Screening Log
This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.
July 2006 activity
Total Log Entries: 71
- Adam (5)
- Andrew (0)
- Chet (0)
- Chiranjit (15)
- David (0)
- Eva (0)
- Evan (0)
- Ian (5)
- Jenny (5)
- Katherine (0)
- Leo (6)
- Megan (0)
- Rumsey (17)
- Teddy (0)
- Thomas (0)
- Timothy (0)
- Victoria (0)
Total Comments: 23
- Lady in the Water (1)
- Metropolitan (0)
- Bonnie and Clyde (0)
- 24 Hour Party People (0)
- Ace in the Hole (0)
- The 40 Year-Old Virgin (0)
- Krrish (1)
- Predator (0)
- Lethal Weapon (1)
- Batman (0)
- Mary of Scotland (0)
- Cheyenne Autumn (0)
- Heading South (0)
- Spider (0)
- Frenzy (0)
- Superman Returns (3)
- The Night Listener (1)
- Captain Blood (0)
- Sleepers (0)
- Snowcake (0)
- American Dreamz (0)
- Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (0)
- Demolition Man (0)
- Ace in the Hole (0)
- The Big Lebowski (0)
- Dazed and Confused (0)
- MASH (0)
- Dazed and Confused (0)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2)
- Superman Returns (0)
- Metropolitan (0)
- McCabe & Mrs. Miller (0)
- The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (0)
- An Inconvenient Truth (0)
- A Prairie Home Companion (0)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (0)
- Art School Confidential (0)
- Brick (0)
- L’ami de mon amie (0)
- Mission: Impossible 3 (0)
- The Spiral Staircase (0)
- Bringing Out the Dead (0)
- Leave Her to Heaven (0)
- Alice (1)
- Fantastic Planet (0)
- A Scanner Darkly (2)
- Caché (0)
- Superman Returns (0)
- The Devil Wears Prada (0)
- A Scanner Darkly (0)
- Popeye (2)
- 25th Hour (1)
- Dazed and Confused (0)
- Halloween: H20 (0)
- Culloden (0)
- Evolution (0)
- Hard Candy (0)
- Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (4)
- Carnal Knowledge (0)
- Naked (1)
- Murmur of the Heart (0)
- Wet Hot American Summer (1)
- Superman Returns (2)
- Bringing Up Baby (0)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (0)
- Click (0)
- The Squid and the Whale (0)
- The Harder They Come (0)
- Up! (0)
- Superman Returns (0)
- The Devil Wears Prada (0)
Full Archive
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Superman Returns / USA / 2006
Having little to no direct familiarity with this or any comic book adaptation’s source material, I can’t attest to how faithfully rendered this film is. (A friend scolds me for my preference for Burton’s Batmans, and not the — or so I’m told — more true-to-the-source Batman Begins.) And this is a flaw in my approach, as comic book films have often a few hours in which to either establish or sustain an entire mythology of characters and behavioral laws—one’s appreciation for them is surely enforced by knowledge of their basis.
Lacking that knowledge, my favorite aspect of most every film in this genre persists in how the eponymous heroes are often directly involved in the media that promotes them—they all seem to be partially responsible for modulating their appeal. And this is one of the many reasons Superman Returns is a disappointment. Having returned, after a five-year hiatus, to his job as a reporter at the Daily Planet, a cardboard Clark Kent resumes his gawking at Lois Lane. Contrast this to the pleasures that arise from Peter Parker’s employment at the Daily Bugle.
The opening credits of this film (and Marlon Brando’s subsequent voiceover), however, are enthralling, illustrating Singer & Co.’s integrity in maintaining a connection (as well as debt) to Richard Donner’s 1978 original. A shame no second that follows is nearly as exciting.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Warner Bros. 35mm print
10 Jul 2006 10:56 AM | Submit Comment