The Flop House - Ep. #336 - Supergirl, with Glen Weldon

Episode Date: February 27, 2021

If we have Glen Weldon, co-host of the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast and author of the marvelous Superman: The Unauthorized Biography on as a guest, you'd better believe we're gonna go down one of the many fascinating cul-de-sacs in the "super" cinematic universe -- in this case 1984's "Supergirl," or -- as we prefer to think about it -- The Adventures of Faye Dunaway's Fabulous Witch and Her Companions.Wikipedia entry for Supergirl.Movies recommended in this episode:Saint MaudSynchronicDaisiesThe Ruling Class

On this episode we discuss... Supergirl! Starring Popeyes, famous fried chicken and biscuits. Was there anything else in this movie? Don't know, don't care. Hey everyone, welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kaelin, and we've got two very exciting things going on today, a special guest, and another thing that Dan's gonna tell us about, Stu, why don't you introduce our special guest first.

I would love to, Elliot, we are joined today by the co-host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and an author, and just an all around great beef cake. That's right. Glenn Weldon. Hey Glenn. Hey guys, thanks for having me. Quick for the be here glad and grateful it's grateful to be

uh... thank you so much uh... we were excited super excited this is a super show super expert about super things but i'm also excited because then you're up run the operating under sort of a harris and version of the cap right now it is a thing that you're referring to is the thing I thought it is. The exciting news on my end is that I'm in the midst of a strong hay fever attack. It started early this morning.

I've tried several things to shake it, changing my clothes, taking a hot shower, having two different types of, no three different types of allergy medicine, which is probably not a good idea to mix them, but it was that bad I should make for an interesting show. Yeah, I ran the What do you do filter the air filter? I went outside for a while I check in now. Dan, I imagine you changed you had a change in clothes montage about allergies Where you would like step out of the changing roof and then you would sneeze and then Audrey would shake her head No, you'd go back in and then come out and you out fit and sneeze and she'd shake her head

No, so I would have yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened No, what happened is I keep trying things and thinking like oh that feels good for like about five minutes and then I start sneezing uncontrollably again You may not hear it on the on the on the podcast I've recently purchased myself a cough button now. I know it says a cough button I'm gonna off label use it for sneezing as well. Just as long as you know that if the warranty doesn't, the warranty does not apply. If you use it that way. But anyway, let's turn back to Glenn

who among other things literally wrote the book on Superman, Superman and unauthorized biography. Correct. The unauthorized biography. Yeah, yeah, it's a book. There are several. Including one that came out like eight months before mine did by Larry Ty that made the front cover of the New York Times book review and kind of ate up the space for it. Not really. I only ever heard about yours. Which I did read that one.

I read the Batman book as well, i i think it would not be unfair say that superman is foremost in your heart amongst uh... the the major heroes uh... yeah certainly i mean like he's the first he's the primal he's the best uh... he is very very difficult to write because you have to kind of make give him a challenge and uh... for writing that book was figuring out what makes him tick and what sets him apart

besides his power set. And basically, they came up with two things. One, he puts the needs of others over those of himself and two, he doesn't give up. And when you write a super-renn story that misses either one of those two things, you're not writing a super-renn story. I will say, though, that writing the second book, the Capricur Seid, Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture,

was a lot more fun because the Supreme and Book was basically work for hire. It was basically, the 75th anniversary is coming up, we need a book. So I basically, you worry that you're writing a 75,000 word Wikipedia entry. When you write a book like that, because you just trapped by continuity and by chronology.

And so the second book was more a chance to kind of dig in and be a little bit more analytical and pull back. But yeah, I'm a nerd. And sorry to interrupt one, but just to fill out your top three, we have Superman at the top. Number two is gotta be carnage. Number three is gotta be pit, right? Dale Keyones. Really Dale Keyones pit, okay. Okay. Interesting. Hulk with longer hair, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I have a tattoo of the Swift

and Powerful Monarch of the Ocean, Aquaman, as Ted not used to say it, back in Super Friends. Yeah, Aquaman was my kind of my nearest and dearest because I grew up thinking I wanted to be a marine biologist, going to school, to be a marine biologist, failing at being a marine biologist. And yeah, so I really always loved Aquaman just, going to school to be a marine biologist, failing at being a marine biologist. And yeah, so I really always love Doc Oman. Maybe it was the blonde hair and black eyebrows.

It was kind of trashy to me. Well, I mean, failing to be a marine biologist is at least better than failing to be Aquaman, which usually results in drowning. Yeah, well, I mean, it's a very good point. Yeah, it was my nickname on the swim team and I thought it was because I was so fast But it's because I would go into the water and sink like a rock so everybody would make fun of me for that I didn't realize they're making fun of me. I'm talking story.

I also talked to fish. Yeah, you did you did to qualify from the races because you were riding a giant seahorse. That's true. That's true. Now I had one flying fish on each of my feet. That sounds amazing. So this I mean the movie we watched was Supergirl, not... Well, Dan, we're doing this podcast. Let's just say our... Hold on, hold on.

Let me... Okay, sure enough. Why tell the audience what they do? Well, I mean, I... Someone argue why interrupt me when I was doing also an introductory thing. I mean, that's another way you can look at it. Good point. So, Elodie's got Hey Fever, chill hey fever chill. Yeah, yeah, I'm dealing with enough fever leave that Dan alone Okay, joke. I said before the recording you say it again now

No, what I was gonna say is now the book was about Superman we are talking about the movie Supergirl from 1984 we are talking about the movie Supergirl from 1984 because this is the Flothouse podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it. Thank you, Elliot. But the interesting thing about your book on Superman is, you know, it's called a biography and you do that by sort of tracking

the different iterations of Superman through the comics and radio Radio serials and shows and theater and movies and in that of course you touch on the expanded Superman universe and Kara Jorrell is of course Superman's cousin and so That is about that is more backstory than Supergirl gave you before thrusting you into this movie. So maybe we should just get into the movie. Yeah, it was made in, well it came out in 1984, right on the heels of Superman 3,

which was, let's just say, a disappointment, both financially and critically. It made $60 million, but still. And the sockets, when they bought the rights to Superman, they bought the rights to a bunch of Kryptonian characters, including Supergirl. So they were thinking, okay, so if nobody's buy-ins, Superman, any more, let's pivot, who runs the world. So, you have to imagine the meeting at the sockets headquarters where they're looking at all the characters,

and they're like, do we do a Supergirl movie, or do we do a Beppo, the Supergirl movie? I was, I was pushing for back. We don't want to work with another monkey. Let's just, let's just, let's just use, I assume they must have made a movie with a monkey at some point. Let's just, let's do, and someone's like, what about, Streekey, the super cat, people don't want to see cat movies, not realizing that Garfield, the tale of two kiddies, would be

a huge hit, many years down the line. I was waiting for the comment of Super Horse Pole but it didn't come. And so and comment was the one who became a person and fell in love with Super Horse. It's also true. Yes. Oh, that old Superman comics were the thing is this movie is really crazy, but then I think about the old Superman comics which were crazier. Like the one of my favorite Superman stories is is's called Superman's new power, where he learns how to shoot a tiny Superman out of his hand and it starts getting jealous

of how much affection the tiny Superman is getting. It totally is. That was a time where we're talking about the Silver Age and I went, they just kind of kept building out his world and adding new characters because it was about pure imagination. It was aimed at kids, right? So you're just telling fanciful stories,

and that is also the thing that kind of let people start gravitating over to Marvel more because Marvel was directing itself at older teens and adults. And so there's more to chew on in a Marvel story than there was in a DC story at the time. Now I love... That's one more reason to be mad at the time. Now I love...

That's one more reason to be mad at tiny Superman. Yeah, another reason. Now I love Marvel Comics. I'm a Marvel zombie going way back. It's in my bones. But now that you've mentioned that, I never realized before, Marvel Comics is kind of comics for kids who are old enough to be ashamed of masturbating. I guess is what it comes down to.

Like every Marvel superhero from the 60s has carries around this deep guilt and shame that only can come from the knowledge that they can give themselves sexual pleasure and aren't supposed to. That's just thing. Right, because the DC heroes were all about, I want to fly fast, I want to be the best, I want to be the strongest,

and Marvel books at the time were about guilt alienation, feelings of self-loathing. So it was more teenage-venged kids. Yeah, and later on, they're all about pouches, right? And then it says, They're all about pouches. Yeah, and then the 90s Marvel was a very pouch-based company.

Now, with regard to the goofiness, getting back to Supergirl, the goofiness in this movie, I really love the goofiness in this movie. Wait, you thought this movie was goofing? To me, the goofiness is honestly the best part, except, and sort of a related problem. The related problem is the lack of interest

in adequately setting up anything in the film or explaining any sort of internal consistency about what's going on or like how old Kara is and like, you know, like what exactly her deal is, I don't know, we'll get into it. I have a theory about this, and we'll see if the plot bears me up. There was a certain point in this movie

where I was like, this movie feels like the national lampoon x-rated parody of Supergirl, but with all the sex taken out of it. Like there's so many situations she get placed in, where I'm like, there's a different version of this movie that I do not wanna see, where this leads to her having sex with something. And it felt like that.

Well, but also, that's interesting, because it feels, the movie does feel like this sort of like 70s key party, and then a Supergirl movie just broke out in the middle of it. It's got this sort of like, you know, 70s going into the 80s, I mean, the 84, but it's still got that vibe, like sort of like

slacker, like drugs in the rec room feel, something about it. And like the guy who wrote it mostly wrote a bunch of Muppet show scripts. Yeah, yeah. But it's got that kind of like burning end of the hippie era vibe about it. I don't know.

Now that you mentioned, I never noticed Faye Donnelly's character is basically Miss Piggy. Like, it's basically if Miss Piggy was the bad guy. All right, yeah, she's incredible. Wait a minute. She's incredible. We are getting ahead of ourselves, but I will say this. To my knowledge, nobody involved in this thing was queer or queer identified, but every

scene between Faye Dunnoey and Brenda Vicaro is giving you major queer vibes. And it's not just because of the casting because you got Faye Dunnoey and Brenda Vicar, you're halfway there. But because of those roles, you've yeah, diva and brassy broad. You've got the diva. So Crawford is, I'm sorry, I've done always playing like the Crawford, the Betty Davis, and Brent of a car is serving you John Blondell and Rosalind Russell. And then you add the FOP to it. And you know, you know, he's giving you, yeah, he's giving you George Saunders or whoever played Uncle Max in Sound of Music,

like he's giving you that, put those three together and that for the queer community is like, what maiden mother Cron is to the straight community? It's diva, broad and fop. And that's why those scenes have a power. They're the most fun part of the movie for me. It does feel like somebody was like, what if a superhero fought absolutely fabulous?

Yeah, 100%. So I guess do you should tell us some of the trees about it? I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be driving this car. Obviously, y'all are the experts, so feel free to interrupt me. So the movie opens with a very smoky credit sequence. It's pretty great. And then, you know then we open media res, futuristic, futuristic giz city, popularly by hippies.

It does look like it is built out of dry giz. You're right, it's called Argo City. But you know. It is Argo City. And canonically, in the comics, it's a big chunk of crypto that flew off intact because there was a bubble over it. Originally it was supposed to be just an air bubble,

but that's not how space works. So they re-jiggered it so it would be the leader who was Zorrell, who was Jorrell's brother. He created a dome around the city back when it was still on Krypton because it was afraid of germs, so sure. And that dome... He was the howie-man tell of Krypton. That protected the city, and then they realized that the ground was turning into

Kryptonite, so they covered the ground with lead sheets, which just is toxic, so I don't know what they were thinking there. And then meteors penetrated the city, and I really was dying, so Zorrel and Allora, played here by Allora's, played here by me, a Pharaoh for a hot second, rocketed Kara to Earth and she was the younger cousin, Superman, and she got adopted. It's a whole thing, but this is a much different vibe because this Argo City looks more like, if you cross like Mall of America with like Sedona and like open plan elementary school like 70s and maybe some logons run is in there too some logons running there sure oh yeah and and it's and all of the backstory that you just gave us explains how they just talk about

Krypton and the people on Krypton as if that planet didn't explode and kill everybody like they're just like oh yeah my cousins at earth and it's like did you where are you like how are you not dead now? What's going on? But the movie Doesn't make any effort to like let you know. Yeah, no any of this and it like it's weird because it has the same thing that the Original the first Christopher we've Superman has which is like okay We're gonna start out with this krypton stuff You're gonna get your big big name stars here. This is mostly, we're gonna start out with this Krypton stuff. You're gonna get your big, big name stars here.

This is mostly where you're gonna see Peter O'Jule and as you say, Mia Ferro is there for a second. But it did learn the lesson, I guess, from Superman that like that stuff is boring and we should get through it fast. But it didn't replace it with like any sort of exposition that made sense. Like, it's just like, wait, hold on. So some of you are still alive, and you also know that Superman is on Earth and famous for some reason?

Like, I'm not sure how that happened, but sure. Yeah, yeah, and like, the... These people seem remarkably chill, because they're all in like, flowing togas and tunics, which is how science fiction films kind of convey to you. Oh, this is, in Star Trek, this would be the pleasure planet that they go to that holds dark secret or that Wesley stepped in the geraniums or whatever,

and that would cause the plot. And the whole design of this, if you think about it, the Superman films, the Kryptonian design is angular, it's crystalline, it's hard here, it's a female lead film, it's more organic and kind of softer and rounder, but it's really poorly designed because there's one point where Kara is walking

and she has to walk through a school to get to where she's going, she has to like walk up the steps, it's just not... Well, and also the fact that their city is powered by a billiard ball-sized device that can easily get thrown through a window that's destroying the city. Yeah, let's get back on track.

So we're introduced to Zoltar who is making a tree out of jizz using his magic stick and magic stick. He would eventually go down to Earth and turn Tom Hanks into a big guy. Yeah, he has this like, what basically is like a, I don't know, like a paperweight, a glass paperweight carrot that he is using as like a 3D printer to make sure.

It's 3D printing, exactly. Yeah. And he's wearing this 1983 chess king sweater, that roof boy. It's actually more of a tunic, I now realize, because it's cinched at the waist, but roof, roof that thing. It feels like a precursor to a classic drug rug. That's true. And Zoltar has a conversation with Kara, who Kara Zorrell, who is curious and they talk about,

I don't know, like they talk about the city and like the power source that he's holding because that little ball he's got, that's the Omega-Hedren-Hedren-Hedren. Omega-Hedren, which is, which I do love, or he says Hedren because he's the English, I guess, but that's a real Jack Kirby-esque name, which I love. Like in a new God's thing, you, like, could totally see Orion fighting Calabac over in Omega Hedron, and I would be like, great, so I love that name. So, Zaltar and Supergirl here have a real

Doc Brown, Marty McFly relationships. We're just taken for granted that a teenager is friends with a kind of slightly sinister inventor. Now, yes. And this is also, I mentioned, so I mentioned my question about cars age earlier. And Stuart made a face, I think he thought it was weird, but the reason I'm saying this is, like, here in the early scenes, right? Like, she seems like, beyond young and naive, like, she seems, you know, like, none too bright or something.

Like, she seems like a child, like a real child in this, where she's like- I think she's supposed to have that kind of like angelic naivety. Yes, but there's- It manifests in her like sitting like, across like, you know, on the ground, like 3D printing, dragonflies and such,

and then like, once she gets to Earth, she, I guess, is supposed to be going to a private school although it's left like, it's left, it's a boarding school. It's a boarding school. It's a public boarding school. Like many, many sounds have public boarding schools that everyone has to go to and live in so the parents can keep having key bars.

But the extra, it was the lady, it was early eighties, you know. But the confusing part of it is it's never said outright, like it could be a college, I think it's supposed to be a, just a private school, but Helen Slater herself, she is 21 when this movie is made, and her love interest is like the groundskeeper who's around who will be who fade done away is also interested in and I guess they kind of make her a every and make was partly because of that but it leads to this like weird I don't know like disjoint that I'm like okay what what my love triangle is going there's a love triangle between a ground keeper who's probably in anywhere from 25 to 35,

fade on away and a teenage girl. Yeah, I mean, it is like the movie The Tale with Lorde Turn, which is about a young girl being exploited. Yeah, it's very strange. But on the other hand, I'll raise you, and I'll raise this question again when we get to the point where she goes undercover as a boarding school, private school girl.

Why did she do that? Yes. Well, we'll get there. Yeah, I also have that question. But her age is very, is very definitely ambiguous. She is somewhere between, I'm guessing, 16 and 27. Yeah. All right.

And the script does not give her much to do except play sort of guileless and kind and trusting, which is just not and you know it's her first role it's her first film role a house later before Billie Jean became legend she was a foothold and and she's on the screen with Peter O'Toole who you know he's game he's certainly game but like I think his agent just said look Marlon did Superman you made him he made a mint, he bought an island. Don't you want an island? And he's so, he, he is, he has to say words like, oh, mega headron and binary shoot over

and over again in this thing. And I just, ugh, it's just, uh, what would you guys think of him? I mean, he's fine. I think he's, I mean, he's, uh, Peter O'Toole is so charismatic. And he's really, that like, he really is able, even when he's playing Drunk Zoltar later, he's still able to like, do it with a certain amount of style,

but it's also like, to be honest, if I was gonna be in a movie, I'd love to be saying words like Omega-Hedron and binary things like that. Maybe he was having a great time, except for the sweater, I don't know. But he's, and obviously, when he shows up later on as Drunk Zoltar

and he just keeps saying, squirt over and over and over and over again. Dude, fucking cool out. I'm not that bad, I didn't listen. I'm about Pedro Tools' character and I'm sorry that I'm about to like step on Stuart's job a little bit here. Is he hands the power source for the whole city over at a car and she's like playing around with it.

She makes this bug that starts flying around. I guess she's created life. It opens a hole in the city that is covered with a tarp. The void of space. The city is made out of like greased paper or like rice paper like the Japanese have. Yeah, it's a ran wrap. The mcguffin like out into space, going to Earth.

And all this happens in such a way that I'm like, oh, some other shoes got to drop later. We're Peter O'Authual planned all this. He knew that like, because it's like, otherwise it's this dumbest. Dan, you're thinking like a modern movie. You're thinking like a modern movie result, she goes to Phantom Zone and he goes,

I wanted to get caught here. It was all a part of my plan to be caught in the present but no this is a dumb a these movie things just happen and this is the stupidest way to kick off a movie it's like okay uh... we're we're hurtling through space uh... i guess your bug is gonna get rid of our power source you can have to go to the app i feel like i feel like in the writers room for this movie on the on the whiteboard in big letters

It just said things just happened I mean there's probably a real feeling of like how do we make Kara Responsible for what happens that she has to be the one who goes on this adventure and they do it in the in the dumbest way I mean like you see it in in lots of kids movies where someone like Accidentally hit the wrong switch on a machine and that puts launches them on an adventure. But it's like, that's the thing is this movie, it's hard to tell. And maybe I think of it as a kids movie because I watched it many times as a kid. And yet, remembered only two things from it, one of them being that Fay Dunnoys house has

a skull on its door. It's one of the two things I remember in the movie that like, this movie feels like both a, it feels, it is kind of too dumb to be a movie for movie. That like, this movie feels like both a, it is kind of too dumb to be a movie for grownups, but it is too weird to be a movie for kids. But it's the kind of thing I could buy in a kids movie where it's like, oh, here you go, hold this thing. I got it, whoops.

And now the adventure begins. Except I can understand like, you know, whatever space camp accidentally sending everyone into space, right, like that's one where. You understand that? Why would we have a working rocket in space, Dan? But I mean, like that is like much more, for as dumb as that movie is,

it's more carefully set up mistake where you don't necessarily like blame the kid for what happens. Here, you know, I don't know, if Kara pushed a button that centered on Earth and launched our mission, great, you know, accident, but here she's like endangered her and the remaining people of her planet. The stakes are too high.

Yeah. And she knows she has just a few days before the city shuts down, which again makes it weird why she decides to enroll at a private school and just hang out with the students there for a while. Yeah. And it's Mia Farah who gives us the stakes because she says, our lights will grow dim and the very air we breathe so thin, which is really putting a happy face on your imminent death. Our lights will grow dim. That's

what she's concerned about and the air will be slightly thin. But as soon as she says that, that's like, that's a production wrap on Mia Farrow everyone. It's like she is gone. She gets a big title credit for the fact that she's in the movie for about a third building in the half. Yep. And she, so of course, as we've already addressed, Cara, fucks around with the wand, makes a giant mosquito thing or a dragonfly thing, they lose the power source. Shit is looking grim. So Cara decides the only way to fix things is she climbs into a magical egg that takes her out of the town while everybody watches her float away. Which is just lying out there. It's just lying in the middle on a balcony.

It's like that is some ocean. It's a real, it's a real Montessori space city. They just leave the activities out for people to gravitate to and they're just carefully curated. And at the same time, Zoltar, uh, well, this is my bad. So you guys can all die. You're gonna die soon I'm gonna go to the phantom zone and I'll never die and I'm like, what? Have you planned this then? That's what I'm gone. Yes. Yeah. So uh, now cut to oh and while she she's in this magic egg It takes her on a trippy voyage from inner space,

which we learn they're not an outer space, they're in inner space. Don't quite know what it means. I don't see Martin Short anywhere. But like, you know, there's like a light show going on outside. It's very exciting. Cut to the planet Earth. And a, let's say, I had trouble describing this couple but it's Selena and Nigel and you we already talked about them a little bit that's

Faye Dunnoway and Peter Cook to say that kind of that kind of explains the couple it's Faye Dunnoway and Peter Cook at their most Faye Dunnoway as them Peter Cookist and their Majust and they're playing people can't call the Selena and Nigel yeah and they're like lounging about in the park, picnicking on a like a tiger fur. Yeah. As you do. Yeah.

And they're talking about dreams of world domination and black magic. We learned that they're soul-serves. Well, again, here this is another place for the movie. It feels too tired to do any of the legwork that would set any of this up and according to Wikipedia there was a longer introduction of these two characters initially which may have helped a little bit as it is in the movie. No need. No, as it is in the movie it's basically just like as you know

we are both magicians and I'm teaching you the black magic arts and you want to take over the world. Anyway, oh no, what's that? Coming out of the sky. Yeah. I own the Blu-ray, which has the director's cut, which is 20 minutes longer, where we get a lot more of this scene, a lot more of the sort of air ballet that's coming up and a hell of a lot more.

One could argue, and I will, too much more more of the bulldozer crane terrorizes the city which just goes on forever already. It is, although I will say, I'll stand by it. That bulldozer gives the greatest performance in the movie, because I was like, I was like, I get it, this bulldozer is, he's an evil bulldozer. Yeah, yeah. And like, I understand it, but we'll get to know.

We'll get to know. A damn, a damn, does he reach the level of killdozer? No. Theodore Sturgeon was a special kind of genius, and though killdozer is, yes, not his greatest work, that would probably be what, more than human, I would rather not you compare this maimed dozer at best.

To kill those are gently cradled dozer. Yeah, it's actually, it's more of a menacing nanny dozer. Yeah. So falling out of the sky like a meteor Yeah, it's actually it's more but it's more of a menacing than any does yeah So falling out of the sky like a meteor with a symbiote It comes the power source the mega headron just lands in their lunch This is the addition of the food that it lands in instantly makes this an okay way to get it to me And if yeah, if the parker had had like an ice cream and the symbiote meteor had landed in that I would have been like okay, know what sam ramion buying this now

uh... yet yet he was making up a big pot of exeronius and the same right now he's a ironic hipster fund to party that is at his loft and it was a little bit of the window yeah uh... salina realize that the the orb may well be the answer to all of her problems, financial, power, et cetera. So Selena takes off in the car. Cara comes flying out of the nearby river in full costume.

Now you're probably wondering, wait, the last time we saw her, she was in an egg and there was shit going on. Well, they do not explain how she got from point A to point B, but it makes sense, I guess. Yeah, this is where how close change that's the main thing. The clothes, let's not I mean, you know, I guess the idea for Superman Wright is that the costume is made out of his swaddling clothes that he was like, like, meanwhile, Cargis shows up. She's like, I guess like, you know, my cousin Supes has one of these, so I packed one when I had off Earth. Like, yeah, she keeps exhibiting that non-canonical

superpower of just the instant change. And it really bugged me as a kid. It bugs me now. You know, the same thing with the front roll up, S shield and Superman 2, bug me then, bugs me now. The fact that they had the Phantom Zone villains kind of point and a little white laser came out of their fingers for no reason because they already had heat vision.

All of that stuff is, it just doesn't make any sense. But, I will say, I never really thought about it till now how silly it is that Superman is wearing his baby blanket. Does he ever mention it that people, people are like, nice costume. He's like, yeah, that's my baby blanket. I mean, he's doing it as an advertisement

for like just the strength of a Kryptonian military, like just like being able to. Oh, okay, so he's like a, he's a brand of best. Yeah, like the textiles that make on that planet are so strong, it's not afraid, it doesn't smell like baby, you know, it's a trade. Does it smell like baby? Cause I mean, it's made out of it.

It doesn't smell like it. But I mean, in the film's defense, they did put those primary colored, like, shiny blankets in the pod, and we see you go off. And if we had a scene of her like, you know, stitching together a costume, that would be really boring.

Yeah. And real quick guys, as a Spider-Man fan, I'm a big fan of watching the hero's ditch their own costume. But I think, I wonder if there's-Man fan, I'm a big fan of watching the hero's ditch their own costume But I think I wonder if there's if even they made like a big even if they showed her in her regular clothes And then there was like a glowing light and then it changed her into a costume It's one thing for it. It's doing it makes sense

But at least they would have made like a spectacle or an introduction here. It definitely feels like they're like Uh, yeah, she's in the costume now and you're like why and they're like did you see the poster? This is what she wears. like, yeah, she's in the costume now. And you're like, why? And they're like, did you see the poster? This is what she wears. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys can help me here. Has she been in contact with Superman this whole time? Nope.

Yeah. Nope. Okay. So she just knows her cousin left is a baby. Yeah. I think they get, well, they know that he's on Earth. Yeah. And but later she says, right, oh Clark Kent's my cousin. So maybe they get daily planet well they know that he's on earth and but later she says right

oh Clark Kent's my cousin so maybe they get daily planet to live with it Argos it is all turn those a lot about earth he knows about horses and trees so obviously I just imagine he's just kind of monitoring Superman that's my okay you're feeling in the blanks for the movie I like it yeah also and also they speak English at our go city and she instantly knows English when she gets here. Is that too? Yeah. Okay, so she flies out in full costume.

She starts exploring. She crushes some rocks. She flies all over creation. All over some stock footage. She's like, okay, well, there is some parallel here because when Zod, non and Ursa, and Superman II landed near a very similar river, if not the exact same river,

Ersa fried a snake with her eyes because evil, and Kara lets a flower bloom with her heat vision because good. And there's a real, I think the wire work part of this is kind of impressive. Like it's actually really good aerial ballet stuff, but then as soon as you cut to the, like she's just kind of hovering in front of a nature documentary,

it's just like, she began. Now, the flying effects in this look really good for the most part. Like, it's better than Superman, I would say, Sentite. I haven't seen Sentite for a while, but as a kid, the Superman movies, I know the tagline was,

you will believe a man can fly, but as a kid, I was like, well, buddy, it's a movie. It's not real. I've been using that cough block all of it so that because untie is gonna make you look crazy. Sorry everybody. Let me put in a little little true believer box here. Asterix Dan was sneezing on camera. Don't don't send in for your no prizes everybody. Suffering Stan. He's suffering from allergies.

But the flight stuff he looks really good. And there's a couple of effects things in this that look much better than the movie should. I mean, this is a fine. It's big enough for $35 million, and that's $84. So it's a pretty big production still, even after Superman III not doing so well. It made like 14.

So it was not a success. Yep. Yeah, so after flying around for a bit, it gets dark. She ends up landing in a somewhat abandoned city street and a truck pulls up and two fellows, one of them being Matt Fruer, Max Headroom himself comes out and then they kind of are not Randy Quaid. Yeah, very much so. Exactly.

And one of the little Easter Egg for the true fans there, a little Easter Egg for the fans there is Matt Fruer is wearing a A&W shirt, which is a diet Pepsi, not diet Pepsi, Dr. Pepper product, and there are other Dr. Pepper product, and there are other Dr. Pepper products referenced throughout this movie. So Matt Fruer and this fellow, it's a little, it's a little easter egg for the fans. So he and this fellow, you know, they, they're the first people that she has met on Earth.

She is naive, and they of course attempt to assault her. And when pressed about it, they say that's because that's who we are, which is really weird. It's really weird. And so she just, you know, she beats a shit out of you, which is great. But it's still like a weird threat, just early in the movie. Let's move past this very quickly, but it is very strange that they have the scene of like, these are clearly men who want to assault her.

And I will not make light of that, but I will like make light of the movie's depiction of it where they seem to be like very pleased about this fact. Like they might like put it on a sign on their truck. Like this is what they're doing. They're just driving around terrorizing people at night. And I think there's a lot of there's a lot of 80s stuff in this which is cities are bad cities are crime right truckers are scary truckers are bad you can't trust them and you know there's something kind of rednecky about them and in the 80s red necks were you know we're

always bad guys and scary but also like it's supposed to be I assume empowering supergilt takes care of them so quickly, but they are so one note in their dedication to attacking her that even after she has used her freeze hurricane breath and her winds breath and her heat vision, the bad guy still pulls a knife and tries to go after her and it's like, dude, what are you doing? Just give it up. Like what? And I have to imagine that if you were the ANW executive who would solve, like I secured

we're in a super girl movie and then you're sitting there in the audience as a man who basically is wearing the ANW logo like it's a superhero insignia on his chest. His would be assault like it's it's that kind of went pear shape. I imagine he takes he takes the rest of the the interview office crew to the movies to see it. And you see Nick's to his boss and he's just sinking down and you see as the sea goes on his boss is getting married. I was like, you never told me that what kind of character should be wearing this shirt?

Yeah. I think I had to. Anyway, moving on. So moving on to our other plot. Sal is throwing a pretty dope-ass party in her abandoned amusement park home, which is really biting the Joker style in a big way. Exactly. I just assume all DC villains live in abandoned amusement parks, right? Well, and of all the weird stuff that happens in this movie uh... i have to say that the

thing that all three kept coming back to his apparently they're paying a mortgage on this and the waters they have to build the pay they're paying a mortgage as we see later they keep the the haunted house that they live in turned on yeah like it's still functioning when someone stumbles into it so it's it's all around it is interesting choices for these two ladies to be making about their living space.

Yeah. Yeah. Salina Salina lives with Bianca, who is her, I guess, like, sidekick, major domo. I don't know. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, I don't know. It's like only two of the Golden Girls live together and they were witches. Yeah. It's Bianca is your mom's friend who drinks a little bit more than your mom. Like that's what her role is. Yeah. And they both dress well and they're a lot of fun.

Yeah. I mean, to be honest, when I was a kid, I'm sure I did not find these scenes entertaining that are just the two of them, Kibbut Singh, like middle-aged ladies, but now they're clearly the highlight. They're the best part by far. Yeah, and if Fay Dunnoway is not,

I mean, you would think, okay, she's just camping it up. She is, but there's a naturalism to her, camping it up. Like, it doesn't feel like she's pushing too hard. She knows exactly when to push hard. Power of shadow up here, but like here, it's just two gals sitting around having cheesecake. And the lighting for her is great too, because there's just constantly like a bar of light

across her eyes, while the rest of her is more shadowed. They are blasting her like she's glorious once in a village. And there are scenes where the lens is smeared with suet. It's just a cat. It's not super round. Yeah. The other strange thing about their house is they're clearly in an abandoned haunted house, but they also have just like a little kitchenette.

They send a lot of time in. Yeah. Then they, so they're throwing this fun party with all of her, I guess she describes them as like her soldiers of the night. I'm guessing other people are interested in the occult and they're like riding the amusement park like trains into the room. It's a lot of fun. Everybody's got teaky dreams. But again, this feels like a party out of like the ice storm though too.

Like, there should be shag curping in a high five going. Yeah. Oh, sure. And I mean, and like Nigel shows up and he mentions they saw Supergirl and Celine is like, I don't give a shit about that. I got this or but she doesn't say as much. And then she demonstrates her new power by letting Nigel flirt with a woman

who's drinking a teaky drink. And then she is mean to the woman and transforms the garnish into a scorpion, which that's another little Easter egg for all your fans out there. A scorpion bowl is a teaky drink. Okay. Again, I don't know.

Yes. That's a more of a teaky Easter egg. Yeah, this party. Again, I don't know. That's a more cheeky shirt. Yeah, this party. I do like that that's her first demonstration of powers, just being mean to one person for no reason. Before that, she uses the power of the Omega Hydron to turn on her car without her keys. Right.

So, yeah. So, she's really making the most of this thing that powers an entire interdimensional city. Right. And it's important, theoretically, that the thing she's really making the most of this thing that powers an entire interdimensional city. Right. And it's important, theoretically, that the thing she's holding the Omega head run in, called the Coffer of Shadow, which is this giant lead gargoyle thing, is getting bigger. Again, stakes. Stakes people.

Yeah, yeah. And she's mentioned before that her goal is world domination, but I like that she keeps her day-to-day goals pretty grounded. So we cut back to Cara. It's the next morning or early afternoon. I don't know. She wakes up. She's in the woods.

She follows a kid to a softball game. This is a very exciting part of the movie. You have a very excited audience. And my favorite character, of course, a big stuffed panda that is being thrown around by the enthusiastic crowd. And then somebody hits a softball, you know, they hit a foul ball, it goes off the pitch and strikes a handsome groundskeeper in the back. And normally you think, oh, he got hit by a stray ball.

It would hurt. Nope. He does not break his stride. It just bounced right off his little back. And that guy will come up later. That's Ethan, of course. That's Ellis from Die Hard, the hottest man in the universe. Yeah, he's the Diet Coke time of the movie where every single woman just cannot,

when he's around and shirt us off, they just cannot focus on anything else and their brains have melted out of their ears, it with lust. He's not given much of a character to play here, but I will say he is far more handsome than the character of Alice from Die Hard, which suggests, he shows the power of a lot of glycerin sweat that makeup artists put on him in Die Hard,

how unappealing he is there compared to here. Yeah, and for years, the Ellison diehard will be the, your go-to heart-bockener pull. But I mean, I've always, for some reason, identified him more with this particular role. So Kara watches this, she watches a game, obviously, she gets this great idea. So she transforms again, she changes her clothes and her hair, and she infiltrates this boarding school. This boarding school that I'm assuming

is associated with the softball team. They do so much work to get her from waking up in the woods to walking to the school. And yet they do no work explaining why she decides to join the school. They're like, how is she going to find it? She's got to follow this kid to the game. And then decides to join the school. They're like, how is she gonna find it? She's gotta follow this kid to the game and then the ball to the school.

It's a little rise of Skywalker right there. And artifact to artifact, get her there. Okay, now she's gonna join the school. Why? We don't have time for that. We showed her, we showed her see the school. We don't need to reason. Yeah, and this is also one of the other scenes

of the movie where you're like, okay, how much does Cara know about Earth? Because apparently she knows that enough that she takes the opportunity when the Dean leaves to use her super speed to type up a recommendation letter from her cousin, Clark Kitch. And file it properly, right? Yeah, file it. So she knows that that is a necessary part of the process to get into the school.

But later on, she doesn't know what a hand shake is. She seems to use my bra later. Yeah, she's trying to, she thinks a bra is something weird, but she knows the correct format for a recommendation letter. Someone would write their cousin to get into a private girl's school. Although I'm not sure who's paying the tuition even so. That's another. I mean, also, the fact that she needs a name and she's like, I'm Linda.

And then she looks at a framed picture of Robert E. Lee that is on the Suman's wall and goes, Lee. And it's like, what kind of school is this? Like what? This is like a Midwestern school. Why is there a picture of Robert E. Lee on the Dean's wall? Well, because the principle is a deeply unpleasant man. I just a toxic dude who is angry at everything.

That's very true. He hates his job. And his name is Danvers, which is a toxic dude who is angry at everything. That's very true. He meets his job. And his name is Danvers, which is a little worrisome if you know the comics, because that is the name of the family that eventually adopts Lindelie from Midvale Orfinage. So like, I don't want this dude to be your dad because he's such a dick. He is a dick, but I like that the performance has a little bit of layers. He's like an ineffectual that they may be he's like maybe it's a little easter egg that he's he's the

child of missus danvers from rebeca and that explains how it had such a hard time of it yet so i was there's a keeping track that's one easter egg for all of it to easter eggs for me uh... whoever gets the most of the course, gets the Easter eggs feast at the end. So, it's literally an Easter egg hunt. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah. So, of course, the dean is interrupted by Nigel, who is the warlock from earlier, that I guess his day job is he's a math teacher, English teacher, I don't remember.

He's like a math and computer sciences teacher. Yeah. So Cara decides she's going to go undercover, as I already mentioned, Linda Lee. She's the cousin to Clark Kent, and she becomes roommates with Lucy Lane. That's right. The kid's sister of Lois Lane. Did I get that all right? Yep.

And Lucy Lane has the sideways baseball cap and the sweats pants, and she's got like Lucy Lane has like the sideways baseball cap and like the sweats pants and she's very like serving you Joe in facts of life very like you have like a little uh uh uh uh slingshot out her back pocket you know it's kind of the vibe she's giving off. Glenn do you know if is Lucy Leah character from the comics was invented for this movie? No, Lucy Lane's real she was uh she was Jimmy Olson's boyfriend. Well she says she has she has has real as any of these characters, Glenn. I know you're just going to be in these ones a long time.

No, no, no, no, that was my. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Now, now, if you brought this up, she, you mentioned that she's Jimmy Olson's girlfriend. Now, as we've already addressed, they are high school kids. So how does Lois Lane feel about a Jimmy Olson who I believe is a grown man? My wife wanted to know how does Lois Lane feel about her kids sister fucking an older guy? Well,

he's a cup reporter. You know, we don't know how old he is. Well, that's the other thing. I'm Jim, another grown man, a teenage girl. Jimmy Olson. He's a different time stew. This was 1984. It was the Cold War. People didn't know if they're going to be nuked by the Russians at any moment. They had to make the most of it. Jimmy Olson as a character in general is kind of confusing, right? Because like, here he's played by the same actor who was in the other Superman films. And by this point, yes, he is a clearly a full grown adult man, which raises some troubling

questions in this film. but Jimmy Olson the character I'm always like okay like he's a boy reporter like the way that like 10 tens of boy reporter And I have the same confusion about that. I'm like does that mean he's just like a really young reporter or is he a literal boy? And it seems like the comics you know change that around a lot So maybe that's part of my confusion, but I don't know if there's a more definitive answer about what Jimmy Olson is Nope You the other thing is that you know Linda Lee is I'm sorry Lucy Lane

Is wearing a sweatshirt for the school that says MVH. It's called mid-veh high Mid-veh high think is one word and does not deserve a V, so I don't know what's going on there. Dan, could you put that in Goofs Threefs maybe? Yeah, come on, come on. For our listeners who can't see it home, there are multiple fist marks in Glenn's drywall from all these fuckups.

And it's also clearly not a high school, it's a poor school, so yes, it's... Yeah, and Jimmy school. It's a pretty school so yes. It's. Yeah. And Jimmy Olson, this, it makes me mad that he's there. I mean, and not just because he is a grown man dating a high school student, which is horrible. But that also, this is the continued dorkification

of Jimmy Olson, who in the old comics is such a troublemaker and is always getting into like, always getting himself into big problems, then being like, superman, bail me out of this. And I really miss into like, always getting himself into big problems and then being like, Superman, be on me out of this. And I really miss the like, rascal Jimmy Olson. And here's my theory about it. In the old comics, Jimmy Olson wears a bow tie as a way of showing that he's like a troublemaker,

a young kid, and not one of these stodgy old people wearing long ties. But by the time the like 60s and 70s rolled around, you can't change a character's clothing, that would be crazy. But a bow tie by then means a nerdlinger. So then he becomes like kind of nerdy boring Jimmy Wilson. And Glenn, does that square with your scholarship at all?

Well, in the 70s, he grew out his hair. He got a pant suit, a leisure suit, and big bell bottom. So yeah, they changed him around. I think the bow tie guy went away in the late 60s or the 70s, but he's back now in a really great series of Jimmy Wilson series. It's a lot of fun that is kind of incorporating all the weirdness that used to happen to Jimmy Wilson. He got turned into a turtle man. He grew 80 feet. All that stuff is back and that's a really great series. Okay, then maybe you know what? I should apologize to Jimmy's bow tie

Jimmy's bow tie okay, so Cara we get some scenes of Cara and Lucy hang out at school Manly Cara is she's on the hunt for an artifact that she needs to keep her parents and the rest of the city alive But then she's mostly using her powers to like save people from pranks Yeah, protect protect Lucy from pranks from bullies who I think are on their same team. Right? They were in the same field hockey uniforms. Yeah. Well, it's like, you know, they're they're all they you can you can hate someone. Maybe maybe Lucy is a starter and they don't like her for that or something like that. I don't know. In teen wolf, you had a basketball competition between two state between two teams from the same school. That was the championship, so it really doesn't make any sense.

So right around now, Salina is using decides to make a love spell to insorcel the most successful groundskeeper in the time. That's Ethan, as we've already mentioned, played by Ellis from Die Hard. And she casts a spell on him and tricks him into coming out to her amusement park. But then she gets distracted and he wanders off in a few state and Selena's concerned because the rules of the spell will be that if the first person he lays eyes on or something is who he will fall in love with.

So she's like, can't have that happen. So she then insorcells a construction vehicle to chase Ethan around town and bring him back to her. Now, Stewart, I think you're glossing over what's really the most important part of these scenes involving a love spell and an evil evil bulldozer or it's more of an excavator or digger, I guess, which is that before this happens to three day weekend from school, and Lucy is like, come with me, Kara, and she goes, no, no, I'll stay here. And Lucy goes, okay, I'll see you later than it pop eyes.

And I went, what? Hold on. Does Midvale have like a local diner called pop eyes? That would be a coincidence. But they can't certainly be going to the greatest of all fast food franchises. Pop eyes famous fried chicken and biscuits. That can't be possible. Well, lo and behold, Carre runs into them on the street and they are in Popeyes.

And Jimmy makes a big show of handing out each of the items on the Popeyes menu to the people at their table. And for this whole sequence, they're standing around this Popeyes. And I just thought, finally, a movie has seen me and is speaking to me. And my interest in Popeyes and that particular franchise, do I wish it was a better superhero movie? In some ways, yes, because Popeyes deserves a better superhero, but in some ways, no, because I kind of don't want great superhero action getting in the way of me looking at

that Popeyes. So, I'm torn, and this is a scene that really, I was of two minds about, for exactly those reasons. It's also probably a better food choice for them than the diner that was advertising live lobsters. Yeah, and there's a little small fact. In the middle of the Chicago area. Yeah, in the Chicago lobsters.

The Popeyes comes back because, you know, the crane, whatever it is, is chasing Ethan through the streets as he's dazed. There are some actually impressive near misses. The stunt people kind of seem like really talented because sometimes I was, no, maybe they're doing that with foreshortening the perspective or something, but it seems like this crane comes really close to people,

but then when eventually, eventually, eventually, Cara decides to intervene. She watches this unfold for a very long time. And Lucy decides to intervene before Cara does. Oh, I did make a sense. But when she eventually changes into Supergirl, she does so atop the Popeye's sign. She straddles it like a colossus.

And like that is the money shut of the film. It is so odd. But she also does like so. Yeah, she waits a long time to get involved. Then she does all that she can like from a distance using you know, heat vision and blowing things or whatnot. So she's not seen doing any of her super heroics and she rescues this guy and takes him off. Like it's all like, why are you concerned about keeping this a secret? Like this is a place that already has a Superman, they love him.

You know, they're not gonna be confused by you wearing the exact same clothes and having the exact same, you know, like, powers. Well, I mean, they might, I will not be confused, but they're not gonna be like mad about it. They'll be like, oh, great, another one. You know, like, it powers. Well, I mean, they might, I will maybe confuse, but they're not gonna be like mad about it. They'll be like, oh, great, another one. You know, like, well, what I would say, the first time she, the only other time that she had encountered humans, they attempted to assault her in the street.

So maybe she was like, I need to change what I look like. So it's like Steve Martin in the jerk, she thinks it's the clothes that were the problem. Like when he's like these cans. He hates these cans. Like, because there's a lot of this movie that, and you see it in a lot of action and superhero movies, where they're following the form of the thing,

but not the function of the thing, where it's like a superhero has a secret identity. So she's got to go undercover at this school and she can't let anyone know. She's super girl. But the movie has given you, but in regular comics and in movies, that follows the function of, I live on this planet. So I have to lead a normal life. I don't want to just be walking around in my costume all the time and I don't want to

endanger my loved ones. Whereas the super girl, she's just visiting. There's no reason, you know, she's not sticking around. She has to leave. So yeah, it makes no sense why she would establish another identity, why she would care if people know who she is. Like if I was her, I would have gone straight to the president and been like, I'm from another planet, I'm looking for this thing, I need you to help me, or I guess I'll blow up Mount Rushmore or something.

Look, I just need your help. Like there's no reason for her not to go on TV and be like, hey, I'm super girl, I know who Superman is, go find this thing for me, and I'll tell you, like it's'll tell you, there's no reason. I mean, even she does want a secret identity, like helping out in the situation is not gonna endanger that.

When she's Linda Lee, she's a burdened at, when she's super girl, she's blonde. No one can see through that. Yeah. Yeah, it's impossible. People never change their hair color, or else no one would ever recognize them. Yeah.

The whole primary colored costume thing would seem to work against, I need to disguise myself by kicking up some hay. It seems like you need to pick a land there. But I think it must hit her with so much guilt that Lucy Lane, an ordinary teenager, jumps into the cab of this add a control construction equipment to save a man while she's just standing off to the side watching. Like, unless it's one of those things,

I always wondered this about Superman. There's the scene in Superman Returns, I think it is, where he stops a bank robbery and those guys have that huge artillery gun that they're firing at him. And I was always like, why does Superman care about property laws? He's so powerful.

Like, why does he really care about the bank's problem? So when you would think he would be spending all of his time stopping runaway volcanoes. Yeah. Things like that. But so with Supergirl, maybe she is such a god-like being that she looks down on this. And she's like, huh, that handsome man's being chased by that excavator. This amuses me. I'll see what happens. He is but an ant to me. Well, she saves him anyway. She tears what the shovel part of the construction vehicle that is carrying I think it's called a mall I think the mall. Yep, and she

whisks him away and Quickly changes back to her what Linda Lucy Linda Linda Lee Persona they they both characters have double L names and they make a joke about this for where the Dean is like confused And it's like they never occurred to them that the film will or might also be confused by the names that sound almost identical Yeah, and and we hear him now that he's in love we hear him like Pitch little Lou and the thing about this guy under this Love spell is Suddenly he starts reciting like poetry to her. Yeah, and

I mean it it wrote you know it it sparked a few questions in my mind. I mean mostly Did he know poetry before and now he's just in love and he has poetry or like poetry before and now he's just in love and he has poetry or like does this somehow spell somehow switch his personality over to a guy who like says a lot of poetry and also the other thing rules love love is represented by either poetry or him acting kind of dumb him like being like where's Linda I love Linda I gotta get back to Linda yeah yeah love the people done. Yeah, but I am... My primary mode of expressing love is that like, I have to get back to Audrey.

Where is Audrey? Yeah. A real poochie type thing. Where's poochie? What's going on? There's a... His personality change during this love spell is so baffling. Because the first time we see him is like, yeah, I don't know

Hey, I don't like talking about myself to Selena very much more the type of guy I would imagine who would try to data high school student and then he turns into he turns into like this kind of Intellectual Ethan. Yeah, and It it yeah, but then after the spell wears off. He's still suddenly this smarter guy So I don't know I don't know what they're going for unlike everything else in the movie which is just cracker jack flotting and there's probably a flower is for Aljun on moment after the movie when he he loses it well it looks at his mouth which is falling in love with another mouse and it's like sorry

oh okay well that's that's fun, Selena Bianca nod into this. So they decided to put a curse on Cara, always hating on the woman, not the man. Absolutely. And Selena says, what good is a sword if it's not unleashed? And it's like, that's not what you do with a sword. No, oh, it's my second favorite line in the movie. After, of course, I'll see you later than it pop by.

But the, yeah, that was, she says, a sword unleashed. And yeah, it's just like, what do you think? How do you think he's words me? I think the line was probably unsheathed and she just got it wrong. That's my working theory, but it doesn't make any sense. So they unleashed kind of like an invisible force thing, kind of like what I'd imagined the thing from Evil Dead 2,

that's always chasing people around, looks like. It basically caused a lot of wind and stuff flies all over the place and Cara uses a stick and electricity and defeats it. Yeah. Yeah, I like this like a lamp pole. Yeah, she takes a straight lamp and she flies up into the clouds. It is a stick.

I like that. I like the propose as she's carrying the stick up into the lightning. She turns it into a lightning rod and brings it back down. And the effect is that very forbidden planet cartoon lightning thing that it seems like for a long time, that's all we could do with lightning in movies is to just kind of do that fakey fake For a bit in planet effect, but before that they are monitoring this whole situation

Bianca and Selena with a mirror that does not provide sound and You are reminded of when this film is set by terms of By epithets thrown by these characters Dingelberry space cadet on the on the case of Lucy Lane and here. Where's the wimp? And the spin that they done away puts on the word wimp. It's like it does not have a letter I it is just yeah Where's the who she is as if she's never heard the word before? Where's the book? As if she's never heard the word before. Yeah.

The, so of course, no man, I got, oh yeah. So, Karra. So this, I should mention, this magic mirror must have been a huge influence on Tim Burton when he made the first Batman movie since so much of that consists of Joker watching television and getting mad at the things Batman is doing on TV. So Cara notices that the that this whole interaction causes a little bit of a reaction with her magical bracelet that I guess she's using to track the Omega headron. In theory.

Yeah, in theory. So she follows the kind of vibes from the Omega Hadron to Selena's hideout. Right before, right before she decides to, or tries to confront Selena, Ethan shows up. He's sick with love for this teenager. Now she, he proposes to her, yeah. She flew there. So did he also fly there or is he been hanging around in a band in a amusement park hoping that, that this girl from a school that's I guess across town would show up. Yeah, that's an alpha level move. Well, this is also one of the places in his love sickness that where he just comes across, like his love, his version of playing love is just sort of like sort of be like kind of,

I don't know, different and like sort of like, here come, please, please, please, please, take a ride, please, please. Yes. Yeah, and he proposes to her, which is moving fast. Moving fast, but whatever. Then Selena shows up and she is not having it.

So she and Carr have a little showdown that features bumper cars heavily. And Selena does. And those bumper cars are in the shape of three football players. So they are the most amazingly detailed bumper car sculpts that I've ever seen. And I gotta say, and Selena also has this move where she creates a whole bunch of mirror images of herself. It's pretty great. That's the only other thing,

the only other thing I remembered about this movie from when I was a kid was that, that effect, which still looks really cool to me, where she turns into a bunch of kind of shimmering half translucent salinas. That and the fact that she had a skull painted on her door, only things that are remembered from when I was a kid about this.

Yeah, no, this sequence, I think, looks, is fun and genuinely looks kind of cool. Like, I don't like, you know, you got to forget the facts, but, you know, being hit by a bumper car while certainly would probably hurt is not the, uh, mortal danger. This movie tries to make it out to be. I mean, that is literally the, the point of bumper cars is to be hit by the other cars. Or, you know, you got to ignore like, you know, Supergirl throwing a bunch of like metal bars in fast motion to create a like a fence around a cage around Selena is not maybe the most effective thing that Supergirl can do with all of her powers to subdue her.

But great, it's a great like, you know, comic bookie thing. Yes, she had to do it to inspire the same thing to happen in Spider-Man her, but great. It's a great comic bookie thing. Yeah, she had to do it to inspire the same thing to happen in Spider-Man 3, within, I remember. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not like Selena's powers are based on her being able to like, like, if they put her in a cage, she's still going to be able to do magic shit, right?

Well, maybe she needs to make a really big hand gestures, and she just can't quite get the wingspan that she needs. Now I always love the fakey fake language that movies and television come up for, come up with for magic and here, if I don't a way, memorably, delivers the line, Sikaraka Faka, Sku, and I would argue that Sku is where that whole thing takes a dive. Like I'm with ya, the S Sikarokad Faka, but like the SCOO just doesn't have the juice it needs to have. No, it's, the rest could be some kind of ancient Latin neat type of language, but SCOO,

specifically. Plenty of apostrophes, you know, in there somewhere, but not in SCOO, no. That's, it reminds me of an old, there's an old Jack Benny show where, I forgot the name of the guy he had who would like sing. He had a male singer on who was part of the cast and who would sing songs. Where he sings Bibbidi Babidi Boo because I guess Cinderella had just come out.

And hearing a grown man singing that song, it's like, oh, this song is nonsense. This song is just made of crazy made-up words. And that was the feeling I had here with her magic. This song is just made of crazy made up words and that was the feeling I had here with with her magic So even is in danger so Cara picks him up in the bumper car and takes him to a beach somewhere where he is promptly knocked out with a coconut to the head That is not a joke Dan McCoy wrote this thing Selena sends that coconut. Yeah, it's not like it's a random coat I love it too because she's like she's like that should keep her busy for a while or something like that.

And just like that's your plan. Yeah, we're gonna hit her hit her boyfriend with like coconut. Yeah. So they're watching. Selena Bianca and then Nigel are all watching this on through the mirror. Nigel breaks the love spell by cracking open a nut and flicking out of spider. Crack and open a nut and flicking out a spider. Not a uniform. Yeah, Ethan and Supergirl get in this conversation. They argue, but it isn't until they kiss. Or wait, is this when they kiss and Ethan realizes that Linda is Supergirl and Supergirl's Linda?

Something like that. Yeah, somewhere around here. Maybe that happens later. No, no, I Yeah, somewhere around here. Maybe that happens later. Yeah, I think that happens around here because there's no other, after this, it's just non-stop action in Phantom Zone stuff. So I think that's a non-stop action. Well, a start and stop action.

Yeah. I think that's when Eden gets whisked away because Nigel is using the Burundi wand, which is pure unadulterated evil and like naming your evil wand after a entire country and he like we don't do that anymore we like it's not the Spanish flu we don't we're not using Spanish flu anymore so like can we just

look it was not a good so he and they and they take him away he like literally just teleports to a bed where he has chained up. Yummy, yummy. It's also something funny about being like this object that I got is all powerful. I can control the world with it. The whole plot of the movie hinges on it and I just be like, I got this thing too.

It's pretty powerful. I can do stuff with it. It's like, why are you introducing new magic, Nigel? Like, what do you do? What do you do? Yeah, what is this a Christopher Nolan movie? We don't have to keep introducing new shit. What is this cat? We have our characters. Let's let's see a plot already. Yeah, so I do love that this like, I do love how much this world domination plot

still revolves around Selena capturing Ethan. Like that's like the whole world's your oyster, but whatever. Yeah, he sticks in her craw that Ethan isn't loved with this other person now. That makes perfect. Well, let's, I mean, hold on, let's, let's back up and take a little examination of that because like, not to get on a high horse, but I feel like this movie does have like some of that cat-wobbing issue where like, you you know the Halliburgy cat woman they're like okay this is gonna be a female lead superhero movie so clearly the bad guy has to be Sharon Stone evil cosmetics manufacturer so and here in Supergirl it's not

quite as egregious as that but it does feel like okay you know we've got this female lead superhero movie great we're gonna put a female villain in sure I understand that decision with that like and now what we're gonna do with that is in addition to the villain wanting world domination there's got to be a love triangle between like they have to both like the same man you know and like there's it would be weird if Clark Kent and Lex Luthor were trying to date the same person and that's what the movie was about. Yeah, I guess. I mean, like, it is a little fun to like put him in the traditional like, damsel and distress role.

I'm not going to say like that there's not like a little joy and the silliness of like all of it. Like, that's really do list. Let's like reverse everything. Let's make him like almost a non-character of the way that unfortunately many girlfriend characters are in movies, but it also feels like you don't need it, man. Like you're making adjustments that aren't necessary here. And it's kind of fucked up that this character,

that the Ethan character, up until that point was like magically coerced to be interested in Super. Yeah. Like I think she even kisses him before the spell breaks maybe. It's kind of fucked up. Yeah. Well, I don't, I mean, she doesn't know that he's under a love spell, I think, but it is weird that we, the audience, know that so well. Also, I feel like there are other like elements that I can track all of the choices that led to like one big like sort of problematic results, you know, because it does feel like okay, we're gonna cast fake Denley in this because you know if we're gonna do a female lead superhero movie, why not give a woman also have the

chance to really bite into a villain role and like like that's also have her be like the big name of like the main cast, you know, Peter O'Chill was a glorified Camille. Let's make it like she's like the she is. They're very much following that they're following the Superman, the movie thing of you have a Kryptonian that's a big name. You got a villain that's a big name. So you can have a newcomer who is the yes. But the result of this is like the fact that the like okay we're gonna have fade on way this middle-aged

actor in a love triangle with this other actor is supposed to be very young over this man kind of makes it feel like the movie is like kick it to the curb old lady old old witch lady your middle-aged sexuality fuck that supergirls here like and I know that I'm reading a lot into it was a point but it is like you make all of these small decisions and then an unintended consequence comes out yeah I don't know that it's a talk-based consequence yeah I don't know that it's that unintended consequence. I think you're giving them more credit than they deserve,

but I will say the math works out. The gardener is roughly the median age between power and they done away. It works, the math works. Yeah, and the character of Supergirl, I mean, like, there is some empowering messages in this film that template to get undercut by the climax and we'll talk about it when we get there

But the character of supergirl has always been geared toward girls From the jump she was there to accompany, you know Superman and her entanglements were always more emotional and romantic than physical just because you know romance comics were going out of style and They wanted to hold on to women so they introduced a lot of female versions of male characters, who usually didn't have a lot of personality, but they made up for not having a lot of funnable personality,

the way they made up for the fact that Superman didn't have a definable personality, surround them with a lot of weird shit. And so they just surrounded her with the super horse who also was in love with her and all these romantic antagonists. So when the Supergirl series on the CW came out and people were complaining that it's so female and soft

and why can't she just be a badass? It's because that's in the DNA of the character and all the conflicts in this film are not really physical. They are emotional and the climax of the film is Super Girl telling Selena she doesn't have any friends which is just just just Mean great things just it's like it's the fact that it's the same climax as the Muppet movie Yeah, I would say that's you raise a good point and Dan you raise a good point and I'm gonna not argue against it exactly

But say that like there is something they do it badly here But there's something a little refreshing to me almost in the return to that That what is a massage and traditional thing when son poorly that like I get tired of Female heroes where it's like she's just like a male hero and just as tough as a male hero and just does everything the male Here would but she's got a vagina instead of a penis. Yeah, It's like there is something to having a female hero who takes on, who has strength from feminine characteristics, but again, they do it poorly. I agree with you. I didn't say it, but meant to that, like, you can give them credit for like trying to,

not just being like, okay, we're gonna do a Superman movie, but with a female lead. Like, it's clear that they thought about, like, okay, how does this change the movie? And don't just map it on and be like, but at the same time, yes, they do it badly. It's the problem. They do it badly. I'm gonna think it through.

And the thing is, at the time this movie came out, in 1984, like, to do a Superman movie, but with a female lead doing all this different stuff, would have been a new and exciting. Like that, it would have been aliens to a certain extent. Yeah, yeah. And it's tough, it's tough to do female characters who aren't gonna spend their entire time

punching people because like with a Wonder Woman, that's a contradiction in terms. Like she is a warrior for peace, right? She fights so that people won't fight anymore. So the way you get around that, because again, all the stuff that's essential to what Roman is that she works through compassion and truth and love, it's a very gender essentialist. So the way you get around that is the way you do it in the first female, the first Wonder Woman film where she shows up with a rocking badass soundtrack and she kicks ass.

That's a way you kind of get pet you you incorporate what's essential about the character without making it so sexist and essentialist. Yeah that makes sense. Anyway. I think I think and it all like you're saying that I think it comes from like strong character. Yeah. You know rather than trying to check a box off. Yeah here she has no character. But yeah, well, I mean clearly. So not clearly we four men, three of whom are straight, are the best people to have. I'm back all of this. Yeah, of course.

So now that Selena has captured Ethan, she again betrays Nigel and then magics up a fortress, a mountain fortress in the middle of town, which everybody seems quite perplexed by. So Cara shows up to save the day. Right, right, right. And, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, And by the way, when much like certain, much like certain former presidents, she does not want to be in charge. She just wants to be have permission to do whatever.

When Kara flies back to mid-Vail, by the way, she like flies over like New York City, I think. Like it takes a long time. I'm just like, how far did you fly the due to a way to take it to safety? Yeah. Yeah, you got to get that bumper car out of there. So she flies back. She sees this beautiful palace, which I honestly have to say I kind of miss the abated amusement

amusement park on that, but that's okay. So we have this we have this fortress and Ethan has chained up and then she immediately is trapped in a prism and flipped off into the phantom zone Now is she trapped in the phantom zone or she is that time and using Is that time and just transporting her to the phantom zone bit of a contradiction in the canon here because Superman two and Superman one the ph Zone, is that swirly little diamond. But here, it's just like the jitney to the Phantom Zone.

And it's like, well, which is it? Because I mean, otherwise, like, are we saying that the three Superman villains never made it to the Phantom Zone because they missed their turn. I was also confused, like, as soon as she arrives, like, that thing shatters, which she falls out on the ground. I'm like, if that is just a transport, is that the way it works? Is it just two pieces of glass that are pressed together and with a super girl sandwich? It's like...

Yep. Yes. The... I imagine it was a poor Charlie type situation for the phantasm criminals where they did not have... They didn't have the right toll on them to get off. They just have to ride back and forth between Pretton and the phant zone criminals where they did not have, they didn't have the right toll on them to get off. They just have to ride back and forth between Krypton and the phantom zone for all eternity.

So she returned, they never returned. Here's the thing, the phantom zone stuff when she first appears in it. Her just walking through this like blasted wasteland with her costume on and the lighting kind of, like that whole sequence until she has to crawl through mud which was gross for them to do that to the character. That whole sequence works really well for me as like, she's at the lowest ab in now.

She's in a place that her natural inborn abilities of optimism and kind of gooey angelic naivete don't work here anymore. So this is a visual that works really well for me. Yeah, I guess the well it except there's a lot of it. There's a lot. She was wandering for a long time. Well, if there was such a thing as a verbal macro, this goes on for a while. It would be something we'd be using a lot in this movie. Yeah, and then Peter O'Toole shows up and like this is the only time I think in film going history where I've been like, oh Peter O'Too tool's back. Because I know that, like, this is like the fun part

of the movie is like the, you know, the more campy stuff with the fade-down away, just like sort of hanging around being evil. And then like Peter, a tool stuck on the fandom zone. I'm like, okay, well, this is just like a complication we gotta get through. And again, he's kind of like he's broken and seemingly drunk. And he keeps saying squirt over and over, which again is a doctor pepper

product. Just like a J. Easter egg. Stewart racked up another one. Man, man, I got a whole a barrel. Salah for weeks. It seems like saying squirt and stuff that Peter O'Dool is working so hard

to make us make us the audience think that Peter O'Toole actor does not know what it's like to be a drunk alcoholic. And like, Peter, just be, you know you can do this. He's trying so hard to do like a non-alcoholic version of someone who's drunk, you know. There are moments, even though I love these super movies and all this kind of stuff. There are moments when a really world-class actor, like Peter O'Toole, is reduced to going squirt? Squirt. That, it's like when, I think it was Winter Soldier

where Robert Redford says, hell hydrate, and it's like, oh, don't, don't, don't, please. Just leave it to, it's like, you'll remember this when you're playing with your Migo Batcave Action figures and your dad who's been trying to get you out in the yard to throw the old pig skin around, but has just not been able to do it. And he comes in and he gives up.

So he gets down on his knees and he picks up when your action figures would go, so which doll is this? Is this a spider boy? And you're like, no, I don't patronize me. I don't need you here. You just go out. You just go, it's, and also, A, their action figures are not dolls and B, it's something of it's a spider boy and see I can tell you didn't say the hyphen there's a hyphen in spider but there would be and I can tell you didn't know you're

like dad it was a very deliberate choice that stand named him spider man and not spider boy exactly they but I mean it's just it's beneath him oh yeah you know that it's the having to it's it's it's like watching someone make a movie in a language they don't really speak and they're doing it phonetically and they can't pull it off as well as Antonio Banderis and the Mambo Kings and it just doesn't come across. But the flip side of that is my favorite thing about everyone having to be in superhero movies now, which is then the behind the scenes interviews were an actor who clearly does

not give a shit about the X-Men, has to talk about the meaning of the new mutants or whatever and why Magneto is the heart of the new mutants or whatever and like why Magneto is the heart of militant rebellion against oppression or something. I do love seeing them being forced to take material seriously that they do not care about. Whereas when you, it feels like there's no other type of movie where there's an assumption on the part of the audience that the people making it should love and understand every aspect of the thing that they're doing. Like what Tom Cruise when he made the Fermi wasn't like, oh, yeah, of course I love John

Grisham's novels. All of them. I've always been a big grish head, you know, ever since I was a kid. You get to see Peter O'Toole kind of and all of them kind of like having to, yeah, it feels like they're in a, they're swimming through a culture that they don't Really I mean at the at it's right at its worst this movie like feels like Whoever you know like all it was Involved in this or that part of the of making the movie is like

Comics are dumb like we're holding ourselves about like let's not make a comic book movie Let's make this other movie that we want to make like as worse that you feel a little that coming through as best all the stuff that doesn't feel like it should be in there does feel like it should be in there because it's like so weird which is what comics are and like the fact that it feels like this like cultural stew of what people thought you wanted to see in a comic book movie, maybe wasn't what comics fans,

but what people thought, what can be more comic books than chasing whatever weird cultural fat is in the air at that time. So I don't know. It really makes you realize how good Judy Denches that she makes a lot of stuff that I'm sure she doesn't care about the riddic canon. But she always out or like in Artemis Fowl or whatever. But she always kind of sounds like she actually cares about it.

I don't know. She's really good. In Artemis Fowl, when she goes top of the morning to you, as part of the leprechaun police force, I'm like, yeah, in another actors' hands that would not have come off as believable. Yeah, and Glenn Close in Guardians saying, fire the Neckrobel Astros. I mean, you know, I'm always gonna be. Well, there was a part in,

oh, who is it in the last mission impossible movie? Who's the, why am I forgetting? Is it Angela Bassett? Who's the, I forget, there's the, like, is it? Where, there's a part where she's like, she's like, they've gotten a's a part where she's like, they've gotten a hold of the hydrogen bomb, so whatever, you have to get those warheads.

And there's like, that's what I wanted to see. I want to see her talking about this stuff as if it matters. So back on Earth, Selena takes Jimmy Olsen Lucy and Nigel all captive and puts them in little cages in her layer. And before she does that, she rides through town in the saddest motorcade.

The tiniest motorcade. It's not even a motorcade, it's a car with some motorcycles next to it. It's, and the teams think they can stop her by protesting. Yeah. They're protesting her. The already, there is a, she's, within, she's just created that mountain

like minutes before. And already there's like, she has a secret police force and a vintage car that she drives around in and the teens have made posters to protest. They should have hired fewer protesters and a lot more cars just to give it a little bit more. Yeah. But in addition to their fortress upgrade,

they also, my notes also point out that Selena and Bianca, both look incredible now. They're wardrobes have gotten an upgrade. Yep. And they're shoulder pads. Yep. But with the motorcade, it's almost like they had

a certain number of cars and they crash them during the construction equipment on the RAM page sequence. And they're like, why did we do that? We needed another car for this. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So Karin Zoltar has a plan to escape the Phantom Zone. I think she gives him, uh, she gives him some confidence and they decide to sneak around

a whirlwind by crawling along a cliff. Uh, and then Selena starts shooting fireballs at them. And, and Zoltar shooting fireballs at them, and and Sultan makes the ultimate sacrifice and gets gets whisked away in the whirlwind. And I'm not totally sure how that helps anybody. It's his way of getting out of the movie. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't, I mean, look, you know, 50% of them

don't make it. So I'm not saying that's nothing, but it also doesn't seem to be as hard to get out of the fan episode as advertised. not saying that's nothing, but it also doesn't seem to be as hard to get out of the Phantom Zone as advertised. And Slager gets chance to do some acting here. Yeah. She's trying to convince O'Toole to, you know, get out of the Phantom Zone. She gets to be defiant, which she hasn't had much to do.

She's just been around being sympathetic, and now she gets to do, to be angry and resolute, which is good to see. Yeah. Yeah, she tries to inspire him and like wake him from his drunken referee or whatever, right? Now, Glenn is all Tar a character from the comics? No, what was that in? Because his name sounds like you're saying like a grown-ups idea of what a Kryptonian

is in the sound like. Well, I mean, I think canonically, there's some like hyphen-er or hyphen-el or like, you know, the single name stuff. I mean, Zodch, but he was general's out, so anyway, I don't have a definitive answer for it. Okay, it just seems like, because it does seem like one of those, like, we were just about forcing the actors to say nonsense for her to have to be like, Zaltar! Yeah. And it's like, you could have given him a name that sounded more like a name. Go on, girl, you con! So Cara returns to the fortress to stop Selena.

She is out of the Phantom Zone and she wants to save her friends. They battle and this is pretty exciting because Selena is using the power of that Omega headron to summon up the power of shadow. And we get a giant monster, we get a floor that seems shaking and there's lava underneath. And then the giant shadow monster even picks up Kara and needs her like a piece of dough. Mm-hmm.

Which they show us by they are literally distorting the video image of Kara, which if this what there's something like If it was that's one of those things where it's like in the right context if this was like a video drone type thing Where it was like the new flesh is the broadcast image when I destroy this image it destroys you I'd be like that's a cool effect, but here it just looks so good Yeah, yeah, it's this one of the moments where I'm like this has got to look amazing on blue ray gland You'd be surprised. This is the moment when a supergirl tells her that she has no friends and that Darryl wants a sweater back and nobody likes you and nobody's gonna ask you to prom.

It's just, it's, it's, and this is also the point where she gets saved by not one, but by two dudes. First, Ethan covers up the Omega headron in the lead cover of Shadow, which cuts off Selena's power. And then she hears Zaltar telling her to, you can! And it would be great if it was just something she did herself, you know? Yeah, it was also one of those things that is just a nonsense movie thing where it's like, well, I don't have the strength to fight anymore. Oh, I got some words of encouragement. Now I feel better.

It just doesn't work that way. Usually I would have to have the villain anger me to the point where I would tap into my rage bonus. Yeah, yeah, and do the like Hulk Emanuele, like heavy breathing thing. Yeah, exactly. Where you're like Hulk Emanuele like heavy breathing thing Exactly, we're like oh shit, you're done now kid Now something I've noticed in a lot of movies in general But especially movies from this time is that the movie seems to get cheaper as it goes on So like yes, clearly spent a lot of money on Argo City and the early flying effects and then by the end of it They're like yeah, just get a puppet monster and just kind of have to solve it in there like whatever.

And do you think this was a matter of them like not thinking the audience would necessarily sit through the whole movie? So you better keep them entertained with big production effects? Because usually when you tell a story, you kind of want it to amp up so that it like the ending is the biggest thing. But I wonder if they're just like, hey, if we got them by this point, whatever, the movie's almost over. Just get them. I'm gonna refund that. biggest thing, but I wonder if they're just like, hey, if we got them by this point, whatever the movie's almost over, just get them. I want to refund that. Just to hold on to them. Yeah.

It's like suckers. Once you sit through the shadow monster puppet, you cannot get a refund. Read the fine print on the bag of the ticket. Well, they didn't have access to CGI, so they couldn't make these kind of superhero movies that just devolve into complete CGI nonsense in the last act. They had to do, they had to just take a muppet and a fog machine and Now you made it sound heroic. I will say though If you watch WandaVision, they're really experimenting. They're using red glowy stuff now instead of just blue glowy stuff in the Marvel movies

so So yeah, so Cara create some kind of like a whirlwind thing that So yeah, so Cara creates some kind of like a whirlwind thing that turns the shadow monster on to Selena and then they both get sucked into the mirror at the end. Yeah, Bianca got a radio here. Yeah, Bianca, I mean, Bianca was reluctant throughout. She was trying to be the voice of reason. Now, maybe the movie is saying, you know, if you go along with it, you deserve exactly the punishment that the main villain does, but

it just seemed like, I don't think he deserved that. And Bianca, in some ways, yes, but she's really playing the kind of good German role in this, where it's like, you're just standing by. All it takes for evil to win is for Bianca to do nothing. And that's what she's doing for most of the movie. You got to enjoy that motorcade. This is the payment. Someone's been eating all of the cake and snackwell cookies that I assume Selena has been whipping up with her magic when you get off her off screen.

Yeah, but I mean, that is basically the end. I mean, she says goodbye to her gentleman friend and flies back off to the city, which, you know, I mean, great. And flying back to the city, you know I mean great and flying back to the city you mean she flies directly into the river and then arrives home and the dark city gets bright again that's right dark city with certain reviews of Alpsproyus? Yeah okay It's all the same movie, Dan. It's all the, those are just different details about Dark City. That was a long discussion of what happened to the Supergirl,

because there's a lot to talk about. There's a lot to talk about. And it's over two hours, yeah. It is. Yeah, it was originally two hours and 25 minutes, so good Lord. Oh, boy. Sure. Yeah, so let's, was there an intermission? Not on the. So let's was there an intermission in your version? Was there an

intermission somewhere in there? There was the whole scene in Midvale High. That is a de facto. Your mission because you can get up and leave and miss all that. I guess what you were all saying is not a wasted second. This thing is lean. They cut that back to the bone in this movie. Everything has a reason for being in there. Um, yeah, let's go right into final adjustments whether it's a good bad movie at bad bad movie or a movie. You kind of liked, you know, I don't know. It straddles bad bad. I mean, I

guess it's bad bad. Like there's like stuff I kind of like in there to or sorry, not bad bad. Sorry. It straddles good bad movie. Kind of kind of like like it is a lot of fun to watch it is goofy and fade down away and I forget the the other one's a name the actor who did uh, the caro yeah, but I mean the uh the three baddies are all fun. Oh yeah Peter Cook and and will know i met the uh... the woman uh... but i can't

remember or any that's anyway it doesn't matter the three batteries throw great as long as the brand of caro we're gonna get as long as it's all focused on them and they're doing stuff uh... i enjoy it i like the silly uh... old eighties effects that are actually pretty good in a few places and then sometimes

not. And you know, comics don't, comic book movies don't all have to be the Dark Knight. I don't want them to all be the Dark Knight. I like a lot of weird stuff too and this is a weird movie. So I don't know. I liked it okay. Stuart, you look like you have feelings. Yeah, yeah.

I would say this is definitely a solid good bad movie. It's goofy. There's parts of it that I kind of like. And I do like how, despite being two hours long, they clearly spend no time explaining what is going on for the first 20 minutes, which is great. And yeah, some of those scenes are pretty fun. So it's, and it's a fun goofy superhero movie to laugh, laugh with your friends over. Yeah, I'd call it a good, bad movie, watch it with your friends.

On the other hand, it does have a scene set at Popeyes, so I guess I have to name it. Best picture, sorry, Amadeus. This is Supergirls year. And for me, it's a movie I kind of like. I mean, obviously, for all the reasons we've enumerated, especially Faye Dunnoway's performance, which really rides a very difficult line. And kind of even when she devolves into the psychopath graph, Fagasku of it all, she's still Faye Dunnoway.

And yeah, it's a lot of fun. She's, she's great. I'm gonna take this moment to do something we've done a few times in the fly-past, which is take a dump on the Razi Awards, which nominated Fade-Dunnoway for worst actress for the movie, and Fade-Dunnoway is doing exactly what this movie needs her to do, and she's doing it really well, and like, it's a, it's a really fun, like, it's a really fun performance. It's exactly the right performance for this movie. And the razzies can suck it. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, we live in a magical world where there's such a thing as fast forwarding.

So you can, I mean, this is, I cannot bear the midbell high stuff. It just goes on forever. So like, you excise that that stuff and this is a tight, really fun little movie. That's true, yeah, there is no reason you have to sit, you've just kind of unlocked, I feel like, a cheat code to bad movies. There's no reason you have to sit through the whole thing. Like, no one's gonna catch you, yeah. Hey kid, your dad tell you about the time he broke Stephen Dwarf's nose at the kid's

choice awards. In Dead Pilot Society, scripts that were developed by studios and networks, but were never produced, are given the table reads they deserve. When I was a kid I had to spend my Christmas break filming a PSA about Angel Dust, so yeah being a kid, I had to spend my Christmas break filming a PSA about Angel Dust. So yeah, being a kid sucks sometimes. Presented by Andrew Reich and Ben Blacker, Dead Pilots Society, twice a month on MaximumFun.org. You know, the show you like, that hobo with a scar

for lives in a magic dumpster? Doctor Who? Yeah! Dr. Hound. Dr. Hound. Yeah. Yeah. of 2020. I mean, we already knew that we was hot stuff, but a little extra evaluation never hurts, okay? Hosted by me, writer and journalist Jared Hill, and me, the Ebony and Trantra Smajdao, Jervel Anderson. Fanta is your home for complex conversations about the great areas in our lives,

the people, places, and things. We're huge fans of, but got some anti-feelings toward. You name it, we fan tie. Nobody's off limit. Check us out every Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your slayworthy audio. The flop house is sponsored in part by many fine products and services. Like this one, that Elliott will talk about right now. Hey guys, now more than ever, Storytellers and Contact Creators are challenged with producing that Elliot will talk about right now. from story blocks. Story blocks is dedicated to being the world's best royalty-free stock media subscription service. It's got an ever-growing library with over 1 million high-quality stock assets, including 4K HD footage.

You've got After Effects and Premiere Pro templates. There's music, there's images, there's sound effects. There's so much more. They've got affordable subscriptions plans and tools. And with the Story blocks unlimited all-access plan, you get unlimited downloads of everything in their library. So even if your subscription is ended, you can still keep everything that you downloaded.

Storyblocks, we got some free logins for it to try it out. And for those of you who watched our Teen Wolf live show, you'll know that there was a brief intermission where Dan sang for two minutes over stock footage about how he needed to pee. Dan constructed that himself. I think purely using Storyblocks footage footage and it was amazing and beautiful. And Dan, how was your experience working with story blocks?

I, you're correct. The visuals that went with my song about peeing were all from story blocks and I did not want for anything. All the ideas I had, they had great options for it. So a plus story blocks. They, everything, and that one from waterfalls to people clinking their beer signs to some kind of whimsical clown, was the clown dancing, I can't quite remember. Yeah, it devolved a little bit.

I think there was maybe an Elvis impersonator in there at one point, I'm not sure. There was like a flash dance style dancer at one point. It was really, it was beautiful and we can give all of the credit to Storyblocks. Go ahead, explore their library and subscribe today at storyblocks.com slash flop. Again, that's storyblocks.com slash flop. Also we are sponsored in part by Hello Fresh, which lets you skip those trips to the grocery store and makes home-cooking

easy, fun, and affordable. And that's why it's America's number one meal kit. Eating healthier has never been easier with low-cal, carb, smart, vegetarian, and pescatarian options every week. And no matter what you choose, every single recipe is packed with fresh produce sourced directly from farmers. Hello fresh is easy eats offering has tons of quick and easy meal solutions like 10 to 20 minute meals, low prep recipes and quick breakfasts and lunches. Perfect for your busy schedule.

I had some hello fresh, you know, they gave us some samples, very nice of them. I very much enjoyed them. Sometimes I may scoffer. I like to make my food complex. I make, don't make it hard. I want it to be a big project. And everyone just say, good job, Dan. Look at all that work you put into that food. But you know, life isn't always like that. Sometimes you want it a lot simpler. And Hello, fresh was a lot of fun to make these tasty meals and it was a snap. Go to hellofresh.com slash flop 10 and use code flop 10 for 10 free meals including free shipping.

That's hellofresh.com, flop 10 and code flop 10 for 10 free meals. Stewart, I believe you have podcast reviewer on Twitter. Now, I have a long list of good indie podcasts, and I think it'd be cool if I could connect listeners to new pods. So, if you're looking for new and enjoyable ear content, please follow me on Twitter and or Instagram at bxgos or goose feel free to at me for specific recommendations based on your interests. Also, there's more info in the pinned tweet on my profile. So follow potato lady podcast reviews on Twitter at Bex Goose to get podcast recommendations. Yeah. I am looking for better ear content because right now my ear,

ear mostly just has wax in it, which is not very good. Hey, I realized that. So for candles, some way, some ways back, we did a behind the microphone, which can be found in the bonus feed, if you are a max fun donor member. And we did a little trivia game, and I just realized I've had in my inbox to do this for a long time, and I keep missing it every time. I apologize so much to the people involved

I was supposed to shout out my team which won that game That was part of the the big prize is a shout out, but I don't want to Sorry, I that makes it sound so belittling that belittling idea of a shout out being a prize from me. But I would just want to say thank you to Pat, Lesson Monica, Anastasia, Josh, and John for being my team, and writing the Dan McCoy train to victory over the evil Elliott Kaelin. Yeah, that was really fun.

I'm afraid to say the friendly game, I don't know what one was saying. Well, I don't know either Elliot, but you need to look inside yourself. Yeah, the strange thing was, it wasn't even required that you were evil, you were just evil. Yeah. Oh, now I feel bad, look at his face. Guys, guys, I'm by marriage, I'm half evil.

So, I just, you know, evil has had it too hard for too long. You know, one of my time, but evil is rampant around the world. Evil's having a great time right now. Before we get back to the show, any personal plugs you guys have? Yeah, please, if you get a chance, you can support my, so in addition to being

a world class podcaster, I also have a little side hustle where my wife and I own a couple of bars, and you can support them by going to visit them. That's Minis Bar in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, or Hunterlands Bar in Kensington, Brooklyn. You can also email HunterlandsBarMurch at gmail.com to get in on our selection of t-shirts, hoodies, and bandanas

shipped right to your door, your door. You sounded like you were figuring something out. That was the activation code for a brainwash disaster somewhere in America. I'd like to promote three things. Number one, Sharco and Hippo, my children's book from Fall of last year, still out there, please pick it up for the child in your life or the person with a child-like level of entertainment.

There's also a my comic book, Maniac of New York. Number two comes out in March. There's a second printing of the first issue was coming out in March. It was a big hit seller, and so it might be hard to get that first issue in March. Pick up number one and number two. I hope you're going to like it. Pat Noswell likes it and if he likes it, I think you're going to like it too.

Number three, Lessop plug and just another thank you to everybody who watched our Teen Wolf live show. It was a big success. We really felt loved by our fans and we really appreciate it. So thank you. Yeah, I got another plug, but if anyone has a way to get rid of hay fever, just let me know. I did all those things I said before. I've been drinking this thing, put some hot water with some tea, some ginger, honey, lemon, turmeric. There's some pineapple vinegar in there. Hey, Dan.

Dan, I actually have a thing to help you. What's that? It's a little trick. First you have to open the door, then you have to get on the floor, and then you have to walk the dinosaur. I'll try anything once. Anyway, now that that's been established, I guess guess back to the rest of the show But let's move on now to letters from listeners like you who knows maybe maybe

Did you send in a letter mate that if you did then possibly yeah, you know, and if you're not it's not our fault got to be in it or win it uh... uh... you know and if you're not it's not our fault gotta be in it or when it uh... anyway you tell them that you tell them to get out of her not sending in letters uh... just like uh... Wayne gritsky i said got to play the game to score some points

guys guys if i can letter writers learn from my mistake uh... when i was young i had a certain amount of envy for zebwells the marvel comics writer who won the Marvel Comics talent search and became a professional Comrade, and I was like, oh, I should be writing Marvel Comics. I didn't even enter the contest, everybody. I didn't do the basic minimum to win. You know what? Good on you, Zeb, for actually getting some skin in the game. And me, I guess I'm living in the in the wreckage of those mistakes. So letter-writers if you want me part of the show Yeah, just write a letter. He got it takes no time and Dan will only wait years to get around to answering it So this first letter is from Joe last name with held who writes hey guys I want to preface this with this is my entirely my fault I couldn't find my earbuds so as listening to the prequel

many, through my phone's speaker. While on one of your back and fourth runs, my wife walked by, stopped and said, is that Ted Cruz on your phone? Why are you listening to a Ted Cruz podcast? I immediately had to stop the playback, rewind, and find out which one of you three she's thought sounded like the junior D bag from Texas. That's in. Alright, so who do we think? Who do we think it is? Do we think no one wants to probably probably me.

I think my instant reaction to Ted Cruz's voice is always from my eardrums to spontaneously shut down, so I don't remember what his voice sounds like. Sadly, Elliot, it was you. It was you. Oh, really? Probably just because of my heavy Texas accent. Yeah, yeah. You're twang.

Definitely. So, Joe asks, is there anyone that someone said you looked like or sounded like that you couldn't see or even just totally offended your sense of self. Thanks and love the content. Joe, last thing with that, well I think Ted Cruz is your answer to that, Ali. That's pretty, that's, I mean, I've been- Certainly jumped the list.

Yeah, I mean, there's literally a video on YouTube, I don't know if it's still there, that's titled, Elliot Caelan in Dracula, Dead and Loving It, that someone put up, which is just a nerdy look and die in Dracula, Dead and Loving it. So like any, any nerd or a a whiny voice I get compared to. So like, something I learned early on when I was a young man

is no one ever likes being told, hey, you look like this person, or he's not like this person. Unless that person is the most attractive person that you can imagine. This is it. No one likes to be compared. This is something that our network

meets Jordan Jesseco. They have a rule, which is do not tell someone that they look like someone famous and less that person is famous for being attractive. It looks that is the reason they are. Because yeah, but that's not the point of the question. The question is, free to spill them dirty deeps, dude. And even then when you're compared,

when you're compared even to an attractive person, what you're being told is, hey, you're not unique. There's another person more successful and famous than you who has your face and they're using it better than you are. So, or in this case, someone else has my voice and they're using it to destroy lives and take their family to can't coon during a blizzard. It's hard to say like why you might have a hang up too because like a lot of people,

because I have a close cropped dark beard, a lot of people have been like, oh, Dan looks like Riker. And now, and like Audrey is like, why does this bother you? Like she like looked up pictures. I mean, he's a handsome guy. He's a handsome guy.

I'm like, yeah, but Riker's such a doofus. And she's like, what am I saying here? A doofus, you're saying're saying me like right here. I'm like yeah, but I can't separate it out man Like I mean William Frakes is a is a successful director of television and films now So you know, it's that's not that's not bad to taste breaks. I think they call them Stewart Glenn do you have anything that applies here? I'll go. Let's see back in the odds, I went to a comedy show. My friends wanted to sit right up close. I asked, is this guy going to do crowd work?

And they were like, nah, I don't know. And of course, it was not. Crowd work. And so both, I remember this because both the featured act and the headliner came out, and at one point called me the Komish. Not the dude, not checklist, but the Komish. Because at the time I was, you know, I mean not because, but I was a Huskyer gentleman at the time. I was about pushing 280 at the time there, so and I was bald and a little husky,

and I think that was the low hanging fruit that they kind of reacted to. It was like the consensus movement. But I mean, I mean, I had glasses. Chichloss at the time had the horseshoe, I was shaved bald, it's just like, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Like, yeah, the Komisch Chichloss is a little, although yeah, the commissed checklist is a little although weirdly the commissed

Checklist looks older than he does at the start of the shield. Yeah, you know, yeah They didn't see the shield and the shield was on the commission was like Yeah, you were wearing a Wilson's leather jacket other jacket you had a fucking cell phone on a holster on your hip yes that's me the uh... the mom jeans of the commission mom jeans of the shield is one of my favorite things of uh... tv style now steward only gets it compared to attractive people uh... i mean when i was younger i got compared to john goodman a lot

uh... when i was in high school i was also a larger there was a larger steward walking around. But I knew that. And you were briefly named King of England. Yeah, I was a student of a mix up. Yeah. I mean, I was a bunch of people.

Yeah. It's more like the entire world family. So, well, it was a succession that electrocuted. It was the mix up between a wire and some more. Yeah. I've gotten some complimentary comparisons. My favorite was when two different people within two days compared me to Michael Fassbender.

So of course, I rushed out and rented shame, and I was like, yep. OK. It's me. All right. For there was a brief time, there was a brief, the only, I think, slightly complimentary comparison I forgot was there's a brief time in the early 2000s when people would be like, oh, you look kind of like Casey Affleck and now even that's been tainted forever. So thanks a strange, strange man.

I think he was always a strange man, Dan. I think it was just we weren't aware of. Yeah. Okay. Well, our second and final letter is, oh, it says Roger Ebert from the grave. Hi guys, it's your boy Roger or Mr. Ebert. It's nice hearing that things are still going well. You're nasty. As long as my name is still uttered,

it is almost like I never pass. My ghost on the machine grows stronger with every mention. Soon I will control all internet movie reviews, spread my word in legacy, you poor fools, and soon I will control you as well. Enjoy your final days, two thumbs thumbs down so that was a chilling message from the on the grave ironically because i think he gave a thumbs down to lawnmower man and yet

that's his life now did not like supergirl thought uh... yet didn't thought how i'm slater was likeable, which is true. You know, we talk about how, like, that would give her much to do. I don't know whether it's Stockholm Syndrome of, like, this and secret of my success and the Legend of Billie Jean being on HBO on repeat when I was young. I'm always, you know, I'm always liked Halem Slater.

I, uh, I thought she was one of this. But Roger Ebert is haunting us and will soon take control of the vertical and the horizontal. I'm confused by how he's going to take control of what the podcast or our lives. Am I going to wake up one day and suddenly be like, I've got to get back to Chicago. I'm Roger Ebert now. Yeah, I mean, we'll just have to wait and see what his dark design is. Um. to wait and see what his dark design is. But. Oh, I'm like light swinging back and forth,

erasing all the things around me. Let me get to his design. No, it's still just him sitting at a typewriter. It doesn't tell me very much. He's gonna close all our balconies. Let's get into our final segment Which is recommendations of movies that you could watch Perhaps instead of super girl, but if you like the sort of thing that super girl is

You'll probably like super girl. I'll recommend what you're saying what Dan saying is audience You don't need our permission to watch Supergirl or one of these other There's we're not gatekeepers trying to keep you from your favorite movies or whatever just watch whatever you want Maybe you want it. Maybe you like one of these other videos. We're not gatekeepers trying to keep you from your favorite movies or whatever Just watch whatever you want. Maybe you want it. Maybe you like one of these too. Yeah I want to recommend I watched St. Maud the horror movie Boogie It was delayed. That's the sound effect. I do whenever somebody regular into horror movie on this podcast I remember seeing the trailer over and over at the Alamo draft house before the pandemic.

And then finally a year later after seeing it like 70 times. The chance to see St. Mod and you know very good very good movie. Mostly mostly just two great actors going at it Creepy I don't know I'm going at it by doing acting Stewart don't give me that face I Don't know what to say about it. It's the thing is it's one of those movies. It's very clear. You don't know it's I know I'm sorry. I Hate be ever sketchy It's just a you know, it's a very tight horror movie. It's less than 90 minutes and

it's just a you know it's a very tight horror movie it's less than 90 minutes it's one of these movies that sort of explores the line between like madness and religious passion and increasingly apart in increasing lead dramatic ways, but I don't like frailty with Bill Paxon. Not exactly like that, but it is kind of what you would expect out of the movie. Like if you've seen the trailer, I wasn't like, oh my god, this isn't the movie I expect, but it's the best kind of version of that. I thought this was the movie version of the show mod. What's going on here?

I'm not doing a good job, so I'll just say St. Mod, I enjoyed it. We'll have to move on to someone whose head is more the right place. Stuart, what do you want to recommend? Yeah, I'm going to recommend a new-ish movie that also features two great actors going at it. That's right. I'm going to recommend a movie called Synchronic that is written and directed by the More Head and Benson duo that made, oh man, Spring and they made, what's the endless, and it

is movie with Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornin. Jamie Dornin of course, beloved of the Flop Outspot cast because he's a B. The two of them play New Orleans paramedics and they start investigating or they start, they turn up a string of bodies, of people who have died, not that have overdosed, but also have died under mysterious circumstances, and they begin to kind of launch their own

personal investigation of it. And just like the other more hidden Benson movies, it's a little weird, it's a little straightforward, and there's some scenes in there that are unsettling, but in ways that it's hard to kind of put your finger on, the performance or fun, check it out. Sing Chronic.

Oh, by the way, Stu, I didn't recommend Barb and Stargoat of Isle of Delmar because I assumed you would, but since you mentioned Jamie Dornin, I just want to say, you know, like obviously, Annie Mumble and Chris andayne are the driving forces behind that. So props to them mostly, but I also want to say that movie totally turned me around on Jamie Dornan. I'm like, okay, when you're a big goofball, you're so much fun. Another movie that just says two two actresses go at it. No.

So I'd like to recommend a movie called Daisies. This is a new-ish for me. It's from 1966. So it's new to the bridge, other movies are watch. And it is a landmark work from the Czech New Wave, one of my favorite, and I'm going to say my favorite new wave. I like it even more than the French New Wave to be honest. I love check movies from that time.

We're gonna get so many fucking emails now. The French New Wave was the best blah blah blah blah blah. I don't be like, forget it anyway. So it's kind of like if two young women starred in the Marks Brothers movie that Salvador Dali never got to make. In that it's these two women who are doing their best to kind of like in scene after scene, and it's not a plot driven movie, but it is very much a scene driven movie. Kind of take apart the society around them and indulge as much as possible, especially in food,

but also in like avoiding responsibility or just getting into various real types of trouble. And there are things that the director, whose name is Vera Chetelova, I think I'm pronouncing it wrong probably, but the writer director, there are things that she does in it visually that are really neat and things that she does with editing that are really neat, but it's just a real, straight shot of anarchy right into your eyeballs and I really enjoyed it a lot So that's daisies and I think it's on the criterion channel now, but I'm not sure about that I know it's been there in the past. I've seen it has I scrolled

Angland what would you like to recommend? Well, if you want to see a little bit more from Peter O'Toole without the tunic, then I would recommend the 1972 film The Ruling Class, which is based on Peter Barnes stage play. Watch Peter O'Toole in a role that if he wasn't written for him, he makes it feel like it was written for him that only he could do it. He's the Earl of Gernie who didn't think he was going to inherit the title, but his father died suddenly. And he plays a person who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. It is a very caustic and very satirical take-down of the aristocracy with showtunes. So what's not to love? That's the ruling class. Excellent. Well, Clan, thank you so much for being here and, you know, giving us a thin veneer of respectability.

It's, it's the veneer is as thin as the led sheets that line the ground of our hostility. It's okay. Sorry, we're gonna say Sue. I was just gonna say it was nice to have somebody on the show who knows about superhero stuff for a change. I was gonna say it's okay because Argosity has a layer of kryptonite covered by a layer of lead covered by layer of bestos covered by a layer of radium covered by a layer of hydrochloric acid. It all cancels out. There's some black mold in there too.

Yeah, oh, there's a lot of black. You get underneath that. There's a thin kind of plastic that we don't know gives us cancer yet, but we'll, and underneath that, there's the black mold. It's so white. Yeah, like the walls of our house city look like they're always wet, so that can't be good for you. You don't want to get the damp in.

You don't want to let the get damp coming. Before we sign off, do you want to plug anything in particular? Well, I listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour. It's bigger and better than ever. It's now daily and I'm having a ball with that. I'm writing a book that's coming out in June. Actually, why did I say that? The book's written. It's coming out in June. Actually, why did I say that? The book's written.

It's coming out in June. No, no, can you continue the illusion that you're writing it up to the moment of release? Exactly. It's a guide to how to conceive and launch a podcast with a lot of NPR voices. And it's written on behalf of NPR, it's called the NPR Startup Guide. And yeah, that's coming out at the end of June. Yeah, this is a really funny way for you to ask us to be interviewed for that book, Glenn.

Yeah, it seems like you... It's already a great issue. It's already a great issue. I'm telling you, I would have... I would have, but it's just NPR people. It's a company book. I'll have to your own. OK, well, thank you for being here.

Thank you listeners for being here as well. Want you to go on over to MaximumFund.org. Check out the other great podcasts over there. Tweet about us. Spread the word, write a review on iTunes. Please make it nice. If not, you know what's the point. Do you really want to take your time doing that?

But until next time, for the flop house, I've been Deb McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Ellie Kaelin, also want to thank our editor, Jordan Cowling. I know Dan would meant to do that, but the hay fever. Got to his head, that's okay. I'm about to sneeze. That a special thanks to our special guest and I'm Glenn Willden bye bye

Real quick watch me face this pathetic look at with a powerful paralyzing perfect Pack a dermic percussion pitch. Yep, good. I like that you guys have your own warm-ups. You have a real tongue twister in Dan's sneezes. Yeah, that's right. and culture. Artists-owned audience supported.