The Terror of Lois Lane

Iconic AND sexy. Don't get me wrong, the bad boys like Batman turn my crank, too, but I still maintain that there's something sexy about an over-sized boy scout like Superman.

I recently saw Superman: The Movie (1978).

It was really, really WEIRD.

I had seen it before of course; seems like it was on in a constant loop during my childhood. We even had it on disc before we had it on vhs. But I doubt I'd sat and watched it all the way through in probably twenty-five years; I was in single digits and low ones at that when last Mr. Reeves and I met.

Two of my nephews wanted to watch it on Netflix's instant watch thing a few days ago, so I got it running, and soon got sucked into it myself. The opening is great: the shots of young Clark Kent, loved by his adoptive parents but ostracized by his peers was alternately sweet and heart breaking. This was for me an almost perfect metaphor for high school regardless of your planet of origin. In high school I knew I was full of amazing skills that none of my classmates could see; I was too shy, they were too busy, we were all too busy obsessing over ourselves to actually BE ourselves. Granted, I can't fly (yet. YET.), I certainly can't outrun a speeding train (though I CAN have an asthma attack and fall down faster than a speeding bullet), and crap knees keep my bounding to a minimum, unlike Clark, but I think everyone feels like they have wonderful secrets inside themselves.

He finally manages to get something of a one-up on his rude high school compatriots, and then his dad keels over dead. I think that was probably a Pretty Bad Day for the Kent clan. He then sets off to the warmest looking arctic set I've ever seen to find out how to unlock his own secrets (seriously, no visible breath and he's not even wearing a scarf for crying out loud!) . During this time span in the good ol' Fortress of Solitude, he becomes Superman, and learns to harness his own amazing powers for good; he then heads for Metropolis to become a reporter for the Daily Planet. There he meets Lois Lane, the future Missus Superman, and also Lex Luthor, who is played SO over the top by Gene Hackman that I firmly believe he had altitude-related nose bleeds all over the place then and probably still to this day. It's your basic good beats really fucking manic evil story.

But I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about Lois Lane, as portrayed by Margot Kidder. I'm here to talk about how she occasionally scared the SHIT out of me in this film. I know that she's had issues with manic depression during her life, so I have no idea if this is bleed over from that, but when Lois was called to be excitable or frantic, she was TERRIFYING. When it came to the minutiae of the role, the fine details of Lois' emotional responses, particularly to Superman, she was superb, and came across as almost heart-breakingly vulnerable.

Here she's gorgeous..

However, when she was worked up she looked like ghoul that had acquired a taste for human flesh. Part of the problem was the lipstick she was wearing (or maybe the hue on the television that I watched this on); it was a strange shade of pink that made her teeth look kinda yellow, so when she'd freak out she looked like she had a mouth full of coyote teeth. In a few scenes I was legitimately concerned for Superman's well-being; no male can survive a hardcore man eater, not even the man of steel himself!

I don't think any of this terror was Ms. Kidder;s fault, I got the impression from other performances in the role that the actors had been instructed to play their roles "big"; manic Lois was in keeping with hyper Lex and spastic Clark. But it was still occasionally pants-wetting for me.

...and here she's terrifying!

I also wanted to talk a little about Christopher Reeves, namely that he was awesome in this role. He was appropriately flustered and bumbling as Clark, and MAN could he fill out a set of red underoos as Superman! More than that, though, seeing this movie with more adult eyes I saw that the man was a legitimately gifted actor. I think he got this part not only because he looked the part, but because he was also a very talented. He gave Clark an impish quality that was nice; you could tell he kinda enjoyed giving Lois shit, whether she knew he was doing it or not.

This is an image that even now, at 32 years of age, instills me with comfort. Having never been saved by Superman, I have no idea why this is.

He also seemed a bit shy, which is an interesting idea for Superman. Batman and Superman to me have it almost switched around: Bruce Wayne is the disguise, Batman in the reality. But Superman is really Clark Kent, even if it's not entirely the Clark Kent that the world sees. Clark is more confident as Superman, but who wouldn't be? It's like trolls on the internet: it's easy to be assured and confident when no one knows who you really are. Clark just wants to be near Lois, and he'll do it as Superman if he has to.

Seriously, look at that. LOOK AT THAT!

Overall it was intersting to rewatch; now I wanna see the sequels again, mostly so I can see Clark and Lois gedditOWN. Some parts of it are genius: Superman's scream of denial when he rescues Lois too late, Lois in quieter moments, Jimmy Olsen as a huge dork, etc. Some parts are hilariously silly, like the "rock slide" that was clearly pebbles (in slow motion, no less) being poured into a puddle. The dangling helicopter scene was wonderful while Lois freaking out was the stuff of nightmares.

He really rocks that look, even with that stupid spit curl.

I will close this with one thing of note: NO ONE with glasses adjusts them that way. No one. REMEMBER THAT, HOLLYWOOD!

G. I. JOOOOEEE! COMING TO SAAVE THE DAAAAY!

I am such a quiet little bee here! So now I shall STING YOU WITH MY LOVE OF CHEESE!

I wanna see G.I Joe. I wanna see it baaaad even though I'm less than impressed with Duke's portrayal, would like to see Marlon Wayans as more than comic relief, and don't like seeing Storm Shadow out of costume.

But Dr. Who as Destro is freaking AWESOME, as is Tommy Solomon as Cobra Commander. Any of these pop culture references doing it for you?

Snake Eyes, the Baroness, and Scarlett look aces, though, and I tend to like Stephen Sommers a lot.

Scarlett's still my favorite character though, and I'm really just seeing it for her. And to see if she and Duke hook up, even if this IS non-blond, emo-boy Duke. Maybe if he gets laid he'll get over it.

Yo Joe, mother fuckers!

Scarlett was and is a great character, just like Lady Jay even though I hated her when I was little, because she could kick your ass AND was drawn in pants. Look man, this was unusual for the 1980's, and I'll take my heroines where I find 'em.

This woman will rip your heart out and take a bite while it still beats and your ass bleeds out.

I personally can't wait for the wonderful, cheesy mayhem to begin!

Sing, Sita, Sing.

I'm sitting here with a mouth all pleasantly a-tingle after snorking down a handful of Tim's jalapeno kettle chips, and fantasizing about Halloween. I can't help it, it's almost July and that's what I do this time of year. Just be glad I haven't started humming Christmas carols yet; I did that for almost two weeks straight once, in August. I was on mission in Honduras, and remembering snow was the only thing that kept me from going up in a big, sweaty fireball.

Since that intro was apropos of nothing, I will now get to the point of this post! I want to talk about Sita Sings the Blues, an animated film done by Nina Paley (who had no animation experience), and is simply awesome. Bevin's madly in love with this movie; she watched it online and was one of the first people to order the Sita DVD when it came up for sale by Nina Paley. I can see the allure-- it's quirky and funny, but still true to the original story as set down in the Ramayana.

The narration is done by three people of Indo-Aryan descent (HA! Like that? I love history!) and most of the voice work is done by actors of the same heritage. But the narrators aren't reading from a script; instead it sounds like three people who know the story of Lord Rama and his wife Sita sat around and retold it to each other and it was recorded and animated as is; there are some pronunciation flubs that are honestly some of my favorite parts of the film. The title of the film is drawn from Sita's singing, animated over the performances of Annette Hanshaw, a jazz singer from the 1920's. To be honest, I would have been fine if this part had or had not been in the film; I most enjoyed the dialogue and narration provided; Sita informing Lord Ravana that his ass was grass quite made my day.


The basic gist is that Lord Rama is run out of the kingdom by on of his father's wives; he must not return for fourteen years ("don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out" is how she put it) so Lord Rama and his wife Sita leave to live in the forest for that time. Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, and Sita is an incarnation of Lakshmi, both members of the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddesses. Rama spends this time in exile trying to whup as many rakshasa as he can since they're essentially gross trouble makers with a taste for human flesh, and Sita is simply happy to be with her husband because she loves him completely.

Everything's peachy until Ravana, the lord of the rakshasa, gets pissed and wants to get back at Rama. Ravana's sister, who is apparently really hard to look at, plants the bug in Ravana's ear that Sita's pretty hot, and taking her as his own wife would be a pretty excellent way to get back at Rama. This is probably my favorite part of the film, because every aspect of Sita is described to Ravana as being lotus-like, including her boobs. ("They are like two.. juicy.. LOTUSES!" I peed a little at that one.) Ravana decides that he covets her juicy, lotusey form, and nabs Sita, taking her to his kingdom of Lanka (Sri Lanka today).


But Sita is patient and not afraid, and believes that her love, Rama, will save her, which he does.



I'm not going to do the complete run down of the whole story; if you want to read it it's not hard to find, just do a GIS for the Ramayana. Essentially, Sita's faith in Rama is repaid with suspicion that she slept with Ravana. She passes the trial by fire, and that's another awesome bit of animation. Sita all in black against the flames, working her snake arms:



Rama then takes Sita back, knocks her up, and dumps her again because there are rumors in his kingdom that the baby might be Ravana's. Of course it's not, but Rama, in true heroic fashion, has his brother dump her in the forest anyway. Amazingly, Sita's not bitter. I personally would have spit in his bed before I was taken from the palace, but that's because I'm bitter and mean, and if I'm an incarnation of any goddess it' Hecate. Then I would have burned his castle down.

Sita gives birth to Rama's twin sons, and raises them to praise Rama. Rama eventually meets them, realizes they're his, and decides to test the innocent Sita yet again. This time she declares her innocence and basically says "if I'm innocent let me return to mother earth." The ground swallows her up. Rama realizes he's been a putz, and in a very moving scene, cries one tear.

Interspersed through all of this is the animated account of Nina's own big break up, and how she eventually got on with her life. All around great stuff, and I'm very curious now to read the Ramayana. What I find most interesting about all of this ties into what I mentioned above: Rama is an aspect of Vishnu, and Sita is an aspect of Lakshmi. Vishnu and Lakshmi are a couple; so even though it didn't work out very well for them on earth, they're together to this day. Kinda neat, huh?

A variety of animation styles are used to tell this story; the flash styles shown above, a few more "traditional" styles, and a more realistic/ simplistic style for Nina and Dan's break up. There is even some amazingly well done rotoscoping, which is awesome to see!

Check this movie out, really. It's silly, fun, sad, and something everyone can identify with: god or human, everyone's had a truly crappy break up.

In the Saddle Now!

Hey all, I'm Stac, Bevin's less erudite partner in crime. She invited me to write with her, and I jumped on the chance to once again run off at the mouth via keyboard. Hopefully Cins will jump aboard soon as well, and we shall be the trio of screeching harpies God intended us to be!

Cins and I write another blog together, this one horror/creepy themed (Bev's not so into the scary scene, which is why she started this blog which is more aimed at film and less specific on genre than what Cins and I write. (Don't let that fool you, though; basically Cins and I take any opportunity we can to talk about cocks. What can I say? I think they're cute.) Our blog is called Creepy Kitch (deliberately misspelled by Cins), and you can check it out at . If you dig horror and you're curious to see it from the (crude) female perspective, please give us a look see and a comment-- we gulp feedback like some gulp cheap wine. We just don't usually have a headache after.

I recently watched Sita Sings the Blues, a movie Bevin discovered and has been raving about, and I can see why! I'll be writing a review shortly, which will be a sister piece to an article Bevin's going to write about an episode of my favorite show, Kolchak the Night Stalker. The episode in question, Horror in the Heights, deals with an east Indian monster predating on an elderly community. The monster in question is called a rakshasa. Rakshasas feature heavily in Sita Sings the Blues. I love kismet!

So look for both reviews soon, and God knows what from Cins once she makes it in!

Glad to be here and always glad to be writing about something!