Let us enjoy ... The Adventures of Superman!

Look! Up in the sky! It's a plane! It's a bird! It's Superman!

Many have watched the television series "The Adventures of Superman." Some of you may have seen it after school and heard your mom ask, with a sigh, "Is your homework done?" Others may have seen it on Saturday morning and had their nannies toss them a box of Frosted Flakes®, saying, "Don't forget to eat!" Whatever the circumstances, or if you've never seen the show, it's worth a second, or a first, look.

The first disc of the series' first season is a real treat. It contains six episodes, including "Superman on Earth," which is about Superman's arrival on Earth. He arrived, while still a baby, aboard a small -- flimsy -- rocket from the planet Krypton. His father and mother placed him in the rocket -- did they strap him in? -- and launched it on a course for Earth just as Krypton disintegrated. The rocket crash-landed and was found by a childless couple, surnamed Kent, who gave the baby the name "Clark" and raised him. At the age of twelve, Clark came home from school one day in a funk. "Mom" asked "Clark" what the matter was, and he told her that he had abilities the other boys didn't have: That very day he had found a lost baseball behind a rock, and he was able to see it because he had X-Ray vision! "Mom" told "Clark" about his origin. "Clark" grew to be a man and, after "Dad" died, left on a bus for Metropolis, where, with the help of his extraordinary powers, he landed his job at the Daily Planet newspaper.

The second episode, "The Haunted Lighthouse," can be seen with voice-over commentary by Gary H. Grossman, who wrote Superman: Serial to Cereal, which is considered the go-to guide for the series. Grossman didn't see re-runs; he saw it as a four-year-old, when it was first broadcast in the early 1950s. He became a life-long, passionate fan, and he did a lot of research before writing his book. Grossman says that the first season is the best; the episodes were mini-films with sound plots. Although he finds "bloopers," he has a lot of praise for the series' production values, which, he says, were quite good considering the episodes were filmed in a rush and on a low budget.

The first disc, by itself, might be good to have when people visit. It runs for about two and one-half hours -- about the right length for a mini-marathon -- and might lead to some interesting conversations: Where were you when you first saw the show? It's so fake, now! Wow! Did everyone wear hats -- and suits? -- back then? Will either "Lois" or "Jimmy" ever realize that "Clark" is Superman? Was George Reeves the best Superman ever? Where can we buy -- wear? -- vintage clothes? What kind of car does "Lois Lane" drive?

There is an excellent picture of a preserved or restored car, like the one "Lois Lane" drives during disc-one's "The Mystery of the Broken Statues" episode, here, at Wikipedia's entry for the television series, here. Grossman mentions Aardvark's -- in LA -- for vintage clothes, but, alas! the store may no longer be in business.


The DVD looked very good when played on a 40" hi-def TV, via a Blu-ray player. The aspect ratio is 3:4, so on a 40" TV the picture appears as though it's on an old-school TV of about 32 inches, letter-boxed, left and right. The series was filmed and, when the DVD is paused, some grain can be seen. The picture is much clearer than what I remember seeing broadcast -- in re-runs! -- on TV years ago. I timed one episode and it ran for twenty-five minutes, so there must have been five minutes (!) of Kellog's commercials (?) when the show was broadcast. I've read that some of the commercials can be seen on another disc from the first season set.

One short episode -- not from the first season -- was made for the U.S. Government and is in the public domain:



via Stamp Day for Superman (1954)

Check your library for this DVD set. I obtained disc one from my library. Apparently, they broke the set up into several items for lending.

Superheroes in Comic Books and Film

Some comic books -- graphic novels, if you prefer -- are thought by some (parental units) to be violent. But the "violence" of comic books is stylized violence, which some (vermin intellectuals, a.k.a. elites) call "aestheticized violence." Stylized violence is the heart and soul of Superhero comics. Superheroes survive villians' knockout, fatal blows and use their supernatural powers to defeat their adversaries. The books' theme is classic Good vs. Evil, at times drawn in graphic black and white.

Frank Miller's Sin City appeared about twenty years ago and was adapted to film in 2005. Many, if not all, of the characters are criminals and may not be, strictly speaking, superheroes, but they are able to survive incredible violence and come back for another beating, bullet or blade. There are "good" criminals; when everyone is a criminal, aren't there bound to be "good" and "bad" criminals? It's a black and white film, with a little color used to draw attention to a character in each of its many episodes: red in The Customer Is Always Right, blonde in The Hard Goodbye, ... . Excellent!

In the mid-eighties, Watchmen was written by Alan Moore, drawn by Dave Gibbons and colored by John Higgins. A film adaptation of Watchmen appeared in 2009. The film portrays Superheroes in several lights: flawed good-guys, vigilantes and has-beens. The film is set in the mid-eighties, when Nixon -- believe it or not! -- is in his fifth term. The Blu-ray set contains some extra clips with an interview in which the comparison of Superheroes with vigilantes is made explicit. Until seeing that particular interview, I had forgotten that the mid-eighties were a time when the "Subway Shooter" and "Guardian Angels" flourished. Another extra clip attempts to discourage kids from becoming a Superhero or pretending to be one.

But one teenage boy does decide to play Superhero. Mark Millar and John Romita created Kick-Ass in 2008, and it was adapted to film last year. The film's stars are "Big Daddy" (Nicolas Cage) and "Hit-Girl" (Chloe Moretz). Hit-Girl is a young femme fatale (she's eleven), and the film was criticized for her profanity and violence, but it is stylized violence (could anyone do and survive what she did?), so I have to give her (and the film) a "You go, girl!" rating. "Kick-Ass" (Aaron Johnson) is the boy who pretends to be a Superhero.

Kill Bill, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino of Pulp Fiction fame, didn't originate in comics, but is a wonderful revenge story in which "The Bride" (Uma Thurman) avenges a wedding massacre as she searches for "Bill" (David Carradine). One rather lengthy display of The Bride's martial arts prowess and sword-fighting skill culminates in a beautiful scene (the sword fight with "O-Ren Ishi" (Lucy Liu)) that looks as though it could have been filmed in a snow globe. In another scene, The Bride's family values become apparent as she and "Vernita Green" (Vivaca Fox) engage in a knife fight. And, in yet another scene, you can witness an assassin's compassion: Sent to kill The Bride, "Karen Kim" (Helen Kim) walks away during a tense standoff after she learns The Bride is pregnant. During the film, Bill reveals a great secret about Superheroes when he tells how Superman differs from other Superheroes. Kill Bill is a two volume film, with each volume a sequence of five chapters, and like many novels it employs non-linear narrative to tell its story.

The post's picture, which is of the church where the massacre in Kill Bill occurs, is taken from Wikipedia's Kill Bill entry.

Blade Runner - The 'Final Cut'

Blade Runner's "final cut" was released as a single Blu-ray disk on January 4th of this year.

It can be seen as part of a 5-disc collector's edition, which was released in December of 2007. My library acquired the 2007 set, so I've spent some time seeing the film in most of its variants: the director's workprint, the international cut, and the final cut, as well as some of the extra/bonus material. I haven't yet had a chance to see the domestic cut and the 1992 director's cut.

The final cut's lighting seemed darker -- contrastier -- in comparison with the earlier cuts. It has two "improved" scenes which I wouldn't have known about if I hadn't also watched some of the extra material: Some out-of-sync lip movement by Harrison Ford's character, Deckard, was corrected (by Harrison Ford's son) and Zhora's "retirement" was re-shot. The final cut also has a completely new scene of the dove (Roy's soul?) flying away (to heaven?). The final cut has eliminated the voice-overs by Harrison Ford, which were unnecessary explanatory material and considered disruptive by Harrison Ford and many fans of the film. But unlike the international edition's "happy" ending, the final cut ends sooner, more ambiguously.

What's the film about? Four replicants, human robots made by Tyrell Corporation, with a four-year lifespan, have illegally come to Earth in search of a longer life. So, a Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), is tasked with "retiring" them. Leon and Zhora bleed like humans, then there are two: Roy and Pris. Roy finagles an audience with Mr. Tyrell, his Maker, and kills him after learning there is no way his life can be extended. Pris is then shot dead by Deckard. Roy then pursues Deckard through the Bradbury Building, and just as Deckard is about to fall from a nearby building, Roy saves him, then sits down in the rain to die, telling Deckard sadly (stoically, if you prefer), "I've seen things you wouldn't believe ... . All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain."

What I like about the film are the scenes of L.A. streets in 2019. They are dark, grey, blue and black, peopled by absolutely medieval characters, with bright, colorful neon signs.

Some people who talk about the film like to speculate about whether Deckard is a replicant. Perhaps we're all replicants, living here, somewhere "off-world."

Isn't it interesting that Roy kills his Maker?

Rachael is a replicant who believed she was human; you can believe that she and Deckard live happily ever after, if you like.

The film's only failure of imagination, from my point of view, is that the film's TVs and monitors aren't the stuff of 2011, much less 2019; they're more relics of the 1980s. They might have taken an idea from how they lighted the high-rise, in the picture, above, to anticipate the flat-panel displays of today. On the other hand, the film's see-around-the-corner photo enhancement (when Deckard examines Leon's pictures) may have been prescient.

Blade Runner made the AFI's top 100 list in 2007. Just barely ... it's #97.

Should you buy the single-disk "final cut?" Not if you're a fan of this film. The price difference between the 5-disk set and the single-disk is about $10 at Amazon, and the 5-disk set has a lot more to see. It's a film you can watch more than once.

Richard Wagner's cycle has made its mark on comic books

David Ng writes in "Richard Wagner's cycle has made its mark on comic books:"

... Los Angeles Opera is producing the complete "Ring" for the first time beginning in May. Although this avant-garde staging isn't for neophytes, its emphasis on spectacle and visual effects (light sabers play an important role) could make it the ideal "Ring" for superhero geeks. ...

... Richard Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung" is regarded by many as an important genetic mother ship for today's fleet of action heroes. ...

... Even those who have never experienced Wagner's epic should have little trouble recognizing the names of some of its chief protagonists such as Wotan and Brünnhilde and her fellow Valkyries. That's partly because Wagner himself borrowed from a number of well-known myths and legends -- the 12th century Germanic poem the "Nibelungenlied" was his primary source. But it's also because pop culture has taken Wagner's creations over the years and liberally repurposed them into a multitude of hit incarnations.

Perhaps the most popular of the "Ring" characters are the Valkyries -- the airborne female warriors of the cycle's second opera, "Die Walküre," who carry slain soldiers from the battlefields to their final resting places in Valhalla. ...

... On TV, the most recognizable offspring of Wagner's Valkyries was the title character in the cult series "Xena: Warrior Princess." In the sixth and final season, which aired in 2000-2001, viewers learned that Xena ( Lucy Lawless) was once an evil Valkyrie who presided over a reign of terror in the show's pan-mythological universe. ...

A promotion for LA Opera's production -- with audio and photos -- is here. LA Opera's Ring Festival closed on June 26, 2010.