Up, up and away!

Squee!
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

What we've been watching (the Good, the Bad, the Ugly but not in that order:

The Bad: Strangers With Candy - this movie may be the straw that broke the camel's back. I had to review it and I am still trying to come up with 700 words to say "It's not my cup of tea". Bleh.

The Ugly: BloodRayne - I know better than to watch an Uwe Boll film, but I ended up watching this because of an unfortunate exchange of information with my husband. He was going through the OnDemand movies, reading the descriptions and stopped on Bloodrayne. I said "Hey did you know Michelle Rodriguez and Kristina Lokken are dating?". Bad move - he immediately turned on the movie, despite my assurances that it sucks. I really don't know if they are dating for real, they might just be best buds. Still, more power to them if they are.

As for Bloodrayne, it was actually entertainingly bad, with a whole bevy of embarrassed actors including Sir Ben Kingsley. The Queen is going to take his knighthood away if he keeps slumming in crap like this. The best was a perfectly miscast Micheal Madsen as some sort of medeival vampire hunter. Rodriguez and Lokken are simply unfortunately here, but at least it looks like they got more out of the movie than a paycheck.

The (really, really) good: Superman Returns I loved this movie! I'm very glad I saw the 2 original Christopher Reeve Supermans recently because this movie takes up where they left off (thankfully ignoring the 3rd and 4th movies). Superman has been away for 5 years, unsuccessfully trying to find remnants of his homeworld. When he returns he finds things have changed radically - Metropolis and Lois Lane have moved on, having found a way to live without the man of steel. Bryan Singer directed - he did the first 2 X-Men movies and I don't blame him for dropping X-Men for something as iconic as Superman (although the X-Men franchise suffered from his loss).

Singer plays off the original 2 movies like I mentioned as well as the comics, and he gives the movie his own touches. The one I liked best are all the characters (except perhaps Jimmy Olsen) have more dimensions. Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) benefits the most. He's still the evil genius buffoon, but he's actually somewhat scary in this movie. Lois Lane is still your standard feisty reporter, but she is prickly and hurt as old wounds open when Superman returns. And Superman himself (played by Brandon Routh who is spooky in his resemblance to Christopher Reeve yet doesn't do an impersonation) seems so lost and alone even as he saves countless lives. Singer gives Superman an ethereal quality (as well as overtly touching on the Christ/Atlas/Prometheus imagery). It also doesn't hurt that Routh is almost disturbingly beautiful.

If I have quibbles the movie drags in places, and my biggest problem with the movie I can't really discuss because that would be spoiling it. Let's just say that Jon and I had a mini-argument about why Superman can't have a relationship with a human woman and it degenerated fast into territory that Kevin Smith would be proud of.