NEWSFLUSHES
(Link) Take me, I'm yours -- alleged tax evader Snipes surrenders to the Feds.
(Link) Papa Subliminal -- Kevin Nealon and wife are expecting a wee'un.
(Link) Got yer back, Jack -- Rick Shroeder tags along with Kiefer.



HAPPY FRICKIN' BIRTHDAY...
** Austrian born actor Maximilian Schell is 76
** Boxing promoter not named Don King, Bob Arum is 75
** Closet Oriental David Carradine is 70
** Long retired from booking 'em, James MacArthur is 69
** Musician and ex to Cher about forty plastic surgeries ago, Gregg Allman is 59
** Writer slash director with a film currently showing, Nancy Meyers is 57
** Oscar winner and still smokin' babe Kim Basinger is 53
** ESPN motor mouth Roy Firestone is 53
** Former Duran Duran guy Warren Cuccurullo is 50
** Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen is 49
** Notorious right-wing ditch pig Ann Coulter is 45
** Rail thin Desperate Housewife Teri Hatcher is 42
** Infamous Pope ripper Sinead O'Connor is 40
** Mike Mussina, AKA Cito Gaston's favourite pitcher, is 38
** Nextel Cupper (part one) Kevin Harvick is 31
** Still a Lostie Dominic Monaghan is 30
** Nextel Cupper (part two) Ryan Newman is 29
** Former Lostie Ian Somerhalder is 28
** Perhaps soon-to-be traded Blue Jays' slugger and ace glovemanVernon Wells is 28
** San Diego Chargers' pigskin slinger Philip Rivers is 25



HELLO, GOODBYE
Jim Morrison was born on December 8, 1943. John Lennon died on December 8, 1980. Is there a more noteworthy day in rock 'n roll history?



WHO SAID WHAT???
From Wednesday, December 6:

"Would you be offended if I said I'd like to use your ass as a bongo drum?"

-- spoken by Peter Griffin (as voiced on Family Guy by Seth MacFarlane)



SONG ON THE BRAIN
"Porcelain" by Moby (released in 1999 on V2 Records)


THE BIG PLUNGE: S IS FOR SUPER, MAN
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... it's... it's a guy in his underwear.

Flying.

Would Superman become a pop cultural phenomenon if he were introduced today? Hard to say, really. The thought of an alien superhero zipping through the air in his best Calvin Kleins while saving the world from megalomaniacs is a bit of a stretch. Now, if he were ridding the world of corrupt politicians and/or Paris Hilton, well, maybe.

In any case, I was excited to see the release of the 14-disc Superman DVD set recently, bringing together all four Christopher Reeve films (even though the last two sucked Kryptonite), and adding the promising but underwhelming Superman Returns and the long pined-for Richard Donner cut of Superman II, along with other assorted animated and documentary-type stuff.

The original 1978 movie is in the box in two different versions -- the original theatrical cut and an extended director's cut stuffed to the rafters with extra footage.

And speaking of different versions, there could hardly be two different versions of the same movie than the theatrical version of Superman II and the newly put together Richard Donner cut that fans have been begging for almost since the movie hit screens in 1980.

The plan for the first two films was for Donner to shoot them back-to-back, a practice that is becoming much more commonplace nowadays (see The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean for recent examples of this). With the due date for the first film approaching, Donner stopped working on the second film, which had completed about 70 per cent of its principal photography, in order to put the finishing touches on the first.

Donner never got to finish the second. He was canned by producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind before work resumed on the second, which was then turned over to director Richard Lester (best known at that point as director of The Beatles' first two films). Lester ended up using about half of what Donner shot, adding much of his own footage, most notably the Eiffel Tower terror sequence that occurs early in Superman II.

After being disappointed with Lester's Superman III, many fans clamored for Donner to have a chance to put his Superman II together. When Warner Brothers announced the box set earlier this year, the fans got their wish, although originally Donner was going to have nothing to do with the project. But as time went on, the studio came to its senses and Donner came on board, showing an enthusiasm totally lacking any bitterness to which he was probably entitled.

And what a job he did with Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. While the film is a little rough around the edges in places (one scene was never filmed so screen test footage was utilized), it is faithful to Donner's original vision. It's superior in some ways to Lester's finished product which, despite all the political wrangling in the background, still turned out to be a pretty darned good film.

Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace are pretty bad movies, but still worth watching because every moment with Christopher Reeve in the tights and cape could hardly be called a waste of time.

I've still got some stuff to watch on this set, including the Max Fleischer animated shorts from the forties and the movie that immediately preceded the fifties TV series starring George Reeves, the wonderfully titled Superman and the Mole-Men. And about a weekend's worth of documentaries and deleted scenes.

It's as good a time as any for me to take off. S is also for See ya later.

Stay tuned...