Exam Blues are back + a review of the newly-released "Donner cut" of "Superman II"

Exam time is here, and boy am I…calm? Yes, a strange phenomenon has happened. I am actually calm the day before my first law school exam of the year. I suppose it comes from the knowledge that I have prepared as I did for my summer Criminal Procedure class. As part of my preparation for that exam, I created my own outline from scratch. In the process of preparing the outline, I absorbed the material to the point where it was enough for me to score an “A” on the exam. I have repeated this process for my Copyrights and Trademarks class and will do so again for Business Organizations and for Evidence. It seems to really work in that my time is not spent learning the common material. Instead, most of my study time has been spent refining the points where I am not at my strongest. The result has been a relative absence of stress. I am sure that will change when the time comes to sit down for the exam, but I distinctly remembering feeling more stress last year than this. Oh well…if I knew now what I knew then….

I have also settled on a schedule for my next semester in school. I will be taking Patents, Advanced Civil Procedure, Wills and Trusts, Trial Advocacy 1, and Commercial Arbitration. There are quite a few “bar classes” that I will still need to take during my third year, but I feel that taking the classes closer to the time when I will take the exam will definitely be to my benefit. I have another great exam schedule, and my only “bad” class day is Wednesday, when I start at 9:30 and end at 8:30. Ouch. At least I will have Fridays off! I find it strange that I will be ½ way done with law school at the end of this exam period. All of my other levels of education (high school, college, and especially graduate school) lasted so much longer than the 3 years that I will have spent learning the law. Part of me is having a difficult time getting my mind around this, but at least I will be out making a living in a short amount of time.

Hmm…what else can I talk about…oh yes, I recently saw a “new” movie, the Richard Donner cut of “Superman II.” All of you probably remember my rants against the so-called return of Superman in Bryan Singer’s film from this past summer, so you can imagine how anxious I was returning to see a film that I thought was a worthy sequel to a classic superhero film. I was astonished (in a good way) with the difference in tone and feel of the Donner cut as compared to those of the original Richard Lester-directed “Superman II.” Gone were the Paris sequences, most of the Niagara Falls sequences, the ridiculous new powers that Lester gave Superman, the mystery behind how Superman received his powers back after being stripped of them, the “Superkiss” that erased Lois’s memory of Superman’s secret identity, and the ridiculous scenes where the supervillains got into a bar fight in a small Southern town. The battle sequences over Metropolis were much more complete, the villains (well, except for Luthor) were much more menacing, and, most important, Jor-El (Marlon Brando) returned in this film. The sacrifice that Clark made in giving up his powers for Lois had much more import, as Christopher Reeve delivered his lines as a man pained by having to do without his own personal happiness for the greater good. In the earlier version of the film, without Jor-El, the audience never really felt the import of Clark’s decision or understood why he so easily gave up his powers. Here, the struggle is apparent and well done. The return of Superman’s powers is also shown to great affect and, remarkably, dovetails quite nicely with the “Smallville” TV series. The return of the powers is an emotional sequence that still resonates days after I first saw it. In that one sequence, the superiority of the Donner cut of the film versus the Lester cut becomes readily apparent. I highly recommend checking out this film if you get a chance. Hopefully, Bryan Singer will do the same before embarking on his next film.