Irene212

Be sure to see a restored print. The Technicolor process was essentially experimental, and in degraded prints, the hues are garish and tend to bleed into each other, and the faces are feverishly red-- an insult to the care taken during the filming and processing. Unlike the many filmmakers who went a little nuts adding dialog and music after "The Jazz Singer" introduced sound, Rouben Mamoulian introduced color with subtle artistry.

That said, I wonder how "Becky Sharp" would have been received if it had in black-and-white. The famous scene when the cannon fire that starts Battle of Waterloo interrupts a formal ball is effectively filmed and edited, and he elicits strong performances from Cedric Hardwick, Alan Mowbray, and especially comically lovable Nigel Bruce as the men who lust after Becky-- which is a problem because Becky is played by Miriam Hopkins, who does not do justice to Thackeray's conniving little anti-heroine.

Hopkins got her only Oscar nomination for the role, but she was a poor film actress in her early career. Her theatrical roots were always showing, and she lacked the discipline for close-ups: her eyebrows have a peculiar tendency to move up and down when she delivers dialog and, although she never made a silent film, she overacts like Pauline in peril. It doesn't help that Becky is a despicable character who is in almost every scene. At least her elaborate hairdos and many flouncy glittery gowns distract from the amateurish performance.

The filmmakers took Superman so seriously that they gave him a Christlike aspect, which really riled the fans who take Superman so seriously that they can't abide such blasphemy. And if that's not ironic, I don't know what is. Though there's plenty of irony to go around: Jewish teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster did not have Jesus in mind when they dreamed up Superman. Moses, maybe.

"Superman Returns" is tightly scripted and cleverly structured, with lively direction from Bryan Singer. Brandon Routh is a credible Clark Kent/Superman, though his many launches into the atmosphere weren't followed by a lasting career launch. Although Routh barely shares the screen with Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor, Spacey thoroughly upstages him with a brilliantly shaded performance between subtlety and madness. Making real estate the core of his towering greed worked for me, even if the physics of the Kryptonian crystals didn't. James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella, and Eva Marie Saint provide strong support. Unfortunately, Kate Bosworth's Lois Lane was written as a humorless reporter/mother.

But I do understand the outrage from fans of the original DC Comics character. Filmmakers are increasingly exploiting authors and characters, treating them as brands. It's bait-and-switch, luring an established audience and then giving them an unrecognizable product. It's illegal in advertising and should be illegal period. Agatha Christie's novels are little more than fodder to Kenneth Branagh and a TV hack named Sarah Phelps. Shakespeare's works are famously adapted to other eras and locations-- which sometimes go too far. When characters and texts are used as mere raw material, it's no longer 'adaptation,' it's theft, and an insult to both the original artists and their fans.

That said, I've watched "Superman Returns" twice, it's such fun. He's an evolving mythical supernatural savior, and DC Comics isn't Shakespeare.

If there is a line of dialogue that isn't ruthlessly satiric, I missed it. When I saw it in a theater, scattered laughter could be heard almost constantly throughout the movie, but pretty much everybody joined in when Beria (Simon Russell Beale) said, "She's got everything we require for the situation. The location of all the remaining doctors in Moscow, a proven desire to survive, and a talent for fellatio."

And it isn't just the script. Writer/director Armando Iannucci missed nothing in exposing the impoverishment of the Soviet Union in the 1950s-- and I mean impoverished literally as well as politically. Peasants bullied into action are the very picture of misery while every man in the Soviet Politburo is a mercilessly ambitious and untrustworthy sycophant.

Insults fly, death threats among them. As Beria walks the halls, we hear gunshots and screams, and see people being led off, including girls and women. When Beria is detained, he is accused of "347 counts of rape, of sexual deviancy, and bourgeois immorality, of acts of perversion with children..." Humor doesn't get blacker than that.

Steve Buscemi would not seem an obvious choice to play Nikita Khrushchev, but he owns the role. Simon Russell Beale did not hold back either; he is repulsive and loathsome as Beria. Meanwhile, Andrea Riseborough and Rupert Friend, as Stalin's grown children, are upstaged by nobody. Jeffrey Tambor, in the most overtly comic role, is a credibly willful buffoon as Deputy Malenkov. And casting Michael Palin as Foreign Secretary Molotov was a stroke of genius: except that the Soviet Politburo was all too frighteningly real, behind the scenes it deserves to be regarded as a flying circus.