Look! Up in the--- Waitaminute...

Ok, I used that title already - but "Look! Up in the Sky!" is the name of a documentary that Bryan Singer put together for A&E about the history of Superman (aka Clark Kent, aka Kal-El, aka The Man of Steel, aka Matches Malone - er, sorry, that's the other guy isn't it?). I think it airs again this week. It's narrated by Kevin "Lex Luthor '06" Spacey.

It's pretty complete. From Joe & Jerry in Cleveland in 1938 up through Brandon Routh and Bryan Singer in 2006. (Routh doesn't QUITE have the "Oh my gosh that's SUPERMAN!" that Christopher Reeve did - or Hugh Jackman did as Wolverine - but he does seem to have that Super-something that Reeve did, Dean Cain didn't, and Tom Welling doesn't quite.) They cover all the movies, all the TV shows, hit a lot of the high points of the comic books, and even include Super Friends and Bruce Timm's Superman: The Animated Series (although it's funny to hear them talk about Superman: TAS without mentioning Batman: TAS). Interviews with almost everybody "Superman" you can think of. Most of the movie and TV people (look, Richard Donner and Alexander Salkind on the same screen!), lots of the comic people (Elliot S! Maggin!). Even Mark Hamill and Bill Mumy!

You realize that over the course of almost 70 years a lot of terrible and silly things can happen to a character. Thankfully, I have never been in a production of "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman!" But Scott was.

I have to say, 4 1/2 stars. The half-star is becuase the name Julius Schwartz is not mentioned. And they spend a LOT more time on the JFK assasination and the hippies than they do on WWII. Mind you, there's a half-hour that got cut for TV (and will be on the DVD next week) so maybe Julie and WWII got more mention in the missing footage. (Are the boomers the most narcissistic generation EVER?)