Spoilers Ahead: This article contains advanced talking points for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. We recommend reading it after you see the film. Anyone who called Iron Man 3 or any other blockbuster in the past few years an “epic” will be eating their words once they see Zack Snyder‘s giant toy set called Man of Steel. It’s as if Shane Black and J.J. Abrams were playing with plastic action figures and then, all the sudden, Snyder showed up with real heroes. His Superman reboot is exciting, a visual marvel, and gives fans the movie they wanted to see from Bryan Singer. Finally, we have a 21st century Superman who punches somebody, but is there more here than a few wicked brawls? For the most part, yes. There’s some heart present, especially with Russell Crowe taking part in the film’s emotional peak within the first twenty minutes. After that, the movie loses some of that patient drama with certain structural and character choices. This isn’t, let’s say, a Star Trek Into Darkness situation where the experience falls flat by Abrams & Co. consistently choosing spectacle over logic. For every confounding choice made in Man of Steel, there’s plenty of right choices made. Some of those puzzling choices raise questions, though. There’s no plot holes to drive buses through here, but they feel like issues that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

We’re about six months away from Christmas, so why not highlight a film about Santa Claus? Actually it’s a very appropriate time to discuss this particular film, because it’s about the off season for guys who play the role of St. Nick. Titled I Am Santa Claus, it’s a documentary that follows six Kris Kringles, including none other than pro wrestling legend Mick Foley. WWE Raw fans may be familiar with his appearances in the ring dressed as the jolly old icon, but for this film he went a bit further by even dying his hair and beard and fully trying out the gig as many men do every December. Additionally Foley is a producer of the doc, which is directed by relative newcomer Tommy Avallone. He’s been thanked in the credits for the films Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles and Indie Game: The Movie, which is good enough for me to trust him here. Other reasons I’m into this doc, which is done shooting and now raising finishing costs via Kickstarter, are that I love Foley as a documentary subject thanks to Beyond the Mat (if you’ve seen it, you saw his daughter, Noelle, getting very upset as a little girl in the audience of a bloody bout; now you can see her grown up and helping to hawk incentives in a video here) and that I’m a big fan of a similar recent doc, the wonderful Becoming Santa. The latter showed men, yes, becoming Santa,

You can tell Man of Steel is the movie of the summer because none of us can stop writing about it. Would it be more or less covered if the Superman movie actually got mostly favorable reviews? It’s hard to say, as much of our and other outlets’ think pieces are a mix of pre-planned stuff on the character in general as well as superhero movies in general and reaction posts both about what the new movie gets wrong and right. All I know is I could have devoted this week’s whole Reject Recap to the ol’ Caped Kryptonian (is that not one of his nicknames?). Let me just point out that it’s deserving. While the official FSR review is fairly negative, I’ll admit that I love it. And it’s definitely worth seeing even if you have problems with much of it. As is clear, there’s so much to talk about. There’s a bunch to discuss on other topics and movies, too. We had two big stories involving the future of Hollywood, thoughts on some older favorites and some other characters’ announced returns, an update on real-life versions of characters from one of this week’s new releases and also a geeky comparison between video game consoles complete with their relevance to movie fans. Before we get to your week in review, here’s some trivia regarding the headline above: all are tied to Superman. Steven Spielberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger were both linked to Superman: The Movie and, well, some interns probably

This week, we kneel before Zod and Hatchet III star Danielle Harris, who describes her Pussy Posse and explains what it’s like to have hoses filled with fake blood aimed at your face. Plus, Geoff faces an Interrogation Review of Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel, and Scott talks with a budding filmmaker who’ll learn this weekend if his new project gets funding or not. For more from us on a daily basis, follow Danielle Harris (@halloweengal), the show (@brokenprojector), Geoff (@drgmlatulippe) and Scott (@scottmbeggs) on the Twitter. And, as always, we welcome your feedback. Download Episode #20 Directly Or subscribe Through iTunes

Why Watch? Because it’s Flag Day, and all of our flags are now made in China! (This is not exactly true, but check the labels on your patriotic paraphernalia anyway.) A few months ago, filmmaking team Tiny Carousel brought us Shanghighspeed, a time lapse video of one of the world’s largest cities. Now they’re back with Fading Lives, a portrait of a small historic Shanghai neighborhood on the verge of extinction. It’s a beautiful, elegiac film that mixes brief interviews with the area’s aging residents with poetically charged images of neglected buildings and messy streets. There’s a particularly powerful sequence made up solely of doors, the former passageways of a thriving community that are now closed, perhaps forever. The immediate cause of the area’s collapse, however, is the government. Buildings are being demolished to make way for new housing, forcing current residents out of the city. One man explains that “In our country there is no ‘why?’” There’s no point in resisting, his house will be knocked down no matter what he does. Fading Lives is an interesting step for Tiny Carousel, after the visually intricate but thematically simple Shanghighspeed. This second documentary is much political, and hints at a potential future of more charged documentaries dedicated, like this one, to The People.

We understand that no matter how much you love them, going out to the movies isn’t always the best choice. Sometimes there’s a huge storm that ravages the middle of the country and you’re just glad to have power enough to watch a DVD, let alone go outside to your local cineplex. Sometimes its just easier to not put on pants. Trust me, I know this better than most. Which is why we offer a weekly alternative. Through the magic of our Video On Demand Power Ranker, a custom-built supercomputer, we present a list of the best films you can see without even leaving the couch. This week, there’s sci-fi, magic, wonder and WikiLeaks.

It has happened before and it will happen again – the Internet rumor perpetual-motion machine got some stuff wrong about Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. While Snyder doesn’t ascribe to something even remotely like J.J. Abrams’ “Mystery Box” way of hiding information (including the barest of facts) about his films, fans of Superman have been so revved up about the new Henry Cavill-starring film for so long that it’s understandable that a ton of rumors would be cooked up about the film before and during its production. After all, who wouldn’t expect to see Lex Luthor in a Superman film? In the wake of the film actually being released in theaters, let’s recap eleven big rumors about Man of Steel that got root on the interwebs (either via traditional reportage or speculative message boards) and have now been proven to be patently false. While a few of these have already been debunked, the release of the film finally signals the most formal of debunkings for all of them. Fortunately for fans of Supes, most of these are rumors we definitely didn’t want to see pan out (even if they did take some serious chatter wing for a bit there), at least in a newly rebooted origin story. Of course, there are tons of spoilers ahead for anyone who has yet to see Man of Steel, so beware.

If you’re a cinephile living in New York City, the wealth of movie-going options and special events open to you is simply staggering, but not many of them ring up at the bargain price of free. One of those rare, literally priceless events? The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Summer Talks Series. This year’s series kicked off on May 16th with a Before Midnight talk, featuring Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke all in conversation on the final film in their beloved trilogy. Last week, the society played host to Sofia Coppola as she chatted about this week’s new release, The Bling Ring. The rest of the summer’s series has long been set to include talks with the talent of such films as Museum Hours, Fruitvale Station, Crystal Fairy, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and Drinking Buddies, but the society has now unveiled three additional talks, a trio of events that should tickle any movie lover living in Gotham. Fine, florid language aside, the Summer Talks will now include Only God Forgives director Nicholas Winding Refn, Prince Avalanche director David Gordon Green, and Passion director Brian De Palma, all chatting about their latest films in what should be some of the best cinema-serving events of the season. We’re already lined up for all three events as we type this (and, yes, we’ve included instructions for how to get tickets after the break, and no, it doesn’t include lining up now, dammit all).

Warning: there are mild spoilers ahead for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. Haven’t seen the movie yet? Go see it, then come on back. Man of Steel couldn’t have a more perfect release date. This Sunday is Father’s Day, which makes it a very appropriate weekend for an action flick about a superhero with two dads and the wisdom imparted by each of them. Meanwhile, today is also Flag Day, and while the latest Superman movie isn’t overbearingly jingoistic, it is significant for explicitly returning the character’s national allegiance. “I’m about as American as you get,” he says when his loyalty to the U.S. is questioned. The line wouldn’t be so notable if it weren’t for the way the previous live-action movie we got, Superman Returns, represented the hero. When Perry White (Frank Langella) references a familiar catchphrase by asking if Superman still stands for “truth, justice and all that stuff,” that made many conservative fans upset. Never mind that the original “American way” version wasn’t even introduced until years after his comics debut (on the radio show in 1942 and then resurfacing on the 1950s TV series). “The truth is he’s an alien,” said Returns co-writer Dan Harris in 2006, “He was sent from another planet. He has landed on the planet Earth, and he is here for everybody. He’s an international superhero.”

It is a challenge to take a story originally intended to be performed on stage in front of a live audience and adapt it for the very different environment of the big screen. A compelling story is a compelling story, but sometimes the moment the restrictions of the stage are taken away through “movie magic,” an important element is lost rather than gained. On stage it comes down to the actors and their performances and while that can be an immersive experience when watching live, it does not always translate to film. Movies are about being shown rather than told and plays are more about the dialogue and subtle performances of the actors. There is a connective tissue that does not always exist on stage, but does in film, and can help bridge this gap – music. Films need music to help round out emotion, especially when the actor is not standing right in front of you. But creating the music for a film adapted from a play is a very specific, and not always simple, undertaking. Composer Alexandre Desplat seemed to have cornered this market, having composed for Carnage based on the stage play of the same name and The Ides of March based on the stage play Farragut North, but two new composers, H. Scott Salinas and Tobias Enhus, have thrown their hats into the proverbial ring with their score and sound design for Between Us.

Why Watch? The Stunt People have done a lot of cool stuff, including teaching John McClane krav maga, and their new First Person Darth Vader series is a thrilling display of fight choreography and GoPro camera work. With a wisp of story, this short exists almost solely to put you into the fight– often behind the wheezing mask of Anakin Skywalker himself. The transitions are smooth, and the design of the lightsaber clash has enough downtime to intensify the midi-chlorian-fueled battle when it overheats. Experimental, yes, and it’ll probably be jarring for some, but it’s definitely a cool project that deserves some attention.

Technically speaking, a “POV shot” could count anything coupled with a reaction shot, or any over the shoulder shots – but that aside, there’s none better than the straight on, through-the-characters-eyes shot that’s been around almost as long as filmmaking has. It’s cemented itself in the craft since the 1940s, and has unsurprisingly taken a great array of variations over eight decades. Let’s look at some of the best, most iconic, uses of the classic POV shot, shall we?

If there is one thing the movie-loving Internet-reading masses love, it’s celebrating the anniversary of a favorite film. After all, yesterday unofficially became Can’t Hardly Wait day around the world (or possibly just on my Twitter feed, but still) as cinephiles joined together to talk about how much they loved a Jennifer Love Hewitt-starring nineties-era teen movie that turned fifteen years old in the middle of a nondescript workweek. Encouraged by the Internet’s adoration of weirdo movie anniversaries, I decided to plunge back into the archives and turn up some other titles that are celebrating anniversaries this week. The results were insane – and also incredibly amusing. Given the box office tradition of opening films on Fridays, and given that today is the thirteenth of the month, I’d assumed that a surplus of horror films would pop up from recent years. I was wrong – and while there were no horror films, there were plenty of horrifying films. Please, join me in celebrating some unsung anniversaries, as The Happening turns five, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd reaches a decade in existence, and Speed 2: Cruise Control celebrates its Sweet Sixteen. Bet you wish it was still June 12th, right?

Any fan of the Superman movie series knows of the myriad problems experienced during the filming of Superman II. The most notable was the estranged relationship that director Richard Donner had with producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Donner’s plan was to film the first two movies simultaneously, but he was eventually dropped from the production and replaced with Richard Lester. In 2006, Warner Bros. worked with Donner to restore his own vision to Superman II, releasing his cut of the film. The result is an incomplete movie patched together from alternate takes and even some screen tests. However, as flawed as this cut of the film is, it is nice to see the original director get some closure in one of the original superhero movie franchises. Donner and his creative consultant Tom Mankiewicz lend their voices to the commentary on this film, which can be purchased separately or in the box set of Superman films available on DVD and Blu-ray. They offer a look into the overall production of the two films, rather than the restoration process.

Warning: there are spoilers ahead for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. Haven’t seen the movie yet? Go see it, then come on back. It’s long been the running gag of the Superman universe – that the world’s populace and his closest friends are unable to comprehend that Superman and Clark Kent are one in the same, only one of them happens to be wearing glasses. While it is somewhat conceivable that Supes’ fans and Clark’s acquaintances are too knuckle-headed to see the truth (particularly in the early days of his existence, as we suspect that modern day Superman will have some major problems when it comes to social media, smart phones, and citizen reportership), it’s always been dunderheaded that Superman’s perennial love interest, Lois Lane, is consistently in the dark as to who is who. The main issue with the lovely Lois not seeing the obvious is that she is not only a highly intelligent woman, she is a woman who investigates things for a living. Rooting out truths and seeing beyond the status quo is not only what Lois does, but it’s who she is. Open your eyes, Lois! In traditional Superman comic history, Lois first became suspicious of Clark Kent’s true identity (or Superman’s true identity, whichever, really) back in the Golden Age of DC Comics. Lois, like Superman, was first introduced in Action Comics #1 in 1938, though she didn’t start putting the Clark/Supes pieces together until sometime in the early 1940’s. To get into the rest

Even if, like me, you’re not much of a gamer, you’ve probably heard about the recent announcements from Sony and Microsoft regarding their next-gen consoles. It’s hard to navigate social media without running into one rant or another either praising one to the high heavens or proclaiming the other as a certain catalyst for the apocalypse. And even if you’re not a gamer, this should interest you to some degree. The Xbox 360 and PS3 competed for living room supremacy, both wanting to be the center of your TV watching world. PS3 had the distinction of being the first Blu-ray player released in North America after the delay of Sony’s flagship standalone player the BDP-S1. In fact, it’s Blu-ray and DVD playback capability drew movie lovers in from the start. The 360 tried to get in on this game with an HD-DVD add on drive, and did moderately well with it until Blu-ray came out on top in the format war. Xbox turned to streaming and locked up an exclusive deal with Netflix to offer it’s instant streaming service through the Xbox 360. This forever changed the way we think about consoles. Now we stand on the precipice, with new versions of the Playstation and the Xbox, dubbed PS4 and Xbox One respectively, both due to hit the market later this year. But which one should you choose and why? Allow us to break it down for you.

Why Watch? Today is the End. Rather, This Is the End opens today. It seems like an appropriate time to highlight another comic take on the apocalypse, and one with an equally blunt title. Andrew Zuchero‘s The Apocalypse played both Sundance and South by Southwest earlier this year, gleefully terrorizing festival audiences. Now we get to watch it ourselves via YouTube. The calamity that strikes the earth in The Apocalypse isn’t particularly complex, nor does it need to be. Five minutes is just about enough time to establish the kind of disaster (heads exploding) and look at its immediate aftermath. The trick, which I’m hardly going to reveal before you’ve watched the short, is reminiscent of the bonkers Canadian zombie flick, Pontypool. There’s no need for explanations, and there’s even less need for multiple locations. A few friends are hanging out in an apartment, and heads start exploding. Zuchero’s assault on human life is odd, hilarious and furiously quick. Also, you get to watch Kate Lyn Sheil’s head explode while Martin Starr watches in horror. What’s not to love about that? What Will It Cost? Just over 5 minutes.

Sofia Coppola’s latest minor opus about the perils and pitfalls of being (actually criminally this time) plagued by ennui and blind ambition, The Bling Ring, opens in limited release this week. Based on one of those “only in Hollywood” stories that, in fact, really only could and did happen in Hollywood, The Bling Ring tells a vaguely fictionalized version of the life and times of a ring of fame-obsessed teen burglars who broke into the houses of a number of big name stars in 2008 and 2009. The ring made away with the clothes, jewelry, accessories, artwork, and cash of celebs like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, Orlando Bloom, Miranda Kerr, Brian Austin Green, Megan Fox, and Audrina Patridge (yes, the terms “celeb” and “star” are used somewhat loosely as it applies to a few of the victims), until they were finally caught by way of surveillance footage and anonymous tipsters. “The Bling Ring” itself is weird enough, and while The Bling Ring the movie never quite digs deep enough into what made the teen criminals do what they did (beyond wanting cool clothes and rightly assuming that Paris Hilton was too stupid to lock her front door), it’s still a nice addition to Coppola’s resume and a nifty addendum to some real life strange crime. How strange is it? One of the major players in the ring, Alexis Neiers (brilliantly played in the film by Emma Watson), was in the middle of filming her own reality show (titled

Alejandro Jodorowsky is, perhaps more than any other living filmmaker that comes to mind, a visionary who stands entirely alone. His influences come from multiple sources – surrealism, the spaghetti western, theater, etc. – but he is loyal to no particular artistic movement or historical moment. He’s a brazenly original, playfully anarchistic, uncalculating provocateur and walking anachronism whose work speaks to and across various artistic traditions, belonging exclusively to none. Born to Jewish Ukranian parents in Tocopilla, Chile in 1929, Jodorowsky grew to acquire such a dedicated interest in arts and theater that he moved to France in the 1950s to study mime with Etienne Decroux before starting a career in cinema with his short La Cravate in 1957. Since then, Jodorowsky became the helmer of midnight classics like the acid western El Topo and his psychedelic John-and-Yoko-funded Brechtian epic The Holy Mountain (The IFC Center puts both these films on midnight rotation at least once a month). Jodorowsky also famously attempted an ambitious but never-realized adaptation of Dune and recently completed his seventh feature film, The Dance of Reality. Both The Dance of Reality and the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival, so the esoteric filmmaking veteran (at age 84) is suddenly experiencing a peak in the spotlight. Here’s some free film school wisdom we can learn from the man who officiated Marilyn Manson’s most recent wedding.

Look, up on the marquee! It’s a sequel, it’s a remake…no, it’s another Superman reboot! A mere seven years after Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns leaped into theaters in a single bound, Zack Snyder now has his chance to reset the Superman dial and hopefully make the series more powerful than a locomotive. However, if Man of Steel is to represent the future of the franchise, it must first train its superpowered eyesight upon its own filmic past. Whether revisiting these films on DVD, Blu-ray or Kryptonian crystal, the franchise’s successes and failures must be weighed in order to ensure the triumph of Man of Steel. Here is what each movie has taught us, and how those lessons have refined our expectations.