Movie Review: Man of Steel

It's a bird ... it's a plane ... no, it's Superman, updated for the new millenium!

We seem to have hit a lull with the construction news that gets BizMojo Idaho readers excited, so let's go to the movies.

"Man of Steel" doesn't bring a whole lot  new to the Superman story, but that would be pretty tough to do. Although it had its shortcomings (more on this later), I found it to be an excellent movie for Fathers Day and especially good for adoptive parents and children.

The story, first laid out in 1937 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, is all here. With their home planet, Krypton, due to explode any day (the result of reckless energy extraction, hint, hint), baby Kal-El's parents, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara (Ayelet Zurer), put him in a space capsule and shoot him to Earth. He is found in cornfield near Smallville, Kan., by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who raise him as their own. Because of the Sun's radiation, young Clark Kent has extraordinary abilities that he must keep under wraps. Too bad every school bus he rides on seems to plunge off a bridge, leaving it up to him to save the day.

This part of the tale is done in flashback, with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha. Clark is played by the suitably handsome Henry Cavill, an English actor best known for his work on Showtime's "The Tudors." He has a nice way of underplaying the role, suggesting Tom Welling and the TV show "Smallville" more than Christopher Reeve.

Any Superman movie had better have a good Lois Lane, and in "Man of Steel" the honors go to Amy Adams ("Enchanted," "The Master") who plays the Daily Planet reportrix with the requisite pluck and grit. Unlike the Superman we grew up with, Lois traces the Man of Steel back to his roots and puts the pieces together. No pair of horn-rimmed glasses is going to fool her. This is a Superman for the 21st century.

Clark/Kal-El spends a lot of time adjusting to Earth, working odd jobs (fishing trawler, dishwasher, etc.) and keeping a low profile. His senses are heightened and the X-ray vision is a bit of a freakout for him in elementary school.

During all this time, a gang of imprisoned Kryptonians led by General Zod (Michael Shannon) has been freed by Krypton's destruction. They set out to find a new planet to colonize, and after 35 years of hunting they find Earth, whose defenses are far to feeble to thwart them.

This is a job for Superman!

The last third of "Man of Steel" is taken up with explosions and destruction, flying tanker trucks, missiles, jets, etc., all of a piece with what we saw in "The Avengers," "Iron Man 3," the "Transformers" movies, and you-tell-me-what-else. Smallville gets trashed first, then it's on to Metropolis, where the level of destruction is truly gargantuan.

I suppose this is the sort of action audiences expect, and I know someone is going to say to me, "I just go to the movies to be entertained." Fair enough. I'm not expecting "The Seventh Seal" when I go to a movie like this. If tickets sales are good there won't be any reason to stop making movies like this, no matter how boring and redundant these scenes of cataclysm may be getting to be.

Spoiler alert: Kal-El/Clark/Superman defeats Zod and his minions. Most are sent back to their intergalactic Gitmo, but the general meets a more earthly end.

The movie wraps up with Clark taking a job as a stringer for the Daily Planet. Considering the Kryptonian state of the newspaper industry I think he might want to rethink his career choice, but what do I know? Also, what's the deal with the Daily Planet building being all shiny looking when Metropolis had been destroyed only a short time before? Is FEMA that good in the DC Comics universe? Or did they get "super" help?

For all my caveats, I can say without shame that I enjoyed "Man of Steel." As summer flicks go it was as good as "Iron Man 3." Expect a sequel in two or three years. I'm guessing the baddie will be Lex Luthor. Any ideas who should play him?

MAN OF STEEL -- Directed by Zach Snyder. Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane. Rated PG-13. Grade: B

Idaho Falls Power posts Twitter, Facebook notices on tree-trimming, paving work

Let's hand it to our friends at Idaho Falls Power -- they are actually posting information on Facebook and Twitter that might be useful to people. I don't know if you're going to be in the neighborhoods mentioned, but knowledge is power, right? So here's the scoop:

Tree-trimming crews are out across Idaho Falls today - in the 600 block of Neptune, the 400 block of Bellin and three blocks on Starlight. Idaho Falls Power line crews are out, too, on Hartert, Holmes, Northgate Mile and Elmore.

Work also began on the parking lot at Idaho Falls Power headquarters on Capital Avenue. Crews will be resurfacing half of the lot this year and the other half in 2014.

You might want to consider liking them (Facebook) or following them (Twitter). Who knows, next time there's a power outage in your neighborhood, you might get the news faster than anyone.

Female guitar makers of WWII the focus of talk Wednesday at Museum of Idaho

Female workers at the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, Mich., during World War II

I'm probably going to be posting a lot about the exhibit at the Museum of Idaho GUITAR: The Instrument that Rocked the World, which opened last Friday.

This Wednesday at 7, the first guest speaker is John Thomas, author of "Kalamazoo Gals: A Story of Extraordinary Woman and the Gibson 'Banner' Guitars of WII."

While history had it that Gibson shut down production at its Kalamazoo, Mich., factory during World War II, Thomas was intrigued by a photo of seventy women sitting in four rows in front of the factory in the mid-1940s. He set out to find at least one of the women in the photograph and ended up finding a dozen. Despite denials that endured into the 1990s, Gibson employed a nearly all female workforce to build thousands of wartime guitars and marked each with a small, golden "banner" pronouncing that "Only a Gibson is Good Enough." The banner appeared on the guitars at the moment those women entered the factory in January 1942 (coincidentally, the big hit on the pop charts then was Glenn Miller's "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.") The banner disappeared at the end of 1945 when the war ended, the soldiers returned, and most of the Kalamazoo Gals ceded their guitar making jobs back to their male predecessors.

Thomas' talk will be in the Maeck Family Foundation Education Center (in the same parking lot of the museum.)

Tickets are $5 and can be purchased in advance from the front desk or at the door. For more information, call 208-522-1400, ext. 3012

Scientech files building plans with city of Idaho Falls

Scientech's plans for its new office buildings

Scientech has filed building plans with the city of Idaho Falls and is ready to get started on its new office buildings at Snake River Landing.

The company, which provides safety and risk analyses and instrumentation worldwide to the nuclear industry, plans two buildings on 10 acres at the corner of Bluff Street and Whitewater Drive. One building will be 39,500 square feet, the other will be 36,900 square feet, and the two will be joined by a breezeway. The site is near the offices of Potandon Produce and the future site of the Idaho Falls Event Center.

A business unit of Curtiss-Wright Flow Control Co., Scientech has operated for several years out of offices on South Woodruff Avenue. The company employs more than 150 people in Idaho Falls.

ISU's Vicki Allen named 'Pinnacle Professional'

Vicki Lynn Allen

Vicki Lynn Allen, director of clinical site development for the Physician Assistance Program at Idaho State University, has been recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Pinnacle Professional in the field of health care. Allen has more than 30 years of experience in nursing. In 1992 she developed "Adolescence in the Nineties," a six-week program for parents and students sponsored by Pocatello Regional Medical Center. The program ran for eight years.

Her membership in professional and community organizations include the National Association of Neonatal Nurses; Association of Women, Newborn and Neonatal Nursing; American Academy of Pediatrics; American Heart Association; and the National Council State Boards of Nursing.

She also serves as vice chair of the Idaho State Board of Nursing and is a board member of the Pocatello Free Clinic. She has received the Volunteer of the Year Award from Project Safe Place (2000) as well as the "8 Who Make a Difference" Award (2000). She has been nominated as a March of Dimes Nurse Manager of the Year (2006) and was honored in 2007 with a March of Dimes Excellence in Nursing Award as well as a March of Dimes Nurse of the Year Award. Allen has also received the Idaho Business Review Nurse Health Care Hero Award (2007) and was awarded the Idaho Hospital Association Award of Excellence in Patient Care (2008).