Exercise: Identifying Nouns
Exercise: Look out for nouns (common, general, concrete and abstract) in the article below
Commanding respect
By MICHAEL CHEANG
HOW do you make a movie about a guy flying around in a blue spandex suit, a red cape, and a pair of red underwear (on the outside), and not make it look like a tacky B-grade flick?
It can’t be an easy problem to solve, considering that it’s been almost 20 years since the last Superman movie was released. In fact, after a number of failed attempts to get the project going, it is only now, after Bryan Singer was recruited as director, that the most iconic superhero ever created finally makes his return to the silver screen.
With Singer at the helm, the Man of Steel is in safe hands. After all, this is the director who succeeded in appeasing both casual moviegoers and fervent comic fan boys with the first two movies based on Marvel’s mutant X-Men.
However, there is no doubt as to which superhero franchise is his favourite, as he was bluntly unhesitant with his answer when asked why he left the X-Men franchise to do Superman.
“I’m a bigger fan of Superman than the X-Men,” said Singer during an international media junket held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles in early June.
“For me, the original Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve was the ultimate superhero movie,” he said. “It is because of my love and that I’m a fan of Superman that I did X-Men in the first place.”
“I love the X-Men and it broke my heart not to be able to do the last one, but I just couldn’t past this up.
Superman Returns opens with the Man of Steel (played by newcomer Brandon Routh) returning to Earth after a five-year search in space for his home planet Krypton, and finding that his adopted planet has adapted to life without him. Most devastating of all (to him, at least), his lover Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has also moved on with her life, having gotten engaged to Richard White (James Marsden), and is also a mother to a five-year-old son. In the meantime, his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) has also been released from prison and is plotting to destroy the world, as usual.
All-new Man of Steel
The movie is a new take on the legend of Superman, and because of the vast popularity of the character throughout the world, Singer insisted on casting the complete unknown actor Brandon Routh in the blue tights.
Singer had chanced upon the audition tape Routh had done for one of the previous Superman directors, and decided to meet him in a café. “Within minutes of talking to him, I knew he was the one. I remember we were sitting inside, and decided to head outside instead. Brandon just took his coffee, and then stood up, and up, and up, and up ...,” he said, referring to Routh’s height.
“Then later, as we ran into each other as we were going through the door, and I thought to myself, ‘What a Clark!’
”The fact that Brandon looks a bit like Christopher Reeve was part of it as well, but not an essential part.”
According to the movie’s screenwriters Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty, Routh had been Singer’s first choice ever since he met him. “Brandon was always Bryan’s favourite, but before casting him officially, we had to sit through all the other auditions as well,” said Dougherty.
“We even saw Brendan Fraser wearing the Superman suit, and Ashton Kutcher as well!” he added with a shudder.
So, how did Singer go about making a movie about a guy in blue tights and still not manage to make it look like a B-grade movie?
“That’s the fun of Superman, he always looks like he is on the way to a costume party! But you’d forgive him for his wardrobe as long as he saves your life. He forces you to respect, because he is just so powerful.” However, Singer emphasized that Superman is not just about the blue tights.
“Superman is never in disguise – unlike other superheroes, he doesn’t wear a mask. Clark Kent is his disguise, and it’s part of the whole character – the suit, the curl in the hair, the blue eyes and so on.
“It’s all part of a collective consciousness we have of Superman – the product of 70 years of accumulated images from movies, comics and television. Go to any part of the world, and almost everyone would know who Superman is,” he added.
Of course, it helped that screenwriters Harris and Dougherty are equally big fans of Superman as well, and had the added experience of having written the second X-Men movie with Singer as well.
According to Singer, when they worked on the script, they wanted to touch on the more emotional aspects of the character.
“We wanted to show that even the most virtuous and idealistic people could be destroyed by human emotions. That was the key to our story,” he said. “Superman is not always perfect, but there is just something about him that appeals to everyone, to the point where almost anyone in any country in the world would know him.”
Harris added later: “There are only so many ways to use kryptonite! Superman himself was said to be too two-dimensional a character, and lacked angst. So we had to give the sense that something could hurt him.
“So here we have a love triangle between him, Lois and this new guy, and a family that he cannot break up, not like Lex Luthor, whom he can just flick aside.
“We also had to give him a threat that was big and physical enough for him to handle, and at the same time balance that with a story about him and his home world as well.”
So while working on the movie, did they ever live in the fear of screwing up the whole thing?
“We thought about it every day! It was intimidating, but not terrifying. We knew we had to be on our best, because we were working on this 70 year mural in a way, and we had to live up to everyone’s expectations,” said Harris.
In the end, the two, along with Singer, managed to come up with a screenplay that drew upon influences from a broad range of mythology, including Greek, Christianity and so on.
“Superheroes are the mythology of today, and the story of Superman is not so different from all the classic myths and legends that came before,” said Harris.
“All we did is to turn those classic big old stories into a new one, and then whittle it all down to a guy in blue tights!”
Commanding respect
By MICHAEL CHEANG
HOW do you make a movie about a guy flying around in a blue spandex suit, a red cape, and a pair of red underwear (on the outside), and not make it look like a tacky B-grade flick?
It can’t be an easy problem to solve, considering that it’s been almost 20 years since the last Superman movie was released. In fact, after a number of failed attempts to get the project going, it is only now, after Bryan Singer was recruited as director, that the most iconic superhero ever created finally makes his return to the silver screen.
With Singer at the helm, the Man of Steel is in safe hands. After all, this is the director who succeeded in appeasing both casual moviegoers and fervent comic fan boys with the first two movies based on Marvel’s mutant X-Men.
However, there is no doubt as to which superhero franchise is his favourite, as he was bluntly unhesitant with his answer when asked why he left the X-Men franchise to do Superman.
“I’m a bigger fan of Superman than the X-Men,” said Singer during an international media junket held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles in early June.
“For me, the original Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve was the ultimate superhero movie,” he said. “It is because of my love and that I’m a fan of Superman that I did X-Men in the first place.”
“I love the X-Men and it broke my heart not to be able to do the last one, but I just couldn’t past this up.
Superman Returns opens with the Man of Steel (played by newcomer Brandon Routh) returning to Earth after a five-year search in space for his home planet Krypton, and finding that his adopted planet has adapted to life without him. Most devastating of all (to him, at least), his lover Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has also moved on with her life, having gotten engaged to Richard White (James Marsden), and is also a mother to a five-year-old son. In the meantime, his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) has also been released from prison and is plotting to destroy the world, as usual.
All-new Man of Steel
The movie is a new take on the legend of Superman, and because of the vast popularity of the character throughout the world, Singer insisted on casting the complete unknown actor Brandon Routh in the blue tights.
Singer had chanced upon the audition tape Routh had done for one of the previous Superman directors, and decided to meet him in a café. “Within minutes of talking to him, I knew he was the one. I remember we were sitting inside, and decided to head outside instead. Brandon just took his coffee, and then stood up, and up, and up, and up ...,” he said, referring to Routh’s height.
“Then later, as we ran into each other as we were going through the door, and I thought to myself, ‘What a Clark!’
”The fact that Brandon looks a bit like Christopher Reeve was part of it as well, but not an essential part.”
According to the movie’s screenwriters Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty, Routh had been Singer’s first choice ever since he met him. “Brandon was always Bryan’s favourite, but before casting him officially, we had to sit through all the other auditions as well,” said Dougherty.
“We even saw Brendan Fraser wearing the Superman suit, and Ashton Kutcher as well!” he added with a shudder.
So, how did Singer go about making a movie about a guy in blue tights and still not manage to make it look like a B-grade movie?
“That’s the fun of Superman, he always looks like he is on the way to a costume party! But you’d forgive him for his wardrobe as long as he saves your life. He forces you to respect, because he is just so powerful.” However, Singer emphasized that Superman is not just about the blue tights.
“Superman is never in disguise – unlike other superheroes, he doesn’t wear a mask. Clark Kent is his disguise, and it’s part of the whole character – the suit, the curl in the hair, the blue eyes and so on.
“It’s all part of a collective consciousness we have of Superman – the product of 70 years of accumulated images from movies, comics and television. Go to any part of the world, and almost everyone would know who Superman is,” he added.
Of course, it helped that screenwriters Harris and Dougherty are equally big fans of Superman as well, and had the added experience of having written the second X-Men movie with Singer as well.
According to Singer, when they worked on the script, they wanted to touch on the more emotional aspects of the character.
“We wanted to show that even the most virtuous and idealistic people could be destroyed by human emotions. That was the key to our story,” he said. “Superman is not always perfect, but there is just something about him that appeals to everyone, to the point where almost anyone in any country in the world would know him.”
Harris added later: “There are only so many ways to use kryptonite! Superman himself was said to be too two-dimensional a character, and lacked angst. So we had to give the sense that something could hurt him.
“So here we have a love triangle between him, Lois and this new guy, and a family that he cannot break up, not like Lex Luthor, whom he can just flick aside.
“We also had to give him a threat that was big and physical enough for him to handle, and at the same time balance that with a story about him and his home world as well.”
So while working on the movie, did they ever live in the fear of screwing up the whole thing?
“We thought about it every day! It was intimidating, but not terrifying. We knew we had to be on our best, because we were working on this 70 year mural in a way, and we had to live up to everyone’s expectations,” said Harris.
In the end, the two, along with Singer, managed to come up with a screenplay that drew upon influences from a broad range of mythology, including Greek, Christianity and so on.
“Superheroes are the mythology of today, and the story of Superman is not so different from all the classic myths and legends that came before,” said Harris.
“All we did is to turn those classic big old stories into a new one, and then whittle it all down to a guy in blue tights!”
posted by scorpioneo at 5:14 PM
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