Now Playing‘s Scott Collura had some problems with the IMAX 3-D portions of Superman Returns, and here’s a summary: “The technology still leaves something to be desired…there was some blurriness and darkness… folks sitting near me had the same take… perhaps the theater we were in was not calibrated correctly? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we were sitting on the side of the theater and not directly in the middle? But at other times one could garner an idea of what the technology can offer.”

I hear what Scott’s saying. For me, the issue is mainly one of “ghosting“, a kind of cigarette-smoke, double-image effect that kicks in very faintly from time to time. Superman Returns wasn’t shot in 3D. What you’re seeing in IMAX theatres is a new-generation 3D that’s been artificially created in post. I presume it will get better as the process moves along, but the Superman 3D is somewhere between pretty good and not bad. It seemed just as satisfying as the 3D in that James Cameron underater-exploration IMAX thing, or even a touch better. And all tech concerns are out the window when it comes to that scene in which Superman saves the jet plane from crashing into terra firma, which is knock-your-socks-off fantastic.

All those thoughtful HE readers in denial about global warming (this site is teeming with right-wing libertarian types who love their profligate lifestyles) are asked to look at this. It’s obviously crap propaganda put forward by a bunch of liberal distortion dweebs — people who refuse to accept that each and every American is entitled to do whatever he/she wants, and the atmosphere can go fuck itself — but if you’re not doing anything and you want a laugh…here you go.

I’m not quite convinced that I want to hang with these people for 80 or 90 minutes. There’s something touching and yet profoundly underwhelming about being a background extra (and maybe a wee bit sad), but here’s the trailer regardless. The doc’s called Strictly Background and I’m told it’s “about to make the festival rounds.” I trust I don’t have to explain what that probably means.

“When was the last time we had a great fantasy film to watch? M. Night Shyamalan‘s Lady in the Water is the best film of its kind since The Princess Bride, another fantasy movie that also begins with a bedtime story and deals with many of the same themes.”– Mike Sampson on JoBlo.com. In the Shyamalan annals, Sampson also claims it’s “one of his best.” That’s a little vague, no? It’s not as if Night has made 12 or 15 films. “One of his best” means…what?…that it’s better than Unbreakable or…?

According to this questionaire, I’m a Timothy Dalton type of guy when it comes to the 007 realm. Just as long as I’m not George Lazenby.

Greed, lies, avarice: Former Us Weekly editor Jill Ishkanian, a former Us editor who quit in ’05 to help launch a paparazzi agency called Sunset Photo and News , is being pressed by the FBI about whether she illegally tapped into Us‘s e-mail system to steal scoops and get the jump on everyone, including Us. Ishkanian’s attorney Glenn Feldman has told L.A. Times reporters Richard Winton and Chris lee that Ishkanian continued to work as a freelancer for the magazine and used the password of an Us reporter, Amy Sultan, to get into the network. Sultan’s password “was given to a lot of people,” Feldman said. “Jill and other people outside, including an independent photographer, had it.” Feldman also said that Sunset Photo “has provided that information and documentation to the FBI, including details that West Coast Executive Editor Ken Baker” — a good hombre whom I worked with at People from mid ’96 to early ’98 — “authorized Ishkanian’s access. He noted that the magazine didn’t change Sultan’s password even though they knew Ishkanian had it.”

If you were about to sit down and watch a critically-admired documentary about Michelangelo, how would you feel upon discovering that it’s largely about a group of artist-admirers who’ve done tribute renderings — i.e., knockoffs — of his finest work? Think you might feel a tiny bit flim-flammed?

Leonard Cohen, Lian Lunson, Bono

That’s how I felt when I finally saw Lian Lunson‘s Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Take out the shards of Cohen interview footage that Lunson inserts at regular intervals, and Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is basically footage of a Cohen tribute concert that happened at the Sydney Opera House in January 2005.
The performers include Rufus Wainwright , Kate and Anna McGarrigle , Nick Cave and Martha Wainwright , among others. To me it felt like a rip. It has a lot more soul and integrity than “Beatlemania”, that imitation live-Beatles-performance B’way show that ran from 1977 to ’79, but it’s not that far removed in terms of conception. First-rate art saluted by second-tier performers.
I knew something was wrong prior to I’m Your Man‘s showing at Hollywood’s John Ford Anson theatre last weekend when Ms. Wainwright came out and performed three Cohen songs, and I found myself glancing at my watch during the second number.
Cohen himself can’t sing all that well, but he’s a masterful interpreter. His singing — crooning — is breathy, raspy, intimate. Good as his poetry is, the way he sells his songs is at least half the game.
And as surely as Cohen knows what he’s doing and how to do it, I’m telling you that after watching Rufus Wainwright perform “Everybody Knows”, one of Cohen’s greatest tunes (and one of my personal favorites), I don’t know if I can ever really enjoy it again. Wainwright’s ghastly rendition has somehow killed the magic. I was in pain listening to him. It was almost like watching former House speaker Tom Delay sing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

More Dreamamount whackings. All the things we most dread in life — traumatic change, an economic weakening, the shock of the new and hurtful — contained in a single act of corporate brutality.

No shit, Sherlock? “Unlike the X-Men films [Bryan] Singer directed, which easily lent themselves to queer parallels, Superman is fairly straightforward and…straight.” — Out.com’s Jeffrey Epstein.

If you had to decide which script to read first — Joel and Ethan Coen‘s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s No Country for Old Men or Charles Leavitt, Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick‘s Blood Diamond…forget it, I’ve just decided. The Coen’s, of course.

Okay, okay….finally seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest tomorrow night. (I didn’t mean to put it that way. I meant to say “oh, wow!!”) And finally seeing Superman Returns in 3D IMAX this evening.