Super/Sonic
It’s going to be one of those slow periods around EA the next couple of weeks. I’m finding the events of the world wearying lately, outside of sports and entertainment. My writing style on the blog is starting to drive me crazy – I can’t imagine what it must be doing to the non-me people out there. And it’s heavenly July weather here in the Northwest, I’m off work for a few weeks, and Comic-Con is right around the corner. So, just a few quick notes of interest.
Saw Superman Returns last night at the Imax in 3D. If you have an Imax in your town that’s playing Superman, this is head-and-shoulders the way to see it. When the picture is six stories tall and coming at you in 12,000 watts of surround sound, plus 3D, it’s a lot easier to ignore the many annoying problems in the film and just let the spectacle wash over you.
What made last year’s Batman Begins so good is that the filmmakers deliberately freed themselves of the baggage of the previous Batman series, particularly the last terrible installments directed by Joel Shumacher. By contrast, the shadow of Richard Donner’s great Superman movie from the 1970s hangs heavily over Brian Singer’s Superman Returns.
Most noticeably, the unknown Brandon Routh, in the title role, doesn’t play Superman so much as he plays Christopher Reeve playing Superman. He looks the part to an eerie degree, but the performance struck me as hollow and charmless. Routh, unlike Reeve, was totally unable to sell Clark Kent as a critical facet of Superman’s identity, rather than just a plot device. If you miss this in the performance, you’ve shot wide of the target and drained the Superman character of a considerable portion of his humanity and mystery. Everyone else was pretty good. Kevin Spacey made a serviceable Lex Luthor; Kate Bosworth’s multi-dimensional Lois Lane was about the strongest factor holding the film together.
The plot was silly and full of holes. Yeah, it’s a Superman movie, but comic fans (as well as other sentient beings) demand a certain internal logic, even when the premise is utter fantasy. Singer seems to have gone for a more juvenile conception of Superman, making him powerful beyond measure, then taking an inconsistent approach to his vulnerabilities. That’s not an indefensible approach: it worked well enough in the 1950s and 60s, the period of many of the Man of Steel’s most charming and fondly-remembered comic book adventures. It was just a bit disappointing considering the success of more sophisticated approaches taken in Spider-Man, Batman Begins, and Singer’s own X-Men films.
Despite all this, on an Imax screen, late at night, in the right frame of mind, Superman Returns was dandy entertainment and above the threshold for a summer spectacular. Too bad it wasn’t better. But it does give the franchise something to build on.
In other blast-from-the-past news, I saw Sonic Youth play on Friday night at the Moore Theatre here in Seattle. In the 1980s, Sonic Youth literally changed the way I listen to music. Sister and Daydream Nation rocked my world, and I saw them play live in New York and Seattle at least a dozen times.
But that was a long time ago. Going on 20 years, even. Although the band remains active, I haven’t paid much attention to their music since the mid-90s. I wasn’t even aware they were playing until Mepriser brought it to my attention and snagged us some tickets.
If Sonic Youth is some kind of Gen-X nostalgia band, no one bothered to tell them. They played a fearsomely great set, mostly of material from their new album. They’ve managed to maintain and improve the best part of their approach – the balance of energetic melody, chaos and volume dynamics – without becoming stale or boring, which is no mean feat for a band that’s been around since 1981. Every so often, they reached back into their catalog for an old favorite pleasing to the fogies like me up in the balcony. Their final encore, the epic “Expressway to Your Skull,” effortlessly conjured up the spirit of 1986 and brought down the house in a squall of brain-melting noise and white hot intensity.
So, capsule summary: Superman Returns, eh. Sonic Youth: yeah, baby!
12:15:47 PM 
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