Jesus Christ Superman

I’ll admit it.  Reflecting back on the big tentpole pictures of the summer, even the ones I found enjoyable seemed to evaporate from memory quickly.  But while it’s far from perfect, Man of Steel (Snyder) still lingers.

I think what I like about the film is that it addresses something that the other films have largely avoided, or only given lip service to: That Supes is genuinely super-human.  Not just extra-powerful, but almost godlike in his abilities (on a relative scale).  The devastation of Metropolis at the end is exhausting, given the overall film’s running time, but essential in conveying how humanity is mere cannon fodder if two true Super Men were to do battle.

But the irony is that despite the acknowledgment of this fact, the film is the least messianic about Superman than any we’ve ever seen.  In the Christopher Reeve incarnation, man is essentially powerless, and Superman must come and save the day for the planet time and time again.  At the end of Kill Bill, Part 2, Bill has a monologue on how the persona of Clark Kent is Kal-El’s commentary on (and veiled contempt for) mankind.  It’s a patronizing position, but apt because in those films, he’s all-powerful, but man is also hopelessly impotent.  This is even taken to the extent that Earth gains an entitlement complex by the time we reach Superman 3, where our hero is criticized for not always being able to save everyone, all the time.

However, despite being more powerful than any Superman we've seen thus far, Man of Steel's Superman is still less god, and more man.  His search for answers to his own identity make him more accessible, and his dedication to being an example for Earth, not an answer to all its troubles, is not mere lip service, as we see in the moving sacrifice of Col. Hardy and Dr. Hamilton (Chris Meloni & Richard Schiff, respectively) in the destruction of the Earth Builder.  Earth’s rescue is a collaboration; Supes may be the architect, but mankind has a real stake in its own salvation.  And that’s something we’ve never seen before.

I liked this film because it also (intentionally or not) harkened back to one of my favorite sci-fi films of the 70s, God Told Me To (Cohen, 1976).  In it, a supernatural being here on Earth assumes upon himself his own personal God complex.  And who can blame him?  A miraculous birth, powers far beyond his peers, in a society steeped in religion but agnostic when it comes to life on other planets—what else is he supposed to conclude other than that he represents a spiritual Second Coming?  And when you are dealing with someone who not only believes he’s God but has the power to back it up, what then?  It is director Larry Cohen’s finest film (Andy Kaufman’s too, incidentally), and it takes perverse pleasure in merging and melding these myths and cultural tropes that cinematic sci-fi usually keeps quite separate.

There were other things I liked about Man of Steel, too.  Krypton was a real place, with a real culture and history, not just a sound stage.  Zod is not just power mad; he’s a totalitarian on a genocidal mission, which makes him more believable and more horrifying.  True, Kevin Costner’s death is stupid and doesn’t have the poignancy of Glenn Ford's in the 1978 version, and the romance with Lois needed time to breathe.  It’s too fast, too sudden.  But Diane Lane, as Ma Kent, picks up the emotional slack and you see how the Kents would’ve raised their son with a stalwart code of values.  

But in the end, the film tries to explain Superman, not just accept him on faith.  In the original Superman, he just…shows up one day, out of the blue.  His appearance to humanity is completely arbitrary (unless it’s to save Lois’s life).  But here, Kal-El is forced to make a choice that redefines his purpose, and the planet’s own self-awareness, too.  His search for this purpose ends up bringing the Kryptonians to Earth.  His sense of responsibility is why he reveals himself, at long last.  Call it The Last Temptation of Clark.  Until now, the cinematic Superman was always one-dimensional, a goody-two shoes.  That’s what made him truly alien.  He isn’t even known by his superhero moniker here.  This is not just a reboot, but a new conception of the character altogether.  I’m curious to see where it goes.

Of course, my favorite silver screen Superman is still the one conceived by the Fleischer brothers in their marvelous cartoon shorts of the 40s.  Here's one gem from 1942.

The first card (a greeting card, actually) has a Superman stamp issued as part of the DC comic book series (Scott #4084k) and is paired up with the Superman stamp that was part of the Celebrate the Century series (#3185f).  And Canada had a Superman stamp too, from 1995.  The other Superman stamp (#4084a) and FDC from that DC comic series is on the other card (a postcard), along with Supergirl (#4084i) from the same series.  As a concession to possible comic collectors, I also added a Marvel stamp on each of these cards from a subsequent release, too--hence The Hulk (#4159l) and Captain America (#4159e).

Sunset

She said we didn’t argue enough, and perhaps she was right.  We were best friends, and it was hard to stay mad at each other for long.  I can hardly remember a time when we let the sun go down on our anger.  As it probably should be.  But it also meant that things that needed to be talked about, weren’t.  They were perpetually shelved in the wake of our love and good feeling in each other’s company, left to be addressed (or not) for another day.

I don’t tell people when my birthday is.  It’s a date, a milestone that’s generally meaningless to me.  My age is a number that holds no real relationship to how I look or feel.  So I couldn’t care less about it.  At my last job, everyone would celebrate each birthday in our department, and after a few years, they noticed they never celebrated mine, so I told them that if they wanted to celebrate a date, then choose my wedding anniversary.  Because that was a date that held real value for me.  They never did.

It would’ve been 14 years today.  But now, it’s just a date like any other—one with plenty of memories and associations, but nobody with whom to share them.  Everyone thought we were a good couple, but what we actually were was a good team.  Our strengths played off each other well, and helped cover the things the other wasn’t so good at.  We started as colleagues, then quickly friends.  Before we were even a couple, she was the best friend I’d ever had.  Nobody understood me better, looked out for me more.  But a good couple has not just light, but heat.  Friction and frission.

Adam’s Rib (Cukor, 1949) is probably the most celebrated pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.  It is about a married couple, both lawyers, who take opposing sides in a domestic violence case, highlighting and amplifying the hypocrisies and complications of gender roles and expectations in a marriage.  It was written by a married couple (Garson Kanin & Ruth Gordon) and Hepburn & Tracy’s ongoing love affair is one of the most venerated of the classical Hollywood era.  So the anxieties and nuances of being a couple are in the film’s DNA.

And there is a lot of arguing in Adam’s Rib.  Arguments in the courtroom and the bedroom—never cruel but very pointed.  The most dangerous thing about being a couple is that the other person knows you too well—your vulnerabilities and vanities, your soft spots and triggers.  We don’t like to be reminded of our flaws, our shortcomings, and nobody knows either better than the person we choose to spend the rest of our lives with.  But ironically, the things that flare our tempers also flame our desires--we may be humbled sometimes, but it often comes with a subcurrent of hot agitation.

Last spring’s Before Midnight is saturated in this state of marital tension.  While the first film in the Linklater/Hawke/Delpy trilogy, Before Sunrise, was about love’s possibilities and the second, Before Sunset, about love’s resonance, this third installment is about love’s consequences.  Choices.  Children.  Compromises.  We’ve never seen Jesse & Celine so at odds with each other, but never as sexual with each other, either.  Fighting and fucking are the yin & yang of their partnership, the way to build and release emotions that run deep, and a way to remind each other that passionate defenses and passionate rebuttals speak to passionate feelings that still rise to the surface and overflow.  It’s not my favorite film of the series, but it is the one that speaks the closest to me—of all the little details and dynamics I can relate to, and those I wish I could say I do after being married a decade, but can’t.

You can’t have great make-up sex if you never have a falling out.  Acceptance evolves into complacency, and a close affinity can slowly degrade and fester if it’s not challenged or fueled by disagreement.  We never really fought.  It wasn’t our style.  We had been friends for far too long and never tired of each other’s company.  Perhaps we were too eager to accept, too quick to forgive, too reluctant to provoke.  But an electric blanket is different than a roaring fire.  One is dependable and cozy while the other needs more watching and greater attention, but can accomplish so much more, even if it does involve frequent licking of one's wounds.  To be a good couple, there needs to be a balance between the two sets of qualities--compatibility and chemistry-- and a sense of direction, growth.  Otherwise, you’re just roommates with responsibilities and a shared romantic history—real enough, authentic and loving, but rudderless, and a shadow of what could be. 

I can’t speak for her.  All I know is that I was very happy in the restless way you get when you don’t know what happiness really feels like.  If we had fought more, we might’ve discovered this sooner and done something about it, for better or worse.  And while things happen for a reason, she deserved a better ending.  On that point, I'll always be guilty.  But Agape is not Eros, no matter how hard you wish it to be.  And when it came to Love, we were speaking different languages, so assured in our understanding of each other to notice any disconnect. 

The Katharine Hepburn stamp (Scott #4461) is paired with a jury duty one (#4200), while Frank Sinatra (#4265) is matched with a wedding ring stamp (#4397).  The stamp named Where Dreams Blossom from this year is Scott #4764.

A Beautiful Thing

A wedding, a promise, a ring
And the moral weight that they bring
Are now to All free
With sweet Dignity
For Love is a Beautiful Thing

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

Every Douglas Addams aficionado knows what the title means: In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 is that (cryptic) answer.  And any baseball fan knows that 42 is perhaps the most important number in a sport unequaled in its love of stats and numerics.

I’m 42.  I have loved baseball for as long as I can remember.  I was a pretty good 3^rd baseman and without a doubt the worst hitter our league had likely ever seen.  Our local team the Padres were hopeless cellar dwellers for most of my time living in San Diego.  But I didn’t care.  I collected the cards, followed the standings, fill out box scores at home watching televised games on Saturday afternoons.  A game that’s often mocked for its more boring attributes was one I found simple and meditative and beautiful.

Jackie Robinson was probably the first black person I ever read about, and likely the window into American racial politics for this middle-class kid in a lily-white suburb.  And it’s a tremendous story of bravery through stoicism, conviction, and alliance building, a model of living by example in the face of unthinkable pressure.

So while I’m not sure if the recently-released movie 42 (Helgeland) is great cinema, it is great baseball and, to these eyes, the best biopic of the sport ever made.  Fans might quickly jump to The Pride of the Yankees (1942, Wood) a film that, at every turn, tries to avoid baseball as much as possible.  Never for a second do I believe Lou Gehrig as a cornpone Mr. Deeds clone as Gary Cooper portrays him.  He talks about his love for the game the same way he does his love for his mother—in a way that reeks of Americana clichés but has no appreciation for the sport itself (the film rarely shows on-field action except in redundant montages).  Instead, the film concentrates on the marriage of the Gehrigs, reducing his story to that of a nice guy who gets very sick who happened to wear a Yankee uniform.

 I have a knee-jerk revulsion of films that treat historical anecdote as drama (Argo being the most recent well-lauded example).  Just because something “happened” doesn’t mean it’s inherently dramatic.  Drama at its best is not just suspenseful proceedings; it should shine a window into the human condition.  Yes, the last 3 minutes of The Pride of the Yankees are moving, but that can't erase the 2 hours of tedium and sentimentality that precedes it.  The film never tells us why Gehrig was great; it just assumes as much and is content to tell us its sad story.  True, in 1942, the sting of his death (only 4 years earlier) was still fresh and no doubt informed the praise it got at the time.  But the ongoing devotion the film has now is perplexing to me, because it’s not particularly good drama and it’s not good baseball.  Plus, it suffers from what I call “Chungking Express syndrome”—when a film plays a single song so incessantly, you hope you never hear it again as long as you live (in this case, Irving Berlin’s otherwise lovely “Always”).

42 has baseball chops and can be forgiven its hokier moments by convincingly portraying why Robinson mattered.  More than anyone, all baseball history can be divided into pre-and post-Jackie eras.  He is the sport’s emotional and moral pivot point, and the film is successful in not making him a saint nor diminishing his very substantial contribution either.  The cast is uniformly fine, with Chadwick Boseman and Nicole Beharie acquitting themselves very well in the thankless roles of the Robinsons.  Lucas Black makes a touching Pee Wee Reese, and his simple act of comraderie with Robinson in front of a stadium full of his fellow southerners is even more powerful than I had imagined it to be when reading about it 35 years ago.

But the real surprises are against-type portraits by Alan Tudyek and Harrison Ford.  This is Ford’s first big excursion into character actor territory, and he’s quite good, immersing himself into the unlikely role of Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey, conveying both his practical savvy and passionate sensibility when it came to changing a game that he loved too much to see compromised by racism.  It would have been easy for the film to opaquely suggest the myriad of ways that Robinson was taunted and vilified by fans and players alike, but the showdown with Tudyek’s Ben Chapman (Philadelphia Phillies manager) pulls absolutely no punches.  It’s a horrifying, virulent scene of verbal abuse, painful to watch, especially when you remember that in baseball, you step up to the plate hundreds of times in a season.  Up until then, it’s a well-done but fairly standard film, but that scene conveys the emotional stakes of the story in stark relief, and the emotional toll it took on Robinson in a very real, unrelenting way.

Of course, this isn’t the first film about Robinson.  The Jackie Robinson Story (Green, 1950) told it previously, with Robinson himself in the lead.  It’s a low-budget affair, more thematically on-the-nose, leapfrogging from one incident to another, but it covers some territory 42 doesn’t (especially with his minor league vs. major league career) and is worth seeking out, if only for the curiosity factor of seeing a biopic with its star also its subject.  But 42 is more visceral, and more appreciative of the larger historical context conveyed.  

Because ultimately, 42 is not just a biopic about Robinson.  It’s a treatise on the sport itself, and the change one person can make.  I’ve never been to the MLB Hall of Fame, though I hope to one day.  But I have been to the Negro League Hall of Fame in Kansas City, and I found it a beautiful experience, in the memorializing of a separate, unequal institution and the personalities who excelled in it because they loved the game.  I have a hard time believing Cooperstown will be as moving.

When I was married, I had a falling away from baseball.  She had been a sports widow in her previous marriage, and there were some things that mattered more to me than indulging in a game, no matter how good-natured she might be about it.  I wanted her happy.  But now that I’m alone, I find myself back at the park again, when my Padres play the Giants.  I have no idea who any of the players are these days, and I don’t follow the standings or the careers the way I used to.  But I still love watching a game—its mechanics and its poetry.  It’s something I didn’t realize I’d missed so much.  And 42 came at the perfect time to remind me of that affection.

My Top 10 narrative team sport movies
1. Bull Durham (Shelton, 1988)
2. The Bad News Bears (Ritchie, 1976)
3. Slap Shot (Hill, 1977)
4. Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (Gowariker, 2001)
5. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (Badham, 1976)
6. Moneyball (Miller, 2011)
7. Friday Night Lights (Berg, 2004)
8. Miracle (O'Connor, 2004)
9. He Got Game (Lee, 1998)
10. A League of Their Own (Marshall, 1992)

Honorable mention: The football games in the last reel each of The Freshman (Newmeyer/Taylor, 1925), Horse Feathers (McLeod, 1932), and MASH (Altman, 1970)

This is flagged with a Bad Postmark label because you'll notice that the card at the top doesn't have one at all!  When the USPS issues a new stamp, you can either have a First-Day-of-Issue premade cover sent to you (a mass-produced envelope, typically), or you can create something yourself and send it in to have it hand-stamped--my M.O.  However, these two are often at completely different addresses!  So with the Take Me Out to the Ballgame issue (Scott #4341), I had the card ready to go, but sent it to the wrong Postmaster--so they sent everything back to me umarked.  By then, the deadline to resubmit them to the right location had passed, so now I have a lot of baseball postcards like the Ebbets Field card, waiting for another chance (and another stamp) but otherwise pristine and idle.

The Jackie Robinson stamp is #2013, while Lou Gehrig is #2417.  The Ebbets Field and Yankee Stadium stamps are Scott #3510 & 3513 respectively.  Gary Cooper is #4421 and Han Solo is #4143l.  The flag that constitutes the final FDC on the page is #4228. 

Bedtime Story

Happy Birthday to Doris Day, who turns 91 today.  My first exposure to her, alas, was the swath of 60s comedies taking on sex and domesticity with such prudish timidity.  There was no doubt that she had genuine chemistry with her leading men, especially Rock Hudson, but the films so often tried to have it both ways, playing naughty but really neutered.  And for someone with such a fantastic set of pipes, it always seemed weird that we rarely saw her sing in those immensely popular films.

I’d soon learn that the 50s held far more interesting fare from her (Love Me or Leave Me, Teacher's Pet), though it took me a while to eventually discover my favorite film of hers, and one that’s almost criminally unknown by movie fans (I don’t remember ever seeing it broadcast, even on TCM): The Pajama Game (1957).  Of the two films co-directed by Stanley Donen and George Abbott, it’s not as well known as the following year’s Damn Yankees!, itself a work that’s fading from the canon of movie musicals, but it's a gem nonetheless.

I love this film for a lot of reasons: A great assembly of songs with addictive melodies; terrific choreography by Bob Fosse, a decade before he directed his first film; a story that’s unapologetically pro-labor unions; and my favorite Day performance, where she’s virtuous but not virginal, romantic but not sappy, and fun-loving but still a fierce woman of conviction.  Plus, it’s the movie musical that most prominently features postage stamps!

Babe Williams (Day), a major player in the labor union at the pajama factory where she works, has finally succumbed to the charms of Sid Sorokin (John Raitt), the new up-and-coming middle manager at the company.  Hanging out at her home, her single dad (Franklyn Fox) approaches his daughter’s new beau with his beloved stamp album:

Pop: “Say, Sid, do you like stamps?”

Babe: “Oh, Pop!”

Pop: “Well, even If he don’t, that’s something that’d interest anyone: Two sets of mint Columbians. Plate blocks on every issue since 1919.”

And then after he leaves, Sid scans through the album.

Sid: “Say, he has got a whole set of mint Columbians”
Babe: “Sure he has. That’s why I work at Sleeptime.”

This leads to the duet “Small Talk”, where Sid croons, “I don’t wanna talk small talk, now that I’m alone with you”, as Babe counters with a series of efforts to change the subject, including the refrain

"Who would you vote for next election? How do you like the stamp collection?”
“Small Talk!”

Eventually, Sid’s argument, “I’ve got something better for your lips to do, and that takes no talk at all” wins out.

But after some work-related conflict about a raise and a threatened strike puts them at romantic odds, Sid visits her home to reconcile, only to run into Pops again with his stamps and magnifying glass.

Babe: “What you got there, Pop, your stamp album?”

Pop: “Now don’t get excited—if Sid don’t want to look at it, why he doesn’t have to.  There’s no law against my looking at it, is there?”

Babe: “Sid likes stamps.  He told me so.  But me, I’m just plain bushed so if you don’t mind I think I’ll slide off to bed.”

Pop: “Run along, honey.  Good night, dear.”

Sid: “Good night.  Sleep well.”

Babe: “Thanks.”

Pop: “Sid, suppose we start with the Pan-American Exposition issue of nineteen-hundred-and-one”

Sid: “I guess that’s good a place to start off as any.”

This issue is a real philatelic release, commemorating the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, an event which is now most famous as the site where President McKinley was assassinated in September of that year.  Here’s a website that discusses those stamps in more detail, though I’d be inclined to guess that if Pop had a favorite stamp from that set, it would be Scott #295, since his blue-collar job is as a train engineer.  Today, the value of that set of six stamps, unused, would be over $800.

So what about the Columbians that Pop talked about earlier?  There was an issue known as The Columbians in 1893, commemorating the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, itself celebrating the 400^th anniversary of Columbus landing on the New World.   Here’s a website that goes into detail about all 16 stamps in that set, ranging in denomination from 1 cent to 5 dollars.  This last figure is quite extraordinary because it would be analogous to having a postage stamp with a $150 face value today.  Another fun trivia note is the Columbian issue features the first US postage stamps to depict a woman--in this case, Queen Isabella.  Needless to say, a complete set of this issue in good quality would be worth close to $20,000 today.

Pop also talks about plate blocks, which are blocks of stamps straight off the production line and which include the additional perforations off the edge of the block which gives the information of the cylinder from which those stamps were printed.  This is obviously something much harder to get hold of and not available at your local post office.  They are also something which some collectors treasure highly.

I only own one plate block, of Scott #926, the first stamp about movies ever issued anywhere (which I discuss more here).  Note the cylinder number in the bottom left-hand corner.

The original Broadway production of The Pajama Game (represented by the postcard at the top) was in 1954, so plate blocks for every issue since 1919 meant over 500 US stamps across those 35 years.  That makes Pop an avid collector, a hobby which Babe implies she helps to subsidize.  So she really does need that "Seven-and-a-half Cents" raise (quite possibly my favorite song in the film).

The movie is readily available on DVD for cheap.  It has gorgeous production values but the quality of the print used for the transfer is dodgy and could use a loving TLC restoration.  But the film itself is marvelous--great fun but also genuinely progressive without compromising the political passions of the heroes.  It's also the only major film role for theater legend Raitt (Bonnie’s father) and features the only cinematic speaking part for Carol Haney, a frequent collaborator of Gene Kelly’s (she’s one of the dancers in the On the Town fantasia) and a legend in her own right who died a very sad, early death.  “Steam Heat”, “Hey There”, “Hernando’s Hideaway”, “Once-a-Year Day” are all staged by Donen with peerless energy and great verve.  It’s one of his best films—high praise for perhaps the greatest director of movie musicals the world has ever known.

My 10 favorite Stanley Donen films

1. Singin' in the Rain (1952, w/Gene Kelly)
2. On the Town (1949, w/Kelly)
3. The Pajama Game (1957, w/George Abbott)
4. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
5. Charade (1963)
6. It's Always Fair Weather (1955, w/Kelly)
7. Bedazzled (1967)
8. Royal Wedding (1951)
9. Funny Face (1957)
10. Two for the Road (1967)

Last year's Bob Fosse stamp is Scott #4701 and Audrey Hepburn is #3786.  Johnny Mercer (composer for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) is #3101, while George Gershwin is #1484 and George w/brother Ira (the team behind the Funny Face song score) is #3345.  The wedding rings are #4397, the Oregon stamp is #3732, and the Costume Design stamp is Scott #3772c.