A Year of Movies by Ivan Walters

Author:Ivan Walters [Walters, Ivan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2015-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

July

1

SUPERMAN

Year: 1978

Genre: Fantasy/Action

Run Time: 2 hours 23 minutes

Date Revealed in Film: 1:34:15

Availability: Blu-ray and DVD (Warner Home Video)

Director: Richard Donner; Screenplay: Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, and Robert Benton

Cast: Marlon Brando (Jor-El), Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor), Christopher Reeve (Clark Kent/Superman), Ned Beatty (Otis), Jackie Cooper (Perry White), Glenn Ford (Jonathan Kent), Margot Kidder (Lois Lane), Valerie Perrine (Eve Teschmacher)

On the planet Krypton, the scientist Jor-El is unable to convince other leaders that Krypton will explode, but he sends his infant son, Kal-El, in an automated spacecraft to Earth. The ship crashes in the American Midwest in the 1930s. Kal-El is found by the Kents, who raise him as their son, Clark, but hide his superhuman abilities. When Clark is eighteen his adoptive father dies and he “hears” a call to go to the Arctic, where a glowing green crystal from his ship builds “the Fortress of Solitude,” a Kryptonian structure, out of ice. An image of Jor-El tells Clark who he really is and spends twelve years teaching him.

Clark goes to Metropolis and becomes a reporter for The Daily Planet. He meets Lois Lane and is attracted to her, but she thinks Clark Kent is a dork. After Clark, in his Kryptonian outfit, saves Lois Lane and Air Force One and captures criminals, the city is mystified. Clark, in his costume, visits Lois Lane on July 1, 1978, and she dubs him Superman (1:18:53 to 1:34:08). She falls for him and continues to ignore Clark. Criminal mastermind Lex Luthor buys up worthless desert on the east side of the San Andreas fault line and plans to use a hijacked nuclear bomb to set off an earthquake, which will cause everything west of the fault to slide into the ocean, leaving his land as the new (and now extremely valuable) West Coast.

Luthor reprograms a missile to land on the fault and another in Hackensack, New Jersey. Luthor uses a piece of Kryptonite (a fragment of the planet) to weaken Superman, and taunts him by revealing the missiles’ destinations, saying Superman could not stop both in time, even if he had his powers. This horrifies Miss Teschmacher, Luthor’s mistress, as her mother lives in Hackensack. Luthor doesn’t care, but she frees Superman on his promise to stop the Jersey-bound missile first. He does, but the other hits and causes a massive earthquake in California. Superman physically forces the plates back into place. Lois Lane, who was investigating the purchase of tracts of worthless desert, is killed in an aftershock. Superman is so upset that he flies around the Earth at such speed as to reverse the flow of time enough to save her. He then delivers Luthor to the authorities.

Has some humor, but it doesn’t go over the top and devolve into camp. Some humor references the comics and earlier TV show.

Awards: Academy Award Nominations: Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound. Golden Globe Nomination: Best Original Score–Motion Picture

Alternate Film: Jaws

2

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Year: 1996

Genre: Science Fiction

Run Time: 2 hours

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