This week I wanted to list my favorite movies. That was kind of hard considering that I watch a lot of movies. My

Honorable Mentions (since I can’t stop naming great movies)

1. Rebel Without A Cause
2. Scarface
3. Heat
4. Hud

Read other Thursday Thirteen lists.

With that said, it was a good movie. Maybe the hype I’ve been hearing since before the movie hit theaters had built it up too much.

Superman/Clark Kent (Brandon Routh) returns after a five-year search for his home planet. He comes home to find Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) with a kid and a boyfriend living with the two. Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) is out of prison and hatching another diabolical plan that would endanger billions of lives. And the man of steel must reintegrate himself into the life of a superhero and a reporter.

I like the direction that Bryan Singer took the movie in though. He modernized it in a way that fits in better with my generation. However, he lost me on the Justice angle. There wasn’t much of one, unless it was supposed to be implied. The few bits from Jor-El helped it a little. But not enough.

He focused most of the film on the Superman/Lois story, which is what many of us wanted to see anyway. Singer portrayed it well, and didn’t fall into a Hollywood-love-story-cliché.

Routh’s performance was on. He was the embodiment of Superman. But, Spacey was better. Mostly, because I was never fond of Gene Hackman’s performance as Lex in the previous films. Bosworth played Lois’ character well enough. And I feel a bit sorry for James Marsdon, who played Lois’ boyfriend. Singer keeps putting him in these roles where he can’t keep his woman.

It is another great story in the Superman saga. Not as great as Christopher Reeve’s Superman I & II, but a story worth seeing.

But, is there something more? I would go as far as saying there is. While, for the most part, this is another rehash of the onslaught of college movies that we’ve seen for the past five years, this movie does offer something a little different. You can be creative outside of conventional standards.

There’s something to be said about freedom from the traditional academic rigors of college and the same ol’ boring lectures. Where this movie really shines is its theme that centers on creativity.

Uncle Ben (Lewis Black), who lands a job at South Harmon Institute of Technology (SHIT), sums up what college is precisely,

Look, we throw a lot of fancy words in front of these kids in order to attract them to going to school in the belief that they’re gonna have a better life, and we know that all we’re doing is breeding a whole new generation of buyers and sellers, BUYERS AND SELLERS! Pimps and whores, PIMPS AND WHORES! and indoctrinating them into a life long hell of debt and indecision!

At least, that’s one way to put it.

Bartelby Gaines (Justin Long) is rejected by every college that he applied to. Not to dissapoint his parents he creates a fake website and acceptance letter from South Harmon with the help of his friend who got into the elite Ohio university Harmon, Sherman Schrader (Jonah Hill). Without realizing it, his one-click acceptance on the South Harmon website lands him a few hundred students at orientation. So, he did what he had to do. He accepted their first semester’s tuition and began a nontraditional college.

What ensues is plenty of laughs and academic nonconformism where fun and creativity are celebrated.

I don’t mean to hype up the movie too much because it is full of the usual run-of-the-mill college movie stunts to keep your attention. But, there is a message here that is worth hearing, even if it’s only for a one-night rental.

Usually, when someone recommends a film to me and say it is a perfect depiction of the South, I cringe. This time it was different. The voices were southern, and not the Hollywood version of southern voices either. Yes, that’s the first thing southern people notice when watching a movie about the South, the voices. We can’t help it; it’s the part that always gets messed up the most.

Madeleine, an art gallery owner from Chicago, and her husband, George, get a chance to go back to his home town as she tries to woo a potential client. From that point on, the family tension grows. Johnny, George’s brother and Ashley’s (Amy Adams) husband, has a history with his brother that has never been resolved and a love for his wife that he can’t seem to show. Ashley clings to every moment with Madeleine and fills the screen with a kind of southern warmth that is rare in film.

The plot never fully explodes. But it’s not expected to. And suprisingly, the film is lacking in the usual southern vs. northern clichés. Morrison presents an original piece of work here.

The most important theme of the movie is family. You do things because they’re your family. No matter where you go in life, your roots will still be a part of who you are. We get these thematic details through Madeleine’s eyes as she finds out more about her husband’s roots. She finds out that he eats mayonnaise. That he sings hymns. That he has a family unlike anything she has known, a family that cares first and foremost about family.

Whether this is a perfect depiction of the southern family is not important. What is important is that it’s the closest thing you’re going to get.

Fred Schepisi does a wonderful job putting the pieces together in the small New England town of Empire Falls. Almost every actor was dead-on portraying the characters from the book. Although, Francince Whiting didn’t seem quite as evil in the film adaptation. I was especially in awe of Paul Newman’s performance of Max Roby. He was by far the funniest (and the saddest when he needed to be) character in the film.

There seems to be something missing from the adaptation though. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s there. I guess that’s what you get from any film in which you’ve already read the book. It’s lacking some of the little details that one can only explain in words.

Nevertheless, the film was wonderful. A young movie and book buff like myself can only hope for more film adaptations like this one in the future. By far, one of the best adaptations you can get your hands on.

Joss Whedon pulls off a masterpiece in this follow-up to his short-lived series Firefly. From every syllable uttered to every camera angle, the crew behind this movie put their heart and souls into the making of this film. Kudos to everyone involved in this project. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing this on DVD. Hopefully, the box-office numbers will reflect what a great movie this is and allow the crew of Serenity to live on.

This is one movie that I would pay the $7.75 to see again in the theater.