The Big Picture - ‘Captain Marvel’ Is a ’90s Nostalgia Play. Did It Work? | Exit Survey

Episode Date: March 8, 2019

Brie Larson stars as ‘Captain Marvel’ in the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its first stand-alone female superhero movie. We react to what it means for the forthcoming ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and how directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck incorporated elements of the 1990s into the Marvel machine. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I want to tell you about our new show, Can I Still Eat For A Second? The Ringer's Guide to Colton's Season, streaming now on Hulu. The show is an inside look into Colton Underwood's season of The Bachelor, starring Ben Higgins, Rachel Lindsay, Lauren Zima, and our very own Juliette Lippman. Make sure to tune in before Monday's finale for never-before-heard insight into all things Bachelor Nation, streaming now on Hulu. I'm Sean Fennessey.

And I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, at least this week. Amanda, of course, usually is here to talk about celebrity stardom and particularly the Oscars, but not today. Today we talk about a galaxy far, far away. And we talk about the Kree-Skrull Wars. Amanda, we're talking about Captain Marvel. And Captain Marvel is a new film that is out today, if you listening to this podcast Friday and uh it is it is a movie it is a Marvel movie what were your immediate reactions to this story of Brie Larson's Captain Marvel searching for her

identity on earth and at large I mean this is an unfair reaction but you asked for my immediate one and I my immediate reaction was this is not Wonder Woman. It's not Wonder Woman. That's true. Yeah, which, you know, and that's a high bar. I have been mocked roundly in the Ringer universe for having loved Wonder Woman and ranking it very high in my end-of-year list. And I stand by that. I rewatched some of it last night. And I think that's a really, really tough example to live up to. And I think also there is the inevitability of comparing two female superhero movies,

but there's also the unfairness of comparing two female superhero movies. They should get to exist in their own universe. They don't yet because there are only two of them. Yes, we really needed to break the seal on this. And unfortunately, I think every conversation about Captain Marvel, for better and worse, is going to be burdened by this idea that Marvel finally made a movie that is about a female protagonist. She is at the center of this movie. Captain Marvel is one of the oldest characters they've had. Carol Danvers has gone through various permutations over the years. You know,

there were a lot of people who for many years thought that maybe Scarlet Witch or more specifically Black Widow should have had their own movie. now. Neither of them got it. It's this movie. But so that caveat kind of has to exist throughout this conversation, which is there is a little bit of perfunctory kind of messaging, I think, that is embedded inside of this story. There is a kind of empowerment theme and an identity pursuit theme that comes with it that you probably wouldn't have nearly as deeply if this were the second Captain Marvel movie or the first Black Widow movie after the Captain Marvel movie or the way that things go from here. And I thought that that would be kind of an interesting place for us to start this conversation too, because one of the things that I thought was less effective about the movie that really kind of made me struggle with it is it felt like a reset to the days when we had to do origin stories for superheroes.

And so I think it's definitely fair and right to compare it to Wonder Woman. What Wonder Woman did was gave us the best version of its origin story in the first 30 minutes, and then we were kind of done with that. And this movie basically spends all its time exploring and then explaining who Captain Marvel is what was your reaction to kind of going back to that like here's how Steve Rogers became a super soldier style of storytelling well I'm probably the wrong person to ask on this stuff because I have never read any comic books ever not for me so anytime there's a part of the movie that's like here's who this person is my response response is, thank you, because I didn't know. You love an origin story.

No, because, you know, at some point it's always like, oh, my mom or my dad, you know? Like, I get it. I know what the origin is. I think we all do throughout history and time. They're all about moms and dads. You're right about that. But I do think, especially in terms of character development and just actually getting to spend the time in the psyche of this person, that is what I personally respond to in these movies and in all movies. And I do find an origin story to be more relatable than, say, some of the arcane mythology that we will be discussing later in this podcast.

But they are all the same. They are all some sort of parent and feeling, you know, ignored or outcast by some aspect of life. And there is a repetitive quality to them. It really can feel like plug and play. And I guess we've seen a lot of origin stories at this point would be my response to the Captain Marvel thing. It was familiar. It is definitely familiar. There's some interesting choices here that I don't think are that effective, but I thought they were interesting, which is the movie essentially takes

this time fractured approach, this approach where we're sort of flashing back often and we're seeing flashes of the characters past frequently in this sort of montage effect. And also it's evident that the character has some kind of amnesia.

And so you don't really know who the person is or where they're going, especially if you, like you, have not read any of the comic books. So you don't know where it's going necessarily, even though I would say it probably telegraphed some of its beats pretty clearly. It's pretty clear.

Okay, so you knew the whole time when you were watching. There was no confusion about where she was headed. Well, in the sense of who she was. Yeah. There wasn't, but also maybe I just read an article about it ahead of time or something. I think that you can connect the dots pretty clearly in this, which I don't mean as a slight. They make it clear where they're going. Yeah, and let us use this opportunity since you read an article about it and have seen the movie.

And I've also read many articles about it. We will spoil the movie to some extent during this conversation so if you feel like you've already been spoiled too much perhaps return to us on monday morning after you spent the weekend at the cineplex seeing captain marvel three or four or six times i don't know it depends on what you want to do but you know you noted the uh the notion of parents in this movie and there's a there's an angry dad there's always an angry angry dad. And then there are all of these surrogate figures. We're introduced very early on to a character named Jan Rog. Were you familiar with the fact that his name was Jan Rog? I had no idea until later, after I read a review after the fact.

He is played by Jude Law. Bad name, I know. And we love Jude Law on this podcast. And we meet him as a sort of Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque mentor figure in Veers' life. Veers is who we learn is ultimately going to be Captain Marvel and also is Carol Danvers. But she believes that she is a, I guess, a Kree super spy. Is that essentially how she's positioned in this movie? Yes. A spy in training?

She explains it to Sam Jackson as they are a race of noble warriors or something at some point. And she is a member of Starforce. Yeah. Which is an agency of some kind, perhaps like the CIA, that visits planets and fights wars surreptitiously. And so she has this one figure. She has Yon-Rogg. I can't believe Yon-Rogg is the name of a character that I'm talking about on a podcast. And then she also has Supreme Intelligence, which is AI that she encounters.

It's the sort of most powerful being in the Kree society. And that AI appears in the personage of Annette Bening. But Annette Bening also plays another character named Dr. Wendy Lawson on Earth, and also another character named Mar-Vell. Are you following? Yes, but we should say that I'm allowed to spoil, right? We're spoiling.

Yeah, Mar-Vell is Dr. Lawson. She is. Right. But she is not Supreme Intelligence. That's simply what Veers, a.k.a. Captain Marvel, a.k.a. Carol Danvers, sees when she visits the AI. Yeah. Now, I'm saying all of these things and I'm identifying this surrogacy.

Annette Bening's character, Characters, is also a surrogate in some ways to Carol. Because this is really confusing. And the movie itself, while easily telegraphing what's going to happen in the movie, goes to almost ridiculous lengths to set up its story. And I was kind of blown away by just kind of rickety some of the storytelling here was because the Marvel Cinematic Universe is this fascinating, well-oiled, powerful machine at this stage. And I was like, hmm, this doesn't seem to be locking together the way it ought to yes i think now's a good time to mention the other origin story that is in this film which is the origin story of shield yes correct did i get it right i was nervous

but yes spelled like shield yes so and this is it's it's that story of how kind of the avengers come together and then i believe and this is where you're going to have to help me because these things don't stay in my brain, but there, it is some sort of explanation of the, what's the box, the glowing box. It's the Tesseract. Yes. But that is a MacGuffin through several other movies, right? Yes. You may remember the Tesseract from the first Avengers film. Oh, right. And then, of course, the most recent Avengers film, Avengers Infinity War, which ultimately becomes one of the stones, one of the Infinity Gems that Thanos is in pursuit of. So you're making an interesting point, which is that this movie is basically a connective tissue movie. You know, it's a movie that's trying to pull, drag through all of this continuity

that we know about from the past. And that's the other thing about it. And I don't want to get too far ahead because I do want to spend a lot of time on this notion, but it's a period piece that is set in the 90s. So virtually everything that happens

in this movie happens before the entire cinematic universe that we have been watching or not watching, perhaps in your case. I have seen so many of these movies. I knew that the thing

was from the other thing. Well put. Thank you. And I think because of that, it has to do a lot of legwork. It has to do a lot of wink, wink, nudge, nudge stuff. And so what it is doing is trying to set up the next Avengers movie, which is the most important movie yet to come in the Marvel universe, while also making a Captain Marvel movie. And that's a tough thing to do. Yes. And the rickety-ness is kind of what made me think of that because it's doing a lot. that's a tough thing to do yes and the ricketyness is kind of what made me think of that because it's doing a lot it's a really big task and frankly it makes more sense in the context of the movie than what we just said they do a good job of you know what brie larson in whatever form she is whether it's carol danvers or veers or whatever you you know what her goals are you

understand the motivations you know who's on what side. But the mythology that goes with it, they're just trying to do so much because they're trying to set the stage for the next Avengers movie, the last Avengers movie. And they're also, I guess, trying to bring in all of this. Can we talk about the Kree-Skrull stuff? Sure. That seemed extra to me and i understand that it's part of her it's who she is and how she becomes captain marvel but they really spent a lot of time talking about the intergalactic wars of two alien races that possibly didn't need to have quite this much

detail in the movie i I don't know. That's just another layer that is added on to all of the expository work that they're already doing to set up all the other Marvel stuff. And it's a lot. I think it similarly is a MacGuffin for this story. Now, obviously, the Kree-Skrull War

is sort of what introduced a more modern version of Captain Marvel to audiences. It was a storyline that was introduced in the early 70s by Marvel. It was written by Roy Thomas. It's very famous for its level of intergalactic Star Wars-esque approach to storytelling. It's real canonical Avengers stuff. So it does fit in with a lot of that.

And what it does is I think it presents sort of false positives to the audience. So at first you believe that the Skrull are very evil and that she must defeat the Skrull. And then you realize it's ultimately the Kree that are evil and they have brainwashed her to some extent and they are trying to use the powers that she has accumulated because of her work with Dr. Lawson who is also Mar-Vell. Who is a Kree but then wants to work for the Skrull. Exactly. And so they're just storytelling devices unfortunately that include actors like Ben Mendelsohn appearing in absurd makeup and cracking jokes about cats and I don't

I didn't have a problem with the Kree Skrull stuff it actually felt like a kind of kitsch that has been missing from some of these movies as the Marvel movies have gotten better they've gotten less interested in the kind of like trashiness of comic book movies of the 90s and this this being a nineties movie, it felt a little bit like Batman forever at times where I was like, that guy's definitely just wearing face paint.

You know what I mean? Like he's just, he just has prosthetic ears on and that tactile quality I thought was interesting. It just was a little inconsistent with other aspects of the movie. You know, Brie Larson is so shiny and so perfectly posed in this movie. And she is so the modern Marvel iconic. You used the phrase like Nike ad when we walked out. And there are a lot of images like that. And the alien stuff that you're talking about is not like that. It's like almost cheap looking.

Like I don't want to disparage the sort of the craftspeople who made the movie, but there is something like retro about it. it's definitely a different tone and you're right that it sets the tone of the movie in terms of because we're used to marvel movies being something else right like captain america was also a world war ii movie or world it was world war ii correct yeah wonder woman is world war one and i also know that wonder woman is dc Please don't at me. But, and then what Ant-Man is like the modern day slacker dude. I don't know. It's like an Apatow movie, but Ant-Man, you know. Yeah, Bay Area washout.

Right. And so everybody kind of has another genre that goes with their movies. And so this is, that stuff is useful in being like, these are the sci-fi movies. And it is, you certainly buy into that they communicate that Brie Larson is interesting in that context it does feel a little bit like she's in a different movie I spent so much time just admiring her hair and I won't talk about this for too long but Brie Larson has these like easy waves in every single scene that guys guys, those took three hours. Like that hair, that is not natural. That was just like piece by piece

and it's never out of place. And she is kind of polished and she's doing this kind of plucky, fighting back vibe that is not, she's not silly. And everything else is, I don't mean silly in the dismissive way, but in the kind of silly fun,

kind of closer to Guardians, for lack of a better term. Yes, all the other aspects of the movie. Yeah, I don't mean silly in the dismissive way, but in the kind of silly, fun, kind of closer to Guardians, for lack of a better term. Yes, all the other aspects of the movie. Yeah, I agree. But you mentioned something that is really, I think, kind of the core conversation point of the movie, which is when the movie is Captain America, the first Avenger, and Steve Rogers is this plucky, patriotic do-gooder, we are like, huh, what a good guy. And then Chris Evans gets to be a good guy. And I sense in the conversation around this movie, and even in myself a little bit,

that there's something that just feels falsely girl power about some of the stuff in the movie. And that's a criticism that is very hard to levy against a movie like this because it is culturally significant. And it does matter that there's a woman starring in a marvel movie front and center and that there's no love story in this movie per se and that there's no sort of like necessary male sidekick other than the old guy that you know from the other shield movies right you know so i don't want to trample on the meaning of the movie but i also want to note that it doesn't quite feel right yeah i mean i agree you. And it was the first thing I said to you walking out was that there was something about this particular brand of its female empowerment messaging that felt it's almost reactive, for lack of a better word, which I think is a little bit in keeping of with the Captain Marvel order in the Marvel Universe. It's like we've gotten here a little late and it's just it's in response to the circumstances. And Brie Larson's determination and motivation as a female heroine

is entirely framed in responding to men to have put her down and told her that she's not good enough and she's too emotional. And, you know, that happens all the time. That is certainly a real life thing. Just check my Twitter mentions. But it does feel i don't even want to say half-baked but it just kind of feels like that's not enough that's a circumstance of a person as opposed to the definition of a person and certainly the definition of a woman and her identity as a woman so i agree that it wasn't as fully baked as I would like it to be. And I will say I liked that they engaged with the idea of what is a female superhero. Because I think at this point, you haven't had one for this long in your franchise. You can't ignore it. And that is something worth thinking about. And one of the reasons I really, really loved Wonder Woman was because of how it engaged with that idea and presented it. So I don't mean to totally knock it, but I agree

that it wasn't, I won't remember it. It was not particularly fulfilling or sustaining. I think that's the right way to frame it. And I'm fearful about saying this doesn't feel right, because it's not, the point is not that there being a Captain Marvel movie doesn't feel right. It's the way that this movie is framed doesn't feel right. And's not it's not the point is not that uh there being a captain marvel movie doesn't feel right it's the way that this movie is framed doesn't feel right and i think you hit on it and as you were talking i realized what part of the problem is at least as as we compare it to a movie like wonder woman which is that wonder woman like superman is a god and the levels of emotional complexity that we expect from a god are lesser than a real person carol danvers is a real person but for the majority

of the movie she is not carol danvers she is veers or she is captain marvel or she can't remember who the hell she can't remember anything yeah and so we never really get to know her except and and this is the thing that has become most interesting to me about this movie we get to know her through these flashbacks that we talked about her on a go-kart being accosted by her father her getting up to the plate against a boy throwing a baseball her doing the rope

and basic training we should say Carol is a pilot in the Air Force and most specifically the one that sticks out to me is her doing karaoke in a dive bar

with her friend Maria Rambeau wearing a Guns N' Roses t-shirt. And here's what that means. It's 1995. She got a Guns N' Roses t-shirt that's clearly just right off the rack that no one's ever worn before. All the clothes here are never worn before. And it signals this kind of onslaught. Right when you see that t-shirt signals this onslaught of 90s paraphernalia that pervades this movie and it's in the soundtrack it's all over the soundtrack it's in the clothing that she's wearing and that other characters are wearing it's in the way that Samuel L Jackson and Clark Gregg's characters are digitally de-aged I thought there was a critic out

there and forgive me forgetting who wrote this but I thought there was a critic out there, and forgive me for getting who wrote this, but I thought there was something very clever about having a Samuel L. Jackson character in the mid-90s driving around in a car in Los Angeles, a la Jules Winfield in Pulp Fiction. It probably would have been a step too far to have Nick Fury have a jerry curl, but it's an evocation of a moment that I thought was clever, but also very surface. And all of the music cues are very surface. A security guard can be seen listening to Whatta Man. In his car while he observes a blockbuster, Carol Danvers, as she realizes she needs to escape a chase scene scene steals a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and a

leather jacket off of a mannequin outside of a boutique could there be a more apt metaphor for

this movie than stealing a t-shirt of an industrial rock band off of a mannequin I mean that is

it's too rich I don't know how the filmmakers don't see that sort of thing when they do that and famously I think what will be sort of infamous is the big fight sequence in this movie is set to no doubt just a girl.

And I think that that's cute and clever. And certainly the chorus of that song makes it fit when she's punching Jude Law in the face repeatedly. But also, like, sometimes something can be ham-handed, you know? Even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it can be like too obvious. Yeah. And I felt like all of these things that I'm describing were just a little bit like, this is the BuzzFeed article version of,

the BuzzFeed list version of the 90s. It's not the 90s. I mean, here is the thing, and I'm sorry to keep hearing this, but it is a certain sad kind of fitting that the movie about the female superhero is tasked with doing far too much but this movie has like too much to do you know like this movie has to set up her origin story it has to set up all of the serious stuff it needs to be the 90s

movie it needs to engage with the all of the female weight it's just like they got too much going on so you can't really dig into any one thing it's so I agree with you it's just like they got too much going on. So you can't really dig into any one thing. It's so I agree with you. It just feels like they were grabbing all of the 90s references like at the blockbuster and the and like there's a grunge reference. You know, there's one thing where they comment on her clothing because she has the flannel tied around her waist. And, you know, they make sure to like say grunge, you know, because like hey the 90s but I just feel that this is so stuffed with so many things because it is supposed to be so many things to so many different people and you know that is the weight of Marvel movies right now they really have to be mainstream they have to work for everyone because they are expensive and

they got to make their money back so I'm sympathetic to it while also agreeing with you. Yeah, to me, it's not like the movie failed. Like my vision of the 90s is very different from theirs, even though it's the same. The songs that are in the movie, I like those songs. Who doesn't like What a Man? What kind of an asshole doesn't like Salt-N-Pepa? You know what I mean?

It's not that has offended my sensibility. I did think that there was something interesting about the idea of, and I don't know if we've said their names yet, but Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who made this movie, Anna, of course, being the first woman co-director of a Marvel film, come from a kind of indie 90s-esque background in independent film. And they are taking on a big for hire job, helping conceive the storyline of this very significant character in this massive global corporate machine. And the idea of the 90s, sort of the core theme of the cultural 90s, is this concept of selling out and what you should do to achieve success and what you should

do to maintain your artistic dignity. Now, I think Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's films are very good. I think especially Half Nelson and Sugar and Mississippi Grind, which I think is one of the best gambling movies ever made. And you know, for me, that's high praise. And also features a wonderful Ben Mendelsohn performance, who is also very funny in this movie. But it feels like a real-time example of people rejecting, in some ways, a kind of core ethos that they spent a lot of time and hard work and ingenuity building. I don't want to be seen as the person who's like, you guys sold out because I love Black Panther and I love Thor Ragnarok. And I don't think either of those guys sold out when they made those movies. But it's an inevitable comparison in a wayok and I don't think either of those guys sold out when they made those movies but it's it's an inevitable comparison in a way and I can't get it out of my head

yeah I I agree with you I think there is also something to be said for sometimes you try to make a movie in a really big movie and it doesn't all cohere in the way that you might have imagined when you first sat down which is true of literally any creative project so I it's right there for the taking and I And I don't want to presume too much about their inner emotions, but I think they're smart people and have probably thought about it too. I don't really know that it is an actual sellout move

is just as much as this is what happens when you grow up. And this is also what happened to like, our idea of the 90s is very different from the 90s itself. That is exactly, you nailed it. My exact reaction to it specifically was, sometimes you turn 40 and you have a kid and a mortgage and you still want to be creative and you still want to do the things that you love,

but you have to be frank with yourself about how to get there. And sometimes you have to take a big job that is scary, that is not as like cool or not as authentic to the version of yourself you knew when you were 25. Now, I don't mean to make this therapeutic for myself in any meaningful way because it's not, but there is definitely an aspect of that where there is a sort of feeling of like, I want to take on a new challenge. I think of course, filmmakers should always do that. I think that there is something uniquely powerful about the idea of Captain Marvel. And I think in some respects, they did the story justice. And you're right, they were kind of burdened with five jobs in one and having

to hammer it all together. But nevertheless, these remnants of our past haunt us. And I feel that in this movie in some ways. I will say also, the fact that we're sitting here discussing like a sci-fi opera starring a female superhero with like a lot of nirvana and no doubt as like corporate sellout culture is, you know, the world moves fast, you know? It does. couple of movies came out that did this on a much smaller scale and with the same kind of miniaturized emotional earnestness that Anna and Ryan's previous films had and those movies are Lady Bird and mid-90s they're made by two very successful actors but also two long-time aspiring directors and they basically tried to render the 90s their their memories of the 90s now they maybe weren't pure autobiography but they were they were rem reminiscences of a time that is meaningful and impactful to them. I think you and I both responded to those movies, maybe to varying degrees for both of them respectively. But it's funny to see the McDonald's Happy Meal version of those movies in a lot of ways.

There is a lot, and that's not even bad. I grew up eating Happy Meals, no shade to that. But what we have now is a generation of people who make films, who have enough power to get films made, who are like, what I remember about this is Nirvana's Come As You Are. And when I made a mixtape to prepare for my film, which is what I think these two filmmakers did, they just put all the songs that ended up in the movie on their mixtape. And then all of a sudden you have a scene where Brie Larson's character is

talking to an AI that is represented by Annette Bening, wearing colored contact lenses set to Nirvana's Come As You Are. Yeah. And Come As You Are. Yeah. And Come As You Are is like, is also just the most ironic song to be choosing. I mean, I do think like, you have to give them

a little bit of credit for, for one, for knowledge there. And yeah, sure. And also, let's rewind to yesterday when you put in the, one of the ringer slacks, like what is the most 90s song that you can think of?

It was just kind of a group prompt. And then work stopped for an hour where everyone shared their best 90s song. Were you so mad when I did that? No, but I just thought there was a very obvious answer that Dan Devine gave immediately, which was Smells Like Teen Spirit. And then there were just like a bunch of people, you know, with lesser answers. Trying to one-up that with something interesting. But that's fine because it was a nice group bonding experience. And then at the very end, our pal Andrew Gratodero made a Spotify mix that we all went and listened to because we were like, wow, the 90s were great. And in some ways that was like a surface level of representation. It's when you're looking back at your childhood or anything, you're bound to, it's very hard to recreate everything wholesale.

That's why Roma was such a great movie. So I'm sympathetic to it while also finding it pretty funny. I do just also think it's weird that, I'm sorry that this is devolving into like, wow, we're old, the podcast. I think it's relevant to this yeah but it is so interesting that now we're at the phase where the movies and things are being made by our people for so long you watch something and you think when I get in there like this is how I'll do it and these people you know they don't understand and now here we are and it's like a cat with weird octopus tentacles. Yeah.

I mean, that's perhaps a whole other part of this podcast is talking about the cat with octopus tentacles. Are you happy that we have reached this stage? Do you think you'll be more critical of these movies or more open hearted about them? Because I think Lady Bird is obviously on one spectrum. I'm like, damn, this really just spoke to me. And I felt something sincere about it. And Captain Marvel, again, I feel like I'm being a bit critical. And my point is more like I'm actually much closer to this movie in a lot of ways than I am to a movie like Captain America Civil War. That's a pop confection. That's really

not about, I mean, you could be like, oh, there's all kinds of themes about immigration and the corporate state and all things like that. But ultimately, Captain Marvel is trying to show us a real person, but it struggles by showing me the things that I already know about a time period I lived through. Right. And it feels false in that respect. So like, do you want to see more of your youth integrated into the art of our peers? Well, for me, yes, just because, not to put too fine a point on this but they don't make as many movies about women i like i have not grown up seeing myself in in films and especially films

that are seen and revered and discussed as much as possibly other people have so in that sense it's just a novel sensation and i'm'm interested. They just released Green Book, though. You didn't see Green Book? That's so rude. That's just harsh. No. Okay. I'm sorry. So for me, it's just interesting to kind of get to see people explaining things that, you know, I was curious about Captain Marvel, both because it was a female superhero and

because of the 90s of it. And it's not typically, I would see it for professional purposes, but it's not a movie that I would look forward to just because sci-fi is not really my bag. That's fine. It's a lot of people's bag, and that's great. So in that sense, yes. I'm curious just to have a bunch of different options, and then you can compare and contrast how people do things and what you want to see in a movie. For me, it's exciting.

I understand that it also will be psychological terror for both of us but so is everything yeah that's true what was there a 90s relic that you appreciated having in there i really at one point desri is playing you gotta be gotta be And you do, you know? So I just, I really, I love that song. So I enjoyed that. That was exciting. It's a good song. It happens to play when Carol Danvers approaches her friend Maria

while she's working on an airplane in her home. Well, that's what you do. That's what you do. I guess when you're an Air Force pilot. I couldn't help but notice that the film's closing credits ended with whole celebrity skin and that one of the controllers of the Nirvana estate is Courtney Love. I think that celebrity skin is an appropriate song to end this film,

especially if you read the lyrics, but I felt a little bit of synergy happening there what do you think i'm sure but when i'm not mad no i'm not mad i'm a big fan of celebrities gets a very underrated whole record uh let's talk a little bit about the cast because okay um i think that like other marvel movies this movie basically gets away with it like gets by on just putting so many clever people in it and you're kind of just never bored. And they're always, the dialogue is often like,

even if it's a little hokey, it's entertaining. Right. And, you know, there's a lot of Samuel L. Jackson in this movie. He has not appeared this much in a Marvel movie in a long time. And it's funny because Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson have worked together a few times now. And I just learned recently that she cast him in her directorial debut, Unicorn Store, which you can watch on Netflix in April. And so they apparently have a real life friendship, palhood, something.

They also appeared together in Kong Skull Island. Of course. Did you catch that one? You know, I missed that one. Okay. That's a shame. That's an interesting movie. I thought that you went and then said that I didn't need to go. I think that did happen. So it's not, it's not on me. Okay. That's not,

certainly not the first time that's happened in our relationship. Uh, what'd you think Sam Jackson? Delightful. Yeah, he was good. Yeah. And I think also he and Brie Larson actually did have a nice chemistry. They did. And she also had a great chemistry with Jude Law, who we should talk a little bit more about. When they gave her, when she actually didn't have to be explaining some mythology or just like looking really confused, she had a lot of charisma and was pretty fun, I thought. I wish we had that person in most of the movie. Yes, I agree. As I was writing about this, I used the phrase purposefully blank because I feel like they kind of took out...

I think Brie Larson as an actress does two things really well. She does high-level trauma very well. She's very actor-y in that way. And that's part of why Room is so effective is you really feel the weight of the trauma that her character experiences. But she also can be like a little zesty. And maybe we have to wait for Captain Marvel 2 or whatever. But the only time when you really had that

is when she's kind of riffing with Sam Jackson. Right. Or when she's like, when she's doing a mission, you know, and she's like, I'm going to go my own way. I'm going to do this, you know. And like, I don't know. That's actual dialogue from the film. But when she's like, when she's playing the renegade and that is like an extremely familiar, not even superhero, just like action movie.

That's what they all do. And I thought she brought a nice pizzazz to it. It was, I was charmed by the way that she was interpreting that part of it. And I also never care about like the missions or the action scenes in these movies. And I was kind of excited, which I thought is a... We got to work on her run a little. I'll say that. Did not strike me as a natural athlete.

Yeah. Short distances, the run was... I guess she was more jogging. There's one shot where she's doing a full-on sprint, and I thought it was impressive. Okay. So there's potential. No, I think it was her jogging. There's one shot where she's doing a full-on sprint and I thought it was impressive. Okay. So, there's potential. No, I think it was her. Okay.

Because I noticed it because I was paying attention to the run. That's the other thing. I am seldom paying attention to all of the action sequences. So, if you can make me do that, that's something.

I thought she struggled a bit when it came to the expository aspects of Marvel movies. Whenever you have to talk about the Kree-Skrull War with any modicum of seriousness, like there's a reason that the X-Men movies

cast people like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, because what you have to bring is this kind of absurd, stentorian, Shakespearean approach to this dialogue to make it work, because it's usually pretty bad or it's pretty silly. And unless you fully invest in that, and not everyone even has that particular kind of acting talent.

It helps to be British, but it can be rough. It's rough in every Marvel movie, I think, if you have the wrong actor. But in this case in particular, it did not work for me. I would agree, though. I, in some cases, related to it. So I was just like, Brie Larson was just like, whatever, there's this stuff and then we can get to the movie. And I was like, hey, me too. And that plays into the aspect of her character that is kind of outside the box.

So I didn't mind it as much. I mean this with no disrespect. But when I'm watching a Marvel movie, I'm not hoping that an Amanda Dobbins-esque figure will be talking about the incoming alien war and the precious MacGuffin. It's a good point. Okay. It's a good point. I'd like to take a little bit of time to talk about Ben Mendelsohn, who I just spoke about. Yes. Ben Mendelsohn is a 49-year-old Australian actor, and he is one of my favorite living people. I was looking a bit back at his career and I think he really became a known commodity to me when Animal Kingdom came out, which is a David Michaud's Australian gangster movie. Sort of a godfather-esque story about a

family with a crime organization underneath it. But I didn't realize that he had been working so long and so prosperously before that. And he had appeared in Terrence Malick movies and Baz Luhrmann movies, and he really had done a lot of different kinds of work. But it's only in the last few years that he's taken on this new post. I think he came up through the kind of A24 class of cool character actor guy. And now he's just, I'm the best thing in kind of a noisy action movie guy now. So he was in Rogue One. He played a character with just a phenomenal name

named Director Orson Krennic. Oh, yeah. And he was wearing that cape. Yes. That flowing cape. And he looked so majestic. And he was King George VI in Darkest Hour.

I thought a good King George, you would know better than me if that was credible. It was weird. That character is supposed to stutter a lot because that's famously the character that Colin Firth won for the Oscar for. That's right. And frankly, he just was a little too in control,

but that makes for a good movie watching. So I wasn't mad. So it's a good opportunity to talk about Ben Mendelsohn's manner speaking, which I think you could say is sort of a lisp but also a sort of like a charmed lisp there is something uh alluring in an odd way about the way that he speaks and i wonder if that's always been true for him but he he doesn't he didn't have the stutter as effectively but there is something unusual about the way that he talks yes that draws you into him that works very well i think

as as talos in in captain marvel but it was good in um in ready player one too where you play as a character named nolan sorrento who's just a villain he's just a bad guy who's like what i want to do is run the company and i got to be in charge of all the video game characters in the world and it was very like basic 101 evil bond villain kind of thing. He brought a little bit of his flair to it. Talos is different. Talos, we think, is the arch villain of the story. And then about an hour in, we realize that he is quite adorable and, in fact, an ally. And he is wearing that stupid face paint that I'm describing.

And he's wearing those prosthetic ears. But I would watch a Talos movie. He is the emotional center of the movie for sure. Yeah. Even though I think Brie Larson's relationship with Maria is supposed to be, well, her relationships with various people and her burgeoning relationship with Talos becomes one of the motivations

for her to do what she does. Yeah, I think he has this actually quite interesting arc in a way that in some ways Captain Marvel does not, which is that he starts out as this villainous figure, and then he becomes more sympathetic, and then he becomes comic relief, and then he becomes this emotional centrifugal force when he's reunited with his family. That's a pretty big arc for a character named Talos wearing face paint. Yes. We don't often see that.

And that's like maybe a credit to the engineers of the movie. They did craft something that was kind of clever inside of the movie. I think also it's just, it's so clearly in the comic relief scene, like this is working. I do wonder whether it's those moments where you just kind of lean into the thing that is really happening. And that comes at a moment in the film where you could use a boost of energy and then it's suddenly patter.

Yeah, absolutely. It's absolutely true. You know, I was thinking about significant figures of the 1990s and Annette Bening does cross my mind. Star of the Grifters and star of American Beauty. And she is an emblematic kind of person. And I remember when American Beauty came out that there were a lot of comparisons to Hillary Clinton and her character, which is much more loaded now

and complicated. And I do not want to make this an American Beauty podcast by any means. But I do think that she's an interesting figure as a stand-in for the sort of like

the person who puts the battery in Captain Marvel's back in a lot of ways. What did you of like the the person who puts the battery in Captain Marvel's back in a lot of ways what did you think about the way that she was used here in this movie and also what do you think about Annette Bening just showing up in a Marvel movie get that money do what you want yeah I support you Annette Bening a 90s movie that you didn't mention is the American President which is deeply problematic but also I love it and I've seen it a million times. I think it's great. I think that in terms of celebrated actors being in superhero movies, I mean, guys, that ship has sailed.

That's just kind of the type of movies. These are our blockbusters now, and I think that great actors should get to be in blockbusters too, if only for more reasons for me to go see them. But it's fun, and great actors like to have fun too. The character itself. Three characters. But they're just, I guess there are two.

No, there are two. Because you can't count Dr. Lawson. She is Mar-Vell. She's layers of herself. Okay? I disagree, but okay. Isn't this like we all contain multitudes? Isn't that the point of every superhero movie?

I am only me. What you're seeing is what you're getting. I wasn't thinking about Hillary Clinton when I watched this particular movie. I was just like, oh, that's cool. It's Annette Bening. I think that she's had sort of a late period resurgence, I think, especially. But 20th Century Woman, she's been just kind of on my radar a bit more.

So it didn't really seem like someone coming from, from the beyond from like 20 years ago. She's also in the Glenn Close zone of actresses who've been nominated

too many times and not won. Do you think she'll win for this triple portrayal? No, I don't. No, I don't either. Who else should we talk about? Lashana Lynch plays Maria Rambeau

and there was a lot of fanfare sort of ahead of this movie that the real love story of the movie was between Maria and Carol and I thought it was okay did it strike you

as particularly unique in a way that like Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes isn't? can I nitpick here? sure so it's a love story

between Carol and Maria and also Maria's daughter yes who is probably 10, 11, 12 in the movie So it's a love story between Carol and Maria and also Maria's daughter. Yes. Who is probably 10, 11, 12 in the movie. Yes. And remembers Carol from six years before. Yes. Kids do not remember people from when they are five and six years old.

That was like the big flaw for me in all of this mythology and the weird space alien stuff. I'm like this six-year-'m like this this six-year-old this now 12-year-old who is tasked with like she honestly explains carol damvers's former life to herself there's this whole scene where they're going through all of the old photographs in the scrapbook and she's like and this is when you took me to see this and this is when you and mom did this and this is she was like she is like the device that explains her whole life she was six she didn't know anything thank you for my take this is your biggest nitpick in a movie that features the crease well you know i'm trying to engage i'm trying to play on everybody's level

but so so that was really all i could think about during that relationship was that this six-year-old this 12-year-old's an imposter but they seem seem nice. Do you remember when Lee Pace and Jimen Honsu appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy? No. You don't remember that at all? I really am not a Guardians person. So I just remember that there's a raccoon that's voiced by Bradley Cooper because I've seen that video. So Jimen Honsu plays a character named Karath and Lee Pace has one of the all-time great character names he plays ronan the accuser which is perhaps you should go by amanda the accuser in future podcasts i would consider it um and this is of course a prequel so their characters appear in this film again and i think the sight of karath is the is one of the sort of easter egg signs that in fact the kree are evil and so when you see them when you see him early on,

you realize he's not playing a different character. He hasn't been recast in a Marvel movie. He's playing the same character that he appeared in. And that's the sign that like something is amiss here, which is. Wow. I didn't get that at all. Well,

that's not being an audience person. Right. I need like your pop-up video, but for Avengers movies where they can just be like, this person is also this. That might be a great series for The Ringer. We'll have to explore that. I thought it was interesting. Jimen Honsu and Lee Pace are very successful actors and they have like nothing to do in this movie.

Yeah. And it's, I guess it's in their contracts that they have to appear here. Do you think that they pumped up Gemma Chan's role in this film after the success of Crazy Rich Asians? I knew that so here's what happens that I knew Gemma Chan was in this movie going in watched the movie

and then three hours later was like oh that was Gemma Chan which is a real shame. It is a shame. Yeah. I mean she's in makeup the whole time so.

She is. She's a good actress that you really wouldn't be able to tell by watching this movie. She's basically just like holding a laser gun and yelling stuff at people. It's not.

It's not a big look for her. Were you really, really excited to see the return of Phil Coulson, Agent Coulson? As someone who recognized him and knew that he was in S.H.I.E.L.D., yes, I was. But for me, that was the way that I was connecting the dots and could understand, okay, that this is going to be a part of this. You kind of can see the machinery. He's like a plot device that is not too plot device-y, if that makes any sense. I mean, he is like essentially a plot device,

but just showing him is all you have to do at this point. You don't have to like give him a bunch of lines. He is like the next stage Stan Lee. Since Stan Lee passed away, and of course in the title sequence of this new movie, we see a lot of odes to Stan Lee. And then Stan Lee does make an appearance in the movie. But I feel like Agent Coulson popping up in places is going to be the new like, oh, isn't that cute? We're all in on the joke moment going forward in these movies.

Probably very nice for Clark Gregg to have hair again. You know, he doesn't have hair now. So he looked good. Did you buy Sam Jackson's de-aged hair yes it was noticeable that some things were going on in terms of did i mean this is not what he looks like now and the same goes for clark greg but i didn't think it looked as annette benning's eyes and whatever they do to make her look like ai in the supreme intelligence thing that was disquieting.

Which is not Annette Bening's fault. I think it is supposed to be. I think Annette Bening looks great, but she was supposed to look a bit threatening at points, and she in fact did. Amanda, did you know not all alcohol products are required to list their ingredients? I didn't. That was news to me as well. Bud Light is changing the game. They believe that we deserve to know our beer's ingredients, so they put an ingredients label right there on the packaging.

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let's talk a little bit about sort of the external factors of the movie okay is there anything else about the actual storyline that you want to explore i mean we can talk about the stinger i guess the movie which very evidently syncs the the future of these movies together yes if you for those of you who stuck around and watched the movie all the way through the credits, you notice that Captain Marvel does, in fact, heed the call of Nick Fury before he evaporates at the end of Avengers Infinity War

and meets up with the surviving Avengers and they will team up somehow to defeat Thanos, I guess. That also, I guess, leads to a conversation that was originally hip to me by the ringers, David Shoemaker, but I think it's a great point, which is Captain Marvel is not a good movie character because Captain Marvel is too powerful.

Yes. By the end of this movie, she's just kind of like, fuck everybody. I'm just killing everybody. It doesn't matter. And she has mercy, but she's just the most powerful intergalactic being

short of like characters we haven't met like galactus like she is just really powerful and it makes it hard to make a movie with a character like that yes i think i asked you when we walked out i was like okay so all of space and time are inside of her and she can control everything and can just fly anywhere and do anything so kind of what what are the stakes i mean the way that they get around that is she basically at the end of the film departs this planet to go solve intergalactic issues across the galaxy okay uh and she she is you know, invested in helping the, the Cree people, or excuse me,

helping the Skrull people be free. And she's freeing people all over the place. She's sort of a, what is the international, the Interpol, I guess. Like a, yeah,

she's sort of a combination of, of, of, um, the ACLU and Interpol and, and humanitarian efforts around the world, around the, around the galaxy,

I guess. And. Around many galaxies, I believe. Many, around the galaxy, I guess. And... Around many galaxies, I believe. Many, you're right. Many galaxies. Yeah. And so that takes her out of the frame for, I guess, 25 years virtually. So the excuse is just she's busy?

Kind of. We couldn't get the most powerful person, so we got to fight with what we've got. Yeah. And one of those kind of 90s touchstones that we talked about is Nick Fury's two-way pager. And of course, the two-way pager at the end of Avengers Infinity War is the same one that he's using in this film. And so she disappears for a while. But her power is profound. And it makes it difficult to tell a story when you have somebody come across that strong.

And of course, I think that's actually one of the smart aspects about making her the sort of first Marvel female figure because she really is one of the linchpin characters. Even if she's maybe not as beloved

or doesn't have the same amount of history as like Captain America, she really matters. You know, she really matters to a lot of the stories they've told over

the last 50 years. So that's good. But heading into this next movie, I'm kind of like, well, shouldn't Captain Marvel just go kill Thanos? He's just a guy with a glove.

Does she have any weaknesses? I'm sure she does. Does she have her version of Kryptonite or whatever? I don't know. Because it's like a Superman thing, right? Yes. I'm sure they'll retcon something

or they'll pull some piece. Because what they do in these movies now is they take the six different key storylines and they kind of start to blend them together. So like that Kree-Skrull stuff,

that's some of how the story's told in the comic books. But it doesn't, they don't have to be faithful because they have 70 years of history to pull from. I'm not, I'm not conversant in all of it. I'm not even conversant in one-tenth of it, but I know some of it.

And so when I'm watching it, I don't even really try to like fact check in real time. But the one thing I do notice is just that she's like, she puts that Mohawk helmet on. Yeah, the fire helmet. The fire helmet. And you're kind of like, I guess she'll just kill everybody. I don't know. Does that diminish the dramatic tension for you? Yeah. I mean, she doesn't have a lot of exciting backstory. I mean, that's what's so funny about this is that it's an origin story. And the origin story was basically like some guys were mean to her and then that's it. And also one time she went on a flight and her boss crashed it

and so she had to swallow all of space and time but that's it i mean but that's it's that's how they sold the movie in the room yeah sure but but there's not a ton to work with there in terms of larger motivation or having any sense of who she is or kind of what she represents beyond like, don't be mean to women, which please don't be mean to women. And please don't dismiss them because our strength is not entirely located in our upper arms. But it's like, well, they aren't. I was just thinking about the role. Unless you're Captain Marvel.

Well, that's true. She did. She figured it out. But yes. So the fact that I don't really know what she's for totally, plus the fact that she's apparently you can't defeat her. I don't know. It doesn't really seem like there's a lot of places to go there.

I'm not sure where we'll go. We'll definitely go to the next Avengers movie in, in, in March when that comes out or in April, I suppose. But until then, I'm a bit curious what you think about the external forces. So,

as I said, I think some of the criticism of the movie is biting its'm a bit curious what you think about the external forces so as I said I think some of the criticism of the movie is biting its tongue a bit if you read it it is very acknowledging of the powerful moment the thing I'm writing

is trying to be very acknowledging and thoughtful about the powerful moment but also sincere in understanding why some aspects of this

don't work and then in addition to that there is a lot of anxiety around the success of every Marvel movie now because the box office is down in 2019 is that an overstated a lot of anxiety around the success of every Marvel movie now because the box office is down in 2019. Is that an overstated thing?

Of course. Was the Black Panther moment unorthodox and ridiculous? Yes, it was. But with a movie like this comes a lot of expectation. I was reading yesterday that less than $150 million in the opening weekend would be considered relative disappointment for a Marvel movie like this, which is really crazy. Yeah. I mean, some larger systems are broken there when that's how it's all going. That's a huge burden to put on a movie to open, especially like no disrespect to Brie Larson, who is an Oscar winner and a known actress, but not a superstar, not Jennifer

Aniston. That's true. I mean, who could open a movie over $150 million now? I mean, on name alone, very few people. Now, Marvel obviously can, but it's pretty rare that that happened. Do you want to just take down some of the 150 million plus winners? So Black Panther, we mentioned, of course. Avengers Infinity War, naturally, that went $257 million opening weekend. That's a lot. Did you know Avengers Infinity War is the fourth highest grossing movie in the history of movies? I didn't, though you definitely talked about it a lot, so I should have guessed. I do. It's just crazy. Marvel's The Avengers, 207. Avengers Age

of Ultron, 191. Iron Man 3, 174. That movie's not that good. Captain America Civil War, 179. And then you have Spider-Man 3 at 151. not a part of Marvel, but a comic book movie. So that's it. So you've got Black Panther, massive anomaly, a bunch of Avengers movies, essentially, and a Spider-Man movie, barely getting over it. So $150 million in the United States we're talking about would be quite a big opening for a movie that is getting mixed reviews.

Yes, so I think the expectation here is that people just buy tickets. And I don't mean to endorse this viewpoint, but the reviews don't matter. It's just, it's Marvel. I think that this was, once again, the largest pre-order of 2019. So we are told. Yeah. So we are told. Anyway, so people just anticipate these as events and they go because it's what you do.

You see, I think the public has been trained at this point. It's a Marvel movie and there's a built-in audience that you just go on opening weekend. So it is a huge burden. And I think also there's always when women are leading a movie or a franchise or anything, it's always a test case of this movie will determine whether women can open movies or female superheroes can open movies. And we have discussed every time that it's a deeply unfair burden. And it's particularly tricky on this one with so much money on the line and that anything less than $150 million is considered a disappointment. I mean, what are you supposed to do?

I guess see it five times? I mean, I probably won't be doing that. I won't be doing it either. you know, it's been really interesting. We won't go too far down this road. But whether as someone who wants to see more women in movies and making movies and represented in these levels, whether you're supposed to support it, even though it's maybe not your favorite movie. And I think that that's possibly some of the tension that you're seeing in the reviews of people. Also, this is a totally functional movie. It has motivations and it has characters and a beginning and an end.

And you know what's going to happen. Good actors. Shiny set pieces. Totally. And like lots of explosions and lasers and stuff. It's a perfectly good time at the movies. So some of it is just that. And I think the problem is that because

we're so far into the Marvel journey, and yet this is the first female superhero movie, that people just don't, you know, we don't have the luxury of just calling it what it is, which is like another adequate Marvel movie. Or people don't feel that they have the luxury. We haven't gotten to the point where it's just okay to evaluate them on the same terms. And that's a bummer for a lot of reasons, including the fact that we should just be able to talk about this movie the way that it is, which it's a movie. What do you think about people's desire to make the most popular things on earth also representative of moral clarity in the universe? I think that's also a tension here that was easy to support

in the case of Black Panther, which was virtually universally beloved, not universally beloved, but close to, and won't be the case here. But there is a sort of like a moral rightness that people are more interested in necessarily than anything else over anything else in this case. I mean, I think that's true. And I think people are annoying when talking on the internet a lot. I think like some of it is just that, that these conversations always get kind of muddled just because of how they're conducted. But, you know, I will say I rewatched part of Wonder Woman last night. Just it was on my mind after having seen Captain Marvel.

And I do like it. And I thought it was excellent. And I remembered once again how moved I was watching it, which is a really hokey ass thing to say. I know that. And I appreciate everyone indulging me. Catch me out here crying about Infinity War. It's okay. It's a safe space.

It's so silly. And it's also like, as I have evidenced like many times throughout this podcast I'm not a huge superhero person and I'm not a huge comic you know comic books or sci-fi type of person but or even really action movies that often though if it's done well it's great but you don't even think about the fact that there aren't women in those movies until you see something like Wonder Woman and you see it done well and you're just like, wow, this completely changes the way that I'm responding to this. And it really means something. And these types of stories and mythology are just baked into everything that we do. And there is some sort of kind of visceral reaction that I have when you see all of the Amazons on the beach fighting. And it's really exciting. And it looks just like all the other really great on the beach fighting and it's really exciting and it looks just like

all the other really great movies look like except it's a bunch of women and I felt the same way when Rey gets the lightsaber in in The Force Awakens which again like I you know have seen Star Wars and I understand that those are huge parts of mythology but I never really was super invested in them and then I just she gets the lightsaber and it's just a really, really symbolic, meaningful thing. I just had a reaction to it. And so it does matter. And we talk about these things and they become freighted because a lot of people, especially people who watch a lot of movies and think about all these stories, et cetera, it means something. You have a reaction to it. And so I understand the impulse and I understand people who want to receive in that way. And I think talking about it in some ways indicates that people actually do care about

these movies and also care about the issues that are being discussed. I agree that it's an unfair burden on any one movie and also that the discussion around it is fraught and imperfect always, but it can be done well. And when it is done well, it's really exciting. And it is how a large portion of the audience receives it. It's just, I can't watch a female superhero movie and not think about how the woman is portrayed in it. It just is how it is. So- Fast forward five years. Yeah.

Do you think we will be in a place where there will not be as much attendant anxiety around the release of a movie like this? I mean, I hope so. I think we've said that what since forever, I think, but in modern, but in Marvel is different. Marvel is, I think maybe with the lone exception and maybe not, this isn't even true anymore of Star Wars. It is the most seen thing that we have it is like the super bowl of popular culture more than the oscars we talk about that all the time on the oscars show so many people watch the oscars but marvel movies that's a whole other ball game avengers infinity war is a true global phenomenon hundreds of thousands of people millions of people paid money to watch that movie so when marvel does it it's bigger it's it is more meaningful it's it's actually not wonder wonder woman in some

ways was an underdog story captain marvel is not an underdog story yeah so in five years if we're on the fourth it's not likely but if we're on the fourth female-led story you mean the fourth in in the mcu i guess right but like the fourth Captain Marvel movie or the fourth female superhero? Just the fourth female. We've got a Black Widow movie. We've got a Scarlet Witch movie. You know, we've got, I don't know. Who would you want to see?

I mean, I don't know any other ones. You don't know, exactly. So I just know Wonder Woman, which is a, you know, I hope so. It just in the sense of it makes it so much easier to talk about them. And also, if you have a Black Widow and Scarlet Witch, did I get those right? Yes. Captain Marvel. No one film bears all the burden.

And then you can compare and contrast and you get to talk about the different ways to portray all of these stories on their own merits as opposed to just kind of these movies standing in for however many years of lack of representation. If that happens in five years, that would be great. Maybe we could get there. I think the numbers are still kind of tough. You have to add a lot of female superheroes really quickly in order for them to not be the exception. I don't want to diminish the power of a standalone movie about a female character.

Can I give you my pitch in the waning minutes of this podcast? Yeah, go for it. I really think that Marvel should just do a Black Widow and Hulk movie and just make it a love story. Okay. Can I ask you something? Yes. So I agree with you totally. I don't even, I mean, sure. Though that presents some physical complications as I understand Hulk's character that I would love to talk about in a different

podcast. But anyway. I know where you stand on the superhero aspect of this, the sort of Superman aspect of this. What do you mean? The impossibility of it. This is the sort of the Seinfeld theory of like, can Superman have sex with Lois Lane? Right. Well, yes. I mean, Hulk would just present different issues.

But anyway. Rage-filled issues. Right. But then those become biological issues. Anyway. So while I was watching Wonder Woman last night, I was just, I meant to ask you this. So in any of the lore ever, you know, anywhere, have Wonder Woman and Batman had sex? Has there been like a Wonder Woman, Batman love story?

I believe so, yes. Okay, good. I'm glad. I'm glad that someone out there is doing that because that, make that movie and I will watch it a million times. There's a great series. I think i'm getting this right and if i'm getting it wrong i'm sure someone will tell me but there's a great series by alex ross not the alex ross the music writer but another the the comic books artist at alex ross called kingdom come that came out in the 90s and the story was essentially 50 or 60 years in the future and it was the entire dc universe but all of the characters were older so batman was 58 and confined to a wheelchair and uh what what is one woman's uh real name diana

diana diana was you know had sort of streaks of gray hair and was a sort of stately elder woman um and superman also was sort of you know at the temples. And it was reckoning with relationships past and all the stuff that had happened in their lives. And you got the sense that Wonder Woman and Batman had a thing, but they no longer got along anymore. And it's a very melodramatic series, but it did have these nice like soap operatic touches. For a while, I thought you were going to say that like they got together when they were old. And I think that that's great, but it's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for prime Wonder Woman and prime Batman but can I just say one more thing old superheroes speaking of kind of love stories in the news because you said something earlier about how Captain Marvel

there's no love interest in this where the love interest is it's a friendship and female friendship is great and there should be more of it on in film but I do feel like people are banding about this idea she doesn't even have a love interest in kind of as an example of the on in film but I do feel like people are banding about this idea she doesn't even have a love interest in kind of as an example of the ways in which it's a reimagining of what females are on screen and in some ways I feel that that is the same emotional simplification that had that Captain Marvel herself cites throughout the movie of like you're too emotional and if you can ignore your emotions and just You know be a warrior then everything will be okay, and I don't know why a Competitive female superhero movie can't also have a love story because I would like to watch that

Doesn't everyone want to watch that so you're green lighting Black Widow and Hulk? Yeah You're in why not? Okay. Is it a romantic comedy? Well, I think that it should have aspects of it. It should be like if Nora Ephron wrote a Marvel movie. Okay. Well, that would be a romantic comedy just for the... Right. Yes, but it does have to have punching and things like that. I think that's fine.

Do you want to write this movie? If you'll give me the cliff notes of the comics, sure. Okay. Great. Deal. Okay, great deal. Amanda, this has been very fun. I feel like we learned a lot about the opposing sex, perhaps. And also a little bit about the MCU. Thank you for chatting.

Thank you, Sean. I'm just a girl. I'm just a girl in the world.