Superman

Saturday is a terrible night for television.  Absolutely nothing interesting to me on, which is how I happened to watch Superman last night.  The original with Christopher Reed.  So sad to watch that handsome, virile man and realize what would happen to him in just a few years.  But the movie is a good one and I have not seen it in years.

It was over fairly early and the following movie was Supermen II, also with Reeve as the man of steel.  I wasn't going to watch it but it was still kind of early, so I started watching it.

In this movie, Lois Lane finally realizes that Clark Kent is really Superman (by taking off his glasses to clean them).  Not sure how that lady could have been so dumb all those years, but Kent does part his hair on the right and Superman parts HIS hair on the left, so maybe that fooled her.

Now that she knows, he says, he wants to take her to his "home," that land of ice in the far, far north where he communicates with the spirits of his mother.  As Lois wandered around exclaiming about how beautiful it was, I envisioned her trying to "keep house" in this land of ice.  Where would she cook dinner?

Anyway, Superman tells Mama that he has fallen in love and she warns him that to live the rest of his life with Lois, he will have to give up all of his super powers.  Lois is watching with a look of shock on her face, and I wondered if she would love Clark Kent if he didn't have super powers.  But he is determined and he steps into the crystal box that will remove from him all of his super powers.

The only thing I could think of was that they were in the far north, in a place of all ice, surrounded by snow and how would they get home?

By this time, bad guys from Krypton had come to earth and were busy blowing up everything and everybody in attempt to establish a totalitarian regime for...whatever purpose....  It was getting to sound too much like the nightly news, so I turned it off and never did find out how/if Clark and Lois ever made it out of the ice cave.  But there is a Superman III, so I assume they did.

It reminded me of the days when I was involved with The Lamplighters.  When we first started going to shows, it was for the fun of discovering the shows.  By the time we had seen all the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and knew them well, we continued to go to see our favorite performers in roles that we enjoyed.  When I joined the company and worked there weekly, we continued to see the shows, but now it was to watch my friends on stage.  I don't enjoy the shows as much any more because I rarely know anybody in the cast and after some 30-40 years, the joy of seeing HMS Pinafore one more time just isn't quite the same.

I was thinking about that watching NCIS-LA today (there is a marathon on every Sunday).  I've been watching some series like the various iterations of NCIS for so long that my enjoyment comes from some place other than the plot of a show.

This week they are doing shows from Season 2 when Hetty was more involved than she has been. I think all last season Hetty (Linda Hunt) was off on some private mission.  I recently learned that the actress had been in a bad auto accident and spent a long time in the hospital.  She returned to the show this season, and looks much older...and slower...than she did in Season 2.  (I always check actor's ages and Hunt is 2 years younger than I am).

It makes me wonder about Miguel Ferrer (son of Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer), who died of cancer in 2017.  His very last scene in the show took place in a hospital bed, where he was very weak.  He then sent a note to Hetty that he knew he was dying and had things to do before that.  He was not seen again, but at the conclusion of that show there was an "in memory of Miguel Ferrer"....I wonder how sick he actually was when that scene was filmed.

(it's the same thing I wonder about Spencer Tracy, who died a week after completing Guess Who is Coming to Dinner in which he gives a very moving speech about his love for his family.  Close ups of Katharine Hepburn during the scene show her with tears in her eyes ... was that real, or was that acting...?)

Have you noticed that the bad guys in cop shows are terrible shots? A single person, male or female, with a hand gun, running out of bullets, can take out a group of bad guys with AK-47s and not receive so much as a scratch.

It also makes me wonder if the FBI really breaks down doors on a hunch and shoot whoever happens to be inside "just because."  (He always turns out to be a bad guy, but they don't know that at the time.)  And is everyone taught to go for the kill shot?  Can they never hit someone in the knee or some other place on the body?

And how about Criminal Minds where when they rush a house, they are preceeded by a phalanx of heavily armored people, with helmets, face masks, guns drawn, and all sorts of protction.  They are followed by the stars, who maybe have Kevlar vests, but nothing else.

Have you noticed that all those shows -- NCIS, NCIS-LA, SVU, etc. -- take suspects into interrogation rooms, and then leave them there?  They don't UNlock the door to exit and they don't LOCK the door when they go away.  What keeps the suspect in the room without even trying to leave?

The interrogation room for NCIS-LA is on some "secret" boat in the harbor of wherever they are.  But how "secret" can it be when everyone is taken there?

Also, for rap singers, LL Cool J (NCIS-LA) is a better actor than Ice T (SVU).

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So today is the day I will face the computer problems and call the guru.  I have been so disheartened I haven't wanted to think about it, so I've been doing other things.  But in the meantime I've been getting all-Zen about it.  If I have to reboot Windows and lose the two programs I use most, I can work around.  If I can't find another program like Front Page (which no longer exists) to do this journal, I will just move to Blogger exclusively.  Though today I found a site that may allow me to download a free updated version, if I need to.  I hope.

As for PhotoShop, which I used to use much more for complicated stuff, I now use it mostly for sizing photos and fixing the exposure, and I can find another way to do it.

I will grieve for the loss of the programs, and for Funny the World, if it must happen (and I don't know that it has to happen yet), I can live with that too...not happily, but it can be done.

So, cross fingers, as I prepare to call the guru.