionate fans, constantly inspires questions, whether, as was being asked in the aformentioned Issue #900, if Superman is an American, or in other circles, what is his religious/ethnic identity. But in SUPERMAN III, it comes down to the ultimate question, not just for Superman but also for his ersatz nemesis/admirer Gus Gorman - "Who am I?"

Superman, during his infected rogue phase, is more than just indulging in nasty behavior; for the first time, he's allowing himself to feel better than humans, because, well, he isn't one. After all, he tried being human in SUPERMAN II and was terrible at it. The kryptonite has unlocked residual resentment at being unable to engage in romance because of his hero duties, having to play nice with the people or let them push him around when he's in street clothes, and now he is retaliating against the world, demonstrating what chaos he's capable of doing in a fit of pique, because of his otherworldly powers. When it's time for that I Against I grudge match, it's become a spiritual fight between openly showing off his might and menace or concealing and modulating it in the cloak of ordinary men. The striking image of Clark Kent winning the fight, and then revealing the cleaned up shield beneath his drab suit, says that Superman has willingly made the conscious decision to be outwardly meek and humble, to be a mensch, and let his real strength be within himself. Contrary to what Bill said to The Bride, Superman is not critiquing the human race by his life as Clark Kent, but embracing them, because they embraced him all his life. (In a future essay, I will discuss how the people repaid the favor.)

Gus, meanwhile, is a venal opportunist who is really just trying to improve his lot in life and doesn't want to hurt anyone. His first grand scheme, engaging in salami slicing to fatten his paycheck, he sees as a "victimless" crime since the money goes nowhere otherwise, thus he later allows himself to be co-opted by a megalomaniac for what he thinks are similarly victimless schemes in order to live his silly dreams. When he must confront the fact that his actions have consequences beyond his small world, including destroying Superman, he renounces everything - his criminal benefactor, his supercomputer - that has given him his exalted status...perhaps mirroring how Pryor in real life abandoned his previously-favorite curse word. 

Whatever grand ambitions and ideas are within, SUPERMAN III is still a slog for the average viewer and is only recommended to those with strong constitutions or a good fast-forwarding thumb. It is nice to see it still has some degree of positive impact years later, either obviously, as the initial financial scheme is reprised for bigger comic effect in Mike Judge's classic OFFICE SPACE, or interpretively, as Richard Pryor's Gus Gorman seems to have been a partial influence on John C. Reilly's lovably befogged Dr. Steve Brule character on "TIM AND ERIC AWESOME SHOW GREAT JOB". Perhaps in one of those DC multiverses, Reeve and Pryor made a really great sequel, and my surrogate will be writing an essay about how it could have gone horribly awry...