On recent news……

So, As result of the Kevin Spacey accusations. The actor has been cut from the recently completed movie “All the Money in the World” . The film was directed by Ridley Scott and details with the kidnapping involving J Paul Getty’s grandson . The film was completed just in time before the accusations against Kevin Spacey had made themselves public. In recent news regarding this new film at first, was that the film should be shelved. But obviously because Sony pictures wishes to compete in the Academy Awards next year , it seems like they want to go ahead with the original December release only this time replacing Kevin Spacey with actor Christopher Plummer.
 Considering the kind of man the J. Paul Getty was in real life,  Christopher Plummer seems like he would be a much more logical choice. For we know he could actually end up acting the part way better than Kevin Spacey. But the truth is in that cutting Kevin Spacey from that role it may very well make his part in the film a little bit more infamous. 

It could be years from now, but there will be an entire generation of film buffs trying to seek this movie out looking for the version where Kevin Spacey was actually in the movie . Actually cutting him out of the movie may help his credibility.

Anyway, things are the way they are, we can wish Ridley Scott good luck on his endeavor to meet the December deadline. In spite of the situation with Spacey, we may still get a good movie.

Joe’s Random Movie Trivia: “The Men Who Stare at Goats” (2009)

This outrageous movie is actually based on a true story.
The First Earth Battalion (called the New Earth Army in the movie). Was a top secret government funded organization that trained psychic soldiers to combat Soviet paranormal threats during the Cold War. The story was declassified in 1995.
The title comes from an incident where apparently, a soldier was able to stop the beat of a goat’s heart just by looking into its eyes.

Joe’s Random Movie Trivia: “The Usual Suspects” (1995)

There is a clue regarding the villain Keyser Sozë’s identity in the meaning of his name.
Keyser, or ‘kaiser’, is German for “king”.
Sozë is a Turkish word that means “Talk too much”.
So the name Keyser Sozë literally means “The King who talks too much.”

Joe’s Random Movie Review: “Superman Returns” (2006)

The era of superhero movies was basically a hot or miss situation throughout the early to mid 2000’s. Movies that the general public would rather just forget about, or try to forget but can’t no matter how hard they try because social media has devoted a meme to its mockery. Movies like Ang Lee’s “Hulk”(2003), and the Daredevil film with Ben Affleck. It’s rather obvious that most of these movies were made to get in on the action left over from Bryan Singer’s first X-Men film in 2000. While Marvel had a head start in the cinematic world, DC was a late bloomer.

After the success of Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” Warner Bros. decided to rediscover the Man of Steel. Director Bryan Singer took a break from the X-Men movies to direct it. While director Brett Ratner went on to direct “X-Men: The Last Stand”.

In the film, Superman had been missing for years. He has traveled to the cosmic ruins of his former home planet, Krypton. Presumably, because he has grown lonely being the only known living Kryptonian alive. Upon his return, he is greeted by the public with open arms. Except Lois Lane, who is now engaged, has a son, and had won a Pulitzer prize winning story entitled, “Why the world doesn’t need Superman.” Meanwhile, Lex Luthor had broken into the Fortress of Solitude and stolen Kryptonian crystals for the purpose of creating a supercontinent that threatens the world with massive tsunamis.

Brandon Routh does an excellent job as Superman. In the emotional scenes at least, however the few action scenes he does lack a certain something. Superman first and foremost is depressed throughout a good portion of the film, as such, we doo not see him in the usual light as we do throughout other film’s of the DC universe. Kevin Spacey does a hands down, great performance as Lex Luthor, with a touch of humor much in light of Gene Hackman’s performance in the 1978 movie.

So what went wrong with this film? Why, even though it’s moderately scored by critics, is it shunned for the most part by the fans? For one thing, this is an action film with little action. It’s a film that focuses way too much on the romance between Superman and Lois Lane. While the emotional parts are indeed necessary, there was an unnecessary amount of time spent on it, and very little of the classic good vs evil setting fans of superhero films are used to seeing.

Another factor to keep in mind was that this movie is presumably set with the original film’s “Donner universe”. Named for the original’s director Richard Donner. Chronologically, this film takes place between the evens of Superman 2 and Superman 3. In doing so, the filmmakers did something they aught not to have done. It was too much of a nod to the original film’s, and wasn’t really “it’s own thing” like the new DC films Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice were. By making the movie set in that particular universe, it limited the number of audience members who could relate to it. It limited the number of new fans to the Superman mythos. While this is pure speculation, it seems like a reasonable assumption.

All in all, as far as superhero films go. It was good, but not great.

Final Score:  4.5/10

Directed by Bryan Singer

Cast

Brandon Routh……….Superman/Clark Kent
Kate Bosworth…………Lois Lane
Kevin Spacey………….Lex Luthor
James Marsden………Richard White
Sam Huntington………..Jimmy Olsen
Parker Posey…………..Kim Kowalski
Marlon Brandon……….Jor-El
Frank Langella………….Perry White

https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=_z4LafXkU6c