Ho, Ho, Hum

Walking through the mall in these last days before Christmas makes me thankful that I don't care much for Santa Claus. The picture line is one more long line I don't have to wait in.

A few days ago, I almost told my first grader that Santa Claus doesn't exist. But, at the last minute, I thought better of it.

Why? Maybe because it's too early. I don't know. Maybe because I don't want him to have to be one of those kids at school who has to always keep his mouth shut about Santa and sort of feel like an outsider as other kids engage in the fantasy of it all.

That's really about it, though. Otherwise I see no use for him. We might have Santa leave a toy or two here or there -- but there's no cookie, no milk, no proclamations about how magical Santa is, etc. I'm sure St. Nicholas was an OK guy, but he couldn't have seen all this coming.

There are a thousand lectures you can give and that we've all heard about the "real meaning of Christmas." About capitalism and alienation and only-once-a-year-charity and unnecessary stress and people who start everything too early and do too much ...

Those are nothing more than cliches now -- mostly because they're true.

But Santa seems impervious to it all. Untouchable. And there's every reason why he shouldn't be.

We're talking about a holiday celebrating the birth of what billions of people believe to be the savior for humankind and for themselves personally, in whatever manner it is that faith speaks to them. It's my belief that this belief is something you take or leave. And that's all that it is and all it was ever originally expressed to be. Anything beyond that, I believe, isn't faith at all. Maybe fear. Maybe power. But not faith.

It's difficult enough to have faith in the face of life's trials. Yet, we seem to try make it harder by confusing our children with Santa Claus and his sanctimonious shit list and all his stuff that the elves make to exact Habro specification (and sometimes, even, with the same bar code you'd find in a store).

It's so much more simpler than that, this Christmas thing.

The message of Jesus is clear: "Love others as I have loved you." Look to the example of his life, and it's my belief that you will find no more perfect one.

Jesus didn't reward us with things. He rewarded us by our willingness to give up our things. Or at least our attachment to them. Not that we shouldn't have things, but that we shouldn't have to have them. He expressed this through example, both in life and death.

We are all equal. We are all loved. And all this is spoken to us through faith -- that wonderful gift we have that we feel when we quiet our minds and our souls and just listen.

So, we teach our children faith.

Our children, from the moment they are born, look to us to understand the world. When we teach them about God, what are we teaching them? Each parent must answer that as he or she is called to do. I tend to teach faith above all else.

I don't teach that I know what heaven's like. I don't teach that you pray to God that your grandmother doesn't die of cancer. You pray that she and everyone who loves has the strength and peace and comfort that's needed. That God never said you wouldn't suffer, just that you wouldn't do it alone. That you might find some meaning along the way that transforms you into someone new.

I don't teach that you get good things because you believe in Jesus. You find peace and transcendence beyond a world you perceive, a world that you try to make God fit into. What you want falls into place when you get what you need.

This is what I believe, and my beliefs don't require that anyone else do the same.

But, beliefs aside, it's apparently pretty hard if you want to avoid making a big deal out of Santa Claus.

The other day, I'm letting my 3 year old play with the Thomas the Tank Engine trains in Barnes & Noble. It's time to go home. I've never heard a child scream with such terror and anguish as I pulled him away from those trains. Those things are like cooked crack.

As I walk out the store, a lady who worked there looked at Aden and said in a chirpy voice, "Santa Claus is heeeearing thaaaat." She wasn't a bad person. She wasn't trying to be anything other than somebody trying to help me quiet my child.

But this is the essence of Santa Claus.

A supernatural being is watching us, keeping tabs on how good or bad we are, checking his list not once but twice and probably more, judging us in all his omnipotence and omnipresence, and if we aren't good enough for his liking, we don't get anything for Jesus' birthday.

And leave some food out for him. If not, it's rude. Because he's hungry. Obviously. Just look at him. Give your burnt cookie offering, and chances are you might be in Santa's good graces. Maybe a little extra candy thrown into the stocking.

This is our children's first experience with faith. This Santa Claus character.

They hear about God and Jesus and all. But Santa is their exploration into the unknown. At the end of these Christmas movies, the person is always redeemed when they decide to believe in Santa Claus.

(Even that creepy magician who murdered Frosty the Snowman -- premeditated, first-degree murder when he locked him in that greenhouse-- and was told by Santa Claus that if he didn't leave that hat alone, he wouldn't bring him any presents ever again. And all the magician had to do to make it OK was write "I'm sorry for what I did to Frosty" over and over and over. This is Santa justice).

Our children, rightfully, question the existence of Santa Claus. We tell them, "You've got to believe. If you don't believe, he won't come." Or, we ask them some cryptic question that's supposed to serve as an answer: "Do I believe in Santa? Well, do you believe in the spirit of Christmas?"

When I was a little boy, I asked my Mom how Santa came into the apartment if we didn't have a chimney. She told me he had a key. In the housing we lived in, you weren't supposed to be too suprised when people broke into your home and stole your stuff. People you knew, too.

I didn't like the idea of this Santa Claus having a key to my house. What if I wasn't good? I'd heard the threats. If somebody's sadistic enough to leave a lump of coal, what else might they be willing to do?

Santa Claus was already judging me for being good or bad. So what if I didn't get much of anything from him? Was that because I wasn't good? Was the misbehaved boy in school with the big house and all the money good because he got an Atari and I got a pair of shoes? And why should I even be compelled to compare whether an Atari is better than a pair of shoes as a gift, anyway?

What's the point?

And then we say, "It's not about what you get, it's about the spirit of it." Which is true. But Santa Claus doesn't teach this. It's confusing. He teaches us to be good and so we receive.

In fact, I'm not sure what it is he teaches. It's almost like the myth of Santa Claus is the parents' excuse to live out a fantasy of being some kind of god themselves.

At the end of it all, this Santa thing does something far more insidious to our children.

We confuse our children that it's all about Jesus, then almost neurotically have them bow at the altar of some other supernatural, pseudo-messianic character.

And when they finally learn the truth -- whether it be getting up for a drink of water and seeing mom and dad in the act of setting up the presents or our children's slow, cynical milking of the charade to make sure they still get their toys -- it teaches them that maybe they should think twice before believing in something again.

Or, for that matter, believing their parents.

The jewel of innocence is a precious thing.

The type of gift that Santa can't bring ... but sure can take away.

Thanks But No Thanks

Pressure washing assholes.

Sounds like:

A.) The name of some new emo-punk band covering themselves with tattoos and trying to pass themselves off as punk to a mass of young MTV viewers who don't know any better and think whining about how rich and famous people whining is something worth rebelling against when the irony is that they themselves are famous and whining.

B.) The subject line of one of those spam emails that you can't help but reading if only to enjoy the exotic poetry of random word pairing.

But this refers to neither.

It's about this (click image to read):



This is a very Dr. Phil way of going about things.

"Here's everything that's wrong with you. But don't worry, you're fortunate enough to have the honor of me fixing you."

The funny thing is, we just pressure-washed our home ourselves a few months ago.

I'm thinking about coming up with my own flier and hanging it on Curb Appeal's door:

"Your poor advertising strategy is an obvious sign your dream of owning your own business is going into the crapper. Call B&B Bankruptcy LLC to surrender your dream without losing everything else with it."

Superman's Dad Returns

Movies are almost always better when the credits are saved until the end. I know the Hollywood unions frown upon such things, but it always makes the movie seem more real to me. It helps keep that suspension of disbelief.

There's one exception, however.

I can watch the "Superman" opening credits -- swooshing through space with that understated little sound effect -- all the way through in rapt attention as John Williams' epic music blares. I even get psyched at watching the names of "casting director" or "chief principle photographer" or whatever all those people are called.

And even moreso now that justice has finally been served after 30 or so years.

---

When I watched "Superman II" as a child, I didn't really notice much difference. The first one was better, but the second one rocked ass, too. Those three villains with that freaky-looking General Zod and Superman getting his cookies stolen from him in the diner and Lois finally realizing Clark Kent is Superman ... all the stuff of childhood legend.

And then I really didn't watch it for another 25 years. Until my sons got old enough to watch them.

As an adult, I watched "Superman II" and something seemed a little off. The first one had that depth, an epic mythology with a real sense of internal struggle that made Superman as human as an alien from another planet could be.

What was great about the first one was that it was able to explore that depth but still be a movie that children of my generation loved. And this is something that Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" completely got.

But "Superman II" seemed to be missing something. A good portion of it very much resembled the first. Other parts seemed to be out of place. There was a shallowness to it, with some of the stupid gags and the tinny opening music -- without the swooshing opening credits!

And only recently, by chance, did I finally learn why it never felt completely right.

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Director Richard Donner filmed "Superman: The Movie" and "Superman II" simultaneously in 1977 and 1978. As he fell behind deadlines for release, he obliged the producers -- father and son Alexander and Illya Salkind -- to suspend filming "Superman II" and finish the first film, with intentions to finish the second.

"Superman: The Movie" was an enormous success. Christopher Reeve, of course, is our vision of Superman. He and Margot Kidder had that epic Clark and Lois chemistry. Gene Hackman rendered Lex Luthor both as villain and comic relief with precision. And Marlon Brando as Superman's dad ... classic.

It's still one of the more majestic sounds to my ears to hear Brando saying the name Kal-El and exuding that larger-than-life pre-eminence. Just his voice was a character, speaking to his son, whether on Kal-El's boyhood journey from Krypton to Earth or giving counsel to Superman as he struggled to find his place as a god among men.

So, we would think that in "Superman II" when a son seeks guidance on how to reconcile being with the woman he loves and being a savior to an entire planet that we at least hear Marlon Brando's voice once again. Instead, it was Superman's mother.

Seems strange for a story about the relationship between father and son (and kind of hard to exclude the father when you're really, really pushing for that savior-endowed-from-the-heavens theme we're so familiar with).

That absence is at the center of why "Superman II" doesn't feel quite right -- in more ways that simple plot devices.

---

When it came time to finish "Superman II," Donner only had, at most, about a third of the movie to finish. Everything else had been filmed, including Brando's scenes.

But in a colossal display of greed, the Salkind producers refused to pay Brando a portion of the gross receipts from "Superman II" for the use of his character. "Superman: The Movie" had been wildly successful, and the payout to Brando for the sequel would have been substantial.

So, they instructed Donner to remove him from the sequel. Donner refused and left the second film on bitter terms. Hackman left. Reeve and other members of the cast, who were extremely fond of Donner, felt betrayed.

A new director, Richard Lester, took the reins -- and for whatever reason decided to re-shoot a little more than half the film.

This is how "Superman II" became less the movie it should have been.

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In interviews, Lester expressed that he wasn't particularly fond of the whole superhero thing. He wasn't fond of Donner's more-introspective and heady explorations into the Superman mythos. He was more fond of a campy perspective (the exact kind that Donner said he was committed to avoiding). He even ridicules the efforts to take Superman seriously.

So, we see a "Superman II" that is incongruous with the spirit of the first. One that takes the cheap road to laughs, foregoing the sophisticated for the banal.

An example:

In Donner footage (which actually appeared in the original), we see Lex Luthor and his mistress, Ms. Tessmacher, flying away in a hot-air balloon after a prison escape.

"Why am I here?" Ms. Tessmacher says. "What am i doing here?"
Lex Luthor retorts: "Ms. Tessmacher, is this a philosophy seminar? No, it's a getaway."

I didn't get that when I was a kid, but I didn't care, either. Now, I get it, and I do care.

Donner was methodical in filming, looking at a scene from various angles and working to find just the right one. Lester filmed with multiple cameras at once, kind of like how TV sitcoms are filmed.

The difference shows.

By re-shooting much of the film and having more than half of the footage credited to him, Lester was able to claim directorial credit for "Superman II" (Donner refused to have his name associated with it). Is that why he re-shot so much of it? Maybe, maybe not.

But now, it really doesn't matter.

Why?

Because of this:



That's right. "Superman II" the way it was meant to be seen -- or at least as close as it was meant to be seen.

As much as half of the film features material filmed by Donner that we've never seen, and more than half of Lester's footage has been axed (some of it had to be kept to fill in the blanks where Donner couldn't).

There's the new (and more inventive) way that Lois Lane tests Clark Kent to prove he's Superman, and there's the new (and more sophisticated) way that she finally learns that he is.

It's unprecendented to be able to see what is virtually an entirely different movie than what was filmed three decades ago. When public pressure built, editors went into the vaults and found the old footage and began the painstaking process of sorting it all out.

Everything that I thought was dumb about "Superman II" (well, almost everything) is gone now. The stupid cellophane "S" symbol he threw. The teleportation. The stupid guy talking on the phone even though the villains have blown it over. Superman telling the president he'll never let him down again (as if he somehow did).

Then there are the big changes.

The swooshing opening credits are restored to what they should be, what they are in "Superman: The Movie" and "Superman Returns."

We see, finally, Marlon Brando's name. And when Directed by Richard Donner appears, it does so with a distinctive and surely deliberately extra crescendo of the opening theme.

That is satisfying enough, but nothing more than the 15 minutes or so of restored footage where we see Jor-El having the conversation with his son about the path he has chosen. We see Superman being rebellious and rash. We see Jor-El pontificate about the higher calling he sees for his son, with overt allusions to a life of celebacy akin to a high priest.

We see him cut his eyes toward Lois in contempt as Superman gives up his powers. And we see him reappear to give his son his powers back, but at the expense of never being able to speak to him again.

These precious minutes are what express the essence of the Superman ethos.

So are the moments between Clark and Lois. There's more tenderness there and more tension -- and therefore, humor and genuine warmness.

In the scene where Lois learns Superman's identity -- she shoots Clark with a blank and he takes his glasses off and tells her she could have been wrong and he could have died -- the two actors aren't actually acting together.

Donner never filmed the scene, but the scene was so important to the film that it was the screen test for both Kidder and Reeve. The editor for the new version, Michael Thau, spliced them together.

They look different, younger. Reeve is more assertive with the Clark character than he turned out to be later in the films. The interaction between the two is a little out-of-synch with the rest of the movie, but it feels so right.

The movie isn't perfect. It cuts abruptly here and there, although I actually like it because it seems to be paced faster. Probably the biggest flaw is in the ending. To make Lois forget that Clark is Superman, he does that thing again where he spins the world backward to reverse time.

It was implausible enough the first time, but we could let it slide and suspend disbelief in context of the emotion involved when he did it the first time. The interesting thing is that the world-turning-backwards thing was always meant to be the end of "Superman II."

The only reason it was used in the first movie is because, after focusing all effort on finishing the first one, they had to quickly come up with an ending. They figured they would come up with a different ending for "Superman II" when they got back to finishing it.

All in all, it's a pretty epic, air-guitar kind of moment for a geek like me. And I know I'm a geek, because I thought about the Nov. 28 DVD release every day since I found out in August that it was happening.

I know one thing: I have no plans on ever watching the original "Superman II" again.