Reason and Radical

New Blog

I created a new blog to deal with my Superman obsession.

posted by Leimodnu @ 11:23 AM 0 comments

Good Faith

From a letter to Altercation earlier this week:

I don't think anybody believed that George Bush could set us back so far. The saddest impression leftover from the 2000 election fiasco is that Al Gore's supporters acted in good faith for the good of our society, and let stand the Supreme Court's decision, even though everybody knew deep down that it was crap. Sadly, the Republicans did not return that good faith, and would later smear Democrats and whoever disagreed with them as traitors. I personally never trusted Bush or his gang. They had spent the previous 8 years trying to remove a twice legitimately elected president. Their lust for power was obvious to me but most people had just assumed the impeachment was just a law and order issue.

Yep...

posted by Leimodnu @ 11:21 AM 0 comments

Car Decor Weirdness

Twice now I have seen decals on the back windows of cars that memoralize a dead person. Both read In Memorium with the person's name and one actually had the dates of birth and death. Totaly weird and kinda morbid. I think in both cases the drivers were black. I know growing up in Detroit, it seemed that many black people went through phases of car decor fads. Crown air freshners were one fad, and these big velvety pillows in the back window was another. Anyway, I find the memorial decals to be very, very strange.

posted by Leimodnu @ 2:10 PM 0 comments

World Cup and Superman

Went to see Superman again today (5th time) so I didn't get home until the World Cup was almost over. We did see the last 10 minutes of regulation, both the overtimes and the shoot-out. Asinine way to decide the biggest sports championship in the world. Of course, it was also terribly disappointing to see Zidane headbutt a guy and get red-carded.

Anyway, I loved Superman as much the 5th time as the 1st. I'll probably go again next weekend, although I have to say its a little more difficult to spend the money because A) the prints are getting raggedy and B) the audience is less attentive and, frankly, disgusting.

I see that Bryan Singer is going to ComicCon this weekend in San Diego -- hopefully, he'll announce the sequel, but who knows? When a piece of crap like Pirates can set a new record take ($132 mil in 3 days) and a great film like Superman is struggling with a total take of $142 mil after 10 days, you really have to wonder about the American movie goer.

posted by Leimodnu @ 5:53 PM 0 comments

Pirates Sucks

OMG this movie is terrible. Granted, I didn't care much for the first Pirates movie, but I didn't hate it. I just thought it was overlong and not as good as most seemed to think.

But this one just plain sucks. I nearly walked out after the first 45 minutes which were pathetic and boring. Horrible script. Half the time I was saying to myself what the fuck is going on? Its truly an awful mess and not interesting at all. The New York Times review reads: "a movie with no particular interest in coherence, economy or feeling." Exactly.

The really sad thing is this movie will beat Superman Returns money-wise and Superman is a far superior movie.

posted by Leimodnu @ 7:30 PM 0 comments

More Superman

I know, this obsession is getting ridiculous. Just a few minor things: Richard Branson has a cameo in the film, as do the two writers. I keep looking for the director, Bryan Singer, but so far haven't seen him.

I also kept looking for moments when the fact that it was shot in Australia sneak in but haven't seen anything more glaring than a TV set showing a weather report where the temps were in celsius.

In the train scene, there is a small sign reading "Smallville."

One question I have is why Jor-el, with all the advanced technology of Krypton, did not code the crystals to Kal-el's DNA so that no one but Kal-el could use them. (I still can't believe Nic Cage named his kid Kal-el.)

I skimmed through a review of the new "Pirates" movie that was very unfavorable and I'm really dreading wasting 3 hours of my life watching it tomorrow when I wasn't all that thrilled with the first one.

posted by Leimodnu @ 7:32 PM 0 comments

Great Quote

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

Louis D. Brandeis

posted by Leimodnu @ 7:31 PM 0 comments

World Cup

I've actually watched a lot of games since I have been home unemployed (oh, I found a job, I start Monday! I'm very excited -- great job, strong company -- but I don't write about work on this blog). I'm happy to see France in the finals and I'm OK with Italy since I put myself in the "anybody but Germany" camp. It would be nice to see Zidane and his team win the whole thing.

posted by Leimodnu @ 7:53 PM 0 comments

Again with the Superman

Just returned from my fourth viewing of the movie. Obviously, I love this movie. And I love the idea of exploring just how does a super being, a god really, live a life of service among us lowly humans. That, and Superman's longing for love, are the basics of this script which is fabulous.

I totally buy into Brandon Routh as Superman. In many ways, he's better than Chris Reeve in the role (I know, blasphemy). This video on Google about the casting of Brandon is adorable.

Also I realized a few days ago that Brandon is younger than Tom Welling, who plays Clark on Smallville. Funny, since he's playing Superman around age 35 while Welling is playing a college age Clark.

I've said to my daughter that this film is better than most movie goers deserve because they can't understand or appreciate its subleties.

I must see it one more time -- maybe Sunday, since I'm already committed to Pirates on Friday. I didn't care all that much for the first Pirates movie (which I thought was an hour too long and that Johnny Depp characterization didn't wear well with me after awhle). But my daughter is a big fan of Keira Knightley so we're going to see Pirates.

posted by Leimodnu @ 7:43 PM 0 comments