Word: comical
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...debate has raged for decades: is he Jewish, Methodist, Kryptonian Raoist? But finally, it's been settled: Superman is definitely... a non-Aryan Protestant. The complex origins of many a comic book character are deconstructed at the engaging and erudite exhibit, "From Superman to the Rabbi's Cat" - through Jan. 27 at the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris - which explores the impact of the Jewish experience on the evolution of the comic strip and graphic novel...
...Comics are serious culture in France, where they were named "the Ninth Art" in 1964 by historian Claude Beylie. Today, the country hosts the preeminent annual international comic book festival in the town of Angoulême. And it is in that committed comic-book aficionado spirit that "From Superman to the Rabbi's Cat" presents some 230 American and European works dating back to 1890, including the 1940 strip How Superman Would End the War. "I'd like to land a strictly non-Aryan sock on your jaw," grumbles the Man of Steel as he drags Adolf Hitler...
...Like their characters, many of these artists took on dual identities, says author and comic book historian Didier Pasamonik, a consultant on the exhibit: "There was a kind of diffused anti-Semitism at the time, and it was better to use a good American commercial name to reach the wider public." Even as Robert Kahn had become Bob Kane and Jacob Kurtzberg worked as Jack Kirby, their superheroes reflected some of the identity they were masking, evoking Jewish concepts such as tikkun olam (repairing the world through social action) and legends such as the Golem of Prague, the medieval superhero...
...think, by his wintery eye. It would have been easy to turn this movie into a black comedy, but Lumet is not having any of that (indeed, he has not generally been at his best in overtly comic pieces). Neither is he a conscious moralist. He is, at heart, a melodramatist, pushing an intricate story along smartly, but never in a rushed or hasty manner. He is one of those blessed directors who first knows what he wants and then quickly recognizes when he's got it. His last movie, Find Me Guilty, a wild take on an endless Mafia...
...unexpectedly,” is such a blatant metaphor for the rest of the story that her character loses all credibility. Her words seem so planted that from the start Binoche has no choice but to commit to a cheesy delivery. Thankfully, Carell rescues the film with the comic timing for which he is known. While hackneyed lines tend to trivialize his more emotional moments, Carell’s self-deprecating humor reveals his understanding of a deeper character beneath the script’s more obvious jokes. Overall, such groan-inducing ploys are the weakest point...