Friday Superhero Watch: Superman (2025)

Watched:  05/01/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Sixth

Director:  James Gunn

With zero prompting from me, on Friday night Jamie put on Superman (2025) as our evening's viewing.

I married well.

This is my sixth viewing in a year, which is too many, to be honest.  One starts to look at the seams rather than the quilt, seeing how the thing is put together, and that's not all bad if you want to start really dissecting a movie, but for staying in the intended flow, it can give you time to think about things other than the story presented.  

After this viewing, I still think Superman does so many things very well that were necessary for reframing the character in the public consciousness.  But it is an odd movie because the metatext of the reframing becomes what the story is *about*.  We're reframing Superman after Superman Returns and the Snyder universe films.  While also setting up the fundamental argument of Luthor versus the argument for Superman.*

Eschewing the direct origin story, Superman has to do the heavy lifting and table-setting for what's to come with the DC Studios Universe.  

Horror Coppola Watch: Dementia 13 (1963)

Watched: 04/29/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Francis Ford Coppola

The story Ben Mankiewicz and producer Roger Corman shared about why this movie exists sounds like a movie in itself.  

Basically, while filming a motorsports movie in Europe, Corman was running severely *under* budget.  With $20K left in in the bank, a crew and equipment available, and some time before they had to go home - he set  his second unit director loose to go make something for $20K.  That director?  Francis Coppola.

This is Coppola's first movie, and it feels like something between a Gothic mystery - one of those books with women running away from a castle, or Turn of the Screw or some such, and a modern thriller (for 1963).  For a first movie made on the cheap (the final total budget was $40K after selling the rights to the UK to bolster the budget) and written in a rush, and produced on-the-fly.  

David Allan Coe Merges With The Infinite

I had believed David Allan Coe died five years ago, but apparently he just passed.  

I do not know what the youths do now, but if you didn't know all the words to "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" - were you even really Texas'ing in the late 20th Century?

I don't know how much Coe and I would have agreed on in this life, maybe not much.  But that song is one of the greatest ever performed.

And one night at the VFW in Bozeman, Montana, I surprised several digital library colleagues by singing all the words to this most important song.  I may have had a few cocktails beforehand.

Gerry Conway Merges With The Infinite

It's hard to measure what any one creator gives to comics, but since the original wave of creators in the 30's and 40's, and since Stan, Jack and Ditko did their thing - there have been some major players.  And top among these is Gerry Conway.

Conway is responsible for some of the most important storylines and characters in comics.  The man was wildly prolific - having started at age 19 writing at Marvel and just going wild.  

Here's a list of characters he co-created:  From Wikipedia

Here's some of my favorites:

• Power Girl
• Firestorm
• Punisher
• Jason Todd
• Vixen
• Atomic Skull
• Star Sapphire

Can you imagine?

And, among his many important contributions, he wrote "The Night Gwen Stacy Died", one of the most important stories in Marvel Comics history.  The guy had chops.

I assumed Conway was in his mid-80's, having no idea he was a teenager when he started his career.  Gone way too soon.  

Nedra Talley Ross Merges With The Infinite

Nedra, Ronnie and Estelle

The final Ronette, Nedra Talley Ross, has passed.

A part of the Phil Spector music empire, The Ronette's place in American music of the 20th Century can't really be overestimated.  You may only know a few of their songs, but they qualify among your favorite musician's favorite musicians.  And this certainly helped carry them in the years after Spector and his wife, the eponymous Ronnie Spector, split less than amicably.

Nedra was a cousin of Ronnie Spector and Estelle Bennett, and the trio broke at a very young age, and never looked back.  Ronnie passed in 2022, and Estelle passed in 2009.

Here's a performance video from back in the day with the group at their peak.

Super Watch: Superman Returns (2006)

Watched:  04/26/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Bryan Singer

I was maybe ten minutes into this rewatch of Superman Returns (2006) when I messaged Stuart that we needed to bring back the podcast just to do a ten-part series on this movie.  The pre-history of the movie is worth discussing, as is the production, months up to the release, the lackluster response to the movie, what came after with a reboot in the form of the Snyder movies, and that both the director and Spacey were canceled.  

It's also a movie from the wild west, exciting days of the superhero explosion that came after two great Spider-Man and X-Men movies, Batman Begins and a terrible Catwoman film.*  But no real rules had been written yet for how superhero films should work.  We're two years prior to Iron Man here.

The DVD releases of the Superman quadrilogy had really brought the Donner film (and its sequels) back to the public consciousness, and looking for a safe bet, with Batman done and Wonder Woman the only other DC IP that seemed possible - but that was a girl and Catwoman had failed -Warner Bros went back to DC's original moneymaker.  

Here, I'm just really going to cover the movie - but really what I thought at the time versus where I am in 2026.

60's Indie Watch: The World's Greatest Sinner (1962)

Watched:  04/25/2026

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:   First

Director:  Timothy Carey

I am unclear on the release history of The World's Greatest Sinner (1962).  I'm not even sure it ever did more than a screening or two in Los Angeles and then disappeared.  I don't know how it hit streaming, winding up (til the end of the month) of the Criterion Channel.  

Your mom has probably never heard of Timothy Carey.  And maybe you haven't, but if you're the right kind of film nerd, you may have.  Carey was a bit of a wild card hanging around the movie scene and getting cast as usually an oddball, and I saw him first in The Killing where he plays a gunman who shoots a horse and still botches the job (it's a phenomenal movie and I highly recommend it).

Well, I guess in the 1960's he got his hands on some money and wrote, directed and produced this movie.  And, man, making true low-budget indie movies back in the day was not easy.  You had to coast on vibes and ideas.  And this has both in spades.