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(Side thought: I confess to being particularly confused about its use in Donner’s Superman II. It appeared to me that from a chronological standpoint, it messed with at least part of the ending of the first film. And is this actually a form of time travel, with the entire planet serving as a time machine? Have alternate realities been constructed? )

If forced to cop to a preference, I would pick Lester’s Superman II, by a slim margin. Yes, I thought of it as gaudy and campy, but the pacing was better and I felt more emotionally attached. However, Donner’s version, flaws and all, felt to me like a near perfect rendering of the comic book format and essence (in that way it reminded me of Ang Lee’s Hulk, a film I very much like). In doing a tandem viewing of them, Donner’s comes up short, though I think I would have felt the same way if I had watched it first, or by itself. Donner did shoot the best sequence in either version: the truly eerie and unsettling moon sequence where Zod, Ursa, & Non mercilessly and cruelly kill a trio of astronauts. Space has really felt darker, lonelier, or less hospitable than in those few minutes.

This week’s column is also a trinity of sorts: the first of the New Year (yay, 2013!), my birthday column (number 37, yay me!), and the last one I will write for the foreseeable future. I have been writing about films for over half my life, in a number of venues and a number of formats. And . . . it just isn’t as fun as it should be anymore. I haven’t “given up” on movies. There are enough doomsayers year in and year out to handle that task. I don’t know if I can quantify or qualify what it is I feel, except by an absence. A spark. I understand that sparks can be extinguished and reignited, but I also feel that the time is right for something else. I know not what. I have great hopes for 2013.

So this is your (whoever you may be) last chance to offer me praise or come to bury me (a little of both would be nice). If you have been holding back since May 2009, speak now or forever hold your silence. One of my favorite lines from a novel is from American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis: “In the end, this confession has meant absolutely nothing.” For me, it’s always been the opposite. All of these confessions (cinematic and otherwise) have meant the world to me. I hope some of them may have to you as well.

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