Another Superman movie is set to be released. It’s called Man of Steel, and it promises to show more extraordinary feats by the first superhero of them all.
I’m sure the new movie has spectacular special effects, but I’m suffering from a profound case of Superman Fatigue Syndrome. I’m old enough to remember when the cheesy George Reeves Superman TV show episodes — “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive” and standing for “truth, justice, and the American way” — were rerun on cable TV. I enjoyed the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and particularly liked Superman II, where Superman gives up his powers then returns to defeat General Zod in a movie filled with classic comic moments. I thought Superman III sucked, though, and after that I lost interest in the Superman story. I didn’t watch Superman IV, or the Smallville TV series, or Superman Returns.
To tell the truth, Superman is kind of boring. He’s indestructible, flies faster than anything, can lift anything, can survive in the superheated conditions at the Earth’s core, etc. What’s the challenge? So long as he avoids that hidden piece of Kryptonite that makes him like a mere mortal, you know he’s going to win any battle. Any superhero who can reverse the rotation of the planet and thereby change the course of time and bring the dead back to life, as Superman did in the first film, isn’t going to struggle with any villain found on Earth. How do you top that feat in later films? (I’m sure, of course, that the new movie will try to do so.)
More basically, how many Superman, Batman, and Spiderman movies can be made, and remade, and remade again? There’s so much copying, so much formula-driven film-making, and so little creativity in the movie industry that it’s remarkable when a truly new and creative hero film, like The Matrix, gets made. Hollywood should be embarrassed to keep churning out the same characters in the same settings, over and over and over, and audiences should be embarrassed to keep buying tickets.
Now, 
* Haunted by the fact that he murdered Chappelle in cold blood at the instruction of former President David Palmer, Jack has sworn off violence and become a French pastry chef. But when Tony Almeida is ruthlessly gunned down while buying a baguette at Jack’s bakery, Jack must spring into action to avenge the death of his old comrade.
Fox apparently is in talks with Kiefer Sutherland to bring back 24
One long-time participant, a boastful “mogul” named Dave Hester, isn’t on the new episodes, so I decided to do some internet research to see what happened to him. It turns out that ol’ Dave and Storage Wars had a parting of the ways, and they are now mired in a lawsuit. Hester alleges that 
Annette Funicello, on the other hand, was not a significant historical figure. Instead, 
Contrast that with the classic “Mikey” commercial for Life cereal. Two brothers push a bowl of “healthy”cereal back and forth, neither willing to try it because we all know that healthy cereal tastes like twigs and cardboard. So they do what any real brothers would do — they force their grumpy younger brother (“Let’s get Mikey! He hates everything!”) to give it a shot. When little bro tries it and likes it, they know that Life must be good. The commercial works because it’s not just going for “aw shucks” cuteness but instead tries to make its point through kids acting like real kids.
