"You'll believe a man can fly." That was the now famous tagline for Superman: The Movie (1978) as it was known then, a film that changed my life when I first saw it at 6 years of age at Miami's now non-existent Dadeland Theatre. I had seen plenty of movies by now, even films with more glorious special effects than that one. Star Wars had come out 19 months earlier, of course. But there was something magical about seeing one of my comic book heroes interpreted onto the screen so masterfully by director Richard Donner and the late actor Christopher Reeve, something about seeing it in a darkened theater balcony, the kind one rarely finds in existence these days. That film is a linchpin in my life I now realize, responsible for my love of Manhattan (which doubled for Superman's adopted city, Metropolis), inspiring me to learn about much of Hollywood history later due to its conflux of new and old actors, like Marlon Brando, Ned Beatty, Gene Hackman, and others. The point is Superman: The Movie casts a pretty large shadow in my life. So it was with some uneasiness that I went into Man of Steel.
