Superman (1978)

Matt (00:00:21):

Hello and welcome to Load Bearing Beams, the movie podcast. It’s the only one. I’m Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:00:28):

I haven’t found any others. I’m Laci Roth. I’m married to you.

Matt (00:00:30):

I’m married to you in a good time that we’ve had these past 12 years being married and these past however many years it’s been since we started doing this podcast where one of us picks a movie, makes the two of us watch it and talk about it.

Laci (00:00:43):

Here we are.

Matt (00:00:44):

Here we

Laci (00:00:44):

Are

Matt (00:00:45):

Covering Superman, 1978. Why’d you pick this movie, Laci?

Laci (00:00:49):

Why are you making me watch this movie? Matt

Matt (00:00:51):

Laci. Laci did not pick this movie. I picked it. Gene Hackman, the last Gene Hackman movie we’re going to be covering

Laci (00:00:57):

Today. April Fools.

Matt (00:00:59):

What?

Laci (00:01:00):

You were doing An April Fool’s joke. I was just being really timely with shouting it.

Matt (00:01:04):

Oh, okay.

Laci (00:01:04):

Okay.

Matt (00:01:05):

The last Gene Hackman movie we will be visiting, which I’m sad to say we’ll both miss the, just miss him as a presence in our Superman and I love this performance from Jean Hackman and my history with the movie is this. I did not grow up with it. I watched it as a teenager. It was a blind buy at Barnes and Noble, the DVD, the Snapper case. I bought it. I watched it. I thought it was really good and I also was proud of myself for being like this movie’s a little dated, but I can see how exciting it must’ve been in 1978.

Laci (00:01:39):

Wow. What a fair guy.

Matt (00:01:41):

I’ve watched it many times since it more each time I watch it now in my old age, I think that Christopher Reeve is exceptional. Gene Hackman as great as always, but I knew that the thing about this movie is

Laci (00:01:56):

It’s bad.

Matt (00:01:56):

There’s kind of a split and it’s like you get 45 minutes of preamble and then it settles into what it actually is. And full disclosure, we often record our history segments on different days from when we record the main part of the episode. That is the case here, but Laci has not made it all the way through the movie, in fact has not even made it to Christopher Reeve yet.

Laci (00:02:18):

I’ll bet he’s not even in it. I’m sick of you burying the Reeve. Anyway, that’s not fair. You told me I could do it this way because I was having a bad day yesterday.

Matt (00:02:27):

I know, I know. But as I was preparing my history, I’m like, I mean, I am afraid that I will now have built up Christopher Reeve. I think this is kind of a lightning in a bottle performance and he’s not the only thing that makes the movie special, but he is the most special thing about the movie and so when you finally see him, you’ll be like, that’s it.

Laci (00:02:49):

Well, he’s got a low bar to pass. Okay. Ever since as soon as the kid gets to earth, I started enjoying the movie. I really did struggle with the in space parts.

Matt (00:03:02):

I knew you would. I knew you would,

Laci (00:03:04):

But it’s just hard to look at. I mean, it gave me a migraine. The coloring is crazy. I know, that’s the point. I don’t like it.

Matt (00:03:11):

Well, it it’s weirdly washed out.

Laci (00:03:13):

Well, the clothes are the most important thing, the glowing. I know they’re going for neon or they’re going for other worldly. They only have so many tricks they can use. I get it. It’s just if I’m the actor, I’m mad that this is the only time I’m on the screen. You can’t fucking see them.

Matt (00:03:28):

Marlon Brando was very happy to get in and out of this movie with a cool $4 million in his pocket plus 12% of the box office gross for this movie. What I think it was the most any actor was ever paid and he’s on screen for so little before he dies like 11 minutes in and he makes a couple of appearances throughout the world. Oh, my son, my son, and here’s some

Laci (00:03:48):

Lessons. My knowledge, I am what makes you super. Here’s a crystal. Stick it in your coffin.

Matt (00:03:54):

Now I like all of this stuff with Marlon Brando at the beginning and I like the production design and I find it charming and I like that the movie’s taking its time, but I knew you would struggle with it and I could just feel your energy, the credit stuff feed

Laci (00:04:06):

Away the fucking credits. No, I know that. You’ve got a cool little effect that you’ve found how to do. You’re trying to keep up with Star Wars, how it’s just someone’s nephew, right? He’s like, look what I can do with the thingy. Oh, look what he can do with the thingy, but every single fucking name and comma in this crazy fun and I’m just my eyes, my eyes,

Matt (00:04:30):

Commas. Get their own title card in

Laci (00:04:32):

This credit city.

Matt (00:04:34):

Yes. Just name after name after name, and then we’re finally done with the single card actors. What? Everybody got so much attention in this movie and it’s the most audacious credits opening

Laci (00:04:48):

Here is some font. Very long creative. A consultant takes so long. It all looks like crystals when you think about it. That’s why it looks like this because of the planet.

Matt (00:04:59):

To be clear, you’d never seen this movie.

Laci (00:05:00):

Never. No.

Matt (00:05:01):

Nope. Nothing

Laci (00:05:02):

Close. Missed it. Nothing close. Did you know anything about it? I knew Christopher Reeves was Superman. That’s why it was this whole thing whenever he got injured that can you believe he played this man and now is this man. That is why I know it was Christopher Reeves and that’s why I know there’s a movie called Superman and that is probably the most fucking millennial answer I could have given

Matt (00:05:22):

You.

Laci (00:05:23):

Is that news at the time?

Matt (00:05:25):

Just to stay ahead of the vultures. It is, of course Reeve, not Reeves.

Laci (00:05:28):

I’m sorry.

Matt (00:05:29):

That’s okay.

Laci (00:05:29):

I’m really sorry.

Matt (00:05:30):

You ever hear the good Charlotte song? Superman Can’t Walk? No. I believe it was from their EP before they signed to a major label, but it tells you everything you need to know. Yeah, I’ve heard the talk. Superman can’t walk. Jesus, who’s going to save you when your Superman can’t walk?

Laci (00:05:47):

They made a rhyme and then they made it not rhyme. Interesting.

Matt (00:05:50):

Superhero movies in general catch people up. How do you feel about ’em?

Laci (00:05:53):

Oh, I like them. I like good ones. Hot Take superhero movies from this time. I’d have not any experience with ’em. This is

Matt (00:06:00):

The only one.

Laci (00:06:01):

Well, that explains it then. I mean, I would’ve started watching them whenever Superman and no Batman in the eighties. So I loved the original Batman and then I liked all I went into the theater to see all of the Batman movies until it got to the This Isn’t Your Daddy’s Batman got all dark and stuff, and then Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor and all our guys, all of our Avenger guys. So that counts.

Matt (00:06:29):

One of the interesting things about it is to see it and see that it’s just a seventies movie and it’s a seventies sci-fi and fantasy movie with a superhero in it. And similarly, Tim Burton’s Batman was just a Tim Burton film noir, but Batman is in it and by doing that you kind of invent the language of superhero movies and what you expect in them, but to the people making them, they weren’t thinking of it in terms of we’re making a superhero movie just

Laci (00:06:53):

So they made a formula on accident.

Matt (00:06:55):

We just made a movie and Superman’s in it and here you go, we made it for you.

Laci (00:06:59):

How else would you treat it? He’s just a guy on a planet

Matt (00:07:04):

Working

Laci (00:07:04):

At the Daily. I was interested to

Matt (00:07:05):

See quotes from Richard Donner, the director of this movie, who was a comic book fan, kind of talking like the directors talk now and they’re like, when I was hired to make the Mme. Webb movie, I remember talking with my mom on her lap about how much she loved Mme. Webb. Ew. And I read every single Mme. Webb comic and I

Laci (00:07:23):

Gross

Matt (00:07:23):

Ingested the entire encyclopedia of mad. Yeah, you have to be so reverential and respectful. I was surprised to see that even back then. He read the original script for the movie and he said, this is totally disrespectful to the comics.

Laci (00:07:36):

See, and I appreciate that because that is what makes this an exclusive club in which it makes it very intimidating for me. I’m not a person who likes comics and part of that is I don’t see where the entry point is. I’d have to start with something that’s relatively new. The idea of getting into something old is very intimidating. There’s so many spinoffs, so many, you need to have a working encyclopedia type brain and I don’t and I shan’t, but if you’re going to take it and make a movie out of it, I think think she should give some sort of respect to all the artists that came before

Matt (00:08:12):

And we’ll talk about how the script evolved and how he took away all of the, let’s kind of make fun of how stupid Superman is and let’s just treat it kind of seriously.

Laci (00:08:22):

Yeah, he’s just trying to be on a planet man.

Matt (00:08:25):

Yeah,

Laci (00:08:26):

He didn’t ask leave him alone. He had to go in that space vagina and get all down here. It’s a pointy vagina. It looks like something and I can’t figure out what it is. Maybe like a dryer ball.

Matt (00:08:38):

It looks like.

Laci (00:08:38):

Oh, like a bull thistle.

Matt (00:08:40):

It looks like a bull thistle. Yes. These bull thistles that keep growing on our yard, get ’em out of here. It’s really pissing me off these thistles. I hate ’em. If you have a problem with thistles in your yard, write to us. Let us know. Hashtag thistle and otherwise, I want to encourage you to check out our social media accounts, Twitter load-bearing pod, Instagram load-bearing beams, blue sky load-bearing beams and TikTok load bearing beams where you can get an exclusive bonus video This week we each named our contrarian film opinions. We won’t tell you what they are here. You have to go watch the videos on our social media to hear what controversial devastating takes Laci and I both have about

Laci (00:09:18):

Movies. I’m going to blow up the internet.

Matt (00:09:21):

You really are.

Laci (00:09:21):

I know it.

Matt (00:09:22):

Yeah. Laci took out her butt like Kim Kardashian

Laci (00:09:25):

Arrested things on it.

Matt (00:09:51):

Now Superman lot here and I know a lot less about the history of DC comics than I know about Marvel. I will not do justice. I could not even attempt to do justice to me,

Laci (00:10:03):

But will you do Justice League?

Matt (00:10:05):

I won’t even do Justice League. Dang. The story of how Superman was created in the long saga of his creation. The long development is fascinating. There’s lots of good resources you can go consult. So this is just a capsule sized history that I shall give here, but Superman, not literally the first superhero comic, but the one that launched the whole thing.

(00:10:28):

He was developed over a period of years between the artist Joe Schuster and the writer Jerry Siegel. Their intention was to use him in newspaper strips. That’s what you did if you were a comic artist. The strips the funny pages. But they struggled to sell him and eventually got an offer from a comic book publisher for an anthology magazine called Action Comics. So it’s like, huh? Could our superhero be in a comic book? That’s interesting. The first issue of Action comics was published April, 1938 and in it Super Man takes up 13 pages of the issue and Siegel and Schuster were paid $130 for their work and as was standard industry practice at the time, had to sign away the lifetime perpetual ownership of Superman, the character to the company, to National Allied publications, the predecessor of dc and in exchange, they got a 10 year contract to write Superman comics for this company. So $130 and they just sign him away forever.

Laci (00:11:27):

They died though, right? They’re fine.

Matt (00:11:29):

They died. They’re fine.

Laci (00:11:32):

They’re no longer in pain.

Matt (00:11:34):

At least there’s that. Yeah, this was the launch of the golden age of comic books and Superman would appear in action comics and also in his own comic book line comics. Suddenly the publishing industry’s like, Hey, we can make a lot of profit off of this.

Laci (00:11:48):

And since time Im memoriam, there’s been crossover. It’s the way, it’s the of the superhero. You’re just like, oh, let me pop in over here now. Now I’m over here,

Matt (00:11:57):

Batman’s here with Superman and I can get Superman in Action comics and also Superman. Better read ’em both. So I’m on top of everything.

Laci (00:12:04):

You hear that Marvel movies of the Future, we’re all going to be in everybody’s shit,

Matt (00:12:09):

But right here in the golden age of comics, the Batman comes Wonder Woman, the Flash Captain America published, they get created and published in the years following Superman, Schuster and Siegel, they worked basically for 10 years making comics for DC about Superman, and then at the end of their contract, they sue to regain the rights to their character and the court. This may shock you, but the American court system is like, shall we side with the laborers or the powerful corporate interests and they chose the powerful corporate interest and say, no, sorry, you worms. You signed away

Laci (00:12:41):

Just like Superman does. I’m kidding. It’s not the right thing to do.

Matt (00:12:46):

Not only did they release, they don’t hire them back to keep writing Superman comics. They take away from future Superman comics. They take away their name so it doesn’t say Superman created by and they both go on to live a financially precarious lives, struggle to find steady work in and out of the comics industry and then do other, there’s a story of Schuster having to work as a delivery driver and getting humiliated because he has to deliver a package into the DC office. So hey, look, who’s delivering our package is the guy who made Superman, who created the jobs we all have.

Laci (00:13:20):

I feel bad about the dead comment now,

Matt (00:13:22):

But occasionally they’d be hired as a contract employee not given any creative control, but come in, take some pictures, say, see, here’s living legend Jerry Tigall working in the DC office. If there

Laci (00:13:34):

Had been Comic Cons at that time, that’s what they would’ve done.

Matt (00:13:37):

Yeah, the world was just what a good thing. One of the few good things the world has invented is cons over the past however many decades they’ve been around, because I was doing my other podcast, the Signpost up ahead, my monthly podcast,

Laci (00:13:54):

Keep talking about it,

Matt (00:13:56):

About the Twilight Zone, and there’s an episode about an aging film star. It’s a lot like the movie Sunset Boulevard. And with both of those, I was thinking they just needed for cons to be

Laci (00:14:04):

Invented. Not like you get one over on people, but conventions. Conventions,

Matt (00:14:09):

Yes. For sad, former silent actress.

Laci (00:14:12):

Hey, they don’t have to be sad. They’re at a con,

Matt (00:14:14):

But she is sad. She’s like, no one remembers me. But listen, if there’s a convention, you can go to the Pasadena Civic Center,

Laci (00:14:22):

You get groped, take some pictures and

Matt (00:14:23):

There’s thousands of people who will pay just to talk to you for one minute

Laci (00:14:27):

And they’re going to be a little weird, some of them, but

Matt (00:14:29):

Endure it. That’s what chip pay. That’s what the money’s for.

Laci (00:14:32):

Great, lovely. You get no security, just take it.

Matt (00:14:36):

Anyway, lucky they sue again, it fails. Then the mid seventies, there’s news of a major Hollywood Superman movie getting developed, and so Schuster and Siegel launched a last ditch Hail Mary publicity campaign.

Laci (00:14:49):

Whoa,

Matt (00:14:49):

Listen everybody, listen to how poorly they’re treating us, and DC is now owned by Warner Brothers. They’re producing the movie and they panic a little bit, so they agree, we will reinstate your names on the comic books and we’ll give you each an annual stipend of $20,000 in exchange for never suing us again.

Laci (00:15:08):

I mean, that sounds like good money for the time,

Matt (00:15:12):

But they have made billions of dollars for this company. And then Siegel died in the nineties deeply in debt, and Warner’s agreed to pay off his debts if his family agreed to never sue them again. So just the change they find in their sofa, they dump it on these people. That’s the story of Superman’s creation. So then what about other media? Well, in the 1940s, there’s a very popular radio adaptation. Superman, the Adventures of Superman. This is where it’s a bird, it’s a plane. It’s Superman.

Laci (00:15:40):

That’s interesting because he switches between Clark Kent and Superman. How does he change his name? I mean his voice to make that work on the radio.

Matt (00:15:48):

Oh, you got to, it’s all in the actor. You got to give two distinct performances,

Laci (00:15:52):

But vocal. Alright.

Matt (00:15:55):

And Christopher Reeve said he thought originally it’s like, well, I need to give two distinct performances. And then he was told, no, no, no, you’re always Superman. But when you’re Clark Kent, Superman himself is playing a role. It’s a role within a role.

(00:16:07):

What’s so good about it, as you’ll see when we watch the movie anyway, Fleischer Animation Studios produces these incredible theatrical animated shorts in the early forties. These are all on YouTube. You should watch them. They’re Great. Movie Serial in 1948, the 1950s TV series starring George Reeves and then a bunch of animated shows in the sixties and seventies. Most notoriously the Hannah Barbera Super Friends. So the idea of a big budget Superman movie probably seems a little misguided or silly. So they start developing a movie when the father son producing Duo Alexander and Ilya Salkin purchased the Superman movie rights in the 1970s and start working on a big budget movie adaptation. They had the idea, this was always the idea, we will produce two movies back to back. So they write one script that will take up two movies and that is indeed what they did. Superman two was produced back to back with Superman one, but the director Richard Donner was fired. Mid production on Superman two famously

Laci (00:17:08):

Is Superman. Two Good.

Matt (00:17:09):

It is good, but it’s kind of a mess. You can tell it’s a mess. You can tell it’s the kind of Frankenstein together.

Speaker 3 (00:17:15):

They

Matt (00:17:15):

Hire Mario Puzo, the author of The Godfather and who also helped write the screenplay for the Godfather to write the script and he’s paid a giant salary and Francis Ford Coppola was in negotiations to direct other luminaries like William Freed Kin Sam Paw and Richard Lester Peck.

Laci (00:17:34):

Naw,

Matt (00:17:35):

Sam Peck. Naw. Yeah, that’s fun. Is the most fun director name to say by far. Ppa also the only director my dad has ever mentioned to me

Laci (00:17:43):

Ever because of the name.

Matt (00:17:44):

I guess that’s

Laci (00:17:45):

It. It sticks.

Matt (00:17:46):

Matt, you know that guy, Sam Peck and

Laci (00:17:49):

Cheryl Lad and Sam Peck Andal

Matt (00:17:52):

Probably the most un my dad thing to say. Sam Peck Andal. Anyway, they make offers to both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and get turned down. Mario Puzo turns in his script has this enormous 500 page script and they hire Guy Hamilton to direct the guy. Hamilton is the director of four James Bond movies. Gold Finger Diamonds are Forever Live and Let Die. And the Man with the Golden Gone guy Hamilton was like when the James Bond series was in crisis, they bring back Guy. That was kind of his

Laci (00:18:21):

Thing. He’s our guy.

Matt (00:18:22):

He directed Gold Finger, which is the a phrase Laci hates when I say it. Platonic idea,

Laci (00:18:28):

Platonic

Matt (00:18:29):

Of a James Bond, P

Laci (00:18:30):

Platonic. We’re not going to marry it.

Matt (00:18:31):

And so whenever they have a one that’s not well received, guy will come in and make things right.

Laci (00:18:36):

He just gets it.

Matt (00:18:38):

The first person they cast is Marlon Brando, who as I said earlier is paid $4 million in 12% of the box office, gross and contractual guarantee that he can film all of his scenes in 12 days.

Laci (00:18:48):

He’s an expensive first hire.

Matt (00:18:50):

Yes, but it’s like, no, we’re showing people we’re serious about this movie. This isn’t a goofy cartoon. We’ve got the most famous, respected actor in the world who’s also an insane person, famously difficult to work with in the 1970s, going insane on drugs and just being a weirdo. And his career gets revived in the early seventies with The Godfather. He wins his second Oscar, but he basically, he refuses to learn lines now. He’s like, no, I don’t memorize lines anymore. I don’t do

Laci (00:19:24):

That. You say them then I say them.

Matt (00:19:26):

So he has their cue cards, basically wherever you see the camera, wherever the camera’s not there’s a cue card

Laci (00:19:31):

In this movie or just now?

Matt (00:19:32):

Yeah, in this movie.

Laci (00:19:33):

Okay.

Matt (00:19:34):

Godfather. He tried, tried real hard after that. He is like, I don’t have to do that anymore.

Laci (00:19:38):

I mean, because I feel like he’s there for such a short period of time. But he says, my friends, he says my friends like three different times.

Matt (00:19:47):

My friends

Laci (00:19:48):

Are people. Really? Is that really in the script?

Matt (00:19:50):

Just what he keeps, what he said to

Laci (00:19:51):

Yeah.

Matt (00:19:53):

So the next person they hire again, we’re showing you we’re serious. Gene Hackman also notoriously difficult but less crazy. So both of these men have won best actor Oscars in the past handful of years.

Laci (00:20:05):

Maybe they’re crazy cancels each other out. You can’t have two in the room. Wait, they didn’t.

Matt (00:20:10):

They’re not.

Laci (00:20:10):

They filmed at different times. Damn it.

Matt (00:20:13):

And the production is worried about losing Gene Hackman. So they’re like, let’s film everything we can right away. Just don’t want him to think this is stupid and Superman. I don’t know. Leave the script that Mario Puzo turns in is very campy and it’s very long and they’re having trouble figuring out how to turn it into reality. And then they have troubles like filming locations. They want to go to Italy, but Marlon Brando can’t go to Italy. He has an arrest warrant there stemming from a sexual obscenity charge when he filmed Last Tango in Paris,

Laci (00:20:47):

Showed his penis

Matt (00:20:49):

During the making of a sexy movie.

Laci (00:20:50):

Oh, you got to show some pain.

Matt (00:20:53):

They want to go to England.

Laci (00:20:55):

It’s a Foo Fighters music video.

Matt (00:20:56):

Okay,

Laci (00:20:57):

Look it up. Superhero and Foo Fighters music video. Just

Matt (00:21:01):

Do the podcast.

Laci (00:21:03):

I’m so distracted.

Matt (00:21:04):

At least he’s trying to figure out a thing that I don’t even know what she’s trying to figure out. She saw a picture of George Reeves and says, that’s the guy from the music video or album cover, and I had to cut out 20 minutes of us Googling for no reason.

Laci (00:21:19):

No, I’m Duke, I’m Googling. I’m Googling.

Matt (00:21:23):

They want to go to England. They’re going to produce the movie in England. But one problem guy Hamilton can’t go there. He owes a lot of tax money to the Crown. He’s a tax exile.

Laci (00:21:36):

No,

Matt (00:21:36):

The James Bond director can’t go to England.

Laci (00:21:39):

That’s ironic.

Matt (00:21:40):

So they lose Guy Hamilton and they go to Richard Donner, Richard Donner, Dick Donner to his friends, directed two movies before having his commercial breakthrough with the Omen in 1976. An enormous hit the fifth largest movie of that year. It’s funny to think these movies are big, the Exorcist in the Omen, but imagine a Devil movie being the fifth biggest movie of the year right

Laci (00:22:03):

Now. I mean, it was so unique. You can put the devil in things,

Matt (00:22:08):

But it wasn’t that unique. They’re like, we have The Exorcist, and then we had the Oh, it’s like,

Laci (00:22:11):

How about I’m not paying attention? I’m still thinking

Matt (00:22:14):

Devil goes into Girl maybe Devil boy this time. Okay,

Laci (00:22:18):

I got you.

Matt (00:22:19):

So in 2016 there’s this interview with Richard Donner where he tells really great stories about making Superman and I have a very long quote, so Laci, feel free to dole

Laci (00:22:28):

While I

Matt (00:22:28):

Read this quote. I just love, no,

Laci (00:22:29):

I’m completely dialed in.

Matt (00:22:31):

I just love what he said. I was hot. It was just a high point in my life because I had done a lot of TV and then the Omen, I was getting a lot of calls and I had no idea where I was going. But then I got a call from Alexander Salcon. Alexander Salcon is the producer of the movie who tells him, I’m making Superman. I don’t have a director and I’ll pay you a million dollars. Richard Donner is like, holy shit, a million dollars. I never thought this would happen to me, but here I have arrived. There was a delivery guy at my door within an hour with this script that was so thick and big, you’d get a hernia from lifting it.

Laci (00:23:02):

I thought he was delivering the million dollars

Matt (00:23:05):

And there were other things with the package and one of them was the Superman costume. So I sat down and read the script and it took forever. It was the longest thing I had ever read. It was indulgent and heavy and had no point of view and treated the comic books with disrespect. It was disparaging. It was just gratuitous action. I’m reading this thing and Superman’s looking for Lex Luthor in Metropolis and he’s looking for every bald head in the city. And then he flies down and taps a guy on the shoulder and it’s Ko Jacks Telesis who hands him a lollipop and says, who loves you baby? I was brought up on Superman as a kid. There was a whole point in my life where I read Superman. So when I was finished with it, I was like, man, if they make this movie, they’re destroying the legend of Superman I to do it just to defend him.

(00:23:47):

I called screenwriter a screenwriter friend of his Tom Menowitz, who had been a friend for years. He said, I don’t want to get involved. I don’t want to do a comic book. I said, Tom, it’s more than a comic book. Please come over. I got a little stoned, smoked some weed, put on the Superman costume. I was in pretty good shape. Then I was like elastic, really out and to pulled up and Tom pulled up and I ran across the lawn and Tom turned and looked at me and ran back to his car. Tom says, you’re crazy. Get the fuck away from me. I said, listen Tom, you got to read this. I gave him all my feelings about what we should do. I said, the most important thing when you look at this is make a love story and prove a man can fly.

(00:24:29):

So he read it and he called me that night and said, there’s a lot we can do with this. So Richard Donner convinces the Alkins, they have to do something about this script. We need to start over basically from scratch. By all indications, the Mario Zo script, nothing from that ended up in the movie. Okay, they got their director though. They’ve got their two highest paid actors. But the question remains, who’s actually going to play the star of the movie? Who will play Superman? The first idea is get an Alister, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds, they all turn it down. Sylvester Stallone meets with Richard Donner, a young Arnold Schwarzenegger lobbies very hard for the role, but Richard Donner really wants to go with an unknown,

Laci (00:25:10):

Complete unknown,

Matt (00:25:11):

A complete unknown, and you got your two heavyweights. So also taking a up lot of the budget, let’s go for some little, they audition 200 actors before giving a screen test to Christopher Reeve who blows Richard Donner out of the water. He’s like, oh, this is a lightning in a bottle. This is a star making audition that I’m seeing on tape. And they hire him and say, you’re going to wear a muscle suit, right? And he says, no, I’m going to train and bulk up. Now everybody who plays a superhero does that and goes on a years long regimen. But this was kind of a novel idea. How about I get in shape for a role? So just a little background on Christopher Reeve. He was 24 years old at the time of production of Superman. He was a stage actor growing up in a very serious studying theater. Went to Cornell and then went to Julliard’s Advanced Acting Academy. The only other person who was accepted to the class at the time was Robin Williams, who had become a very close friend of his. Christopher Reve was godfather to Robin Williams’ first son. And then Christopher Eve got cast on a soap opera called Love of Life in 1974, and he started splitting his time between the soap opera and stage acting, and he got cast in a play with Catherine Hepburn who became a mentor to him. And the way she talked about him was like, this is clearly a guy who’s going to be a star one day

(00:26:34):

It will happen. He said that he used Catherine Hepburn’s movie Bringing Up Baby to influence his performance as Clark Kent. He’s like, I got to play this. I’m playing a screwball character or Carrie Grant character who Clark Kent looks exactly like Superman. He just puts on glasses, but you have to play him entirely differently so that no one would ever suspect he’s Superman because he’s too much of a bumbling buffoon. So the first movie role he ever got was in a movie, a Charlton Heston movie called Gray Lady Down, and his second movie was Superman. And he said in his autobiography quote, by the late 1970s, the masculine image had changed. Now it was acceptable for a man to show gentleness and vulnerability. I felt the new Superman ought to reflect that contemporary male image and everybody, the movie got good reviews. It was an enormous hit at the box office. It got good reviews. But what everybody said everybody could agree was like Christopher Reeve, this is a star making role. He’s amazing. Let’s see. Star Log Magazine said, Christopher Reeve has become an instant international star on the basis of his first major movie role of Clark Kent slash Superman. Film reviewers, regardless of their opinion of the film, have been almost unanimous in their praise of Reeve’s dual portrayal.

Laci (00:27:44):

Wow.

Matt (00:27:45):

He’s utterly convincing as he switches back and forth between persona. I

Laci (00:27:49):

Had no idea.

Matt (00:27:52):

He’s great. Margo Kidder who plays Lowe’s Lane is like equally good. The and Gene Hackman’s. Great. Those are the three major reasons I love this movie. It’s an enormous hit. $300 million in 1978. Money gets three sequels, the one that they produce along with Superman one and then the weird Superman three co-starring Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor, my God. And then the super low budget many years later. Superman four, the Quest for Peace. Superman’s three and four are really bad, but they’re interesting in how bad they are.

Laci (00:28:25):

Okay,

Matt (00:28:26):

But that’s it. That’s the history of the Superman movie.

Laci (00:28:28):

Wait, wait. I look

Matt (00:28:29):

Forward to, yes. Is

Laci (00:28:30):

Christopher Reeve in all of them?

Matt (00:28:32):

Yeah.

Laci (00:28:32):

Oh

Matt (00:28:32):

Yes he is.

Laci (00:28:33):

So he went on to be a major movie star?

Matt (00:28:38):

No.

Laci (00:28:38):

Or he just did this.

Matt (00:28:39):

Okay, so famously got injured and disabled in 1995, I believe.

Laci (00:28:48):

Right. But that was 20 years after this.

Matt (00:28:49):

Right. It was kind of a case of you are so good in one particular role that it’s hard for anybody to see you in any other kind of role, and the things that make you good in that role are not necessarily the things that could make you play a more complicated character or any kind of different character. I think he’s really talented. He always worked steadily and had he not been injured, I bet he would’ve had an interesting sort of third act in his career. I think especially as the movie, the Tarantinos who grew up watching home video would’ve been like Christopher Reeve deserves. That’s a reclamation project

Laci (00:29:30):

We

Matt (00:29:30):

Can get

Laci (00:29:31):

Behind. You always have good ideas on what directors would save them or who’s saving who Is he dead now?

Matt (00:29:40):

He’s dead. He in oh seven.

Laci (00:29:43):

Oh, so he only lived eight years after his injury? Is that what you said?

Matt (00:29:48):

That would’ve been 12 years.

Laci (00:29:50):

Oh, you said

Matt (00:29:50):

97, 95 is when he got injured. He died in oh four, so he lived only nine years after he got paralyzed. Yeah, thrown from a horse in 1995. Used a wheelchair and a ventilator for the rest of his life

Laci (00:30:05):

And

Matt (00:30:05):

Then he became a big advocate for people with disabilities and specifically the thing that I really admire for better insurance coverage for people with disabilities. When you hear advocacy that can too easily just be sort of what they call inspiration porn.

Laci (00:30:22):

Right.

Matt (00:30:23):

Look how great my life has been. It’s like, yeah, but you’re a rich and powerful

Laci (00:30:26):

Person. So did he had a different voice after that, right? It was like kind of monotone a little.

Matt (00:30:34):

Well, he had to use a ventilator, so could only, I don’t know if he could talk off the ventilator.

Laci (00:30:40):

I think

Matt (00:30:40):

He acted twice after that in movies as a person on a ventilator. I know he did a rear window remake for tv and then he died of heart failure at the age of 52.

Laci (00:30:57):

Just struggling to breathe on a ventilator. You wear out all your muscles.

Matt (00:31:03):

Yeah.

Laci (00:31:04):

That’s really fucking sad. Would you say that his class of Julliard was cursed just based on those two guys?

Matt (00:31:10):

I would say so. Not good

Laci (00:31:12):

Man guys.

Matt (00:31:14):

Superman, good movie. Look forward to Laci actually watching it. All right, so I think it’s pretty classy of HBO Max, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers Discovery, a very classy organization to start this program with an immemorial Gene Hackman slide.

Laci (00:32:06):

It was nice.

Matt (00:32:06):

Kind of interesting. And then well, the movie starts,

Laci (00:32:12):

Boy does. It really,

Matt (00:32:14):

Really starts

Laci (00:32:17):

The chances of having a seizure go way up.

Matt (00:32:19):

Why do you say that?

Laci (00:32:20):

There’s so much flashing lights. This is just before they knew to warn people about stuff like this, but it is very disorienting. The credit credits, as we mentioned, go on and on and it’s the same. It’s looking like crystals from his planet, but it’s this, it’s hard to explain just over and over again, it feels like I’m in mk, ultra warfare is being done on my

Matt (00:32:45):

Eyeballs. Yeah, we might find out one day this movie was part of a program of some

Laci (00:32:50):

Sort. Yes, yes. And then it goes into them trying to make Superman’s Home Planet look alien and using the effects they had at the time was let’s crank up the brights and turn down the shadow. So we can’t see any faces. We just see really bright fucking neon clothes,

Matt (00:33:07):

I suppose. Yeah. Okay. Well, they got some valuable intel on us from having us watch this movie for 50 years. We just finished the movie Laci and I did, and Superman smiles at the camera at the end, literally acknowledging the camera. Do you think the intent right there is Superman’s so powerful that he can even see through movies and can see you at home in the theater?

Laci (00:33:33):

He’s just a real personable guy. He never flies off and just flies off. It is not about him. He flies off and he acknowledges someone. He does it the entire movie. It’s very nice. And we were the only one there to acknowledge. He’d already said goodbye to the

Matt (00:33:46):

Chief. I like how he always, whenever he saves someone, he always takes time. Gentlemen, this man needs medical attention. Yeah. So yeah, John Williams’ theme. Totally doesn’t sound like Star Wars. No. Well, if you got him in a room and they’re like, here, here’s Star Wars, here’s Superman. He’d be like, no, they’re in totally different keys. They don’t use very few of his same notes. But we as lay people, we just feel they’re similar, but it’s fine. This is one of the iconic superhero themes. It sounds like Superman and indeed. How long has it been since there’s been an iconic superhero theme at all? It’s been years and years and years. Quick sing Deadpools theme to me. Laci. Shit, she got it.

Laci (00:34:34):

Wait, no. Life is a mystery. Everyone must stand alone. That’s it.

Matt (00:34:43):

Okay. In the

Laci (00:34:44):

Latest movie

Matt (00:34:44):

That is cheating is that existed before, but I’ll give it

Laci (00:34:47):

To you. Okay.

Matt (00:34:49):

We go to Krypton or as Marlon Brando calls it, Krypton,

Laci (00:34:53):

He can’t be bothered. He did this in 12 days.

Matt (00:34:55):

Krypton, we begin. Yeah. The deepest recess is a space. There’s a star that’s about to go supernova. There’s some model work that looks really cool. You can tell the texture of the planet from this. He gets some texture. We meet Marlon Brando and he starts giving a speech, making the case for the prosecution of three terrorists, general Zod and two others. What did they do? Want and violence and destruction. Perversions. An unreasoning hatred of mankind. This is where you get the most of the, because these are the villains of Superman two, and I know this wasn’t the first movie to literally plan out what you’re going to be doing in your sequels, but to produce them back to back, it’s just kind of neat that you have them here, right here. The seeds for the next movie.

Laci (00:35:42):

I did assume, and I’ve heard of that little guy before.

Matt (00:35:45):

The little guy of general,

Laci (00:35:47):

Yeah, give him a couple more inches. He’s not so mean.

Matt (00:35:49):

The counsel pronounces them guilty and General Zod, who’s played by Terrence Stamp is like he yells at Joelle. He’s like, Joelle fucking bow before me. If you don’t one day you’re heirs. But they get sentenced to the phantoms zone. Well,

Laci (00:36:02):

At first he offers him a sweet ass deal and he’s like, no, no, I’m a good guy. Bye now. Yeah,

Matt (00:36:07):

I’ll set up my new order, my totalitarian order or whatever, and you can be my number two man.

Laci (00:36:12):

How does that sound? And he says, no, I’m a good boy. And he says, you’ll nail before me then. Not any boo boo

Matt (00:36:19):

You. And one day your ass, the phantom zone, this neat little space box, two dimensional space box that they get

Laci (00:36:26):

So into so neat

Matt (00:36:28):

Jole goes and he meets with the council and he is like, good news. We sent those guys up into the thing, Phantom Zone. They’re like, yeah, that’s really great. Good. Anything else? And he’s like, yes, there’s the matter of our planet, which is in facing imminent destruction. Look, it’s our destructing algorithm indicators are off the chart. And they’re like, relax around Just the fluctuation.

Laci (00:36:48):

You’re going to cause a whole thing. Everybody. We got dinner plans.

Matt (00:36:52):

So they’re denying that the plan,

Laci (00:36:54):

It’s climate change, I guess.

Matt (00:36:56):

Yes, they’re denying that anything’s wrong. Also, if something was wrong, we wouldn’t want to cause a panic.

Laci (00:37:01):

Well, and also we wouldn’t want to have to detain you because you’re a loose canon. Now just let me leave so I can get my affairs together. I’ll be super quiet about it.

Matt (00:37:10):

Yeah. So there is a special edition of the movie that I watched to make my notes. You and I watched the theatrical cut. Now I realized that the version I grew up with was the special edition. There’s scenes in it like Superman, getting Lex Luther having a sort of machine gun thing to shoot Superman with when he first gets to his layer that when we’re watching the theatrical, I’m like, wait, did I imagine that scene? No, it’s in the special edition. But the other weird thing about the special edition is there’s just tons of scenes that have one extra line of dialogue that are totally unnecessary. And then there’s more stuff with the crypto and elders talking about, yeah, Joel, don’t you do that thing you’re always doing?

Laci (00:37:52):

It’s a

Matt (00:37:53):

And you just back and forth. Yeah,

Laci (00:37:55):

Hit it out of there

Matt (00:37:55):

Because the movie moves real fast. The theatrical cut does.

Laci (00:37:59):

Oh yeah. Well, and also I just wanted to point out, I’d like to look into other Marlon Brando movies, but I think his acting tick might be my friend, when he forgets a line, he just says he grabs the shoulders of the person nearest him, my friend, my boy, my confidant. And then he gives him a minute to think of his line.

Matt (00:38:22):

I think he might be right.

Laci (00:38:23):

Yes.

Matt (00:38:24):

A very ticky actor. Lots of tricks. Maybe the most trick, biggest bag of tricks actor there ever was. Call him the rabbit from the Serial, remember serial, it’ll come back later. But anyway, any attempt to create a climate of panic will be considered an act of insurrection out of you, Joel. And he’s like, oh, okay. You shan’t hear a word from me. But he goes to talk to his wife and they’re secretly going to send their baby to earth even though Earth is thousands of years behind us. Why? They’re savages. They are. That’s what the

Laci (00:38:57):

Mother says. That’s way he’ll have an advantage. He’ll be all the things that they are not.

Matt (00:39:03):

But yeah, Joelle’s like he’ll be so strong and so fast. This one’s like, but he’ll be an outcast. He’ll be lonely competing visions of what his life will be. And indeed kind of happens in the movie, all

Laci (00:39:14):

Superheroes do

Matt (00:39:14):

Get lonely. So they put their baby in the crystal pod and embedded in the crystals is lots of audio recordings of his dad lecturing him about physics

Laci (00:39:24):

And hopefully some juice or some sort of nutrients because he some sort of, he grows four years.

Matt (00:39:31):

He eats crystals. He just absorbs it. I don’t know, even though he later says he eats when he gets hungry. But this movie’s not big on details. Donner’s tone is very like feather light. Just don’t even, don’t worry about any of that worry. This is just a fun little, it’s almost a fairytale

Laci (00:39:50):

Except for there are really scary scenes like horror, movie level, scary action sequences that I don’t know if we’ve just combed those out because there’s no need to have that kind of realism in certain things and prolonged screaming and torture of people.

Matt (00:40:07):

What are you thinking of?

Laci (00:40:08):

I am thinking of the helicopter scene with Lois Lane and I’m thinking of the ends where she gets buried alive fucking. And there’s another one. And I can’t think of there’s just very fucking realistic and traumatizing and that person’s not coming. I don’t care if Superman’s saving them, they’re not going to be

Matt (00:40:30):

Right. Right? Mean maybe it’s just this is a very skilled horror director just made the omen also just top-notch practical effect. So it just feels way more real than in your superhero movie today where the danger is a city gets destroyed by a big space glob and it doesn’t feel like anything.

Laci (00:40:48):

And you must be one of those directors that’s just really good at telling someone like Margot Kidder to be like, okay, just scream. Scream. You’re going, this is so scary. This is the scariest thing. Just grab your shirt and grab. She’s really selling you too. It’s both of her scenes in the hell. Oh no. I mean I’m like, oh, it’s too late.

Matt (00:41:07):

Just let her die. Yeah, the helicopter scene fucked up. Not only is it great at putting you in it, but showing you what the helicopter go by going out of control is doing to the little helipad that it’s on and crashing into the building and stuff. And it’s very simple stuff, but it feels so much more effective than what you see in a blockbuster today.

Laci (00:41:24):

Yeah,

Matt (00:41:25):

Baby. Baby goes into the thing. Bye-Bye

Laci (00:41:27):

Baby. Yeah, bye-bye. Then the planet blows up. Yay.

Matt (00:41:31):

There’s a lot more destruction in the edition, which I think is pretty cool. You see the Kian people dying as their planet crumbles and blows up. Alright, well the baby kelle now three years old, crashes into the earth onto the earth in Kansas, and he’s discovered by Paw Kent,

Laci (00:41:49):

Who think is Baby Wiener is adorable.

Matt (00:41:52):

Well, what’s up? I mean, just a lot of baby penises back in the day. I don’t think we get ’em

Laci (00:41:58):

Anymore. Darn it.

Matt (00:42:00):

It was on all our album covers. It was,

Laci (00:42:02):

Yes, I know

Matt (00:42:03):

All of your Simpsons movies.

Laci (00:42:05):

Was it?

Matt (00:42:05):

It was in the Simpsons movie. It’s a good joke in the Simpsons movie.

Laci (00:42:08):

All right, enough wiener talk.

Matt (00:42:10):

Yeah. These old fucks are like, what’s that over there? And they look in and it’s a little baby who’s like, here I am. And Laci’s immediately like, that’s not a cute baby. And gets mad at this baby for not having a cute face.

Laci (00:42:22):

He’s fine. He just could have been more attractive.

Matt (00:42:25):

He could have been more attractive. Laci’s like the casting cat. She’s Harvey Weinstein of babies.

Laci (00:42:30):

Can you tell what’s wrong? I can tell immediately by looking at him, what is missing? Eyebrows.

Matt (00:42:35):

Give

Laci (00:42:35):

That boy eyebrows. Now he got a cute kid.

Matt (00:42:37):

They’re singed off in the meteor.

Laci (00:42:40):

I don’t know. I don’t need a reason why they’re gone. I’m telling you why The boy’s off pudding

Matt (00:42:43):

And the mom is like, we’ve always wanted God to send us a baby. Now we have one. And we’ll just tell him he’s our cousins and then dropped him off at our place. And the dad, Jonathan Kent, played by the legend. Glen Ford is like now, Martha Clark Kent. What have I told you about having plans? Have I ever used your full name to you? Laci? Is this a thing husbands do?

Laci (00:43:06):

It’s usually what parents do to a child also. I feel like he just, Laci Elizabeth Roth her and gave her his middle and last because why is her middle name Clark? But why is my middle name Roth? Right? Things are weird.

Matt (00:43:19):

Well,

Laci (00:43:19):

But that’s how we find out how Superman gets his name

Matt (00:43:23):

If you were wondering. That’s it.

Laci (00:43:24):

Now I know.

Matt (00:43:24):

I believe Clark is her maiden name. So it actually is her giving. Your maiden name is Roth. We gave Roth to the middle name of our child.

Laci (00:43:32):

Look there.

Matt (00:43:33):

There you

Laci (00:43:33):

Go. Now you can dox us guys. You got all the info.

Matt (00:43:37):

Kal wows them by lifting up the truck. And this convinces Jonathan Kent to be like, yeah, I guess we can keep him. He’s very strong. Very strong baby. We could put him to good work on the farm.

Laci (00:43:48):

We live on a farm. Strong baby. Good.

Matt (00:43:50):

Because this movie has a feather light touch and is very fleet of foot. We just jump ahead in time. Now he’s a teenager. He’s the football team’s equipment manager, and he has to lick the boots of all the cool kids. He’s not allowed to use his cool powers to be cool. So this girl, Lana Lang invites Clark to go like, Hey, would you like to go listen to some records?

Laci (00:44:10):

Lana Lang and then Lois Lane.

Matt (00:44:13):

Interesting, interesting. She invites him to go listen to some cool records with my groovy friends. But then this book, big tough guy’s like, no, we can’t go. He needs to fucking,

Laci (00:44:22):

He got helmets. Helmets for days. Look, and he looks over. He is like, gee, that is 12 helmets. I definitely can’t fuck this girl. Aw man.

Matt (00:44:29):

So she hops into the back of the car with this goon and he has 12 cheerleaders just packed into his car. I’m go fuck these 12 cheerleaders.

Laci (00:44:37):

He needed all of them.

Matt (00:44:39):

Clark is mad again. He can’t show everybody how cool he really is. And he kicks the football in frustration and it goes a million miles. Then he’s running behind this train and it looks silly, but the movie really captures how fun it looks to go real fast. Do you agree?

Laci (00:44:56):

There’s a little Forrest Gump in there. There’s a little Edward. Not Snowden, but Cullen. Yeah, that’s the one

Matt (00:45:04):

I didn’t think you were saying. Snowden.

Laci (00:45:06):

Yeah, I know. I just wanted to clarify. It is silly to make someone run fast if they’re going faster than something they should be going. What do you do with their face? Everything that you’re doing that’s superhuman makes you look stupid. Whatcha going to do

Matt (00:45:21):

On the train, there’s a girl who’s like, look mommy, it’s a guy running real fast. And the special edition we reveal this is Lois Lane and they’re like, Lois Lane, you have a writer’s gift for imagination. Slap hope you put into good use and then slap, because that’s just what we were doing in the fifties.

Laci (00:45:38):

Yeah, just that kid’s talking when I got on the soaps, is there tv? I don’t know,

Matt (00:45:44):

Slap Or at any moment kids talking, you got to correct that. You have scissors slap, you don’t talk with scissors. Anyway, Clark runs back to his house, then the teens pass him and they’re like, Clark, how’d you beat this? And he is like, I ran. And then Clark’s dad hears this and he’s like, now son, what were you doing showing off? And he’s like, yeah, I’m real sorry, pop. I’m sorry I did that. And he’s like, it’s okay. But all I know is you came to this world for a reason. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s not for score touchdowns. And this is basically the one Glen Ford scene. But he’s really wonderful in this little scene. Really important to setting up who Clark is. And I think that maybe the movie could emphasize this a little more, but the very end of the movie, which we just watched has Clark freaking out when Lois dies, going into the sky and seeing Joll in the cloud saying you can’t interfere. But then that gets drowned out by his human dad. And it’s like him learning. I choose my human dad over my Krypton

Laci (00:46:46):

Dad. I choose my destiny, not your fucking flavor Crystals.

Matt (00:46:50):

Yes. And the movie could have, I think the movie, that’s one little thing I would’ve liked in the movie. Just a little more of him feeling torn between those identities and deciding, I like when somebody decides to be a mortal or to be a mortal then rather than being a God, but then the dad just drops dead right there. Like, oh my arm shit. Heart attack.

Laci (00:47:09):

Real Peter’s uncle. Love you just saying.

Matt (00:47:13):

I mean, yes. And the Sam Rammy Spider-Man movies I think really, really studied this movie. They want to go for this tone. They love Peter Parker constantly getting shot on by everybody. Just simple things like I get to the elevator and it slams shut on me. And that’s always happening to Clark Kent as well.

Laci (00:47:33):

Man, they like these Cheerios. They really give a lot of, is it product placement or do they just not?

Matt (00:47:38):

Absolutely, because we are looking at Ma Kent who is after they have, they bury Paul Kent and the Smallville Cemetery and we just get this amazing like John Ford scenery, photography shots of the landscape. Although I kept checking. Where is the horizon? Is it in the middle or is it in the bottom or the top? Would John Ford approve of this or

Laci (00:47:58):

Not? Good point.

Matt (00:47:59):

But I’m not good enough at You remember his lesson from It’s the middle Hillman. Yeah. So that means it’s boring.

Laci (00:48:04):

Okay.

Matt (00:48:05):

But yeah, ma Kent looks out on her John Ford landscape and there is a Cheerios box that she has with her. And the entire scene is lit so that you can only see her silhouette and the Cheerios box. Then you get the reverse shot, you see her from outside and the Cheerios box has now been turned and glowing toward the camera.

Laci (00:48:23):

A candle’s been put inside of it.

Matt (00:48:25):

Cheerios, she goes out, her son is out on the hill and she’s like, what are you doing? Well, we forgot to mention, we forgot to mention that in the middle of the night he got woken up and he got drawn to the barn. Something drew him and it was a green crystal buried underneath the earth. And so now he’s like, I,

Laci (00:48:47):

It’s just in a box, Matt,

Matt (00:48:49):

Whatever. I have to leave mom. And she says, I knew this day would come. We both knew from the day we found

Laci (00:48:54):

You. You could find the green crystal we put in that chest that keeps saying Clark what? LL or whatever his name, Krypton guy.

Matt (00:49:06):

I think the other thing I think we’re missing is just one, maybe callback with his mom. At the end of the movie,

Laci (00:49:11):

Women do not matter and Moms Lo Lane does, but only because she’s always in distress. But there’s bimbos, there’s old ladies you leave behind. Yeah, his mom who cared about his loneliness never mentioned again.

Matt (00:49:25):

Yeah. Never

Laci (00:49:25):

Just

Matt (00:49:26):

Send her some money.

Laci (00:49:27):

And this old lady who can’t figure out how to get out of her screen door, never thought of again. So

Matt (00:49:33):

I guess maybe it’s like, well, we don’t see Christopher Reeve interact with either of those people. So I know that we know it’s the same person, but we don’t see because he’s not pleaded by Christopher Reeve yet. Anyway, got to go mom. Yeah. Okay. You know where you’re going. I’m going north.

Laci (00:49:48):

Alright. I’m going to the island of lost toys. I don’t understand this voyage. The next thing you see, he’s in a place that does not exist on earth. I guess it’s supposed to be part of the never ending story.

Matt (00:50:02):

He’s buddy the elf, he’s Yukon Cornelius. He’s on floating ice pallets and stuff, just following the song in his soul

Laci (00:50:11):

Following vibes.

Matt (00:50:12):

And then eventually he just chucks the green crystal. It goes really far away and then starts building a palace of ice.

Laci (00:50:19):

Let it go above the ice.

Matt (00:50:23):

That’s just cold. So he goes in What’s in this palace of ice and it’s Marlon brand though.

Laci (00:50:28):

Nothing. Nothing. The most boring shit. There’s nothing to play with, nothing to eat. You just got to sit there and think and look at your dad’s giant head. He couldn’t even project a head that’s like to scale. Why has he got to be the biggest head?

Matt (00:50:39):

He’s got a tower over him. Let him know I may be dead, but I’m still your father

Laci (00:50:45):

About time took you 18 Earth years, my friend.

Matt (00:50:49):

So they spend the next decade or so with him giving him lessons. Here’s the theory of relativity. These are the Italian explorers. You need to know Dema America. But they go off into space anyway, just goes on a little while now. Ba bing, badda, boom. Christopher Reeve is here. It’s years later. It’s 50 minutes into the movie. Here’s the star of the movie. He’s in the Superman costume. He flies into the camera.

Laci (00:51:14):

You need to go to New York Metropolis.

Matt (00:51:16):

Exactly. First movie over. Now we get to the real movie.

Laci (00:51:19):

Yes. And

Matt (00:51:19):

Things start chucking along. And Laci seems to start having a good time to my immense relief.

Laci (00:51:25):

I, Lois Lane’s got charm for fucking days and I do enjoy Mr. Reeve. Everybody’s just so gosh darn nice. Even the meanies are nice.

Matt (00:51:35):

Is her charm in her wazoo or out?

Laci (00:51:38):

I don’t know what that Oh, it’s without in within, honestly. And even the guy that mugs them in a few scenes, it’s like real, come on. Yeah, come on. It seems like they have a choice. These are nice

Matt (00:51:53):

Guys. It’s a nice

Laci (00:51:54):

World.

Matt (00:51:56):

Do they really need Superman that much? I don’t know. It’s a question we’ll tackle as we go along.

Laci (00:52:01):

The problem is all the climate change.

Matt (00:52:04):

Well, and is Superman utilizing his powers for the ultimate good? He’s like stopping bank robbers and stuff. But buddy, you can screen people for cancer. How about setting up a clinic just come by? Early detection is key shit. But so what happens when Clark arrives in Metropolis?

Laci (00:52:22):

Well, he already secured himself a job. He’s already impressed the hell out of the boss. And now he’s going to be shone around by Lois Lane to learn how to work at the Daily Planet.

Matt (00:52:33):

Margot Kidder is, he’s going to work the beat. Margot Kidder is wonderful in this role. Everything at the office is intentionally supposed to be like a 1930s comedy, a screwball comedy

Speaker 3 (00:52:44):

Where

Matt (00:52:44):

Everything is hectic. Everybody’s talking over each other. Rat a tat tat. But the joke with Lois Lane is that all the stories she’s working on are always very horrifying. She’s like, how do you spell bloodletting? How do you spell massacre? Hey Lois, there’s only one P in Rapist. She does the thing with like, oh, I love my story about the sex and drugs orgies at the old folks home.

Laci (00:53:04):

But they never could have predicted that. That just sounds like news. Now that is all anyone writes about.

Matt (00:53:10):

Right? And her boss at one point is like, Lois, you’re always bringing this tabloid garbage to me. We do hard news here.

Laci (00:53:17):

Tell, give me an example.

Matt (00:53:19):

I don’t know. But this is a successful enough news organization that they have a helipad on top of their building.

Laci (00:53:24):

Well, and they work for the world. It’s not just the New York Times, the Washington Post.

Matt (00:53:28):

I love Daily Planet.

Laci (00:53:29):

It’s just such a great logo. I want that big giant, but something ruined it. Is it not Planet Fitness? Hollywood Planet. Planet Hollywood.

Matt (00:53:41):

Planet Hollywood,

Laci (00:53:42):

Yes. They have such a fucking similar goddamn look. Ruined it or took a little bit of it,

Matt (00:53:49):

A little update for Album Gate. We are no closer to determining,

Laci (00:53:53):

Have not figured

Matt (00:53:54):

Out what the album cover is. I sent Laci a Matchbox 20 album

Laci (00:53:57):

Cover. I didn’t even write back. I was so disappointed with,

Matt (00:53:59):

Oh damn. But I think that that is the one that I was thinking of.

Laci (00:54:03):

Well, it’s the wrong one. And how I feel alone, I feel like I’m in a fortress of solitude.

Matt (00:54:07):

So yeah, Clark is arriving for his first day of work. He secured this job because he’s a very fast typist. That’s how it worked back in the day. God, the American economy, just, I’m here for a job. How fast can you type? Pretty fast are thought. He thought he wast

Laci (00:54:18):

Supposed to show off.

Matt (00:54:20):

You’re hired and I’m giving you Ms. Lane’s old beat. And she’s like, hi. She’s the best we’ve got. What the fuck? I don’t know. It’s just the white man’s

Laci (00:54:30):

God.

Matt (00:54:31):

Clark is like, well, Mr. White, golly G, he’s just bumble fucking his way around. Although not, he’s

Laci (00:54:37):

Like, it’s not as bad as I thought it’d be.

Matt (00:54:40):

He’s not playing the Eugene from Greece kind of nerd.

Laci (00:54:43):

No. He’s

Matt (00:54:43):

Just like, I’m a very good spirited.

Laci (00:54:46):

He’s from the heart of the country. He just seems like a farm boy. He is playing super naive and from maybe 10 or 15 years in the past.

Matt (00:54:56):

Yeah, playing the caricature of what New Yorkers think of Kansans.

Laci (00:55:00):

Yeah.

Matt (00:55:01):

So can you send half of my paycheck back to my mall, back at home? And Margaret,

Laci (00:55:06):

Well, he didn’t say that. Marco’s like, wait half your paycheck. Don’t tell me. It’s to some little old lady that’s your mother. And he’s like, well, no, she’s got, so anyway, it is that, but he doesn’t say it. She says it as a facetious moment. It just happens to be Right.

Matt (00:55:20):

Sure. Thank you. And then she says, are there any more at home like you? And I guess she’s like, because no, good for me, but maybe others would be.

Laci (00:55:29):

You’re not supposed to date it at the job. She’s being professional.

Matt (00:55:33):

Okay. I guess that’s what it is. Well, Clark escorts her out of the workplace at the end of the day. She’s like, how was your first day? And he’s like, oh, well it was a lot of work. But gosh, Mr. White was so nice and you were so nice.

Laci (00:55:46):

Boss is so nice.

Matt (00:55:47):

Jimmy was so nice. It was just 12.

Laci (00:55:50):

And then here comes the a u, maybe

Matt (00:55:55):

The sweetest mugger in cinema history. Macy says,

Laci (00:55:58):

Come on. Come on folks.

Matt (00:55:59):

Could you come here please?

Laci (00:56:00):

No, just looks like I’m a little stinker. You want to come over here?

Matt (00:56:03):

Yeah. And Clark is doing the, oh golly. Jesus please. I guess we better Lois. You better give him what he wants. And she kicks the guy in the face rather with open toed shoes. I will add, does that make it

Laci (00:56:13):

Worse? It means she kicked him with her bare toes, Matt.

Matt (00:56:16):

Oh, that’s got to hurt. Yeah. Rather than surrender her $10. And so the guy is going to shoot her, but Clark the bullet and then pretends to faint and the robber runs away. And then Lois looks down and he’s like, Clark. And he’s like, oh gosh, I must have fainted. I’m sorry. Just a big old big

Laci (00:56:34):

Lug. And he just roll eyes, his eyes like, oh Lois, you almost died. You’re crazy.

Matt (00:56:42):

Now we meet the great Ned Beatty, just one of the best actors ever. Most versatile actors could play the scariest person of all time. Like in network, he can play the most bumbling, dumbass besides I know he’s not fat. They say you weigh 200 pounds.

Laci (00:57:00):

So do I.

Matt (00:57:01):

Yeah, I weighed 200 pounds when I was 17 in

Laci (00:57:05):

My bra. Okay, just kidding.

Matt (00:57:07):

But whenever we see Ned Beatty as Otis, the gorgeous gets so whimsical.

Laci (00:57:11):

It’s not whimsical. It’s like farts. It’s like lollipop farts, I’m stupid. And before I realized his character just was stupid. They just keep showing him in a distance and going about his day. And I said, if I found out after production that every time I’m on screen they play the fat fucking poop music, I would be so mad. And then I’m like, oh, okay. He already knew. He already knew his character’s very, very

Matt (00:57:38):

Stupid. Yes, but you’ve just flagged something I’ve never thought about. Yeah, that is probably what actors respond to the most when they finally see a cut of a movie. Why did you put that music in when I’m on screen,

Laci (00:57:52):

When it’s slow motion, when it’s not because you’re doing it in fast motion. You don’t know when things are going to be slowed down and look really fucking cool. You don’t always know.

Matt (00:57:59):

I thought I looked like a badass. And you’re saying I’m looking. So some cops are like, that’s the guy you think he’s going to lead us to the big man Luther? So

Laci (00:58:11):

They’re aware of him.

Matt (00:58:12):

Oh yeah, they follow him.

Laci (00:58:14):

He’s just like a myth though. He’s like a mold person that lives under the city. We’re pretty sure he is real,

Matt (00:58:20):

Right? Well, he’s like Batman the bat. Oh he’s, you got a bigger chance of winning the lotto, seeing that guy. They follow Otis down into the train station and then down onto the train tracks they’re going to get him. But he goes through the secret passageway, right As a train comes and then in the Lex Luther layer, they press the button to push the door out, which pushes the cop onto the tracks, kills him and kill, kills him dead.

Laci (00:58:48):

Yeah. This is the coolest fucking underground layer I’ve ever seen in my life. I was already pumped when I found out it was in the fucking

Matt (00:58:57):

Train

Laci (00:58:57):

Station gutters.

Matt (00:58:59):

Okay,

Laci (00:58:59):

What am I trying to say? Gutters sewer. I was thinking, shit, I’ll take it. I’ll take some Two-Face layer. I’ll take some fucking the penguin layer. I’ll take whatever you even, there’s even some Avengers that fuck around in the sewer. I am happy for whatever. And then it’s a gorgeous library with the most majestic pool that is actually a part of a building’s bottom and it’s got stairs that go into it. Leg fucking Titanic stairs. It’s amazing.

Matt (00:59:26):

Nothing better than a pool. That’s a thing.

Laci (00:59:27):

It’s pool, it’s business water in the best way. And

Matt (00:59:30):

Don’t know what, I don’t think it’s business water. I think this is chlorinated traded pool water.

Laci (00:59:33):

I got you. But what makes it business water is not the water in it. So if you could accidentally step on things that take care of business that aren’t in there, just so you have a pool time, pleasure time. It’s business water. That’s why a fountain has business water.

Matt (00:59:46):

Yeah. Okay. I agree. And this is years before Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles.

Laci (00:59:52):

Okay.

Matt (00:59:52):

We didn’t even know that. We didn’t even know the years ahead of sewer layers. This is the one.

Laci (00:59:58):

The only thing missing to make this the most magical, but I still find it very magical, is some sort of pneumatic system underground. So I would like to see how they get in and out. And it can’t just be that one way that just seems so dirty. This place is classy. It’s a classy broad that comes out of here. She ain’t classy, but she’s fancy. There’s got to be other ways. You get in and out of this place.

Matt (01:00:20):

What were we watching recently with a pneumatic tube where you said, oh, I love a pneumatic tube. And I said,

Laci (01:00:24):

All your too, I dunno. Remember I was trying to think, alright, well it must be Rushmore could. It was the thing we abandoned

Matt (01:00:34):

That was Rushmore.

Laci (01:00:36):

Well, I don’t know that it was a thing that abandoning it just might be the thing that maybe 10

Matt (01:00:40):

Bombs

Laci (01:00:41):

Probably like a fucking he. Like a pneumatic tube. Pneumatic tube. Everything was that. Just real sucky. I like a good suck on my hand. You’re like,

Matt (01:00:49):

Anyway, gene Hackman, Lex Luther, one of the all time great villain performances. This is why he’s my favorite actor. This isn’t my favorite performance of his, but this might be the one where I’d point to who is better? Give me a better person in a movie.

Laci (01:01:05):

What was he given? So there’s so many layers on this guy. Match the tone. An asshole. He’s funny, he’s loving. He’s the worst. He’s delightfully evil, but he is. Be

Matt (01:01:20):

All of those things and be totally coherent with the tone of the movie where he’s funny and just menacing enough to go a little scarier than what the rest of the movie is, but not too much so that it doesn’t feel like it belongs.

Laci (01:01:33):

And if you’ve got a movie where someone keeps telling you how smart they are, it’s usually the fact that the joke is they’re not. But maybe the most impressive plan to get power and money I’ve ever heard of in a movie, especially for one that’s kind of silly like this one, and for his research abilities and how he found out that kryptonite was the only thing that the way he figured it, it’s not just blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There’s a whole thing. This movie bothered to think it through.

Matt (01:02:03):

I know. Yes. Laci. Laci basically made us pause the movie so she could compliment how good the scheme was. That is a good villain scheme

Laci (01:02:10):

Right there. He kept saying it was going to be the best thing of all time. And I’m like, there’s no way. He’s not just blowing up something. There’s no way. And I was right, but he did it. It was so smart. Except for he didn’t think about the fact that, yeah, you break off California at the fault line and then you own all the cheap land that now becomes the prime real estate. Except for do people want to live on a fault line that’s now completely cracked, has no water and just has rubble of millions of dead people as their scenery. I dunno if you thought this through.

Matt (01:02:40):

No, I don’t know that the oceans deep enough. My answer that is yes. Why do people live in Florida right now? Why do people live where we live right now?

Laci (01:02:47):

Fine. But I think it would take years and years for people to get over there and not, I think just out of like fucking it. Just like you’re not going, okay, you know what? Real estate’s going to be cheap where those twin towers fell down. I’m going to get an apartment right on the side of that. So while they’re figuring that shit out, cleaning it up, there’s still legs sticking out of the fucking rubble. I’m going to have the sweetest apartment. That’s my point. It’s going to be decades before you’re going to be able to get this payoff Lex.

Matt (01:03:14):

Well, that’s why you’re not Lex Luther. He sees the world in decades.

Laci (01:03:18):

He’s already old.

Matt (01:03:20):

He’s not that one.

Laci (01:03:21):

He’s middle aged.

Matt (01:03:22):

Yeah.

Laci (01:03:23):

Yeah.

Matt (01:03:24):

But his flaw is he is super smart, but he cannot help but surround himself with dumb asses.

Laci (01:03:31):

What are these henchmen? I am completely confused by the lady

Matt (01:03:36):

Because they’re like, I

Laci (01:03:37):

Don’t get

Matt (01:03:37):

It. I don’t know. This is a thing people have where you’re like, you’re really smart and accomplished. Why are you always with this loser?

Laci (01:03:43):

Because you’re also really insecure.

Matt (01:03:45):

Yes. That’s why.

Laci (01:03:45):

And the only thing about you is you’re smart, so you have to be the smartest guy in the room or else you don’t have a thing.

Matt (01:03:51):

So that will actually prevent you from bringing on people who might be an asset to your organization. Don’t look at me, stop looking at me.

Laci (01:03:59):

Which makes me a little worried why you married me. Which am I smart or dumb? Oh no, I don’t know.

Matt (01:04:09):

I’m not smart. Somebody commented, Matt thinks he’s smarter than I am.

Laci (01:04:12):

Right? You don’t have to be smart. You just have to think you’re smart,

Matt (01:04:14):

Matt. It wounded me because that’s true. I do think I’m smarter than I am. I’m just good at retaining information and spitting it back out.

Laci (01:04:20):

That sounds smart to me. I like it.

Matt (01:04:23):

I was listening to the podcast guys with Brian Quimbee, a podcast about guys. He had an episode on Smart Guys.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):

Basically

Matt (01:04:29):

He’ll just go into a Reddit subculture

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):

And

Matt (01:04:32):

He went on to the Mensa subreddit

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):

And

Matt (01:04:35):

People were like, how do you date people who are in, what’s the word,

Laci (01:04:40):

Fucking benza?

Matt (01:04:42):

No

Laci (01:04:43):

Women’s normies.

Matt (01:04:46):

No. When you’re who are like standard deviations below

Laci (01:04:49):

You. Oh yeah. Got it.

Matt (01:04:51):

And they’re like, I find you can date two at max below your level of intellect. Anything beyond that, they just become too materialistic. And this is the most evil sounding people talking about how to date people who aren’t as smart as them. And anyway, check out the guys with Brian Quimbee. Anyway, Lex asks the question, why is the most brutally criminal mastermind of his time surround himself with total Nin income poops? And then Ned Beatty, he’s like, I’m here, Mr. Luther. Like, yes, I was just talking about

Laci (01:05:24):

You. He also, you don’t want to run the risk of having someone smart enough to outsmart you enough for you to give away some of your plans or take away. I mean, if you’re trying to do crime, you probably need useful idiots, not other smarties.

Matt (01:05:38):

Right. How can Oceans 11 actually trust each other? How can the best jewel thieves actually have this team? Aren’t you just going to assume they’re always going to be betraying each other?

Laci (01:05:47):

They would heartbreakers each other. Yeah. The fucking lady that raised you would, as soon as she has your social security numbers going to wipe out your bank accounts and you’re going to be a loving mother who also your daughter just for fun.

Matt (01:05:59):

So it’s the only thing you can actually do. It’s the smart move you just have to work

Laci (01:06:02):

With. With

Matt (01:06:05):

Lex starts lecturing about how he’s going to buy lots of land. My daddy said they’re not making any more land. Buy a lot of land. And there’s a thing on the front page of the paper about the government launching some missiles. He’s doing all of this just by reading the newspaper

Laci (01:06:18):

And he is got his own library.

Matt (01:06:21):

Then the helicopter rescue. Tell us about the helicopter rescue Laci.

Laci (01:06:26):

Well, Lois is always on the go, always trying to get a scoop, do a thing. And Air Force one is going to be landing. So she wants to see the fucking president get out of the airplane. But Clark is trying to get a date and she’s like, Nope, Don let you have a plane. Bye. So she gets up there and she’s loving life. She doesn’t want to slow down, doesn’t want to be like her sister. She just wants to get the story, get the scoop. And she gets up there and she gets in the plane and she’s really just having a great day. And just to watch it wash all over her of maybe I have made the wrong life decisions. Maybe I am living a life of mt s. I’m about to die alone in this fucking helicopter. A helicopter gets, there’s no bad guys up here. It just gets stuck in its cable and

Matt (01:07:15):

It’s just behaving like a helicopter.

Laci (01:07:17):

Well, but it’s behaving like a helicopter that is tied to a leash that it’s not supposed to. So it’s helicoptering around and around. It’s scary. It is fucking scary and effective. And she is screaming her ass off. The pilot does not know what to do to make it stop. Doesn’t seem to know how to make the helicopter not be helicoptering anymore. It’s just an effective, it’s more like it’s from a thriller or a horror movie. And then all these people are at the bottom of the building just looking up like, oh, no big item going to fall down. Oh, we should all be careful. Maybe move.

Matt (01:07:52):

Which is a thing that is totally gone from superhero movies today is normal people, normal people’s perspective, and the normal people being thrilled at watching a rescue, which was such a staple of superhero movies for so long. And it’s just gone.

Laci (01:08:06):

It’s in,

Matt (01:08:08):

Yeah, it’s in Spider-Man.

Laci (01:08:09):

Yeah.

Matt (01:08:09):

I think the last time it really used was Avengers 2012 when they get down to the people’s perspective and they enlist the locals to help them. And then after that it’s like we’re not interested in anybody who doesn’t have a

Laci (01:08:20):

Superpower. Well, they stack their cast so fucking deep. There’s no screen time for anybody else.

Matt (01:08:26):

Exactly. Yes. It’s teetering over the side of the building. The crowd is gathered. Clark down on the ground, sees that she’s in trouble. He’s like, I got to change my Superman costume. And everybody in the audience is like, I know where Superman changes a phone booth, but it’s 1978. There’s no gosh darn phone booths anymore. So he changes real fast in a revolving door. And he gets there and he is like, easy Miss. I’ve got you. She’s like, you’ve got me. Who’s got you? I love this person down on the ground who says very calmly, I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe that he got to,

Laci (01:08:54):

That’s exactly what someone would say. Look, he did it.

Matt (01:08:57):

Okay. And he carries the helicopter away and they’re like, yay,

Laci (01:09:00):

Good job. Well guess we’ll go get the pizza. He is so gentle. He’s always considering that there’s a human inside of a thing. Today’s superheroes, they know they need to stop the big, like, oh, a train is hurling the wrong way. I’m going to fucking stop it. And then no consideration for the people inside. He is so gentle. He’s going to make the, he’s not just going to drag this helicopter up where it goes. He’s going to make it fly like a human body needs it to. So the pilot’s not uncomfortable.

Matt (01:09:36):

And then he immediately says, the helicopter pilot needs medical attention

Laci (01:09:39):

Step. He’s truly a boy scout.

Matt (01:09:41):

And then he tells Lois, I hope this hasn’t turned you off of flying statistically, it’s the safest way to travel. Not helicopter. Not true of helicopter flying, right? Can’t be

Laci (01:09:51):

No idea.

Matt (01:09:52):

Well, I feel like helicopters are dangerous as shit, but maybe we just hear about the deadly helicopter crashes.

Laci (01:09:58):

They crash locally. They’re not going on long distance. We just hear about ’em because they’re around.

Matt (01:10:03):

They need to think global. That’s right. Daily planet. Who are you? Lois asks, and he says, a friend and

Laci (01:10:11):

He flows away. Oh, okay. That comes back.

Matt (01:10:14):

So we get this montage of him doing good stuff. He stops a cat burglar who’s doing a mission impossible ghost protocol, scaling the side of the building

Laci (01:10:20):

To that cat burglar. I say, you’re doing too much. You could have used the inside.

Matt (01:10:26):

He stopped some robbers who escape on a boat and then just drops the boat in the middle of Manhattan.

Laci (01:10:29):

You’ve now caused such a crisis in the morning. And also the police need to get in and out of here. Sir, you’re really kind of doing some damage. I do appreciate how naive he is and how he’s just a fucking goober. He doesn’t save this. Here’s the boat. Everybody like it. What do you think? I don’t know. There’s something very sweet about the way he does it and not practical.

Matt (01:10:51):

Yeah. And he is not like a super genius Lex or how can I best optimize my saving ability? Like yeah, I’ll stop and help a girl with her cat,

Laci (01:11:00):

Right? Yeah. He’s not Iron Ironman or even Batman who’s all about his intelligence. He’s just like us. Sure am strong. What? I’m going to go pick up something if it needs it. Oh gee, yours. Nice. Boop. That’s his music.

Matt (01:11:17):

Exactly. Yeah.

Laci (01:11:19):

John Williams should have called me

Matt (01:11:21):

And it turns out it’s exactly what America needs right now in

Laci (01:11:24):

19. It’s refreshing. I like that. He’s not one moment where he is like, ha, I love the smell of my own shit.

Matt (01:11:32):

No snark. No

Laci (01:11:33):

Quis, no. He’s just helpful.

Matt (01:11:35):

No, him making fun of Superman sounds kind of dumb.

Laci (01:11:39):

I mean, he is wearing his underwear on the outside and that is bothering me the entire time. But I get it.

Matt (01:11:45):

He saves the girl with her cat frisky, and then she goes inside and her mom’s like, she’s like, mom, he’s Superman. Saved my cat. And I told you not to tell lies. Smack

Laci (01:11:54):

Slap. Now, the next day in the fucking newspapers when there’s all these reports about a flying man, does she take the slap back? Does she offer her face to be slapped in a pavement and think so

Matt (01:12:05):

Now, I haven’t seen the sequels in a few years. I’m pretty sure this recurs throughout the, this is a runner throughout the series, is this girl getting abused by her mom for seeing Superman. And I believe it’s parody in the Captain Underpants novels. Somebody check those novels out and confirm for me. Yeah, get back to, anyway, then he saves Air Force One. So with Jimmy Carter on board, presumably, oh, thanks so much, Superman. So there is a scene in the special edition of the movie, which we didn’t watch. I watched it on my own where Clark goes back to talk to Joelle and he’s like, Hey, I am feeling real torn between being a human being and being a savior. And his dad is like, oh, well, sounds real tough, but you’ll figure it out. And it interrupts the movie’s momentum it, it’s not necessary at all. But it is good to see Christopher Reve acting with Marlon Brando, which we don’t see at all in the theatrical cut.

Laci (01:12:51):

Oh, I’m so glad.

Matt (01:12:52):

Then it’s the night of, well, it’s the next day at work, and Mr. White is yelling at all. The reporters is like, get me the scoop on my hand. Somebody give me the poop scoop. Somebody got to do it. I want to know everything. Does he have a girlfriend? Does he eat fried food? Where does he get his blue pants tailored? Anyway, it’ll be the most important interview since God talked to Moses. As he’s talking, Lois Lane gets a note saying, meet me at your place tonight, a friend. And then it’s that night. And she has this ridiculous sprawling penthouse with a backyard,

Laci (01:13:26):

Just a beautiful garden. She is Jasmine. She is on the very amazing balcony waiting for Aladdin. She’s in a blue dress that’s going to go,

Matt (01:13:38):

Yeah, it is a fairytale.

Laci (01:13:40):

Yep.

Matt (01:13:42):

So Superman arrives. Yeah. She’s like, oh my god, Superman’s going to show up. I got a really impressive with the way I look. And he shows up and he’s like, well, hello. You’re a reporter and the best in town I hear, so I bet people have a lot of questions of me. Why don’t you write a nice piece on me? And she’s like, okay, great. She starts smoking cigarettes. It was the glorious 1970s where you could do that. And Superman screens are for lung cancer. She’s good for now. And again, Superman should start a cancer screening clinic. That’s how he could do the most good in the world. She’s asking him questions, are you married? How big are you? How tall are you? Do you

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):

Blow it?

Matt (01:14:26):

He starts explaining that, here’s my rules. I can’t see through lead, so I can’t see what color underwear you’re wearing. Write that down, please. She does. He’s like,

Laci (01:14:34):

What? She’s behind a lead planter box.

Matt (01:14:35):

I come from the planet Krypton in 1948. It blew up. Here’s what I’m vulnerable to. And I’m here to fight for truth justice in the American way. And Lois says, you’re going to fight every politician in the country. So I think that we could, there’s an interesting conversation to be had about what this movie’s take on politics is and Superman’s role in the world. 1978 is basically the tail end of this decade of immense disenchantment with all institutions of public life. Starting with, well, I mean starting with the Kennedy assassination and then Vietnam, Watergate, the church committee hearings, which tell you all the horrific shit that America’s military and intelligence agencies are doing all around the world. And it’s like, you cannot come to the conclusion we are the good guys anymore. But this is sort of a beginning of a retrenchment. Like, no, no, no, no, no, we’re good.

Laci (01:15:33):

So between him and Hulk Hogan, America really came back.

Matt (01:15:39):

I think that is kind of like this comes back full force in the eighties. I mean, Reagan’s whole message is like, we don’t have to apologize for shit. We’re the best shut up. And this is kind of the only acknowledgement of that idea of him saying, I’m here to fight for the American way. And she’s like, what American way? We don’t do that. The American way is bad now. And he’s like, no, gosh, I think it’s good. Oh, okay. It’s good. So they go fly.

Laci (01:16:06):

It is quite the prolonged flying sequence. It is really sweet. It’s very relatable. I’m like, what would I do? What would I do up there? I guess I’d try to fly too like this, and then I’d accidentally look, go and he’d wait a little second. I don’t know why. And then he’d save me and then he’d do it again. And there’s something very realistic about it. Very stupid about it. And it goes on and on. And I’m thinking, if I’m a little kid who thought he was coming to see a Superman movie, I am so pissed with this scene. Really? I think I don think so.

Matt (01:16:41):

I mean, the tagline was, you’ll believe a man can fly. They feel really good about the flying special effects and that, I mean, I think they’re still effective. If you weren’t thinking about how dumb it looks, you were thinking

Laci (01:16:54):

Fine. But I don’t know how long I, it’s just like the credits. I’m not sure how long I need to see a cool effect

Matt (01:16:58):

Just

Laci (01:16:58):

Getting it out, man.

Matt (01:16:59):

I know. Don’t

Laci (01:17:00):

Let me spend so much time with everything.

Matt (01:17:01):

If it’s 1978 and you’re in the theater, you’re like, holy shit. Like me with Avatar way of water, I could just watch this watch be Underwater for two straight hours. I was so dreading this moment because of when she starts her

Laci (01:17:15):

Poem, that didn’t bother me.

Matt (01:17:17):

Can you read my mind?

Laci (01:17:18):

It was weird, but I mean, the movie’s weird.

Matt (01:17:21):

The movie is weird.

Laci (01:17:22):

Yeah.

Matt (01:17:23):

So the idea here was she would literally sing this song. She’s just saying the lyrics to what would’ve been the song

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):

In her head.

Matt (01:17:32):

Yes. And I guess she would’ve sung the song in her head. She wouldn’t have literally done a musical number. I don’t know though. And it’s this theme that keeps recurring. Can you read my mind? You can hear recorded versions of this. There was one that came out that charted on the billboard charts, but Richard Donner’s like, no, we can’t do this. That sort of breaks the movie too much. But I think that one way it might work is that this movie’s kind of like a Bollywood movie.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):

It

Matt (01:18:09):

Kind of has that vibe and Bollywood movies and Indian movies in general, not just Bollywood, not just Hindi language movies will often have musical numbers. It will be a musical and also a crime movie and also a comedy and also a romance. It’s put all the movies into one. And that’s kind of what you’re getting with this

Laci (01:18:26):

Movie. That’s what Kill was like, is this romance movie and the bloodiest movie ever and overly sweet. And then it’s also a comedy. Yeah.

Matt (01:18:39):

Kill. You haven’t seen it. Everybody. A Hindi language action movie,

Laci (01:18:43):

Really good.

Matt (01:18:43):

The Indian John Wick is a reductive way to put it, but it’s awesome. It’s thrilling. And that is grounded for Indian cinema and it’s relatively short. Indian movies can be like three hours long and super violent, but also have romantic musical

Laci (01:18:57):

Numbers. That new Josh Hart and movie fight or Flight looks fucking awesome. And it looks like an airplane version of Kill. And I’m excited. Yeah. Fuck yes. And it’s made by the guys who made John Wick.

Matt (01:19:07):

So he returns her to her house and he flies away. And she’s like, what a Superman.

Laci (01:19:14):

What?

Matt (01:19:15):

And then Clark Ken arrives, he’s like, Lois, we have a date tonight. Go on. Geez. It’s like we

Laci (01:19:19):

Fucking did. I got a note. I was always going to be meeting a friend. I guess you’re a friend.

Matt (01:19:24):

But she agreed to go on a date with them, I guess the movie, skip. Skip past a lot of stuff

Laci (01:19:28):

Show.

Matt (01:19:29):

But she’s like, what? Okay, lemme go to the bathroom. And when she’s in the bathroom, Clark is like, decides I need to tell her the truth. Hey Louis, in his Superman voice. And she’s like, yeah. And he’s like, I’m excited about our date. He just can’t tell her.

Laci (01:19:46):

You don’t want to lay that on her. Then we get to see this fucking amazing layer again, and here’s the pool. There’s even a very creepy fucking tunnel. It is like some kind of, I don’t know, it’s the ruins of a city from long ago. I guess it’s a subway station or something. I don’t know what this thing is, but

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):

It’s

Laci (01:20:03):

Got tunnels. You could die in here, but you could take a dip. No way. That water’s warm. It’s amazing looking

Matt (01:20:10):

Some fucking universal studios, since you’re the theme park that’s doing stuff, not Disney, license this and make a water attraction out of it, please.

Laci (01:20:19):

This needs to be at a hotel. This needs to be the theme of a hotel. The fucking, the theme. I love the Daily Planet and with the planet on top of the fucking high rise of the hotel, and this is where the recreation happens.

Matt (01:20:30):

Perfect. What a great idea, Laci.

Laci (01:20:32):

Thank you.

Matt (01:20:34):

Yeah, L is swimming in his pool and he’s like, well, y’all think about Superman or whatever.

Laci (01:20:39):

Yeah,

Matt (01:20:40):

I think he’s handsome. And Otis is maybe Superman and just passing through on his way somewhere else later, they’re reading Lois’s interview with Superman. And from this Lex Luther is able to determine. He’s like, well, Krypton exploded in 1948. Lemme do the math. Okay. Yes, there will be space debris and it can be used as a weapon against Superman.

Laci (01:21:02):

Sure.

Matt (01:21:03):

And look at this, A meteorite has just landed in Addis Ababa, which is in Ethiopia, I believe, and let’s go get it

Laci (01:21:10):

Good on them for not making any racially inappropriate jokes.

Matt (01:21:13):

I know

Laci (01:21:15):

Where they cut out.

Matt (01:21:16):

Now the closest thing is they’re looking at the picture of the person from Ethiopia and she’s like, I wonder what they’re wearing over in add, probably. And then whatever she sees in the picture, and it’s like, yeah, I don’t think that’s a racist joke. Yeah, you just look at it. But maybe it just sounds like that way. That too, the uncles who are watching like, oh yeah,

Laci (01:21:37):

Yeah, she called it out. She’s seen it.

Matt (01:21:41):

So they need to steal some missiles. So Ms. Tesmer poses as a passed out blonde on the side of

Laci (01:21:47):

The road with her legs, sprawled open, tits out. There’s three rapey kisses in this entire or three kisses to a person who is knocked out. Let’s just say that. I won’t say rapy.

Matt (01:22:02):

Her being passed out and sexy makes all the army guys who are escorting a nuclear bomb. I don’t know if it’s a nuclear missile. It’s just a missiles a missile. It’s an I CCB M. It’s a big deal. But they pull over and they’re like, Hey, a lady. And the movie makes the army looks stupid as hell. That’s true. And that is a just diametrically opposed way that the army, the military is portrayed in movies today. In fact, the Department of Defense literally works with many movie studios, notably Marvel and gets script approval in exchange for Jesus Marvel getting to use their equipment and stuff to film it. It’s the kind of thing that when you hear about it happening in China or North Korea, you’re like, that’s just government propaganda when it happens here. That’s just what we do. I need this stuff.

(01:22:45):

But it’s also interesting because you could show people in the military looking dumb, because this is still a period of time where I think the draft was already gone by this point, but it’s in people’s memory. I could be in the army. My dumb ass son could be in the army. My friend could be in the army. Now the army, the military is a totally separate institution from anything that we would touch with our actual lives. So it feels like we can’t comment on it, we can’t make fun of it, we can’t criticize it. But back then you could think I could be in the army, therefore I can make fun of the army. And that’s the thing that would change over time. Their plan worked, except Otis fucked it up. So he miscalibrated the missile. So they change plans. They take an 18 wheeler truck and they just get it in the way of the Army. And the Army’s like, Hey, get that truck out of here. And Gene Hackman gets out of the truck and he is like, huh, hacker aari, isn’t it? Which one of us should

Laci (01:23:39):

Back up? I don’t know. He’s both of us. Be difficult either way.

Matt (01:23:43):

Yeah. While they’re trying to solve this problem, Ms. Katz Mocker sneaks in and recalibrates the missiles. Te mocker, this ta mocker. Jimmy and Lois go out West Jimmy to photograph a dam. Lois to talk to a native American man who has sold lots of tracks of land to a mysterious billionaire. Don’t know

Laci (01:24:01):

Why. This is all very pat. This is really convenient timing for everything. Well,

Matt (01:24:06):

Clark is back at the office, and then he hears the dog pitch message, a high frequency message from Lex Lutheran, listen up sober man. If you don’t come to my place, the guy is smart. If you don’t come to my place, I’ll unleash a chemical gas killing all of Metropolis. So he flies down to Lex’s layer,

Laci (01:24:23):

Just jumps right out. The casual little casually jumps out the window where people aren’t looking and his Superman costume just is there now. It just goes wipe.

Matt (01:24:36):

He arrives at the layer, busts open the door, gene Hackman’s like, come in the door’s open. And then my attorney will be in touch about the door. So then he describes his real estate plan, which I think we’ve explained already, right?

Laci (01:24:49):

It’s fucking good. But the names are fun because then he sees something that’s Sharpie in on his little plans and it says Otis Burg.

Matt (01:24:58):

Yeah. We’ll have Lex Springs, Lexington Lutherville, Otis Burg, Otis Osburg O Oh thought Mr. Luther. Ms. Temer got her own own

Laci (01:25:06):

Clarity written on this Otis burg, just Mka Farms.

Matt (01:25:10):

And yeah, it’s written. Oh, and the asses backwards because he’s an idiot. So Ned Beatty gets down and he erases what he’s written

Laci (01:25:17):

Fine. I mean, he’s just a little piece of land. It’s in the middle. It’s big.

Matt (01:25:21):

Yeah. It is a great, great villain plan. Maybe the best that there’s ever been in a movie

Laci (01:25:26):

That they’re going to use a missile to explode along the San Andreas fault line, thereby breaking California in half. All of the highest and most expensive real estate will go into the ocean. And he’s bought up everything from that fault backwards. So he becomes the new California.

Matt (01:25:45):

Honestly, does it sound that farfetched?

Laci (01:25:47):

It’s good. I’m going to do

Matt (01:25:49):

It also. I got another missile. It’s heading for Hackensack, New Jersey. We don’t know why Luther, you madman.

Laci (01:25:57):

My mother lives in Hackensack.

Matt (01:26:00):

The only way you can stop me is with my detonator switch. And he’s like, where’s the detonator switch? Luthor. And he starts looking around and there’s a lead box and Gene Hackman’s like, no, don’t look in my lead box. And he’s like, you thought you could trick me by hiding it in lead, but no, inside a kryptonite necklace. And Christopher Reeve plays this really well. He’s very afraid of this kryptonite. Yeah, he’s like a vampire. And it’s

Laci (01:26:20):

Slowly depletes him. It’s immediate. But Lex Luthor knows what he has to do is put him in water because all it does is keep him low to the ground and

Matt (01:26:29):

Weak.

Laci (01:26:30):

You got to put him in the,

Matt (01:26:31):

So this is just all in the acting. This is just, Hey, act like this necklace prop we’re putting on you is draining your life force. And we believe it. And they just throw Superman into the pool. And Ms. Tesmer goes up to Lex and says, Lex, my mom lives in Hackensack and Jean Hackman in the finest moment of film acting in the history of cinema, looks down at his watch, looks at her and just shakes his head. No, that’s it. That is, I made a video where I explained why he’s my favorite actor. I would just show that scene. It is so funny.

Laci (01:27:01):

My mom lives in hacking tech. She don’t live.

Matt (01:27:05):

She just don’t. He doesn’t say that. You just hear it. Right.

Laci (01:27:08):

But he’s like, you’re wrong.

Matt (01:27:15):

But yeah, this turns her against Lex and she jumps into the water to save Superman. But before she pulls off the necklace, she’s like, promise you’ll save my mom. And she kisses him while he still passed out and she takes the thing off and he’s like, why did you kiss me? Why’d you kiss me first before he took off the thing? She’s like, I didn’t think you’d let me later.

Laci (01:27:33):

And he’s like, that’s cute. And rapey. And then he caresses her cheek.

Matt (01:27:38):

Well,

Laci (01:27:40):

What?

Matt (01:27:41):

No, it’s just, she’s a hot lady. He’s Superman. We’re all friends here. You know what I’m saying?

Laci (01:27:49):

Sure.

Matt (01:27:49):

So he’s like, okay, yeah, I’ll do that. He does. He goes and gets the New Jersey missile, but

Laci (01:27:53):

While he’s, he makes him late to the lowest lane situation.

Matt (01:27:56):

The other one hits California, which triggers the San Andrea’s fault.

Laci (01:28:01):

And it kind of is his San Andrea’s fault.

Matt (01:28:03):

It really is.

Laci (01:28:04):

Yes.

Matt (01:28:05):

And so he’s a

Laci (01:28:06):

Man of his words. That’s why I’m saying he’s a boy scout. He cannot lie. So he did have to go to New Jersey first.

Matt (01:28:12):

And I love that the movie is so fleet afoot that it’s not even explaining that. What is it like if he makes a promise, literally

Laci (01:28:18):

We can’t lie.

Matt (01:28:19):

His atoms won’t allow him to break his promise. It’s just don’t worry about that. He just doesn’t

Laci (01:28:23):

Lie. He just needs he guy with a thing. That’s his thing.

Matt (01:28:26):

Exactly. He doesn’t lie. So don’t worry about it. These effects look great. The Golden Gate Bridge snapping. It is fucking great.

Laci (01:28:33):

I kept saying this looks like such an expensive movie. There’s so many shots.

Matt (01:28:38):

Yeah. Very expensive and very profitable. And yet still only the number two movie of the year behind. It’s a movie we’ve covered on this podcast before. Can you guess what it is?

Laci (01:28:47):

Tell me the year

Matt (01:28:48):

1978.

Laci (01:28:49):

Dunno why I asked Close Encounters.

Matt (01:28:51):

No, shoot. Good guess a movie that you wouldn’t think would be, it’s not like a sci-fi blockbuster. It’s a musical

Laci (01:29:02):

Fucking musical Grease.

Matt (01:29:05):

Grease. Yes.

Laci (01:29:06):

That’s 1978.

Matt (01:29:07):

Yeah. Huh?

Laci (01:29:09):

It was a sensation. Sorry. Superman had fucking, he had no shun

Matt (01:29:13):

And Superman literally goes into the earth and fixes the fault himself. And he saves a train. He saves the Golden Gate Bridge. But there’s a dam that Jimmy Olson is near. It burst. It’s going to destroy this town. Superman, just throw some rocks

Laci (01:29:25):

Down. I had no idea that was Jimmy. I just thought that was some kid. I was like, why do they keep showing this fucking kid? Good shit.

Matt (01:29:30):

Totally. So when he reunites with Lois, Laci was like, ah.

Laci (01:29:34):

He was with, okay,

Matt (01:29:37):

But he can’t get to Lois in time. She is crushed to death in her car.

Laci (01:29:40):

It is fucked up. It is heroin. It goes on and on. And the car’s just stuck in one position. She just can’t get through because it’s slowly crushing the car. And she’s not crushed to death. She doesn’t fall in a fucking pit. She is. She’s buried alive. And we watch it happen. It is fucked up. She’s dirty and he gets there pretty soon after and it’s like you have lungs of fucking dynamite steel or whatever, blow into her. Whatcha doing.

Matt (01:30:10):

He doesn’t know that he can do that.

Laci (01:30:15):

Like what?

Matt (01:30:16):

Well, that’s why he’s so upset. And he screams.

Laci (01:30:19):

Yeah, he’s very convinced. He did a good acting there.

Matt (01:30:22):

Takes off, goes into space. He sees his dad in the clouds being like Dole or Callal, I told you, don’t interfere. But then that gets drowned out with Paul, my son.

Laci (01:30:32):

We don’t know what it was.

Matt (01:30:33):

We were put on this earth for a reason. And so he decides that’s right

Laci (01:30:37):

Date someone named Wois Wayne.

Matt (01:30:39):

I’ll reverse the Earth’s rotation,

Laci (01:30:43):

But I’ll fix it before I will make it rotate the wrong way. But we can’t just always have time going backwards. So I will go back the other way for a moment just to get the spinning right. Just in time to go right back. That’s why

Matt (01:30:55):

It’s great.

Laci (01:30:56):

It is sunny attention to detail. He thought of it all.

Matt (01:30:59):

Does it make sense at all? No, of course not. In fact, even if you accept that he can turn back time, does he stop the nuke? What?

Laci (01:31:06):

We don’t know

Matt (01:31:07):

Because Lois is like, Hey Superman, I just saw a damn burst and a market go off and an earthquake. It’s

Laci (01:31:13):

Like, so you saved one lady in Hackensack and then Lois that,

Matt (01:31:16):

Did he condemn all those children to death

Laci (01:31:18):

Also? You spin it back a lot. Did you even do the Hackensack thing?

Matt (01:31:22):

No. Didn’t even do that. Yeah. And also doesn’t save her, right? I mean she’s fine, but she’s out of gas and she’s like, you’re never around when I need you Superman. And he’s like, gosh, Lois, I’m real sorry, but hey, I got a job to do. And then Jimmy Olsen shows up and he’s like, Superman, you abandoned me to

Laci (01:31:39):

No gas, no wheels, whatever. There’s snakes. I’m doing it again. Bye.

Matt (01:31:45):

He takes off Jimmy Olsen’s like, gee, Wizz. It’s too bad. Clark wasn’t here to see this. Our brand new friend who we met two days ago, and she’s like, yeah, Clark’s never around win Superman, you don’t think? No Lois Lane. That’s the stupidest idea. Superman shows up at a prison at a maximum security prison with Lex and Otis in to

Laci (01:32:04):

This will do.

Matt (01:32:06):

And he says, Mr. Warden, these men will be safe here until they get a fair trial.

Laci (01:32:11):

We need a fair, we can’t not do the justice system.

Matt (01:32:15):

That’s why he’s great because he points out they need a fair trial.

Laci (01:32:18):

And if he ever answered the phone, he’d say hello and goodbye because he never fucking leaves without saying goodbye to anyone. Even us.

Matt (01:32:26):

Gene Hackman takes off his wig. He’s wearing a bald wig and a bald cap. He’s

Laci (01:32:30):

Not wearing a bald cabbage.

Matt (01:32:31):

He is. This is a bald cap.

Laci (01:32:31):

He’s not wearing a bald cap.

Matt (01:32:32):

I promise you this is a bald cap.

Laci (01:32:33):

But you can see his hair, you can see that he’s shaved his head.

Matt (01:32:36):

He did not shave his head for this role. This was a famous thing. He did not, he refused to shave his head for this.

Speaker 3 (01:32:42):

You son of a bitch.

Matt (01:32:43):

I’m Lex Luther criminal mastermind, and as he’s talking, Otis is being his hype man and just starts talking over him and then they get mad at each other. Great. This warden comes out and he is like, Superman, the country is safe, thanks to you. And he’s like, don’t thank me. We’re on the same team. Thank you.

Laci (01:33:00):

And then that warden goes and abuses the shit out of a couple of black men in his custody. He’s like the last, we all are on the same team. Shut

Matt (01:33:07):

Up. The last line of the movie is Superman thinking a maximum security prison warden. Me and you. Same team. Yeah. I mean maybe it’s intentional. Maybe it’s supposed to be satire. Superman’s thinking a prison war.

Laci (01:33:20):

I thought he was the Commis. I thought we were doing a Batman.

Matt (01:33:24):

And then Superman flies into space and spikes the camera. Hey guys,

Laci (01:33:29):

Maybe you should say hi to a planet we don’t know. Plan it. I’m going to planet it Ain’t playing it.

Matt (01:33:35):

All

Laci (01:33:35):

Right.

Matt (01:33:36):

That’s the movie. That’s Superman. What a picture.

Laci (01:33:38):

Well, what a thing.

Matt (01:33:56):

Yeah, it’s Shaggy. There’s some momentum issues. I understand that, but I also feel that the annoying thing to say, if you love a movie, you accept those things as part of the charm. The shaggy is part of the charm.

Laci (01:34:10):

It’s what we’ve learned with this podcast. It’s not annoying to say you get to be the one that’s saying it this time and usually it’s me. So you will accept my star rating and I’ll accept your bullshit star rating.

Matt (01:34:21):

Well just in you can view something as an asset rather than a detriment. You could do that with every single if it’s in service. Yes, of course. This is now science. I gave this five stars. It is one of my favorite is probably Behind Only Spider-Man two as my favorite superhero movie of all time. Also remember, it’s inventing the genre. It’s inventing all the rules. But Christopher Reeve incredible, gene Hackman incredible. Margo Kid are incredible. And Richard Donner directs the hell out of this movie.

Laci (01:34:51):

Well shoot. Now I feel weird about my star rating.

Matt (01:34:53):

That’s okay.

Laci (01:34:54):

I was going to do 3.5. Yeah, that’s fine.

Matt (01:34:57):

That is how much you enjoyed the movie. I would’ve guessed anything. Laci’s going to give this a 3.5 because you really like the,

Laci (01:35:03):

Do you see Through My Purse?

Matt (01:35:05):

I knew you were going to the newspaper parts and the Lois and Clark stuff and basically anything with Lois and Christopher Reeve and not care about the sci-fi and not care about the production values and stuff.

Laci (01:35:17):

No, I like the production parts. I just felt like certain scenes went on way too long, but because they were doing something cool for the time I get that. I honestly was a little more affected by the scary parts than I wanted to be With the tone of this movie. It felt misplaced and I did not like the woman, but that’s okay.

Matt (01:35:40):

Really. Ms. Teer,

Laci (01:35:43):

It all felt too kind of rub, just kind of slapped together. I understood the other, she just was like a bridge too far for me, but I’m sure I just need to see the movie a couple more times. So 3.5, it gets

Matt (01:35:55):

Cool. All right. Yay. Well next up on the podcast, I don’t know why this slide is telling us Heartbreakers is next. That was less

Speaker 3 (01:36:02):

True.

Matt (01:36:03):

Next week on the program, we’ll be welcoming the Red Rose film Colle to talk about one of Laci’s favorite movies. American’s Psycho a movie Way before we started this podcast. Laci’s like, I got to show you American Psycho, but I don’t remember it at all. I’ve only seen it the one time.

Laci (01:36:20):

Oh, that’s fun. Okay. Yay.

Matt (01:36:23):

I remember he does something with an ax. That’s it. And that might just

Laci (01:36:26):

Be the poster. Yeah, he does. But the chainsaw’s the better part.

Matt (01:36:29):

So yeah. Hal and Craig from the Red Rose Film Club will be joining us on April 11th for episode 1 56 or seven. I don’t know. Please check out our Patreon: Load Bearing Beams: Collectors Edition, for two bonus episodes a month, and then tell a friend about that and about the main feed and subscribe to us on YouTube and follow me on Letterboxd @ MattStokes9 and Laci on Letterboxd at @ LoadBearingLaci. And my band, Rural Route Nine, does the music for Load Bearing Beams, including the song you’re hearing right now. Our album is The Joy of Averages that’s available wherever you get your music.

Laci (01:37:01):

Thank you so much. I cried the time. I cried the whole time. Okay. I love you. Goodbye.