The Favorite Films Of My Lifetime: 1997

Wow, another year that ends in 7 and another really difficult one to make cuts.  Big list that was hard to get down to 6.  The cuts like Fifth Element and the extremely underrated The Lost World sucked to do.  And I cut Gattaca because while I really loved that movie when I first saw it, I've owned it or never gone back to it because I'm afraid it might not hold up.  Yeah, I'm weird, but I really want to keep  my high from seeing it together.  This year I remember most because the Oscar race for Best Picture might have been the best and strongest I had ever seen.  Had Titanic not come this year, 3 of the other 4 nominees probably would have won Best Picture in any other year.  While I did see Titanic twice and it was deserving, I can't help that I liked 2 other films better, but that's me. 1997 is also notable as it was the year I was first able to see the Star Wars movies on the big screen and it was a fun and incredible 3 months when those 'Special Editions' were released.

SUPERMAN LIVES: The Superman Film That Never Was

Slated for release in the summer of 1998, in time for the 60th anniversary of Superman's first appearance, was the return of  the last son of krypton in Superman Lives.  In 1996, after seeing Mallrats, Warner Bros brought in Kevin Smith based on the presumption that he had a large knowledge of all things Superman because of a choice line of dialogue in the movie.  Smith was commissioned to flesh out a script with producer Jon Peters.  Things went kind of crazy with that whole process (and you can get more details below).  Smith fleshed out a script using elements of the Doomsday storyline featuring the death of Superman.  The script also featured villains Brainiac and The Eradicator.  Smith's ideal casting were his usual crop of characters.  However, things moved on and so did Smith.