SUPERMAN-THE MOVIE

(December 1978, U.S.)

For Richard Donner's SUPERMAN-THE MOVIE, I'd like to take you all back into the mind of the child who first saw it on the big screen in December 1978, nearly forty years ago (Happy Anniversary!).

Not since the 1976 remake of KING KONG had I such high anticipations for a new movie. I cannot claim to have had the same anticipations for movies like STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND because they were unfamiliar territory until becoming popular in their own right. The character of Superman, like Kong, was already legendary. While I wasn’t a major fan or reader of Superman comic books, I did watch the 1950’s TV show with George Reeves everyday after school when it aired in reruns. Superman himself was unmistakable and now the first major motion picture for the big screen was on its way. When it played at a neighborhood movie theater only ten minutes from where we lived, my parents knew well enough they’d be responsible for taking their sons to see it (asking them was hardly necessary).

The movie started with an image, or perhaps an homage, to an old aspect ratio of movie theater curtains parting and the sound of an old projector displaying the words June 1938 (the year Superman was created by high school kids Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) and a cover of Action Comics depicting art deco rocket ships and an exploding planet. A child’s voice told us of a decade during the Great Depression when the responsibility of the Daily Planet was to provide the public with truth and clarity. These words then yielded to some very powerful title images accompanied by the opening music of John Williams and inevitably building up into the immortal word that was SUPERMAN! Even at the age of eleven, when I was still too young to recognize or understand just how powerful opening credits could be when done effectively, I sat there in amazement, anticipating more…and more.

I was already somewhat familiar with how Superman came to Earth as a baby, but this was the first time I discovered the specific reasons to how and why. Although I’d understand years later with the sequel, the opening trial of the three Kryptonian criminals was confusing, if not unnecessary, to the story that followed. I was anxious to see what would happen to the planet Krypton following Jor-El’s ignored warning to evacuate all its citizens. When the baby of Kal-El first appeared, I remember my mother making soft, cooing noises at such an adorable infant. To watch a loving mother and father kiss their baby and say goodbye to him for the last time in their lives was, admittedly, sad. But excitement quickly overtook sadness. The rocket ship blasted off and Kal-El was safe for his new journey to Earth to one day become Superman. I kept thinking the planet Krypton would be destroyed and that would be it. Instead, the scene took its time and showed us the slow and gradual destruction of the planet's interior and its doomed people, who attempted to survive, in vain. The planet’s explosion was dramatic and final.

The journey of Kal-El’s ship was intriguing. Rather than just fly through space and eventually land on Earth, the scene, again, took its time and gave us specific details of the journey. First, the ship passed alongside the three Kryptonian criminals who’d been sentenced to the Phantom Zone which appeared as nothing more than a large sheet of glass. Then we saw close-ups of the baby listening to the recorded voice of his father already beginning to teach him the ways of the people of Earth. There were descriptions of the special powers he’d have (powers we in the audience already likely knew about from comic books and TV) and even a warning never to interfere with human history. Had I known at the time what the art of set-up and pay-off were in a professional screenplay, that specific warning might’ve had more meaning for me. When the three year-old Kal-El finally landed on Earth, met his new adoptive parents, and lifted up the truck that almost crushed Jonathan Kent, we knew things were about to get started and it was time for the true Superman to be born. As a child, it wasn’t always easy for me to appreciate or retain specific moments of powerful dialogue. To this day, however, I won’t forget a feeling of sadness and sorrow when, at Jonathan Kent’s funeral, young Clark Kent said to his mother, "All those things I can do…all those powers…and I couldn’t even save him." But as I mentioned before, feelings of sadness in a movie such as this are very quickly replaced by the sheer excitement of story and action. Young Clark Kent was about to journey up north where he’d create the Fortress of Solitude and discover just who he was and why he was sent to Earth. In what’s best described as an "out of body" experience (though I’d never heard such words when I was a kid), Clark was taken by his father, Jor-El, through time and space to not only fully comprehend his role on Earth as a powerful being from another world, but would also return as an older man by twelve years, his manhood and his colorful costume and cape ready for action.

Never forgetting the familiarity of Superman’s story as seen on TV, the arrival of Clark Kent at the Daily Planet in the city of Metropolis (which I could clearly recognize as being filmed in Manhattan), and his introduction to Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson seemed almost routine at this point. Mild suspense and dialogue clearly were leading to something much bigger in which the world would finally recognize the existence of Superman. Such expectations finally paid off during the helicopter disaster sequence at the rooftop of the Daily Planet in which Lois Lane began to fall to her death. Not to worry, though – Superman was on the way. What happened next is important to me because for a brief moment, it changed the way I looked at my mother. For as long as I could remember, I’d never seen my mother get excited, joyous or giddy watching anything fun on the screen that would normally bring out the kid in us (she was just that damn serious!). But when Superman showed up in flight to save the falling Lois Lane, grab hold of the falling helicopter and fly them both up to safety, my mother (along with the rest of the audience), clapped her hands and cheered with genuine laughter and excitement. I’d never seen her exhibit this sort of fun at the movies before and I don’t think I ever saw her do it again after that (I suppose the powers of Superman extend beyond what we’re familiar with, even to someone like my mother). Superman was here, and now we’d watch him live up to his full potential with a series of daring rescues (including the old, silly cliché of the cat stuck in the tree) and chases. By the time the Daily Planet was committed to exploiting Superman’s arrival, Lois Lane was also just as committed to getting as close to Superman as possible. During their interview at her rooftop apartment, it seemed as if they were just killing time with each other when what they really wanted was to get closer. Their flight together through and above the skies of Metropolis was not only visually beautiful, but also touching in the way we could hear Lois’ voice-over recite a poem entitled "Can You Read my Mind?" The story also knew when to be a little silly for the sake of slapstick fun. Meeting Lex Luther, his sidekick Otis and his girlfriend Ms. Teschmacher were meant to make us laugh, and I’m sure we did. But I’ll still never forget the reaction I had when I first saw Ms. Teschmacher wearing the sexy black outfit that revealed a large portion of her breasts. Remember, I’m eleven years-old now and the fantasies of the opposite sex are just starting to build. This was only natural, of course, but a woman like Valerie Perrine in the late ‘70s certainly helped to move it along...

During the second and final sequence of Superman’s daring exploits and rescues, it was thrilling to watch him show up when he was needed during California’s major earthquake orchestrated by Lex Luthor. Never did the strength and power of the man seem more obvious than when he laid down his own body in place of the broken train track and allowed it to safely pass over himself. Even though I never doubted the power of his superhuman abilities, I was still stunned, nonetheless, to watch this man raise the land’s infill to protect and repair the San Andreas Fault Line immediately following the start of the earthquake. Yes, it seemed that there was nothing Superman couldn’t save or fix. For a time, however, that may not have been completely true. When all was finally settled down, it appeared that Lois Lane had died during the course of the quake. Wait a second, could this be possible? Was Lois really dead? Like Rocky Balboa losing the big fight at the end of ROCKY, this just didn’t seem possible or fair, even for a movie. When Superman arrived at the scene seemingly too late, even he couldn’t believe it. He let out a scream of rage and fury that I never thought a righteous man like himself was capable of. What followed next, I couldn’t possibly understand the theoretical physics of at the age of eleven, but it appeared that by flying at an unimaginable speed, Superman could rotate the planet Earth in the opposite direction and physically turn back time. By doing that, the events of the quake and those who suffered from it, including Lois, would be undone and all would be safe, despite the fact that Superman had ignored his father’s previous warning that he was forbidden to interfere with human history. I suppose sometimes even a man like Superman had to disobey his own daddy in order to do the right thing and save the woman he loved.

Just over two hours later, SUPERMAN-THE MOVIE could not have ended better. The world was saved, Lois Lane was saved, Lex Luthor and Otis were going to jail and the human race seemed to have a better understanding of itself and its safety, because as Superman himself put it, "We’re all part of the same team." Yes, Superman was here to stay - on screen, on lunchboxes, on trading cards and in our popular culture. It was a moviegoing phenomenon that could’ve easily rivaled STAR WARS. It was pure fun, magic and something I didn’t want to end. In February 1982, SUPERMAN had its television premiere on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. It featured additional footage over the course of two nights. By the end of the first night’s airing, the movie stopped short when Lois Lane fell from the helicopter, creating a cliffhanger-type of effect for the end of part one. The next evening, there was a brief recap of what took place the night before and the film continued from where it left off. Some of this new footage included a Kryptonian security officer ordered to hunt down and capture Jor-El for excessive energy use, Superman subjected to machine gun fire, a giant blow torch, and frozen ice while walking through Lex Luthor’s underground hideout and a little girl revealed to be Lois Lane aboard a moving train watching a teenage Clark Kent through her binoculars as he’s running at a speed faster than the train. Some scenes which included Lex Luther playing the piano just before he lowered Ms. Teschmacher into a den of lions seemed completely pointless and stupid. By the time I reached my high school teens and finally owned an uncut copy of the movie, it had been restored to its original theatrical version, which was fine by me because by that time, the extra TV footage left very little impression on me. I understood the ineffective waste of time additional footage brought to most motion pictures that were already considered great as they were. Apparently, I was already asking the question of why Hollywood and television couldn’t just leave well enough alone. As the old saying goes, why fix it if it ain’t broke?

How far we’ve come since the original SUPERMAN; three sequels within the original franchise, a 2006 reboot by Bryan Singer and three MAN OF STEEL films. It’s easy to claim that the recent Superman films of the 21st Century are more exciting and offer harder, more fast-paced action than its originators. But the story of Superman, in my opinion, remains a deeply spiritual one of a man from another world trying his best to fit in among people who may or may not fully understand who and what he is. The first MAN OF STEEL film of 2013 does accomplish this in an admirable and effective manner, but there’s a true sensitivity to Christopher Reeve and his performance in the first film that I’ve never let go of all these years. It begins with a strong spirit of family that is most evident in the speech that Marlon Brando's Jor-El makes to his infant son just before taking off on his journey...

"You will travel far, my little Kal-El. But we will never leave you, even in the face of our deaths. The richness of our lives shall be yours. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel—all this and more I bequeath you, my son. You will carry me inside you all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. The son becomes the father and the father the son. This is all I, all I can send you, Kal-El."

That spirit of family continues in 1950’s Smallville in a picture-perfect setting that would’ve made famed artist Norman Rockwell proud. Knowing full well he’s adopted, Clark Kent is, nonetheless, a content boy as seen through the trusting relationship with his Earth father, Jonathan, and the tender relationship with his mother, Martha, at the time he decides he must leave her to pursue his destiny.

There’s also an interesting underlying sexual content to SUPERMAN that I was too young to recognize as a kid. Back then, I didn’t understand Lois Lane’s almost desperate need to know Superman by asking him if he was married as her first interview question, as well as her second question of "How big are you?" when what she really meant to ask was "How tall are you?" I didn’t understand her implications in having him confirm if the rest of his bodily functions were "normal". I didn’t understand that she was basically making sure that Superman did, indeed, like women (and liked pleasing them orally, too, I suppose) by asking him, "Do you like pink?" Well, as movie audiences would’ve fully expected back then, Superman answered, "I like pink very much, Lois." Ah, the hidden sexual and subliminal messages you come to realize as you get older.

Above all, SUPERMAN-THE MOVIE remains a delightful combination of old fashioned ideas like heroes, villains, romance, swashbuckling adventure, and groundbreaking special effects that doesn’t feel old or dated. It’s pure fun and entertainment for a man as myself who’s never considered himself an expert (or even an amateur) of the comic book genre. I don’t take such stories too seriously and seek to only satisfy my cravings for fun, but with also the right touch of intelligence, charm, and wit. Unlike some of the unfortunate sequels that followed, the film does know when to take itself seriously, in particular with gifted and veteran actors like Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman, while still knowing just when to be cute and fun, without being over-the-top campy. It’s a film that still takes me back to that glorious moment back in 1978 when I learned that my mother, if she truly applied herself, could have just as much fun at the movies as her two boys did when the right moment struck her.

Thanks for that brief moment, Mom!

Favorite line or dialogue:

General Zod (to Jor-El): "Join us. You have been known to disagree with the council before. Yours could become an important voice in the new order, second only to my own! I offer you a chance for greatness, Jor-El! Take it! Join us! You will bow down before me, Jor-El! I swear it! No matter if it takes an eternity, YOU WILL BOW DOWN BEFORE ME! BOTH YOU, AND THEN ONE DAY, YOUR HEIRS!!!"

SUNSET BOULEVARD

(August 1950, U.S.)

During Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1940's and '50's, even "Tinseltown" itself recognized just how merciless, cruel, corrupt and insane the entire industry was. Billy Wilder opens SUNSET BOULEVARD by telling us that life in Hollywood is not only a struggle, from the down-on-his-luck screenwriter to the forgotten star, but also deadly. At a dilapidated, old mansion on said boulevard, the body of Joe Gillis floats in the swimming pool. The film is also narrated by said corpse - something a little different, indeed. But how did it all happen? The flashback that follows relates to the bizarre events six months earlier that lead to Joe's tragic death.

Joe Gillis (played by William Holden), while trying to sell an otherwise hopeless script to Paramount, as well as avoiding the repo men looking to take back his car, stumbles upon what looks like a seemingly deserted mansion. What he discovers instead is Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson), a long-forgotten movie star of the silent era. The only other person with her is the butler Max (played by Austrian film director Erich von Stroheim), who cater's to "Madam's" every whim and desire, as if she were still the glamorous movie goddess she once was. Learning that Joe is a writer, Norma insists on his opinion of a script she's written for a film about Salome. She intends to play the role herself in a triumphant return to the screen. The script is hopeless, but he flatters her into hiring him to work on it, nonetheless. As he'll soon discover, the position of script doctor soon turns to that of kept man, if not personal live-in bitch. Joe realizes that Norma refuses to accept the hard fact that her fame has evaporated over the years and even the many fan letters she receives weekly were secretly written by Max in order to keep her emotionally fragile state in tact, for she has attempted suicide in the past (and will again after Joe temporarily leaves her).

Norma's hopeless script eventually reaches the hands of her former director Cecil B. DeMille (playing himself). She receives call from Paramount, and presuming it's because they want her and her precious script, she returns to the studio to discover (to everyone's surprise) that she's been missed and is still loved by the older members of the film crew who still remember her. Alas, however, we learn that Paramount only called her because they want to rent her unusual vintage 1929 Isotta Fraschini automobile for a movie. As Norma prepares for a comeback that will never happen, Joe is busy secretly pursuing his own script ambitions with a young script girl named Betty at the studio. As cliché would dictate, Joe and Betty hook up, but not before Norma finds out and pretty much goes insane in a jealous rage. Perhaps by now, you're starting to guess how Joe ended up dead in the pool? By this time, the flashback is over, and Norma's grand house is filled with police and parasitic Hollywood reporters ready to watch her go down for murder. Having lost all touch with reality at this point, Norma believes the newsreel cameras to be the movie cameras that will film her unworthy script. Max and the police play along with Norma's delusions, Max even pretending to be the film director. As the cameras roll, Norma dramatically descends her grand staircase of her house. She pauses and makes an impromptu speech about how happy she is to be making a film again, ending with that all-too-famous Hollywood line, "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." (later altered over time into "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.")

Just like classic film noir of the age, SUNSET BOULEVARD effectively works with dark, shadowy black and white cinematography. Like Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY, the film shows us the dark and sunny sides of Los Angeles by bringing together both dark and light without completely separating the drama of the two. Joe's world inside Norma's mansion is a dark one, while his seemingly more down-to-earth world with Betty at the studio is a lighter one. Still, this tale of Hollywood is a dark and cold one. Norma Desmond, who was once a great lady, is a discarded relic of the past, not too unlike the female protagonist in Charles Dickens's GREAT EXPECTATIONS (that comparison is even noted by William Holden in this film). The fact that the film is told through the eyes of a dead narrator may be considered highly original or perhaps a cheap and ineffective movie stunt - you decide. Gloria Swanson's performance is both drama and tragedy at its best, reminding us of just how fragile our egos, if not our very lives can be at the hands of those who once loved us and now have no need for us any longer. Hollywood is cruel, indeed, but the town can also be seen as darkly comical through the eyes of those just trying to survive inside of it.

I'm glad I've chosen to write blogs and books instead of scripts!

Favorite line or dialogue:

Joe Gillis: "You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big."
Norma Desmond: "I am big! It's the pictures that got small!"

SUMMER OF SAM

(July 1999, U.S.)

I was just ten years-old in the summer of 1977. My family and I were living in a rather luxurious apartment complex in the town of Floral Park in Queens and we were also renting a small beach house in the town of Westhampton Beach, Long Island. So it's pretty safe to say I was living a sheltered life away from the hell that took place in New York City that summer. However, I was not completely oblivious to what was going on outside the safety of our four walls. I was well aware of the Son of Sam, aka the ".44 Caliber Killer" murders taking place all around the city because it was just about the only story being covered on the local news stations. In fact, I remember feeling a strong degree of anxiety every time my mother decided she was going into Manhattan for the day. I was also well aware of the infamous New York City Blackout of 1977, though our lights stayed on thanks to a self-generating power plant independent of local power companies which fed the complex (I wouldn't learn of the crime and looting until later). Disco was king, the New York Yankees were having a winning season that summer and Reggie Jackson was my hero.

At the start of Spike Lee's SUMMER OF SAM, Jimmy Breslin himself of the New York Daily News says that there were many New York stories that fateful summer, and this is one of them. Although the film focuses on the many items I just mentioned, the story centers on two young men in an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, Vinny (played by John Leguizamo) and Ritchie (played by Adrien Brody). Vinny is a man of the disco era, as well as all of the sexual opportunities that lived within that era. He cheats on his wife Dionna (played by Mira Sorvino) whenever possible (even with her cousin) despite the fact that she's hot herself and is willing to please him sexually. She also seems willing to repeatedly overlook his infidelities. Ritchie has implied "death to Disco" by embracing punk music (though his favorite band is The Who, which I would classify as classic rock, even back in the '70s) and punk fashion. It's no wonder he's considered a major freak of the neighborhood when he goes around looking like this...

Although Vinny witnesses a slain couple at the hands of the Son of Sam and is briefly terrified that he will be the killer's next victim, it's not the main point that Spike Lee chooses to focus this thriller on. Like DO THE RIGHT THING (1989), this is also a tale of a small neighborhood on the brink of implosion due to its surrounding circumstances of bigotry, prejudice and crime. These are also people, for their own reasons, that are being destroyed by sex. As a married couple with a willingness to try something different, Vinny and Dionna cannot survive an experimental evening at Plato's Retreat, where sex and all of its possibilities are free for the trying. The tough Italian hoods who protect the neighborhood from all elements they consider unwanted and unclean cannot contain their disgust and sickness when they briefly visit the punk music world of the now defunct rock club CBGB to try and find Richie, who is now believed to be the Son of Sam by many of the locals simply due to the fact that his freakish nature makes him different from everyone else, and the fact that he's also earning money as a male dancer and prostitute at a gay porno theater. Tensions continue to mount as the killings continue and the infamous 1977 blackout hits on that fateful hot night in July. Tensions lead to paranoia, which ultimately leads to betrayal of friends when Vinny lures Ritchie out of his home and into the hands of the Italian lynch mob ready to crucify him as the Son of Sam. It's literally at the moment of his beating in the streets that we learn the actual killer, David Berkowitz, has been apprehended by the police in Yonkers, though it does not resolve the dark side of human nature the neighborhood has ultimately sunk to.

SUMMER OF SAM may almost be considered Spike Lee's personal tribute to Martin Scorsese, in particular MEAN STREETS (1973), with its visual neighborhood relations, tensions and even its trash. It's depiction of 1970's pornography, perversions, pervasive language and unflattering, defamatory representations of white Italian-American ethnic culture is powerfully and harshly realistic, if not offensive to those who chose to embrace it that way. Even if you don't remember the summer of 1977, it's impossible as a witness to these events on film, not to feel the impact of the time. Lust, guilt, betrayal and fear are Spike Lee's weapons and they hit hard, even when we choose to put aside the serial killer element of it all. In SUMMER OF SAM, the so-called "innocent victims" are actually uglier than the killer, which only goes to show us the state of human nature in the '70s, or any other decade, for that matter.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Ruby: "So, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to tell you how to fuck your husband?"

SUMMER OF '42

(April 1971, U.S.)

Writing about Robert Mulligan's SUMMER OF '42 is an emotional challenge because it forces me to face a part of my past that I still carry around like a deep scar. For thirty-eight years, my family had a home in the town of Westhampton Beach, Long Island, and not too unlike Hermie (played by Gary Grimes) of this wonderful film, the house and the inlet that it resided on, came to define who I was as a boy, a teenager, and a man. Like Hermie, who narrates to us at the beginning of the film, "There weren't as many houses or people as there are now. The geography of the island and the singularity of the sea were far more noticeable then.", I look back at my own past in that small seaside town of the Hamptons and recall who I was and why every detail of my surroundings mattered to me and why. In effect, I was no too unlike that young man who sits on the dune staring out into the loneliness of the open sea and the rustic, isolated beach house belonging to the young woman who would change his life forever...

Bear in mind, however, that despite all of the haunting beauty and mystery of SUMMER OF '42, this film is still, at heart, a coming-of-age story of three best friends and their confusion, their wonderment and their puzzlement in the world of adolescent sex. It's summertime, the kids are on the beach, and the girls are wearing bathing suits that reveal just enough of their bodies to send young men like Hermie and Oscy into a frenzy about how, when and where they'll "cop a feel" or even manage to experience something new they've read about in a sex book called foreplay. Of the three best friends who call themselves "the terrible trio", Oscy (played by Jerry Houser) is the most dominating and the most immature of them all, and it's interesting, if not intriguing to learn that he's the one who manages to lose his virginity first to a young, pretty blonde he met while at the movies one night with his friends. Hermie, while still full of every traditional adolescent form of confusion and stupidity, is the more mature one who easily recognizes his own deep feelings of infatuation and frustration when he first lays eyes on and meets the beautiful, young (and married) Dorothy (played by Jennifer O'Neill) who lives in the house by the ocean. She's not just another girl of the neighborhood, but rather a mature woman (she's actually only twenty-two) who brings out a part of himself that he's never known before. As he also narrates to us at the beginning of the film, "Nothing from that first day I saw her and no one that has happened to me since, has ever been as frightening and as confusing. For no person I've ever known has ever done more to make me feel more sure, more insecure, more important and less significant." Consider those words carefully and try to imagine just how some people, even in passing, have managed to affect the outcome of whom we'd later become in life. Even while Hermie gets to know Dorothy by carrying her groceries and placing boxes up in the attic for her, he's also a young man with a very horny imagination toward her, even if she only regards him as just a nice, considerate boy from the neighborhood.

SUMMER OF '42 also serves to remind us just how insane and how much fun the tender age of fifteen can be to a boy. Who among us young men can't remember just how nervous we might have been the first time we walked into a pharmacy to try and purchase condoms residing behind the check-out counter. Some of us may have even sat next to a girl at the movies and tried very subtly (and even slyly) to move our hand up and over her shoulder and fix it on just the right place where we could feel her breast without any objections, though I seriously doubt any of us were clueless enough to squeeze the poor girl's arm instead, as Hermie manages to do while Bette Davis and Paul Henreid are up on the screen in NOW, VOYAGER. That classic film within a film helps to remind us that this is the year 1942, and despite any similarities in boyhood antics between now and then, there is still a great degree of innocence and ignorance among boys who know nothing about sex. What we may now know today as the "natural order of progression" of sexual activities, would have likely seemed very different back then and may have actually required the step-by-step teachings that the three boys read about in a book that Benjie (played by Oliver Conant) has swiped from his mother's book shelf. It's amusing to think that Oscy is going to rely on the twelve steps of "foreplay" the book endorses, but on the other hand, they do work as he manages to get laid (twice) on the beach at night during a seemingly innocent marshmallow roast.

So, as the film's pharmacist says, "fun is fun", and while the summer antics of the "terrible trio" may be the main focus of the film, there is still the very haunting romance that inevitably takes place between Hermie and Dorothy. Let us be reminded that the world is at war, and young men die in war. One night, when Hermie shows up at Dorothy's house, it is eerily quiet inside. He discovers on her living room table, a bottle of whiskey and a Western Union telegram from the United States government informing her that her husband has been killed in action. Dorothy's been crying and it's with Hermie's simple words of, "I'm sorry", that things begin between them. During the course of this moment, no words are spoken. We hear only the waves of the ocean outside and the film's beautiful theme by Michel Legrand playing on the phonograph as Dorothy takes Hermie by the hand and leads him to her bedroom, where she draws him into bed with her and they very gently make love with each other. When it's over, she's withdrawn again into her world of pain and anguish and only says, "Good night, Hermie." when he tries to approach her. I can only say that I have known love and love making on the beach, both on screen and in my own life, and yet nothing has every haunted me as much as the visual and emotional interaction that takes place between Hermie and Dorothy in this moment of SUMMER OF '42. It also haunts me that the film leaves us just as dazed and confused as Hermie is when he returns the next morning to discover that Dorothy has fled the island in the night and left him only a note with her final words to her. On paper, they're words of comfort, but the fail to leave him (or us) with any sense of hope or resolution. Perhaps all we're really left with in the end is the hope of our own manhood.

Let me also point out the bizarre irony we've just witnessed in this entire love making scene. By today's modern legal and moral standards, Dorothy is a female pedophile who has just committed an act of statutory rape against a minor. But it's also very bizarre irony that to even take the time to consider such an act, though legally viable as it may be, seems inappropriate, if not indecent, for such a beautiful, haunting and memorable piece of cinema that helped to make Jennifer O'Neill the star she became.

Now, let me tell you about my own personal "Summer of '82". Like Hermie, I was fifteen years-old and spending the summer at the beach with my family. Across the street from our house was a public beach and on it was an eighteen year-old blonde lifeguard who worked there every day (I can't remember her name). Like Hermie, I looked for any excuse to go to that beach every day and speak to her. Even as I sat next to her lifeguard chair saying mindless and pointless adolescent jibber-jabber, all the while I kept fantasizing about what it would be like to touch her and hold her in her white bathing suit and what it would be like to have her touch and hold me. Unlike Hermie, of course, nothing ever happened because in her eyes, I was still just a kid. Still, they are boyish, horny memories that I continue to live with and reflect upon whenever the mood of nostalgia hits me. She was never "my Dorothy", but she was an example and a reminder of what it meant to once be a boy trying so hard to grow into a man.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Hermie as narrator (voice-over): "I was never to see her again. Nor was I ever to learn what became of her. We were different then. Kids were different. It took us longer to understand the things we felt. Life is made up of small comings and goings. And for everything we take with us, there is something that we leave behind. In the summer of '42, we raided the Coast Guard station four times, we saw five movies, and had nine days of rain. Benjie broke his watch, Oscy gave up the harmonica, and in a very special way, I lost Hermie forever."

SULLY

(September 2016, U.S.)

At the start of the year 2009, New York City and the rest of the world had plenty on its mind; a global financial crisis, the first recently elected African-American President of the United States, and the criminally fraudulent activities of Bernie Madoff, just to name some. On January 15, 2009, the best news the city of New York could have received was good news, particularly news involving a plane. On that day, I was at home on Long Island looking for a new job, and by the time I'd turned on the TV, the breaking story of the crash of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River after striking a flock of birds was already a couple of hours old. This was the image that dominated the screen...

...and while it must have been a scene of fear and terror for those on board that ill-fated flight, for those of us watching the TV and still recalling the events of 9/11 just over seven years earlier, the sight of that plane in the water with all of its one hundred and fifty-five passengers alive and awaiting rescue was just the miraculous sight of relief we all needed to see. Then there was, of course, the ongoing coverage of the flight's heroes, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks) and First Officer Jeff Skiles (played by Aaron Eckhart). We needed heroes at that time, and we got them. Makes you almost wonder why it took seven years for the film that would tell their story of the accident that day that would come to be known as the "Miracle on the Hudson".

Director Clint Eastwood's film SULLY is non-linear in its timeline approach to what not only took place on January 15, 2009, but also the aftermath of the media coverage hailing Sully as a hero, the aftermath of Sully himself in which he experiences haunting dreams of the crash, and the inevitable investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board claiming that a series of computerized simulations suggest that Sully could have landed the plane safely at nearby LaGuardia or Teterboro Airports instead of choosing to ditch the plane in the Hudson River. To the film's viewer, such allegations are absurd and insulting, but we also have to presume it's what actually took place behind closed doors even as we had no doubt of who the hero of the day was, and why we needed such a hero in our lives.

As the film switches back and forth between the events of the accident from both the perspective of the pilots and the passengers, we experience the on-board tension of watching a plane fly unreasonably low over New York City because we haven't forgotten what happened on September 11, 2001. We also feel the tension of Sully having to experience the stress of those who believe he may have been in error when making that fateful decision that saved the lives of all on board. He arranges to have the simulations rerun with live pilots, and the results are relayed to a public hearing. These simulations result in successful landings, one at each nearby airport. Still undeterred by his decisions and actions, Sully argues that the simulations are unrealistic because the test pilots had the convenience of knowing in advance of the bird situation they would face and of the suggested emergency action that would follow. Thus, they were able to practice the scenario several times until they got it right. They weren't there the day it happened and cannot possibly understand the human factor involved. In the end, allowing for a thirty-five second pause before the plane's diversion, new computer simulations are performed which prove Sully to be right, concluding that he acted correctly and saved the lives of everyone aboard.

Like FORREST GUMP (1994) and CASTAWAY (2000), Tom Hanks surely owns this movie, delivering a strong and stirring, yet emotionally quiet and humble performance to pay the proper tribute to a true American hero. Eastwood, who has always been a hit-and-miss director with me, offers an engaging drama that is both rich and tense in its delivery of not only a terrifying plane crash, but also the fears and anxieties that plague those who survive it. In other words, when you're not freaking out waiting for the plane to hit the Hudson (more than once), you're also feeling a low-key sense of calmness in the film's beauty of human beings at their best when they're forced to come together for each other. That's what New York City really needed on January 15, 2009, and it looks like they got it.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Elizabeth Davis (at the NTSB investigation proceedings): "First Officer Skiles, is there anything you'd like to add? Anything you would have done differently if you had to do it again?"
Jeff Skiles: "Yes. I would've done it in July."