Ep. #336 - Supergirl, with Glen Weldon

[0:00] On this episode we discuss Supergirl starring Popeye's famous fried chicken and biscuits. Was there anything else in this movie? Don't know, don't care.

[0:30] Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:38] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:40] I'm Elliot Kalin, and we've got two very exciting things going on today.

[0:45] A special guest, and another thing that Dan's going to tell us about.

[0:48] Stu, why don't you introduce our special guest first?

[0:49] I would love to, Elliot.

[0:52] We are joined today by the co-host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour,

[0:57] and an author and just an all-around great beefcake that's right glenn weldon hey glenn

[1:03] hey guys thanks for having me grateful to be here glad and grateful it's grateful to be here

[1:09] thank you so much uh we are super excited this is a super show with the super expert about super

[1:15] things but i'm also excited because dan you're operating under sort of a harrison bergeron

[1:20] handicap right now can you please explain it to us the thing that you were referring to is the

[1:24] thing i thought it is the exciting news on my end is that i'm in the midst of a strong hay fever

[1:29] attack it's it started early this morning i've tried several things to shake it changing my

[1:36] clothes taking a hot shower having two different types of no three different types of allergy

[1:41] medicine which is probably not a good idea to mix them but it was that bad i should make for an

[1:46] interesting show yeah i ran the um what do you the filter the air filter i went outside for a while

[1:52] i took a nap dan i imagine you change you had a a change in clothes montage about allergies where

[1:58] you would like step out of the changing booth and then you would sneeze and then audrey would

[2:01] shake her head no and you'd go back in and come out in a new outfit and sneeze and she'd shake

[2:04] her head no is that what happened yeah yeah that's exactly what happened no what happened is i keep

[2:08] trying things and thinking like oh that feels good for like about five minutes and then i start

[2:12] sneezing uncontrollably again uh you may not hear it on the on the on the podcast i've recently

[2:20] purchased myself a cough button.

[2:21] Now I know it says a cough button. I'm going to

[2:24] off-label use it for sneezing

[2:26] as well. Just as long as you know

[2:28] that the warranty does not

[2:30] apply if you use it that way.

[2:31] But anyway, let's turn back to Glenn, who

[2:34] among other things, literally

[2:35] wrote the book on Superman,

[2:37] Superman, an unauthorized

[2:40] biography?

[2:41] The unauthorized biography, Daniel.

[2:44] Yeah, it's a book.

[2:45] There are several,

[2:47] including one that came out like eight months before mine did,

[2:50] by Larry Tye that made the front cover

[2:52] of the New York Times Book Review

[2:54] and kind of ate up the space for it.

[2:56] Really?

[2:56] I only ever heard about yours,

[2:59] which I read that one.

[3:02] I read the Batman book as well,

[3:04] but I think it would not be unfair to say

[3:07] that Superman is foremost in your heart

[3:09] amongst the major heroes.

[3:12] Yeah, certainly.

[3:13] I mean, like, he's the first, he's the primal,

[3:15] he's the best.

[3:16] He is very, very difficult to write

[3:19] because you have to kind of make give him a challenge and uh writing that book was figuring

[3:25] out what makes him tick and what sets him apart besides his power set and basically i came up with

[3:30] two things one he puts the needs of others over those of himself and two he doesn't give up and

[3:34] when you write a superman story that misses either one of those two things you're not writing a

[3:38] superman story i will say though that writing the second book uh the caped crusade batman and the

[3:42] rise of nerd culture was a lot more fun because the superman book was basically work for hire

[3:47] uh it was basically the 75th anniversary is coming up we need a book uh so i basically you worry that

[3:54] you're writing a 75 000 word wikipedia entry when you write a book like that because you're just

[3:58] you're just trapped by continuity and by chronology and so the second book was more a chance to kind

[4:04] of dig in and be a little bit more analytical and pull back but uh yeah i'm a nerd and sorry

[4:09] to interrupt glenn but just to fill out your top three we have superman at the top number two has

[4:14] got to be carnage and number three has got to be pit right dale keown's really dale keown's pit

[4:20] okay okay interesting hulk with longer hair yeah yeah yeah actually i have a uh a tattoo of the

[4:28] swift and powerful monarch of the ocean uh aquaman as ted knight used to say it back in super friends

[4:33] uh yeah aquaman was my it was kind of my nearest and dearest uh because i grew up uh thinking i

[4:39] wanted to be a marine biologist going to school to be a marine biologist failing at being a marine

[4:43] biologist and uh and yeah so i i really always loved aquaman just maybe it was the blonde hair

[4:49] and black eyebrows it was kind of trashy to me well i mean failing to be a marine biologist is

[4:54] at least better than failing to be aquaman which usually results in in drowning um yeah well i mean

[5:01] it's a very good point daniel yeah it was it was my nickname on the swim team and i thought it was

[5:05] because i was so fast but it's because i would go into the water and sink like a rock so everybody

[5:09] would make fun of me for that i didn't realize they were making fun of me which is my life

[5:12] and I also talk to fish.

[5:14] Yeah, you did disqualify from the races

[5:16] because you were riding a giant seahorse.

[5:17] That's true, that's true.

[5:18] I had one flying fish on each of my feet.

[5:21] That sounds amazing.

[5:23] So this, I mean, the movie we watched was Supergirl,

[5:28] not Superman.

[5:28] Well, Dan, what do we do on this podcast?

[5:30] Let's just say our agreement real quick.

[5:32] Okay, let me, I'll tell you.

[5:34] All right, why tell the audience what we do?

[5:35] Well, I mean, some would argue why interrupt me

[5:39] when I was doing also an introductory thing.

[5:42] I mean, that's another way you can look at it.

[5:43] Good point.

[5:44] Elliot, he's got hay fever.

[5:46] Chill out.

[5:47] I'm dealing with enough.

[5:49] Hey, fever, leave that Dan alone.

[5:51] Joke I said before the recording.

[5:52] Say it again now.

[5:53] It's still hot.

[5:55] Oh, man.

[5:55] No, what I was going to say is now the book was about Superman.

[5:59] We were talking about the movie Supergirl from 1984 because this is the Flophouse podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[6:09] Thank you, Elliot.

[6:10] But the interesting thing about your book on Superman is, you know, it's called a biography, and you do that by sort of tracking the different iterations of Superman through the comics and radio serials and shows and theater and movies.

[6:29] and in that of course you touch on the expanded uh superman universe uh and uh cara jor-el is of

[6:37] course superman's cousin and so uh that is about that is more backstory than supergirl gives you

[6:46] before thrusting you into this movie so maybe we should just get into the movie yeah it was made in

[6:52] uh well it came out in 1984 um right on the heels of superman 3 which was let's just say a

[6:58] disappointment uh both both financially and critically it made 60 million dollars but still

[7:02] uh and the salkins when they bought the rights to superman they bought the rights to a bunch of

[7:07] kryptonian characters including supergirl so they were thinking okay so if nobody's buying

[7:11] superman anymore let's let's pivot who runs the world you have to imagine the meeting at the

[7:17] salkin headquarters where they're looking at all the characters and they're like do we do a super

[7:21] supergirl movie or do we do a beppo the super monkey i was i was pushing for we don't want to

[7:27] working with another monkey let's just let's just let's just use i assume they must have made a

[7:32] movie with a monkey at some point let's just uh let's do and someone's like what about streaky

[7:36] the super cat people don't want to see cat movies not realizing that garfield a tale of two kitties

[7:41] would be a huge hit many years down the line i was waiting for the comet the super horse pole

[7:47] but it didn't come well and so and comet was the one who became a person and fell in love with

[7:51] supergirl this is also true yes oh that old superman comics were the thing is this movie is

[7:57] really crazy but then i think about the old superman comics which were crazier like the

[8:01] one of my favorite superman stories is is it called superman's new power where he learns how

[8:05] to shoot a tiny superman out of his hand and he starts getting jealous of how much affection the

[8:09] tiny superman is getting it totally is that was uh that was a time in that we're talking about

[8:14] the silver age and i went they just kind of kept building out his world and adding new characters

[8:19] because it was about pure imagination.

[8:22] It was aimed at kids, right?

[8:25] So you're just telling fanciful stories.

[8:27] But that is also the thing that kind of let people start gravitating over to Marvel more

[8:34] because Marvel was directing itself at older teens and adults.

[8:38] And so there's more to chew on in a Marvel story than there was in a DC story at the time.

[8:43] So that's one more reason to be mad at tiny Superman.

[8:47] Yeah, another reason.

[8:48] Now, I love Marvel Comics.

[8:50] I'm a Marvel zombie going way back.

[8:51] It's in my bones.

[8:52] But now that you've mentioned that, I never realized before.

[8:54] Marvel Comics is kind of comics for kids who are old enough to be ashamed of masturbating, I guess is what it comes down to.

[9:00] Like every Marvel superhero from the 60s carries around this deep guilt and shame that only can come from the knowledge that they can give themselves sexual pleasure and aren't supposed to.

[9:10] Right, because the DC heroes were all about, I want to fly fast.

[9:15] I want to be the best.

[9:16] I want to be the strongest.

[9:17] And Marvel books at the time were about guilt, alienation, feelings of self-loathing.

[9:23] So it was more teenage than kid.

[9:26] And later on, they were all about pouches, right?

[9:29] They were all about pouches.

[9:31] Yeah, and then the 90s Marvel was a very pouch-based company.

[9:34] Now, with regard to the goofiness, getting back to Supergirl, the goofiness in this movie,

[9:39] I really love the goofiness in this movie.

[9:41] Wait, you thought this movie was goofy?

[9:43] To me, the goofiness is honestly the best part, except sort of a related problem.

[9:51] The related problem is the lack of interest in adequately setting up anything in the film or explaining, like, any sort of internal consistency about what's going on or, like, how old Kara is and, like, you know, like, what exactly her deal is.

[10:10] I don't know.

[10:10] We'll get into it.

[10:11] have i have a theory about this as and we'll see if the plot bears me up there was a certain point

[10:15] in this movie where i was like this movie feels like the national lampoon x-rated parody of super

[10:20] girl but with all the sex taken out of it like there's so many situations she get placed in

[10:25] where i'm like where i'm like there's a different version of this movie that i do not want to see

[10:28] where this leads to her having sex with something and i don't and it felt like well but also i

[10:33] that's interesting because like it feels the movie does feel like this sort of like 70s key party and

[10:40] then a super girl movie just sort of broke out in the middle of it it's got this sort of like

[10:45] you know 70s going into the 80s i mean this is 84 but it's still got that vibe like sort of like

[10:50] slacker like drugs in the rec room feel something about it and like the guy who wrote it mostly

[10:59] wrote a bunch of muppet show scripts yeah yeah uh but it's got that kind of like

[11:05] burn burning end of the the hippie era like vibe about it i don't know there's now now that you

[11:13] mentioned i never noticed faye dunaway's character is basically miss piggy like especially if miss

[11:18] piggy was the bad guy all right yeah she's incredible yeah wait a minute she's incredible

[11:22] we are getting ahead of ourselves but i will say this um to my knowledge nobody involved in this

[11:29] thing was queer or queer identified but every scene between faye dunaway and brenda baccaro

[11:33] is giving you major queer vibes.

[11:37] And it's not just because of the casting,

[11:38] because you've got Faye Dunaway and Brenda Beccaro,

[11:40] you're halfway there.

[11:41] But because of those roles, you've got Diva and Brassy Broad.

[11:45] You've got the Diva, so Crawford is, I'm sorry,

[11:50] Faye Dunaway's playing the Crawford, the Betty Davis,

[11:52] and Brenda Beccaro is serving you Joan Blundell and Rosalind Russell.

[11:56] And then you add the fop to it with Peter Cook.

[12:03] He's giving you George Saunders or whoever played Uncle Max in Sound of Music.

[12:09] He's giving you that.

[12:09] Put those three together.

[12:10] And that, for the queer community, is like what Maiden Mother Crone is to the straight community.

[12:15] It's diva, broad, and fop.

[12:18] And that's why those scenes have a power.

[12:20] They're the most fun part of the movie for me.

[12:22] It does feel like somebody was like, what if a superhero fought Absolutely Fabulous?

[12:27] 100%.

[12:28] So I guess, Stu, you should tell us what this movie is about.

[12:32] I'm going to be driving this car.

[12:33] Obviously, y'all are the experts, so feel free to interrupt me.

[12:37] So the movie opens with a very smoky credit sequence.

[12:41] It's pretty great.

[12:42] And then, you know, we open Media Res in a futuristic jizz city populated by hippies.

[12:50] It does look like it is built out of dry jizz.

[12:54] You're right.

[12:54] It's called Argo City.

[12:55] But, you know.

[12:56] It is Argo City.

[12:59] And canonically, in the comics, it's a big chunk of Krypton that flew off intact because there was a bubble over it.

[13:04] Originally, it was supposed to be just an air bubble, but that's not how space works.

[13:07] So they rejiggered it so it would be the leader, who was Zor-El, who was Jor-El's brother.

[13:13] He created a dome around the city back when it was still on Krypton because he was afraid of germs.

[13:18] So, sure.

[13:19] He was the Halley Mandel of Krypton.

[13:22] That protected the city, and then they realized that the ground was turning into Kryptonite,

[13:27] So they covered the ground with lead sheets, which just as toxic.

[13:32] So I don't know what they were thinking there.

[13:34] And then meteors penetrated the city and everybody was dying.

[13:40] So Zor-El and Allura, played here by Mia Farrow for a hot second, rocketed Kara to Earth.

[13:50] And she was the younger cousin to Superman and she got adopted.

[13:53] It's a whole thing.

[13:54] But this is a much different vibe because this Argo City looks more like if you crossed, like, Mall of America with, like, Sedona and, like, an open plan elementary school, like, from the 70s.

[14:06] Yeah, maybe some Logan's Run is in there, too.

[14:08] Some Logan's Run in there, sure.

[14:09] Oh, yeah.

[14:10] And all of the backstory that you just gave us explains how they just talk about Krypton and the people on Krypton as if that planet didn't explode and kill everybody.

[14:20] Yeah, yep.

[14:20] Like, they're just like, oh, yeah, my cousin's at Earth.

[14:22] And it's like, where are you?

[14:24] Like, how are you not dead now?

[14:25] What's going on?

[14:26] But the movie doesn't make any effort to let you know any of this.

[14:32] And it's weird because it has the same thing that the original, the first Christopher Reeve's Superman has, which is like, okay, we're going to start out with this Krypton stuff.

[14:44] You're going to get your big, big name stars here.

[14:48] This is mostly where you're going to see Peter O'Toole and, as you say, Mia Farrow's there for a second.

[14:52] But it did learn the lesson, I guess, from Superman that, like, that stuff is boring and we should get through it fast.

[14:59] But it didn't replace it with, like, any sort of exposition that made sense.

[15:04] Like, it's just like, wait, hold on.

[15:06] So some of you are still alive and you also know that Superman is on Earth and famous for some reason?

[15:12] Like, I'm not sure how that happened, but sure.

[15:15] Yeah. And like the these people seem remarkably chill because they're all in like flowing togas and tunics, which is how science fiction films kind of convey to you.

[15:27] Oh, this is this is this in Star Trek. This would be the pleasure planet they go to that holds a dark secret or that, you know, Wesley stepped in the geraniums or whatever.

[15:35] and that would cause the plot

[15:37] and the whole design of this

[15:39] if you think about it, the Superman films

[15:41] the Kryptonian design is angular, it's crystalline

[15:43] it's hard here

[15:44] it's a female led film

[15:47] it's more organic and

[15:49] kind of softer and rounder

[15:51] but it's really poorly designed

[15:53] because there's one point where Kara is walking

[15:55] and she has to walk through

[15:57] a school to get to where she's going

[15:59] she has to walk up the steps

[16:01] it's just not well-performed

[16:03] And also the fact that their city is powered by a billiard ball-sized device that can easily get thrown through a window that's destroying the city.

[16:12] Let's get to that.

[16:12] Yeah, let's get back on track.

[16:15] So we're introduced to Zoltar, who is making a tree out of jizz using his magic stick and magic ball.

[16:21] He would eventually go down to Earth and turn Tom Hanks into a big guy.

[16:26] Yeah, he has like this, like, what basically is like a, I don't know, like a paperweight, a glass paperweight carrot that he's using as like a 3D printer to make sculptures.

[16:38] It's 3D printing, exactly.

[16:39] Yeah.

[16:41] And he's wearing this 1983 Chess King sweater that, oof, boy, it's actually more of a tunic, I now realize, because it's cinched at the waist, but oof, oof, that thing.

[16:53] It feels like a precursor to a classic drug rug.

[16:56] Yeah, that's true.

[16:57] And Zoltar has a conversation with Kara, Kara Zor-El, who is curious.

[17:06] And they talk about, I don't know, like they talk about the city and like the power source that he's holding.

[17:12] Because that little ball he's got, that's the Omega Hedron.

[17:16] Omega Hedron, which I do love.

[17:19] Or he says Hedron because he says it in English, I guess.

[17:21] But that's a real Jack Kirby-esque name, which I love.

[17:25] In a New Gods thing, you could totally see Orion fighting Kalabak over an Omega Hedron, and I would be like, great.

[17:31] So I love that name.

[17:32] Zoltar and Supergirl here have a real Doc Brown, Marty McFly relationship, where it's just taken for granted that a teenager is friends with a kind of slightly sinister inventor.

[17:44] Yes.

[17:45] And this is also, I mentioned my question about Kara's age earlier, and Stuart made a face.

[17:53] I think he thought it was weird, but the reason I'm saying this is, like, here in the early scenes, right, like, she seems, like, beyond young and naive, like, she seems, you know, like, none too bright or something.

[18:08] Like, there's something, like, she seems like a child, like a real child in this, where she's, like.

[18:12] I think she's supposed to have that kind of, like, angelic naivete.

[18:15] Yes, but it manifests in her, like, sitting, like, cross-legged on the ground, like, 3D printing dragonflies and such.

[18:24] And then, like, once she gets to Earth, she, I guess, is supposed to be going to a private school, although it's left, like, it's left...

[18:37] It's a boarding school, right?

[18:38] It's a public boarding school.

[18:40] Like, many towns have public boarding schools that everyone has to go to and live in.

[18:45] So the parents can keep having key parties.

[18:46] It was the early 80s.

[18:48] The confusing part of it is it's never said outright.

[18:51] Like it could be a college.

[18:53] I think it's supposed to be just a private school.

[18:55] But Helen Slater herself, she is 21 when this movie is made.

[19:00] And her love interest is like the groundskeeper who's around, who Faye Dunaway is also interested in.

[19:10] And I guess they kind of make her age ambiguous partly because of that.

[19:15] But it leads to this, like, weird, I don't know, like, disjoint that I'm like, okay, what am I supposed to believe here?

[19:21] There's a love triangle between a groundskeeper who's probably in anywhere from 25 to 35, Faye Dunaway, and a teenage girl.

[19:29] Yeah, I mean, it is like the movie The Tale with Laura Dern, which is about a young girl being exploited.

[19:36] Yeah, it's very strange.

[19:37] But on the other hand, I'll raise you, and I'll raise this question again when we get to the point where she goes undercover as a boarding school, private school girl.

[19:44] Why did she do that?

[19:45] Yes.

[19:46] Well, we'll get there, but yeah, I also have that question.

[19:49] But yeah, her age is very definitely ambiguous.

[19:53] She's somewhere between, I'm guessing, 16 and 27.

[19:56] Yeah, all right.

[19:57] And the script does not give her much to do except play sort of guileless and kind and trusting, which is just not.

[20:06] And, you know, it's her first role.

[20:08] It's her first film role, Helen Slater, before Billie Jean became legend.

[20:12] She was a folktale.

[20:14] And she's on the screen with Peter O'Toole, who, you know, he's game.

[20:19] He's certainly game.

[20:20] But, like, I think his agent just said, look, Marlon did Superman.

[20:24] He made a mint.

[20:25] He bought an island.

[20:26] Don't you want an island?

[20:26] And so he has to say words like omega hedron and binary shoot over and over again in this thing.

[20:35] And I just, it just, what would you guys think of him?

[20:38] I mean, he was fun.

[20:39] I think he's, I mean, he's, Peter O'Toole is so charismatic.

[20:43] And he's really that like he really is able to even when he's playing drunk Zoltar later, he's still able to like do it with a certain amount of style.

[20:49] But it's also like, to be honest, if I was going to be in a movie, I'd love to be saying words like Omegahedron and Binary Shoot and things like that.

[20:55] Maybe he was having a great time, except for the sweater.

[20:58] I don't know.

[20:58] And obviously when he shows up later on as drunk Zoltar and he just keeps saying squirt over and over, I'm like, dude, fucking cool out.

[21:07] The other thing about Peter O'Toole's character, and I'm sorry that I'm about to step on Stuart's job a little bit here, is he hands the power source for the whole city over to Kara, and she's playing around with it.

[21:22] She makes this bug that starts flying around.

[21:28] I guess she's created life.

[21:29] It opens a hole in the city that's, I guess, covered with a tarp, the void of space.

[21:35] The city is made out of, like, greased paper or rice paper like a Japanese has.

[21:41] It's saran wrap.

[21:41] The MacGuffin, like, shoots out into space, going to Earth.

[21:46] And, like, all this happens in such a way that I'm like, oh, some other shoe's got to drop later.

[21:51] Where Peter O'Toole planned all this, he knew that, like, because it's like, otherwise it's this dumbest.

[21:57] Dan, you're thinking like a modern movie.

[21:59] You're thinking like a modern movie result.

[22:01] She goes to the Phantom Zone and he goes, I wanted to get caught here.

[22:04] It was all part of my plan to be caught and imprisoned.

[22:06] But no, this is a dumb 80s movie.

[22:07] Things just happen, man.

[22:08] This is the stupidest way to kick off a movie.

[22:11] Because it's like, okay, we're hurtling through space.

[22:15] I guess your bug is going to get rid of our power source

[22:19] and you're going to have to go to Earth.

[22:20] Yeah.

[22:20] Elliot, I feel like in the writer's room for this movie,

[22:24] on the whiteboard, in big letters, it just said,

[22:27] things just happen, man.

[22:29] Yeah, probably.

[22:30] I mean, there was probably a real feeling of like,

[22:32] Like, how do we make Kara responsible for what happens so that she has to be the one who goes on this adventure?

[22:38] And they do it in the dumbest way.

[22:40] I mean, like, you see it in lots of kids' movies where someone will, like, accidentally hit the wrong switch on a machine and that launches them on an adventure.

[22:48] But that's the thing is this movie, it's hard to tell.

[22:51] And maybe I think of it as a kid's movie because I watched it many times as a kid and yet remembered only two things from it.

[22:57] One of them being that Faye Dunaway's house has a skull on its door.

[23:00] That's one of the two things I remember from the movie.

[23:02] That, like, this movie feels like both a – it is kind of too dumb to be a movie for grownups, but it is too weird to be a movie for kids.

[23:10] But it's the kind of thing I could buy in a kid's movie, where it's like, oh, here you go.

[23:13] Hold this thing.

[23:14] I got it.

[23:14] Whoops.

[23:15] And now the adventure begins.

[23:16] Except I can understand, like, you know, whatever, space camp, accidentally sending everyone into space, right?

[23:21] Like, that's one where –

[23:22] You understand that?

[23:23] Damn, why would they have a working rocket at space camp?

[23:26] But, I mean, like, that is, like, much more – for as dumb as that movie is, it's more carefully set.

[23:32] setup mistake where you don't necessarily like blame the kid for what happens here you know i

[23:37] don't know if if cara put pushed a button that sent her to earth and launched her on a mission

[23:42] great you know accident but here she's like endangered her and the remaining people of her

[23:49] planet the stakes are too high yeah it also and she and she knows she has just a few days before

[23:54] the city shuts down which again makes it weird why she decides to enroll at a private school

[23:58] and just hang out with the students there for a while.

[24:00] It's Mia Farrow who gives us the stakes because she says,

[24:04] our lights will grow dim and the very air we breathe so thin,

[24:07] which is really putting a happy face on your imminent death.

[24:11] Our lights will grow dim.

[24:13] That's what she's concerned about.

[24:14] And the air will be slightly thin.

[24:15] But as soon as she says that, that's like,

[24:17] and that's a production rap on Mia Farrow, everyone.

[24:19] It's like she is gone.

[24:22] She gets a big title credit for the fact that she's in the movie

[24:25] for about a minute and a half.

[24:28] And so, of course, as we've already addressed, Kara fucks around with the wand, makes a giant mosquito thing or dragonfly thing.

[24:37] They lose the power source.

[24:38] Shit is looking grim.

[24:39] So Kara decides the only way to fix things is she climbs into a magical egg that takes her out of the town while everybody watches her float away.

[24:47] Which is just lying out there.

[24:48] Which is just lying in the middle on a balcony.

[24:51] It's like that is some OSHA business.

[24:52] It's a real Montessori space city

[24:55] where they just leave the activities out

[24:57] for people to gravitate to,

[24:59] and they're just carefully curated, but, you know.

[25:01] And at the same time, Zoltar's like,

[25:04] ah, well, this is my bad.

[25:06] So you guys can all die.

[25:07] You're going to die soon.

[25:08] I'm going to go to the Phantom Zone,

[25:10] and I'll never die.

[25:11] And I'm like, what?

[25:12] Did you plan this then?

[25:14] Zip, zap, and I'm gone.

[25:16] Yes.

[25:17] Yeah.

[25:17] So now cut to,

[25:20] And while she's in this magic egg, it takes her on a trippy voyage from inner space, which we learn they're not in outer space.

[25:27] They're in inner space.

[25:28] Don't quite know what it means.

[25:29] I don't see Martin Short anywhere.

[25:31] But, like, you know, there's like a light show going on outside.

[25:37] It's very exciting.

[25:38] Cut to the planet Earth and a, let's say, I had trouble describing this couple, but it's Selina and Nigel.

[25:47] And we already talked about them a little bit.

[25:49] that's faye dunaway and peter cook did you say that kind of that kind of explains the couple

[25:53] it's faye dunaway and peter cook at their most faye dunaway and peter cookist and they're magicians

[25:58] yeah they're playing people called selena and nigel yeah yeah and they're like lounging about

[26:05] in the park picnicking on a like a tiger fur yep as you do yeah and they're and they're talking

[26:12] about uh dreams of world domination and black magic we learned that they're uh sorcerers well

[26:18] again here this is a this is a another place for the movie it feels too tired to do any of the leg

[26:24] work that would set any of this up and according to wikipedia there was a longer introduction of

[26:30] these two characters uh initially which may have helped a little bit as it is in the movie no need

[26:36] well as it is the movie it's basically just like as you know we are both magicians and i'm teaching

[26:42] you the black magic arts and you want to take over the world anyway oh no what's that coming

[26:46] out of the sky yeah i i own the blu-ray which is um which has the director's cut uh which is 20

[26:54] minutes longer where we get a lot more of this scene a lot more of the sort of air ballet that's

[27:00] coming up and a hell of a lot more one could argue and i will too much more of the um the

[27:06] bulldozer crane terrorizes the city which just goes on forever already although it is although

[27:11] i will say i'll stand by it that bulldozer gives the greatest performance in the movie because i

[27:15] was like i was like i get it this bulldozer is is he's an evil bulldozer yeah and like i understand

[27:21] it sort of killdozer dan dan does he reach the level of killdozer no okay theodore sturgeon was

[27:28] a special kind of genius and though killdozer is yes not his greatest work that would probably be

[27:32] what more than human uh i would rather not you compare this maimdozer at best gently cradled

[27:39] dozer but uh yeah it's actually it's more of a it's more of a menacing nanny dozer yeah so falling

[27:46] out of the sky like a meteor with a symbiote in it comes the power source the omega hedron just

[27:52] lands in their lunch i will say the addition of the food that it lands in instantly makes this

[27:58] an okay way to get it to me and if yeah if peter parker had had like an ice cream and the symbiote

[28:03] meteor had landed in that i would have been like okay you know what sam ramey i'm buying this now

[28:07] uh yeah yeah if he was making up a big pot of eggs erroneous and the symbiote landed right in there

[28:13] yeah exactly he's having an ironic hipster fondue party at his loft and it flies in through the

[28:20] window yeah yeah uh selena realizes that the orb may well be the answer to all of her problems

[28:26] financial power etc uh so selena takes off in the car uh cara comes flying out of the nearby

[28:36] river in full costume now you're probably wondering wait the last time we saw her she

[28:40] was in an egg and there's shit going on well they do not explain how she got from point a to point b

[28:45] but it makes sense i guess this or how the clothes change that's the main thing the clothes let's not

[28:50] i mean you know i guess the idea for superman right is that the costume is made out of his

[28:55] swaddling clothes that he was like exactly meanwhile car just shows up just like uh i

[29:00] guess like you know my my cousin soups has one of these so i packed one when i head off for earth

[29:05] Yeah, she keeps exhibiting that non-canonical superpower of just the instant change.

[29:11] And it really bugged me as a kid.

[29:14] It bugs me now.

[29:15] And, you know, the same thing with the front roll-up S-Shield in Superman 2.

[29:20] Bugged me then, bugs me now.

[29:22] The fact that they had the Phantom Zone villains kind of point and a little white laser came out of their fingers for no reason because they already had heat vision.

[29:29] All of that stuff is, it just doesn't make any sense.

[29:33] I will say, I never really thought about it until now how silly it is that Superman is wearing his baby blanket.

[29:38] Does he ever mention that to people?

[29:40] People are like, nice costume.

[29:42] He's like, yeah, that's my baby blanket.

[29:43] I mean, he's doing it as an advertisement for just the strength of Kryptonian millinery.

[29:51] Just being able to...

[29:53] Oh, okay.

[29:53] So he's a brand ambassador.

[29:54] That's what you're saying.

[29:55] The textiles they make on that planet are so strong.

[29:58] It's not frayed.

[29:59] It doesn't smell like baby.

[30:00] It's great.

[30:02] It doesn't smell like baby, because it's made out of it, but it doesn't smell like it.

[30:06] But, I mean, in the film's defense, they did put those primary colored, like, shiny blankets in the pod, and we see her go off.

[30:14] And if we had a scene of her, like, you know, stitching together a costume, that would be really boring.

[30:19] Yeah.

[30:20] And real quick, guys, you can explain this to me.

[30:22] As a Spider-Man fan, I'm a big fan of watching the heroes stitch their own costume.

[30:26] But I wonder if even they made like a big, even if they showed her in her regular clothes and then there was like a glowing light and then it changed her into a costume.

[30:34] It's one of those things where it still wouldn't make sense, but at least they would have made like a spectacle or an introduction.

[30:38] It definitely feels like they're like, yeah, she's in the costume now.

[30:43] And you're like, why?

[30:43] And they're like, did you see the poster?

[30:45] This is what she wears.

[30:46] So you guys can help me here.

[30:50] Has she been in contact with Superman this whole time?

[30:53] Nope.

[30:54] Yeah, nope.

[30:55] Okay.

[30:55] So she just knows her cousin left as a baby.

[30:59] I think they get, well, they know that he's on Earth, but later she says, right, oh, Clark Kent's my cousin.

[31:07] So maybe they get Daily Planet delivery at Argo City.

[31:10] Well, I mean, Zoltar knows a lot about Earth.

[31:12] He knows about horses and trees.

[31:13] So obviously, I just imagine he's just kind of monitoring Superman.

[31:17] That's my fan way of saying it.

[31:18] Oh, OK.

[31:19] You're filling in the blanks for the movie.

[31:20] I like it.

[31:21] Yeah, and also they speak English at Argo City, and she instantly knows English when she gets here.

[31:25] So there's that, too.

[31:25] Yeah.

[31:26] Okay, so she flies out in full costume.

[31:29] She starts exploring.

[31:30] She crushes some rocks.

[31:32] She flies all over creation.

[31:33] All over some, you know, stock footage of, like, trees.

[31:38] There is some parallel here, because when Zod, Nan, and Ursa in Superman II landed near a very similar river, if not the exact same river, Ursa fried a snake with her eyes because evil, and Kara lets a flower bloom with her heat vision because good.

[31:55] And there's a real, I think the wire work part of this is kind of impressive.

[32:00] Like, it's actually really good aerial ballet stuff.

[32:02] But then as soon as you cut to the, like, she's just kind of hovering in front of a nature documentary, it just looks cheap again.

[32:07] No, the flying effects in this look really good for the most part.

[32:11] Like, it's better than Superman, I would say.

[32:14] I haven't seen Superman in a while, but, like, as a kid, the Superman movies, I know the tagline was, you will believe a man can fly.

[32:21] But, like, as a kid, I was like, buddy, it's a movie.

[32:24] Like, it's not real.

[32:25] I've been using that cough block, Elliot,

[32:27] so that gazuntite is going to make you look crazy.

[32:30] You're right.

[32:32] Sorry, everybody.

[32:32] Let me put in a little true believer box here.

[32:35] Asterix, Dan was sneezing off camera.

[32:38] Don't send in for your note prizes, everybody.

[32:40] Suffering Stan.

[32:42] He's suffering from allergies.

[32:43] But the flight stuff looks really good.

[32:48] There's a couple of effects things in this

[32:49] that look much better than the movie should have, frankly.

[32:52] And speaking of flying.

[32:53] It cost $35 million, and that's $84.

[32:56] Yeah.

[32:58] So that's, you know, it's a pretty big production still,

[33:02] even after, you know, Superman 3 not doing so well.

[33:06] It made, like, 14.

[33:08] So it was not a success.

[33:11] Yep.

[33:12] Yeah, so after flying around for a bit, it gets dark.

[33:16] She ends up landing in a somewhat abandoned city street,

[33:20] And a truck pulls up and two fellows, one of them being Matt Frewer, Max Hedrum himself, comes out.

[33:27] And the other being kind of a not-Randy Quaid.

[33:30] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[33:31] And one of the little Easter eggs for the true fans there, a little Easter egg for the fans there,

[33:38] is Matt Frewer is wearing an A&W shirt, which is a Diet Pepsi, or not Diet Pepsi, Dr. Pepper product.

[33:44] And there are other Dr. Pepper products referenced throughout this movie.

[33:48] So Matt Frewer and this fellow.

[33:50] Is that an Easter egg, Steve?

[33:51] It's a little Easter egg for the fans.

[33:54] Yeah.

[33:54] So he and this fellow, you know, they're the first people that she has met on Earth.

[34:01] She is naive, and they, of course, attempt to assault her.

[34:05] And when pressed about it, they say that's because that's who we are, which is really weird.

[34:12] It's really weird.

[34:12] And so she just, you know, she beats the shit out of him, which is great.

[34:16] But it's still like a weird threat.

[34:18] this early in the movie let's move past this very quickly but it is very strange that they have this

[34:23] scene of like these are clearly men who want to assault her and i'm i will not make light of that

[34:31] but i will like make light of the movie's depiction of it where they seem to be like

[34:34] very pleased about this fact like they might like put it on a sign on their truck like this is what

[34:41] they're doing they're just driving around terrorizing people at night and there's a lot of

[34:46] there's a lot of 80s stuff in this which is cities are bad cities are crime right truckers are scary

[34:52] truckers are bad you can't trust them and you know there's something kind of redneck about them

[34:57] and in the 80s rednecks were you know we're always bad guys and scary but also like it's supposed to

[35:02] be i assume empowering super guilt takes care of them so quickly but they are so one note in their

[35:07] dedication to attacking her that even after she has used her freeze hurricane breath and her her

[35:14] wind breath and her heat vision the bad guy still pulls a knife and tries to go after it and it's

[35:18] like dude what are you doing just give it up like what and i have to imagine that if you were the

[35:23] a&w executive who had sold like i secured we're in a supergirl movie and then you're sitting there

[35:30] in the audience as a man who basically is wearing the a&w logo like it's his superhero insignia on

[35:36] his chest his uh would be assault like it's it's uh that kind of went pear-shaped yeah yeah i imagine

[35:43] he takes the rest of the A&W office crew

[35:45] to the movies to see it.

[35:47] And he's sitting next to his boss

[35:48] and he's just sinking down in his seat.

[35:50] As the scene goes on, his boss is getting madder and madder.

[35:52] He's like, you never told me

[35:54] that what kind of character should be wearing this shirt.

[35:56] He's like, I didn't think I had to.

[35:59] Anyway, moving on.

[36:03] So moving on to our other plot,

[36:05] Selina is throwing a pretty dope ass party

[36:09] in her abandoned amusement park home.

[36:11] which is really biting the joker style in a big way yeah exactly i just assume all dc

[36:17] villains live in abandoned amusement parks right and of all the weird stuff that happens in this

[36:22] movie uh i have to say that the thing that audrey kept coming back to is apparently they're paying

[36:27] a mortgage on this abandoned movie they're just squatters they have to have bills to pay yeah

[36:33] they're paying a mortgage and as we see later they keep the haunted house that they live in

[36:37] turned on yeah like it's still functioning when someone stumbles into it so it's it's all around

[36:43] it is some interesting choices for these two ladies to be making about their living space

[36:46] yeah selena selena lives with bianca who is her i guess like sidekick a major domo i don't know

[36:55] yeah i mean it's kind of like uh you know i don't know if like only two of the golden girls live

[37:02] together and they were witches yeah it's bianca is your mom's friend who drinks a little bit more

[37:08] than your mom right like that's that's what her role is yes it's the same they both dress well

[37:12] and they're a lot of fun yeah i mean they they're to be honest like when i was a kid i'm sure i did

[37:18] not find these scenes entertaining they're just the two of them kibitzing like middle-aged ladies

[37:23] but now they're clearly the highlight they're the best part by far easily yeah yeah and and

[37:28] Faye Dunaway is not, I mean, you would think, okay, she's just camping it up.

[37:32] She is, but there's a naturalism to her camping it up.

[37:35] Like, it doesn't feel like she's pushing too hard.

[37:38] She knows exactly when to push hard.

[37:40] Power of shadow up here.

[37:42] But, like, here, it's just two gals sitting around having cheesecake.

[37:46] And the lighting for her is great, too, because there's just constantly, like, a bar of light across her eyes while the rest of her is more in shadow.

[37:55] They are blasting her like she's Gloria Swanson.

[37:57] And there are scenes where the lens is smeared with suet.

[38:00] It's just, you cannot make her out.

[38:02] The other strange thing about their house is they're clearly in an abandoned haunted house,

[38:06] but they also have just like a little kitchenette off to the side.

[38:09] They spend a lot of time in.

[38:10] Then they, so they're throwing this fun party with all of her, I guess,

[38:15] she describes them as like her soldiers of the night.

[38:18] I'm guessing other people are interested in the occult.

[38:20] And they're like riding the amusement park, like trains into the room.

[38:25] It's a lot of fun.

[38:26] Everybody's got tiki drinks.

[38:27] But again, this feels like a party out of like the ice storm, though, too.

[38:31] Like there should be shag carpeting and a hi-fi going.

[38:33] Yeah.

[38:33] Oh, sure.

[38:35] And I mean, it's like Nigel shows up and he mentions they saw Supergirl and Selene is

[38:40] like, I don't give a shit about that.

[38:41] I got this or but she doesn't say as much.

[38:44] And then she demonstrates her new power by letting Nigel flirt with a woman who's drinking

[38:49] a tiki drink.

[38:50] And then she is mean to the woman and transforms the garnish into a scorpion, which that's

[38:55] another little easter egg for all you fans out there a scorpion bowl is a tiki drink okay again

[39:01] it's more of a cheeky but yeah this party i do like i do like that that's her first like

[39:10] demonstration of power is just being mean to one person before that she uses the power of the

[39:15] omega hedron to turn on her car without her keys right so oh yeah so there's that she's really

[39:20] making the most of this thing that that powers an entire interdimensional city right yeah and

[39:25] it's important theoretically that uh the thing she's holding the omega head run in called the

[39:30] coffer of shadow which is this giant lead gargoyle thing is getting bigger again stakes stakes people

[39:35] yeah yeah yeah and she's and and she's mentioned before that her that her goal is world domination

[39:41] but i like that she keeps her like day-to-day goals pretty grounded

[39:45] so uh we cut back to cara it's the next morning or early afternoon i don't know she wakes up

[39:55] uh she's in the woods she follows a a kid to a softball game this is a very exciting part of the

[40:02] movie uh you have a very excited audience and my favorite character of course a big stuffed panda

[40:07] that is being thrown around by the enthusiastic crowd uh and then somebody hits a softball you

[40:14] know they hit a foul ball it goes uh it goes off the pitch and uh strikes a handsome groundskeeper

[40:22] in the back and normally you'd think oh he got hit by a stray ball it would hurt nope he does

[40:27] not break his stride it just bounced right off his little back um and that guy will come up later

[40:31] that's ethan of course that's ellis from die hard the hottest man in the universe yeah he's the he's

[40:36] the diet coke time of the of the movie where every single woman just cannot when he's around and his

[40:41] shirt is off they just cannot focus on anything else and their brains have melted out of their

[40:45] ears with lust he's not given much of a character to play here but i will say he is like far more

[40:51] handsome than the character of ellis from die hard would suggest it shows the power of like

[40:56] a lot of like glycerin sweat that makeup artists put on him and die hard how unappealing he is there

[41:02] compared to here yeah and it's you know for years the ellis and die hard will be the your your go-to

[41:08] hart bachner pull uh but i mean i've always for some reason identified him more with this particular

[41:14] their role uh so cara watches this uh she watches a game obviously she gets this great idea so she

[41:23] transforms again she changes her clothes and her hair and she infiltrates this boarding school

[41:29] this boarding school that i'm assuming is associated with the softball team they they do

[41:33] so much work to get her from waking up in the woods to walking to this to the school and yet

[41:39] they do no work explaining why she decides to join the school they're like how is she going to find

[41:44] it she's got to follow this kid to the game and then the ball to the school it's a little rise of

[41:49] skywalker right there and i i artifact to artifact get her there okay now she's going to join the

[41:53] school why we don't have time for that we showed her we showed her see the school we don't this is

[41:57] we don't need to read yeah and this is also one of the other scenes in the movie where you're like

[42:01] okay how much does cara know about earth because apparently she knows enough that she uh takes the

[42:10] opportunity when the uh the dean leaves to use her super speed to type up a recommendation letter

[42:16] from her cousin clark and file it properly so she knows that that is a necessary part of the

[42:24] process to get into the school but later on she doesn't know what a handshake is

[42:28] she seems confused by a bra later yeah she's trying to she thinks a bra is something weird

[42:32] but she knows the correct the correct format for a recommendation letter someone would write their

[42:36] cousin to get into a private girls although i'm not sure who's paying the tuition even so

[42:41] that's another i mean also the fact that she she needs a name and she's like i'm linda and then

[42:46] she looks at a framed picture of robert e lee that is on this man's wall and goes lee and it's like

[42:51] what kind of school is this like what this is like a midwestern school why is there a picture

[42:55] of robert e lee on the dean's wall well because the the principal is a deeply unpleasant man

[43:00] Just a toxic dude who is angry at everything.

[43:03] That's very true.

[43:04] He hates his job.

[43:05] And his name is Danvers, which is a little worrisome if you know the comics,

[43:10] because that is the name of the family that eventually adopts Linda Lee from Midvale Orphanage.

[43:15] So, like, I don't want this dude to be your dad because he's such a dick.

[43:19] He is a dick, but I like that the performance has a little bit of layers.

[43:24] Like, he's like an ineffectual dick.

[43:27] well maybe he's like maybe it's a little easter egg that he's he's the child of mrs danvers from

[43:32] rebecca and that explains why he's had such a hard time of it yeah yeah so uh listers are keeping

[43:37] track that's one easter egg for elliot two easter eggs for me uh whoever gets the most easter eggs

[43:43] of course gets the easter egg feast at the end so oh yeah i forgot it's literally an easter egg

[43:49] hunt oh i forgot about that yeah yeah so uh of course the dean is interrupted by nigel

[43:56] who is the warlock from earlier.

[43:58] I guess his day job is he's a math teacher,

[44:01] English teacher, I don't remember.

[44:02] He's like a math and computer sciences teacher.

[44:05] Yeah.

[44:05] So Kara decides she's going to go undercover,

[44:08] as already mentioned, Linda Lee.

[44:10] She is the cousin to Clark Kent,

[44:12] and she becomes roommates with Lucy Lane.

[44:15] That's right, the kid sister of Lois Lane.

[44:18] Did I get that all right?

[44:20] Yep, and she's got, like,

[44:21] Lucy Lane has, like, a sideways baseball cap

[44:23] and, like, the sweats pants,

[44:24] and she's very, like, serving Joe in Facts of Life.

[44:27] Very, like, might as well have, like,

[44:29] a little slingshot out her back pocket, you know?

[44:32] That's kind of the vibe she's giving off.

[44:34] Glenn, do you know if,

[44:35] is Lucy Lee a character from the comics

[44:37] or was she invented for this movie?

[44:39] Nope, Lucy Lee Lane's real.

[44:40] She was Jimmy Olsen's boyfriend.

[44:42] Well, she's as real as any of these characters, Glenn.

[44:45] I know you've been swimming in these waters a long time.

[44:47] No, no, I'm sorry, that was my, yeah.

[44:49] No, no, that's, now, you brought this up.

[44:53] You mentioned that she's Jimmy Olsen's girlfriend.

[44:55] Now, as we've already addressed, they are high school kids.

[45:00] So how does Lois Lane feel about a Jimmy Olsen who I believe is a grown man?

[45:06] My wife wanted to know, how does Lois Lane feel about her kid sister fucking an older guy?

[45:13] Well, he's a cub reporter.

[45:15] We don't know how old he is.

[45:16] Well, that's the other thing.

[45:17] Another grown man and a teenage girl.

[45:21] Jimmy Olsen.

[45:22] It was a different time, Stu.

[45:23] This was 1984.

[45:24] It was the Cold War.

[45:25] People didn't know if they were going to be nuked by the Russians at any moment.

[45:27] They had to make the most of it.

[45:29] Jimmy Olsen as a character in general is kind of confusing, right?

[45:33] Because, like, here he's played by the same actor who was in the other Superman films.

[45:38] And by this point, yes, he is clearly a full-grown adult man, which raises some troubling questions in this film.

[45:46] But Jimmy Olsen, the character, I'm always like, okay, he's a boy reporter, like the way that Tim Tim's a boy reporter.

[45:53] And I have the same confusion about that.

[45:54] I'm like, does that mean he's just like a really young reporter or is he a literal boy?

[45:58] And it seems like the comics, you know, change that around a lot.

[46:02] So maybe that's part of my confusion.

[46:03] But I don't know if there's a more definitive answer about what Jimmy Olsen is.

[46:09] Nope.

[46:11] Nope.

[46:12] The other thing is that, you know, Linda Lee is, I'm sorry, Lucy Lane is wearing a sweatshirt for the school that says MVH.

[46:22] It's called Midvale High.

[46:23] Midvale, I think, is one word and does not deserve a V,

[46:26] so I don't know what's going on there.

[46:27] Dan, could you put that in goofs, thriefs, maybe?

[46:30] Yeah, for our listeners who can't see at home,

[46:34] there are multiple fist marks in Glenn's drywall from all these fuck-ups.

[46:41] And it's also clearly not a high school.

[46:44] It's a boarding school, so yes.

[46:45] Jimmy Olsen, it makes me mad that he's there,

[46:50] I mean, and not just because he is a grown man dating a high school student, which is

[46:53] horrible, but that also this is the continued dorkification of Jimmy Olsen, who in the old

[46:59] comics is such a troublemaker and is always getting into like, always getting himself

[47:03] into big problems than being like, Superman, bail me out of this.

[47:07] And I really miss the like, rascal Jimmy Olsen.

[47:09] And here's my theory about it.

[47:11] In the old comics, Jimmy Olsen wears a bow tie as a way of showing that he's like a

[47:15] troublemaker young kid and not one of these stodgy old people wearing long ties but by the time the

[47:21] like 60s and 70s rolled around you can't change a character's clothing that would be crazy but

[47:26] a bow tie by then means a nerdlinger so then he becomes like kind of nerdy boring jimmy olsen

[47:31] glenn does that square with your scholarship at all uh well in the 70s he got he grew out his hair

[47:36] he got a pantsuit a leisure suit and uh and big bell bottoms so yeah they changed him around i

[47:41] I think the bowtie guy went away in the late 60s, early 70s.

[47:47] But he's back now in a really great series, Jimmy Olsen series.

[47:51] It's a lot of fun that is kind of incorporating all the weirdness that used to happen to Jimmy Olsen.

[47:54] He got turned into a turtle man.

[47:55] He grew 80 feet.

[47:56] All that stuff is back.

[47:58] And that's a really great series.

[47:59] Okay.

[48:00] Then maybe, you know what?

[48:02] I should apologize to Jimmy's bowtie.

[48:04] Thank you so much for all this time.

[48:06] Jimmy's bowtie.

[48:08] okay so cara we get some scenes of cara and lucy hanging out at school uh mainly cara is she's on

[48:16] the hunt for a for an artifact that she needs to keep her parents and the rest of the city alive

[48:20] but then she's mostly using her powers to like save people from pranks yeah yeah protect protect

[48:25] protect lucy from pranks from bullies who i think are on their same team right aren't they wearing

[48:30] the same field hockey uniforms yeah well it's like you know they're they're they're all they

[48:35] you can you can hate someone maybe maybe lucy is a starter and they don't like her for that or

[48:40] something like that i don't know it in teen wolf you had a basketball competition between two state

[48:44] two two teams from the same school yeah that was the championship so it really doesn't make any

[48:49] sense so right around now selena is using uh decides to make a love spell to ensorcel the

[48:55] most successful groundskeeper in the town uh that's ethan as we've already mentioned played

[49:01] by ellis from diehard and uh she she casts a spell on him uh by and tricks him into coming out to her

[49:09] amusement park but then she gets distracted and he kind of wanders off in like a fugue state and

[49:15] the concern she and selena's concerned because the the the rules of the spell will be that if

[49:21] the first person he lays eyes on or something uh is who he will fall in love with so she's like

[49:26] can't have that happen so she managed she then ensorciles a construction vehicle to chase ethan

[49:31] around town and bring him back to her go elliot now stewart i think you're you're glossing over

[49:35] what's really the most important part of these scenes involving a love spell and an evil uh

[49:40] evil evil bulldozer it's more of an excavator or a digger i guess which is that before this

[49:45] happens it's a three-day weekend from school and lucy is like come with me cara and she goes no no

[49:49] i'll stay here and lucy goes okay i'll see you later then at popeye's and i went what hold on

[49:54] But does Midvale have, like, a local diner called Popeye's?

[49:58] That would be a coincidence.

[49:59] But they can't certainly be going to the greatest of all fast food franchises, Popeye's Famous Fried Chicken and Biscuits.

[50:05] That can't be possible.

[50:05] Well, lo and behold, Kara runs into them on the street, and they are in Popeye's.

[50:11] And Jimmy makes a big show of handing out each of the items on the Popeye's menu to the people at their table.

[50:17] And for this whole sequence, they're standing around this Popeye's.

[50:21] and I just thought, finally, a movie has seen me and is speaking to me

[50:24] and my interest in Popeyes and that particular franchise.

[50:27] Do I wish it was a better superhero movie?

[50:29] In some ways, yes, because Popeyes deserves a better superhero,

[50:33] but in some ways, no, because I kind of don't want great superhero action

[50:37] getting in the way of me looking at that Popeyes.

[50:39] So I'm torn, and this is a scene that really,

[50:41] I was of two minds about it for exactly those reasons.

[50:44] It's also probably a better food choice for them than the diner

[50:46] that was advertising live lobsters.

[50:49] Yeah, in the middle of Chicago area in the Chicago Chicago lobsters.

[50:54] The Popeyes comes back because, you know, the crane, whatever it is, is chasing Ethan through the streets as he's dazed.

[51:02] There are some actually impressive near misses.

[51:06] The stunt people kind of seem like really talented because it's sometimes there was.

[51:11] Now, maybe they're doing it with foreshortening the perspective or something.

[51:14] But it seems like this this crane comes really close to people.

[51:17] But then when eventually, eventually, eventually, Kara decides to intervene, she watches this unfold for a very long time.

[51:24] Yes, she does.

[51:25] I mean, Lucy decides to intervene before Kara does, which is crazy.

[51:28] But when she eventually changes into Supergirl, she does so atop the Popeye's sign.

[51:36] She straddles it like a colossus.

[51:38] And, like, that is the money shot of the film.

[51:40] It is so odd.

[51:44] But she also, like, so she, yeah, she waits a long time to get involved.

[51:48] Then she does all that she can, like, from a distance using, you know, heat vision and blowing things or whatnot.

[51:54] So she's not seen doing any of her super heroics.

[51:57] And she rescues this guy and takes him off.

[52:02] Like, it's all like, why are you concerned about keeping this a secret?

[52:09] Like, this is a place that already has a Superman.

[52:12] They love him.

[52:13] You know?

[52:14] They're not going to be confused by you wearing the exact same clothes and having the exact same, you know, like powers.

[52:21] Well, I mean, they might be confused, but they're not going to be like mad about it.

[52:25] They'll be like, oh, great.

[52:26] Another one.

[52:26] You know, like, well, what I would say the first time she the only other time that she had encountered humans, they attempted to assault her in the street.

[52:37] So maybe she was like, I, I need to change what I look like.

[52:40] So it's like Steve Martin and the jerk.

[52:42] She thinks it's the clothes that were the problem.

[52:44] Like when he's like, these cans.

[52:46] He hates these cans.

[52:47] Because it is, there's a lot of this movie that,

[52:50] and you see it in a lot of action and superhero movies,

[52:53] where they're following the form of the thing,

[52:56] but not the function of the thing,

[52:57] where it's like a superhero has a secret identity,

[53:00] so she's got to go undercover at this school,

[53:02] and she can't let anyone know she's Supergirl.

[53:04] But the movie has given you,

[53:05] but in regular comics and in movies,

[53:08] that follows the function of, I live on this planet,

[53:11] So I have to lead a normal life.

[53:13] I don't want to just be walking around in my costume all the time.

[53:15] And I don't want to endanger my loved ones.

[53:16] Whereas the Supergirl, she's just visiting.

[53:18] There's no reason, you know, she's not sticking around.

[53:20] She has to leave.

[53:21] So, yeah, it makes no sense why she would establish another identity, why she would care if people know who she is.

[53:26] Like, if I was her, I would have gone straight to the president and been like, I'm from another planet.

[53:31] I'm looking for this thing.

[53:32] I need you to help me.

[53:33] Or I guess I'll blow up Mount Rushmore or something.

[53:35] Look, I just need your help.

[53:36] Like, there's no reason for her not to go on TV and be like, hey, I'm Supergirl.

[53:39] I know who Superman is.

[53:41] go find this thing for me, and I'll tell you.

[53:43] There's no reason.

[53:45] I mean, even if she does want a secret identity,

[53:47] helping out in the situation is not going to endanger that.

[53:50] When she's Linda Lee, she's a brunette,

[53:54] and when she's Supergirl, she's blonde.

[53:55] No one can see through that.

[53:56] It's impossible.

[53:58] People never change their hair color,

[54:00] or else no one would ever recognize them.

[54:01] Yeah, and the whole primary colored costume thing

[54:04] would seem to work against,

[54:06] I need to disguise myself by kicking up some hay.

[54:08] It seems like you need to pick a lane there.

[54:11] But I think it must hit her with so much guilt that Lucy Lane, an ordinary teenager, jumps into the cab of this out-of-control construction equipment to save a man while she's just standing off to the side watching.

[54:23] Unless it's one of those things—I always wondered this about Superman.

[54:27] There's the scene in Superman Returns, I think it is, where he stops a bank robbery and those guys have that huge artillery gun that they're firing at him.

[54:35] And I was always like, why does Superman care about property laws?

[54:40] He's so powerful, like, why does he really care about the bank's problem?

[54:44] You would think he would be spending all of his time stopping runaway volcanoes and things like that.

[54:48] But so with Supergirl, maybe she is such a godlike being that she looks down on this and she's like, huh, that handsome man's being chased by that excavator.

[54:56] This amuses me.

[54:57] I'll see what happens.

[54:58] He's but an ant to me.

[54:59] Yeah.

[55:00] Well, she saves him anyway.

[55:03] She tears off the, what, the shovel part of the construction vehicle that is carrying Ethan.

[55:09] I think it's called a maw.

[55:10] I think it's the technical term.

[55:12] Yep, a maw, yep.

[55:12] And she whisks him away and quickly changes back to her, what, Linda, Lucy, Linda, Linda Lee persona.

[55:23] Both characters have double L names, and they make a joke about this earlier where the dean is, like, confused.

[55:30] And it's like, it never occurred to them that the filmgoer might also be confused by the names that sound almost identical.

[55:35] Yeah, and we hear him, now that he's in love, we hear him pitch a little woo.

[55:40] And the thing about this guy under this love spell is suddenly he starts reciting poetry to her.

[55:49] And, I mean, it sparked a few questions in my mind.

[55:56] I mean, mostly, did he know poetry before and now he's just in love and he has poetry?

[56:03] Or does the spell somehow switch his personality over to a guy who says a lot of poetry?

[56:11] And also, the other thing...

[56:12] Looney Tune rules.

[56:13] Love is represented by either poetry or him acting kind of dumb.

[56:18] Him being like, where's Linda?

[56:20] I love Linda.

[56:21] I gotta get back to Linda.

[56:23] Love does make people dumb.

[56:24] Yeah, but I'm...

[56:25] My primary mode of expressing love is like, I have to get back to Audrey.

[56:32] Where is Audrey?

[56:33] Yeah, the real poochie type thing.

[56:37] Where's poochie?

[56:38] What's going on?

[56:38] There's a, his personality change during this love spell was so baffling.

[56:43] Because the first time we see him, he's like, yeah, I don't know.

[56:45] Hey, I don't like talking about myself to Selena.

[56:47] Very much more the type of guy I would imagine who would try to date a high school student.

[56:51] And then he turns into, he turns into like this kind of intellectual Ethan.

[56:55] But then after the spell wears off, he's still suddenly this smarter guy.

[57:01] So I don't know what they were going for.

[57:03] Unlike everything else in the movie, which is just Cracker Jack plotting.

[57:06] There's probably a Flowers for Algernon moment after the movie when he loses it.

[57:12] He looks at his mouse, which has fallen in love with another mouse.

[57:16] And it's like, I'm sorry, Algernon.

[57:18] That's what I meant.

[57:19] Okay, well, that's fun.

[57:24] So, Selena and Bianca not into this.

[57:28] So, they decide to put a curse on Kara.

[57:30] Always hating on the woman, not the man.

[57:33] Absolutely.

[57:33] And Selena says, what good is a sword if it's not unleashed?

[57:39] And it's like, that's not what you do with a sword.

[57:41] No.

[57:42] Oh, it's my second favorite line in the movie after, of course, I'll see you later then at Popeye's.

[57:46] Popeye's.

[57:47] Yeah.

[57:47] She says, a sword unleashed.

[57:50] And yet, it's just like, what do you think?

[57:52] What do you think these words mean?

[57:53] I think the line was probably unsheathed, and she just got it wrong.

[57:57] That's my working theory, but it doesn't make any sense.

[58:01] So they unleash kind of like an invisible force thing,

[58:08] kind of like what I'd imagine the thing from Evil Dead 2

[58:11] that's always chasing people around looks like.

[58:13] It basically causes a lot of wind and stuff flies all over the place,

[58:16] and Kara uses a stick and electricity and defeats it.

[58:21] Yep.

[58:22] Well, it's like a lamp pole.

[58:24] Yeah, she takes a straight lamp and she flies up into the clouds.

[58:27] It is a stick.

[58:27] I like the propose as she's carrying the stick up into the lightning.

[58:33] She turns it into a lightning rod and brings it back down.

[58:36] And the effect is that very Forbidden Planet cartoon lightning thing

[58:42] that it seems like for a long time that's all we could do with lightning in movies

[58:47] is to just kind of do that fakey fake Forbidden Planet effect.

[58:51] But before that, they are monitoring this whole situation, Bianca and Selina, with a mirror that does not provide sound.

[58:59] And you are reminded of when this film is set by terms of, by epithets thrown by these characters.

[59:06] Dingleberry, space cadet, on the case of Lucy Lane.

[59:09] And here, where's the wimp?

[59:12] And the spin that Faye Dunaway puts on the word wimp, it's like it does not have the letter I.

[59:18] It is just wimp.

[59:19] Where's the wimp?

[59:20] As if she's never heard the word before.

[59:23] So, of course, oh, man, I got, oh, yeah.

[59:32] So, Kara.

[59:32] So, this, oh, I mentioned this magic mirror must have been a huge influence on Tim Burton when he made the first Batman movie, since so much of that consists of Joker watching television and getting mad at the things Batman is doing on TV.

[59:46] So Kara notices that this whole interaction causes a little bit of a reaction

[59:52] with her magical bracelet that I guess she's using to track the Omega Hedron.

[59:58] In theory.

[59:59] Yeah, in theory.

[1:00:01] So she follows the kind of vibes from the Omega Hedron to Selina's hideout.

[1:00:07] Right before she decides to or tries to confront Selina, Ethan shows up.

[1:00:13] He's sick with love for this teenager.

[1:00:15] And he proposes to her.

[1:00:17] She flew there.

[1:00:19] So did he also fly there?

[1:00:20] Or is he even hanging around in a abandoned amusement park hoping that this girl from a school that's, I guess, across town would show up?

[1:00:27] Yeah, that's some alpha level moves.

[1:00:30] Well, this is also one of the places in his lovesickness where he just comes across.

[1:00:37] Like, his version of playing love is just sort of, like, sort of be, like, kind of, I don't know, diffident and, like, sort of, like, here, come, please, please, sit with me.

[1:00:48] Please, take a ride.

[1:00:50] Please?

[1:00:51] Please?

[1:00:52] Yes.

[1:00:52] Yeah, and he proposes to her, which is odd.

[1:00:58] Moving fast.

[1:00:58] Yeah, moving fast, but whatever.

[1:01:01] Then Selina shows up, and she is not having it.

[1:01:05] So she and Kara have a little showdown that features bumper cars heavily.

[1:01:08] And those bumper cars are in the shape of three football players.

[1:01:14] They are the most amazingly detailed bumper car sculpts that I've ever seen.

[1:01:20] And Selena also has this move where she creates a whole bunch of mirror images of herself.

[1:01:25] It's pretty great.

[1:01:26] The only other thing I remembered about this movie from when I was a kid was that.

[1:01:31] That effect, which still looks really cool to me.

[1:01:33] where she turns into a bunch of kind of shimmering, half-translucent Selenas.

[1:01:38] That and the fact that she had a skull painted on her door.

[1:01:40] Only things I remembered from when I was a kid about this movie.

[1:01:42] Yeah, no, this sequence, I think, is fun and genuinely looks kind of cool.

[1:01:47] You've got to forget the fact that being hit by a bumper car,

[1:01:52] while it certainly would probably hurt,

[1:01:55] is not the mortal danger this movie tries to make it out to be.

[1:01:59] I mean, that it's literally the point of bumper cars is to be hit by the other cars.

[1:02:04] Or, you know, you got to ignore like, you know, Supergirl throwing a bunch of a bunch of like metal bars in fast motion to create a like a fence around a cage around Selina.

[1:02:16] It's not maybe the most effective thing that Supergirl could do with all of her powers to subdue her.

[1:02:21] But great. It's a great like, you know, comic booky thing.

[1:02:24] Yeah, she had to do it to inspire the same thing to happen in Spider-Man 3 with Venom, remember?

[1:02:28] Yeah.

[1:02:29] yeah i mean it's not like selena's powers are based on her being able to like like if they put

[1:02:36] her in a cage she's still going to be able to do magic shit right uh well she maybe she needs to

[1:02:41] make really big hand gestures and she just can't quite get yeah the the wingspan that she needs

[1:02:46] now i always love the fakey fake language that movies and television come up for come up with

[1:02:51] for magic, and here

[1:02:53] Faye Dunaway memorably delivers the line

[1:02:55] Sicara-ca, fa-ca,

[1:02:57] scoo, and I would

[1:02:59] argue that scoo is where

[1:03:01] that whole thing takes a dive. Like, I'm with

[1:03:03] you, but sicara-ca and

[1:03:05] fa-ca, but like, the scoo just doesn't have

[1:03:07] the juice it needs to have.

[1:03:09] No, the rest could be

[1:03:11] some kind of ancient Latin-y type language,

[1:03:13] but scoo.

[1:03:14] Plenty of apostrophes,

[1:03:17] you know, in there somewhere, but not in scoo.

[1:03:20] No, that's it reminds me of an old there's an old Jack Benny show where I forgot the name of the guy he had who would like sing that he had a male singer on who was part of the cast and who would sing songs where he sings Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo because I guess Cinderella had just come out and hearing a grown man singing that song.

[1:03:35] It's like, oh, this song is nonsense.

[1:03:38] This song is just made it crazy made up words.

[1:03:41] And that that was the feeling I had here with with with her magic.

[1:03:46] So Ethan is in danger, so Kara picks him up in the bumper car and takes him to a beach somewhere where he is promptly knocked out with a coconut to the head.

[1:03:53] That is not a joke.

[1:03:55] Dan McCoy wrote this scene.

[1:03:57] Selina sends that coconut.

[1:03:58] It's not like it's a random coconut.

[1:04:00] I love it, too, because she's like, that should keep her busy for a while or something like that.

[1:04:05] It's just like, that's your plan?

[1:04:07] Yeah, we're going to hit her boyfriend with a coconut.

[1:04:12] Yeah, so they're watching, Selena, Bianca, and then Nigel

[1:04:15] are all watching this through the mirror.

[1:04:17] Nigel breaks the love spell by cracking open a nut

[1:04:20] and flicking out a spider.

[1:04:22] Not a euphemism.

[1:04:24] Yeah, yep.

[1:04:26] Ethan and Supergirl get in this conversation.

[1:04:30] They argue, but it isn't until they kiss.

[1:04:34] Or wait, is this when they kiss and Ethan realizes

[1:04:38] that Linda is Supergirl and Supergirl's Linda?

[1:04:41] Something like that.

[1:04:42] Yeah, somewhere around here.

[1:04:43] Maybe that happens later.

[1:04:45] No, no, I think that happens around here because there's no other.

[1:04:47] After this, it's just nonstop action and Phantom Zone stuff.

[1:04:51] I wouldn't call it nonstop action.

[1:04:54] Well, start and stop action.

[1:04:56] I think that's when Ethan gets whisked away because Nigel is using the Burundi wand, which is pure unadulterated evil.

[1:05:06] And, like, naming your evil wand after an entire country.

[1:05:10] I mean, like, we don't do that anymore.

[1:05:12] we like it's not nice it's not the spanish flu we're not using spanish flu anymore so like can

[1:05:16] we just look it was not so he and they and they take him away he like literally just teleports

[1:05:24] to a bed where he is chained up yummy yummy it's also something funny about being like

[1:05:31] this object that i got is all powerful i can control the world with it the whole plot of

[1:05:35] the movie hinges on it nigel being like i got this thing too it's pretty powerful i can do

[1:05:40] stuff with it it's like why are you introducing new magic nigel like what come on what are you

[1:05:44] doing what is this a christopher nolan movie we don't have to keep introducing new shit

[1:05:47] what is this cats we have our characters let's let's see a plot already yeah so i do love that

[1:05:55] this like i do love how much this world domination plot still revolves around selena capturing ethan

[1:06:03] like that's like the whole world's your oyster but whatever yeah it just sticks in her craw that

[1:06:10] that ethan is in love with this other person now that makes perfect well let's i mean hold on let's

[1:06:15] let's back up and take a little examination of that because like uh uh not to get on a high

[1:06:20] horse but i feel like this movie does have like some of that uh catwoman issue where like you

[1:06:25] know the halle berry catwoman they're like okay this is going to be a female-led superhero movie

[1:06:29] So, clearly, the bad guy has to be Sharon Stone, evil cosmetics manufacturer.

[1:06:36] So, and here in Supergirl, it's not quite as egregious as that, but it does feel like, okay.

[1:06:41] You know, we've got this female-led superhero movie.

[1:06:45] Great.

[1:06:45] We're going to put a female villain in?

[1:06:47] Sure.

[1:06:47] I understand that decision.

[1:06:48] And now what we're going to do with that is, in addition to the villain wanting world domination,

[1:06:54] there's got to be a love triangle between, like, they have to both like the same man.

[1:06:59] you know and like there's it it would be weird if clark kent and lex luther were trying to date

[1:07:04] the same person and that's what the movie was about yeah i guess i mean like it it is a little

[1:07:10] fun to like put him in the traditional like damsel in distress role i'm not gonna say like

[1:07:15] there's not like a little joy in the silliness of of like all of it like like let's let's really do

[1:07:21] this let's let's like reverse everything let's make him like almost a non-character the way

[1:07:26] that unfortunately many girlfriend characters are in movies but it also feels like you don't need it

[1:07:31] man like you're making adjustments that aren't necessary here and it's it's kind of fucked up

[1:07:36] that this character that the ethan character up until that point was like magically coerced to be

[1:07:44] interested in super yeah like i think she even kisses him before the spell breaks maybe it's

[1:07:51] kind of fucked up well i don't which i mean she doesn't know that he's under a love spell i think

[1:07:56] but it is weird that we the audience know that well also i feel like there are other like elements

[1:08:00] that i can track all of the choices that led to like one big like sort of problematic results

[1:08:09] you know because it does feel like okay we're gonna cast faye denway in this because you know

[1:08:16] If we're going to do a female-led superhero movie, why not give a woman also have the chance to really bite into a villain role?

[1:08:23] And let's also have her be the big name of the main cast.

[1:08:29] Peter O'Toole is a glorified cameo.

[1:08:31] They're very much following the Superman, the movie thing of you have a Kryptonian that's a big name, you've got a villain that's a big name, so you can have a newcomer who is the hero.

[1:08:43] Yes, but the result of this is the idea that, okay, we're going to have Faye Dunaway, this middle-aged actor in a love triangle with this other actor who's supposed to be very young over this man, kind of makes it feel like the movie's like, kick it to the curb, old lady, old witch lady, your middle-aged sexuality, fuck that, Supergirl's here.

[1:09:11] And I know that I'm reading a lot into it at this point,

[1:09:13] but it is like you make all these small decisions

[1:09:16] and then an unintended consequence comes out.

[1:09:19] I don't know that it's that unintended a consequence.

[1:09:24] I think you're giving them more credit than they deserve,

[1:09:27] but I will say the math works out.

[1:09:28] The gardener is roughly the median age

[1:09:31] between Kara and Faye Dunaway.

[1:09:33] It works.

[1:09:35] The math works.

[1:09:36] Yeah, and the character of Supergirl,

[1:09:38] I mean, like, there is some empowering messages in this film that completely get undercut by the climax, and we'll talk about it when we get there.

[1:09:45] But the character of Supergirl has always been geared toward girls.

[1:09:50] From the jump, she was there to accompany, you know, Superman.

[1:09:54] And her entanglements were always more emotional and romantic than physical, just because, you know, romance comics were going out of style and they wanted to hold on to women.

[1:10:04] And so they introduced a lot of female versions of male characters who usually didn't have a lot of personality.

[1:10:10] But, you know, they made up for not having a lot of definable personality the way they made up for the fact that Superman didn't have a definable personality.

[1:10:16] Surrounded him with a lot of weird shit.

[1:10:18] And so they just surrounded her with the super horse who also was in love with her and all these romantic antagonists.

[1:10:23] So when people, when the Supergirl series on the CW came out and people were complaining that it's like, it's so female and soft and why can't she just be a badass?

[1:10:31] It's because that's in the DNA of the character.

[1:10:35] And all the conflicts in this film are not really physical.

[1:10:38] They are emotional.

[1:10:40] And the climax of the film is Supergirl telling Selina she doesn't have any friends, which is just mean girls.

[1:10:46] It's just, it's like, it's...

[1:10:48] The fact that it's the same climax as the Muppet movie?

[1:10:50] Yeah, it's a little strange.

[1:10:52] It's a little bit strange, yeah.

[1:10:53] But I would say, that's, you raise a good point, and Dan, you raise a good point.

[1:10:58] And I'm going to not argue against it exactly but say that like there is something – they do it badly here.

[1:11:04] But there's something a little refreshing to me almost in the return to that – what is a misogynist traditional thing when it's done poorly that like I get tired of female heroes where it's like she's just like a male hero and just as tough as a male hero and just does everything the male hero would.

[1:11:20] But she's got a vagina instead of a penis.

[1:11:23] It's like there is something to having a female hero who takes on, who has strength from feminine characteristics.

[1:11:30] But again, they do it poorly.

[1:11:31] I agree with you.

[1:11:32] I didn't say it but meant to that like you can give them credit for like trying to not just being like, okay, we're going to do a Superman movie but with a female lead.

[1:11:46] Like they do, it's clear that they thought about like, okay, how does this change the movie?

[1:11:53] and don't just map it on and be like but at the same time yes they do it badly is the problem

[1:11:59] but they don't think it through the thing is at the time this movie came out 1984 like to do a

[1:12:04] superman movie but with a female lead doing all the streaming stuff would have been a new and

[1:12:08] exciting thing like that it would have been aliens to a certain extent yeah yeah and it's tough it's

[1:12:13] tough to do um female characters who aren't going to spend their entire time punching people because

[1:12:18] like with with wonder woman that's a contradiction in terms like she is a warrior for peace right

[1:12:23] She fights so that people won't fight anymore.

[1:12:25] So the way you get around that, because again, all the stuff that's essential to Wonder Woman is that she works through compassion and truth and love.

[1:12:32] It's very gender essentialist.

[1:12:34] So the way you get around that is the way you do it in the first Wonder Woman film where she shows up with a rocking badass soundtrack and she kicks ass.

[1:12:42] That's a way you incorporate what's essential about the character without making it so sexist and essentialist.

[1:12:50] Yeah.

[1:12:50] That makes sense.

[1:12:52] Anyway, I think I think and it all like you're saying, I think it comes from like strong character, you know, rather than trying to check a box off.

[1:13:00] And here she has no character.

[1:13:02] But yeah, well, I mean, clearly, so clearly we four men, three of whom are straight, are the best people to unpack all of this.

[1:13:11] But yeah, of course.

[1:13:12] So now that Selina has captured Ethan, she again betrays Nigel and then magics up a fortress, a mountain fortress in the middle of town.

[1:13:22] which everybody seems quite perplexed by.

[1:13:25] So Kara shows up to save the day.

[1:13:27] Rightfully, she decides that her world domination

[1:13:29] will begin in Midvale,

[1:13:30] and that will be the new center of power for the planet.

[1:13:32] Again, it's like,

[1:13:34] she doesn't seem that interested

[1:13:37] in the actual world domination part.

[1:13:39] I feel like that's a drag.

[1:13:40] Like, she just wants to do whatever she wants

[1:13:42] at the moment.

[1:13:43] Like, I don't know.

[1:13:44] Much like certain former presidents.

[1:13:47] She does not want to be in charge.

[1:13:49] She just wants to have permission to do whatever.

[1:13:52] When Kara flies back to Midvale, by the way, she, like, flies over, like, New York City, I think.

[1:13:57] Like, it takes a long time.

[1:13:58] I'm just like, how far did you fly the dude away to take him to safety?

[1:14:02] Yeah.

[1:14:04] You got to get that bumper car out of there.

[1:14:06] So she flies back.

[1:14:11] She sees this beautiful palace, which I honestly have to say, I kind of miss the abandoned amusement park hideout.

[1:14:19] But that's okay.

[1:14:19] So we have this fortress.

[1:14:22] And Ethan is chained up, and then she immediately is trapped in a prism and flipped off into the Phantom Zone.

[1:14:30] Now, is she trapped in the Phantom Zone, or is that diamond just transporting her to the Phantom Zone?

[1:14:38] Bit of a contradiction in the canon here, because in Superman 2 and Superman 1, the Phantom Zone is that swirly little diamond.

[1:14:45] But here, it's just like the jitney to the Phantom Zone.

[1:14:49] yeah and it's like well which which is it because i mean otherwise like are we saying that the three

[1:14:54] super uh three superman villains never made it to the phantom zone because they missed their time

[1:14:59] i was also confused like as soon as she arrives like that thing shatters and she falls out on

[1:15:04] the ground i'm like if that is just a transport is that the way it works is it just like two

[1:15:08] pieces of glass that are pressed together with like a supergirl sandwich like yep uh the uh i

[1:15:15] But I imagine it was a poor Charlie type situation for the Phantom Zone criminals where they didn't have the right toll on them to get off.

[1:15:24] So they just have to ride back and forth between Krypton and the Phantom Zone for all eternity.

[1:15:28] So they never returned.

[1:15:30] Here's the thing.

[1:15:31] The Phantom Zone stuff, when she first appears in it, her just walking through this like blasted wasteland with her costume on and the lighting kind of –

[1:15:40] Like, that whole sequence until she has to crawl through mud,

[1:15:43] which was gross for them to do that to the character,

[1:15:45] that whole sequence works really well for me as, like,

[1:15:48] she's at the lowest ebb, and now she's in a place

[1:15:50] that her natural inborn abilities of optimism

[1:15:53] and kind of gooey angelic naivete don't work here anymore.

[1:15:58] So this is a visual that works really well for me.

[1:16:00] Yeah, I agree with you, Elliot, except there's a lot of it.

[1:16:03] There's a lot.

[1:16:04] She's wandering for a long time.

[1:16:06] If there was such a thing as a verbal macro,

[1:16:09] this goes on for a while would be something we'd be using a lot in this movie.

[1:16:13] Yeah, and then Peter O'Toole shows up,

[1:16:17] and this is the only time I think in film-going history

[1:16:20] where I've been like, ugh, Peter O'Toole's back.

[1:16:22] Because I know that the fun part of the movie

[1:16:26] is the more campy stuff with Faye Dunaway

[1:16:31] just sort of hanging around being evil,

[1:16:33] and then Peter O'Toole stuck in the Phantom Zone,

[1:16:36] and I'm like, okay, well, this is just a complication we've got to get through.

[1:16:39] and and again he's he's kind of like he's broken and seemingly drunk and he keeps saying squirt

[1:16:46] over and over which again is a dr pepper product just like amw easter egg it's like

[1:16:52] stewart racked up another one oh man oh man i got a whole a barrel salad for weeks like

[1:16:58] it seems like saying squirt and stuff that peter o'toole is working so hard to make us

[1:17:03] make us the audience think that peter o'toole the actor does not know what it's like to be a

[1:17:07] drunk alcoholic and we're like meter just be be you know you can do this he's trying so hard to

[1:17:12] do like a non-alcoholics version of someone who's drunk you know there are moments even though i

[1:17:16] love these movies superhero movies and all this kind of stuff there are moments when a really

[1:17:21] world-class actor like peter o'toole is reduced to going squirt squirt that it's like when in uh

[1:17:28] i think it was winter soldier where robert redford says hell hydra and it's like oh don't don't

[1:17:33] don't please just leave it to it's like it's like you'll remember this when you're playing

[1:17:37] with your uh migo uh bat cave action figures and uh your dad who's been trying to get you out in

[1:17:44] the yard to throw the old pigskin around but has just not been able to do it and he comes in and

[1:17:48] he gives up so he gets down on his knees and he picks up uh one of your action figures and goes

[1:17:52] so which doll is this is a spider boy and you're like it's no i don't don't patronize me i don't

[1:17:58] need you here you just go out you just go it's it's and also a they're they're action figures

[1:18:03] not dolls and b there's no such thing as spider boy and c i can tell you didn't say the hyphen

[1:18:08] there's a hyphen in spider he doesn't exist but there would be and i can tell you didn't know

[1:18:11] you're like dad it was a very deliberate choice that stan named him spider man and not spider boy

[1:18:16] exactly they but do you know what i mean it's just it's beneath him oh yeah it's the having to it's

[1:18:22] it's it's like watching someone make a movie in a language they don't really speak and they're

[1:18:26] it phonetically and it they can't pull it off as well as antonio banderas and the mambo kings

[1:18:29] and it just doesn't come across but the flip side of that is my favorite thing about everyone having

[1:18:34] to be in superhero movies now which is then the behind the scenes interviews where an actor who

[1:18:38] clearly does not give a shit about the x-men has to talk about the meaning of the new mutants or

[1:18:43] whatever and like why why uh why magneto is the heart of uh of militant rebellion you know against

[1:18:49] depression or something like i do love having them seeing them being forced to like take material

[1:18:55] seriously that they do not care about whereas like when you uh it feels like there's no other

[1:19:00] type of movie where there's an assumption on the part of the audience that the people making it

[1:19:05] should love and understand every aspect of the thing that they're doing like what tom cruise

[1:19:09] when he made the firm he wasn't like oh well yeah of course i love john grisham's novels all of them

[1:19:14] i've always been a big grish head you know ever since i was a kid to see peter o'toole kind of

[1:19:20] and and all of them kind of like having to yeah it feels like they're they're in a they're they're

[1:19:26] swimming through a culture that they don't really understand i mean at its worst this movie like

[1:19:32] feels like whoever you know like all was involved in this or that part of the of making the movie

[1:19:39] is like comics are dumb like we're holding ourselves above like let's not make a comic

[1:19:44] book movie let's make this other movie that we want to make like at its worst that you you feel

[1:19:49] little that coming through at best all the stuff that doesn't feel like it should be in there

[1:19:56] does feel like it should be in there because it's like so weird which is what comics are and like

[1:20:02] the fact that it feels like this like cultural stew of like what people thought you wanted to

[1:20:07] see in a comic book movie maybe wasn't one comics fan but what people thought like what could be

[1:20:12] more comic books than like i don't know chasing like whatever weird cultural fad is in the air

[1:20:17] at that time so i don't know it really makes you realize how good judy dench is that she makes a lot

[1:20:23] of stuff that i'm sure she doesn't care i'm sure she doesn't care about the riddick canon right

[1:20:28] but she's so she always thought we're like in artemis fowl or whatever but she always kind of

[1:20:32] sounds like she really cares about it i don't know she's really good when in artemis fowl when she

[1:20:36] goes top of the morning to you as as part of the leprechaun police force i'm like yeah in another

[1:20:42] in another actor's hands

[1:20:44] that would not have

[1:20:44] come off as believable.

[1:20:45] Yeah.

[1:20:45] And Glenn Close

[1:20:47] in Guardians saying

[1:20:47] fire the necroblasters.

[1:20:49] I mean, you know,

[1:20:49] I'm always going to.

[1:20:50] There was a part in,

[1:20:53] oh, who is it

[1:20:54] in the last

[1:20:56] Mission Impossible movie?

[1:20:56] Who's the,

[1:20:57] why am I forgetting her name?

[1:20:58] Is it Angela Bassett?

[1:20:59] Who's the,

[1:21:01] I forgot who's the,

[1:21:02] like, is it,

[1:21:03] there's a part where she's like,

[1:21:04] she's like,

[1:21:05] they've gotten a hold

[1:21:05] of the hydrogen bombs

[1:21:07] or whatever.

[1:21:07] Like, you have to get

[1:21:08] those warheads.

[1:21:08] And I was like,

[1:21:09] that's what I wanted to see.

[1:21:10] I want to see her

[1:21:11] talking about this stuff

[1:21:12] as if it matters.

[1:21:12] like yeah so back on earth selena uh selena takes jimmy olsen lucy and nigel all captive

[1:21:21] and puts them in little cages in her in her lair yeah but before she does that stew she

[1:21:26] she rides through town in the saddest motorcade the tiniest it's not even a motorcade it's a

[1:21:32] it's a car with some motorcycles next to it yeah it's and the teens think they can stop her by

[1:21:38] protesting they're protesting her already there is a she's within she's just created that mountain

[1:21:45] like minutes before and already there's like she has a secret police force and a vintage car that

[1:21:49] she drives around in and the teens have made posters to protest they should have hired fewer

[1:21:54] protesters and a lot more cars just to give it a little bit more yeah but uh but in addition to

[1:22:01] their fortress upgrade they also my notes also point out that selena and bianca both look

[1:22:06] incredible now like they their their wardrobes have gotten an upgrade yep and their shoulder

[1:22:11] pads yep yeah it with the motorcade it's almost like they had a certain number of cars and they

[1:22:16] crashed them during the the construction equipment on the rampage sequence and they're like why did

[1:22:22] we do that we needed another car for this yeah uh yeah so cara and zoltar hatch a plan to escape

[1:22:31] the phantom zone i think she gives him uh she gives him some confidence and they decide to

[1:22:36] sneak around a whirlwind by crawling along a cliff uh and then selena starts shooting fireballs at

[1:22:44] them and and sultar makes the ultimate sacrifice and get gets whisked away in the whirlwind and i'm

[1:22:50] not totally sure how that helps anybody just his way of getting out of the movie yeah yeah i mean

[1:22:55] it doesn't i mean look you know 50 of them don't make it so i i'm not saying that's nothing but it

[1:23:01] It also doesn't seem to be as hard to get out of the Phantom Zone as advertised.

[1:23:04] And Slater gets a chance to do some acting here.

[1:23:10] She's trying to convince O'Toole to, you know, get out of the Phantom Zone.

[1:23:14] She gets to be defiant, which she hasn't had much to do.

[1:23:18] She's just been around being sympathetic.

[1:23:21] And now she gets to be angry and resolute, which is good to see.

[1:23:28] Yeah, she tries to inspire him and, like, wake him from his drunken reverie or whatever, right?

[1:23:34] Now, Glenn, is Zoltar a character from the comics?

[1:23:37] Nope.

[1:23:37] Because his name sounds like, you're saying, like a grown-up's idea of what a Kryptonian name would sound like.

[1:23:43] Well, I mean, I think, canonically, there's some, like, hyphen-er or hyphen-el or, like, you know, the single-name stuff.

[1:23:51] I mean Zod, sure, but he was General Zod, so anyway, I don't have a definitive answer for you.

[1:23:58] Okay, it just seems like, because it does seem like one of those, like we were just talking about, forcing the actors to say nonsense for her to have to be like, Zoltar!

[1:24:04] And it's like, you could have given him a name that sounded more like a name.

[1:24:07] Go on, girl, you can!

[1:24:09] So Kara returns to the fortress to stop Selina.

[1:24:15] She is out of the Phantom Zone, and she wants to save her friends.

[1:24:18] They battle, and this is pretty exciting, because Selina is using the power of that Omega Hedron to summon up the power of Shadow.

[1:24:27] And we get a giant monster.

[1:24:28] We get a floor that seems shaking

[1:24:31] and there's lava underneath.

[1:24:32] And then the giant shadow monster

[1:24:35] even picks up Kara

[1:24:36] and kneads her like a piece of dough.

[1:24:38] Which they show us by,

[1:24:41] they are literally distorting

[1:24:42] the video image of Kara,

[1:24:44] which if this,

[1:24:46] there's something like,

[1:24:47] if it was,

[1:24:48] that's one of those things

[1:24:49] where it's like in the right context,

[1:24:50] if this was like a video drone type thing

[1:24:52] where it was like,

[1:24:53] the new flesh is the broadcast image.

[1:24:55] When I destroy this image,

[1:24:56] it destroys you.

[1:24:57] I'd be like,

[1:24:57] That's a cool effect, but here it just looks so goofy.

[1:24:59] This is one of the moments where I'm like,

[1:25:01] this has got to look amazing on Blu-ray, Glenn.

[1:25:03] You'd be surprised.

[1:25:07] This is the moment when a Supergirl tells her

[1:25:11] that she has no friends and that Daryl wants his sweater back

[1:25:14] and nobody likes you and nobody's going to ask you to prom.

[1:25:20] And this is also the point where she gets saved

[1:25:25] by not one, but by two dudes.

[1:25:27] first ethan covers up the omega hedron in the lead coffer of shadow which cuts off selena's power

[1:25:34] and then she hears zoltar telling her to you can um and it would be great if it was just something

[1:25:41] she did herself you know yeah it was also one of those things that is just a nonsense movie thing

[1:25:46] where it's like well i don't have the strength to fight anymore oh i got some words of encouragement

[1:25:52] now i feel better like it just doesn't work that way usually i would have to have the villain anger

[1:25:57] me to the point where i would tap into my rage bonus yeah yeah and do the like hulkamania like

[1:26:03] heavy breathing thing exactly we're like oh shit you're done now kid now something i've noticed in

[1:26:09] a lot of movies in general but especially movies from this time is that the movie seems to get

[1:26:13] cheaper as it goes on so like they clearly spent a lot of money on argo city and the early flying

[1:26:19] effects and then by the end of it they're like yeah just get a puppet monster and just kind of

[1:26:24] half half dissolve it in there like whatever and do you think this was a matter of them like not

[1:26:29] thinking the audience would necessarily sit through the whole movie so you better keep them

[1:26:33] entertained with big production effects because because usually when you tell a story you kind

[1:26:37] of want it to amp up so that like the ending is the biggest thing but i wonder if they're just

[1:26:41] like hey if we got them by this point whatever the movie's almost over just get them get a refund

[1:26:45] You just have to hold on to them.

[1:26:46] Delete suckers.

[1:26:48] Once you sit through the Shadow Monster puppet, you cannot get a refund.

[1:26:51] Read the fine print on the back of the ticket.

[1:26:53] Well, they didn't have access to CGI, so they couldn't make these kind of superhero movies

[1:26:58] that just devolve into complete CGI nonsense in the last act.

[1:27:01] They had to just take a Muppet and a fog machine and some glitter.

[1:27:06] Now you made it sound heroic.

[1:27:08] I will say, though, if you watch WandaVision, they're really experimenting.

[1:27:13] They're using red glowy stuff now instead of just blue glowy stuff in the Marvel movies.

[1:27:18] So, yeah, so Kara creates some kind of like a whirlwind thing that turns the shadow monster onto Selina.

[1:27:27] And then they both get sucked into the mirror at the end.

[1:27:30] Yeah, Bianca got a raw deal here.

[1:27:32] Yeah, I mean, like Bianca was reluctant throughout.

[1:27:36] She was trying to be the voice of reason.

[1:27:37] Now, maybe the movie is saying, you know, if you go along with it, you deserve exactly the punishment that the main villain does.

[1:27:46] But it just seemed like, oh, I don't think Bianca deserved that.

[1:27:50] And Bianca, in some ways, yes.

[1:27:52] But she's really playing the kind of good German role in this, where it's like, you're just standing by.

[1:27:56] All it takes for evil to win is for Bianca to do nothing.

[1:28:00] And that's what she's doing for most of the movie.

[1:28:02] You got to enjoy that motorcade.

[1:28:04] This is the payment.

[1:28:07] hmm, someone's been eating all of the cake

[1:28:09] and Snackwell's cookies

[1:28:11] that I assume Selina has been whipping up with her magic

[1:28:13] when you've been off screen.

[1:28:14] Yeah, but I mean, that is basically the end.

[1:28:17] I mean, she says goodbye to her gentleman friend

[1:28:20] and flies back off to the city,

[1:28:22] which, you know, I mean, great.

[1:28:24] And flying back to the city,

[1:28:26] you mean she flies directly into the river

[1:28:28] and then arrives home

[1:28:29] and the dark city gets bright again.

[1:28:33] That's right.

[1:28:35] Reuven Sewell's dark city?

[1:28:36] Dark city.

[1:28:37] I'm sorry, Ruben.

[1:28:37] Alex Proyas movie?

[1:28:40] Yeah.

[1:28:41] Okay.

[1:28:43] It's all the same movie, Dan.

[1:28:44] Those are just different details about Dark City, the movie.

[1:28:47] So that was a long discussion of what happened in Supergirl,

[1:28:51] because there's a lot to talk about.

[1:28:53] There's a lot to talk about.

[1:28:54] And it's over two hours long.

[1:28:56] Yeah, it is.

[1:28:56] Yeah, it was originally two hours and 25 minutes,

[1:29:00] so good Lord, I can't imagine.

[1:29:01] Oh, boy.

[1:29:01] Sure.

[1:29:02] Yeah, so let's...

[1:29:04] Was there an intermission in your version, Glenn?

[1:29:06] Was there an intermission somewhere in there?

[1:29:07] There was the whole scene in Midvale High.

[1:29:11] That is a de facto intermission because you can get up and leave and miss all that.

[1:29:15] I guess what we're all saying is not a wasted second.

[1:29:17] This thing is lean.

[1:29:18] They cut that back to the bone in this movie.

[1:29:21] Everything has a reason for being in there.

[1:29:23] Yeah, let's go right into Final Judgments, whether it's a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked.

[1:29:31] You know, I don't know.

[1:29:33] It straddles bad bad.

[1:29:35] I mean, I guess it's bad, bad.

[1:29:36] Like, there's, like, stuff I kind of like in there, too.

[1:29:40] Or, sorry, not bad, bad.

[1:29:42] Sorry, it's a good, bad movie I kind of like.

[1:29:44] Like, it is a lot of fun to watch.

[1:29:45] It is Goofy and Faye Dunaway and, oh, I forget the other ones that named the actor who did.

[1:29:56] Brenda McCarroll?

[1:29:57] Yeah, but, I mean, the three baddies are all fun.

[1:30:02] Oh, yeah, Peter Cook.

[1:30:04] Peter Cook.

[1:30:04] in well no i met the uh the woman uh but i can't remember her name anyway it doesn't matter the

[1:30:10] three batteries they're all great as long as brenda vaccaro brenda vaccaro yeah as long as

[1:30:15] it's all focused on them and they're doing stuff uh i enjoy it i like the silly uh old 80s effects

[1:30:22] that are actually pretty good in a few places uh and then sometimes not um and you know comics

[1:30:29] don't comic book movies don't all have to be the dark knight i don't want them to all be the dark

[1:30:33] I like a lot of weird stuff, too.

[1:30:36] And this is a weird movie.

[1:30:37] So, I don't know.

[1:30:39] I liked it okay.

[1:30:40] Stuart, you look like you got feelings.

[1:30:42] Yeah, yeah.

[1:30:44] I would say this is definitely a solid good-bad movie.

[1:30:47] It's goofy.

[1:30:48] There's parts of it that I kind of like.

[1:30:51] And I do like how, despite being two hours long,

[1:30:56] they clearly spend no time explaining what is going on for the first 20 minutes,

[1:31:01] which is great.

[1:31:03] And, yeah, some of those scenes are pretty fun.

[1:31:04] And it's a fun, goofy superhero movie to laugh with your friends over.

[1:31:08] Yeah, I'd call it a good-bad movie.

[1:31:11] Watch it with your friends.

[1:31:12] On the other hand, it does have a scene set at Popeye's, so I guess I have to name it Best Picture.

[1:31:18] Sorry, Amadeus.

[1:31:19] This is Supergirl's year.

[1:31:20] And for me, it's a movie I kind of like.

[1:31:25] I mean, obviously, for all the reasons we've enumerated, especially Faye Dunaway's performance, which really rides a very difficult line.

[1:31:34] And kind of even when she devolves into the Sikora Fugasuku of it all, she's still Faye Dunaway.

[1:31:42] And, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

[1:31:44] She's great.

[1:31:46] I'm going to take this moment to do something we've done a few times in the Flophouse, which is take a dump on the Razzie Awards.

[1:31:50] Yeah.

[1:31:51] Which nominated Faye Dunaway for Worst Actress for the movie.

[1:31:56] And Faye Dunaway is doing exactly what this movie needs her to do.

[1:31:59] And she's doing it really well.

[1:32:00] And, like, it's a really fun, like, it's a really fun performance.

[1:32:04] It's exactly the right performance for this movie.

[1:32:06] And the Razzies can suck it.

[1:32:08] Yeah, absolutely.

[1:32:09] And, you know, we live in a magical world where there's such a thing as fast forwarding.

[1:32:14] So, you can, I mean, this is, I cannot bear the mid-bail high stuff.

[1:32:21] It just goes on forever.

[1:32:22] So, like, you excise that stuff, and this is a tight, really fun little movie.

[1:32:28] That's true.

[1:32:29] There is no reason you have to sit, you've just kind of unlocked, I feel like, a cheat code to bad movies.

[1:32:34] There's no reason you have to sit through the whole thing.

[1:32:37] Like, no one's going to catch you.

[1:32:39] Yeah.

[1:32:44] Hey, kid, your dad tell you about the time he broke Stephen Dorff's nose at the Kids' Choice Awards?

[1:32:50] In Dead Pilots Society, scripts that were developed by studios and networks but were never produced

[1:32:57] are given the table reads they deserve.

[1:32:59] When I was a kid, I had to spend my Christmas break filming a PSA about angel dust.

[1:33:04] So, yeah, being a kid sucks sometimes.

[1:33:06] Presented by Andrew Reich and Ben Blacker.

[1:33:10] Dead Pilots Society, twice a month on MaximumFun.org.

[1:33:15] You know, the show you like, that hobo with the scarf who lives in a magic dumpster.

[1:33:18] Doctor Who.

[1:33:22] Yeah.

[1:33:23] Hey there, beautiful people.

[1:33:28] Did you hear that good, good news?

[1:33:30] Something about the baby Jesus?

[1:33:32] He's coming back.

[1:33:34] Or do you mean the fact that Apple Podcasts is named Fanta?

[1:33:38] one of the best shows of 2020.

[1:33:40] I mean, we already knew that we was hot stuff,

[1:33:43] but a little extra validation never hurts, okay?

[1:33:46] Hosted by me, writer and journalist Jared Hill.

[1:33:49] And me, the ebony entrantress myself,

[1:33:53] Travelle Anderson.

[1:33:55] Fanta is your home for complex conversations

[1:33:57] about the gray areas in our lives,

[1:33:59] the people, places, and things

[1:34:00] we're huge fans of,

[1:34:02] but got some anti-feelings toward.

[1:34:03] You name it, we Fanta you.

[1:34:06] Nobody's off limits.

[1:34:07] Check us out every Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your slay-worthy audio.

[1:34:11] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by many fine products and services like this one that Elliot will talk about right now.

[1:34:22] Hey guys, now more than ever, storytellers and content creators are challenged with producing more video content and at a higher quality than ever before.

[1:34:30] Tell me about it. I'm having so much trouble keeping up with all my video content that I'm making.

[1:34:34] But you can keep up with the growing demands for modern video content without sacrificing your vision with stock media from Storyblocks.

[1:34:41] Storyblocks is dedicated to being the world's best royalty-free stock media subscription service.

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[1:34:52] You've got After Effects and Premiere Pro templates.

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[1:34:56] They've got affordable subscriptions, plans, and tools.

[1:34:59] And with the Storyblocks unlimited all-access plan, you get unlimited downloads of everything in their library.

[1:35:05] So even if your subscription is ended, you can still keep everything that you downloaded.

[1:35:10] Storyblocks, we got some free logins for it to try it out.

[1:35:13] And for those of you who watched our Teen Wolf live show, you'll know that there was a brief intermission where Dan sang for two minutes over stock footage about how he needed to pee.

[1:35:21] Dan constructed that himself, I think purely using Storyblocks footage, and it was amazing and beautiful.

[1:35:28] And, Dan, how was your experience working with Storyblocks?

[1:35:30] You're correct.

[1:35:31] The visuals that went with my song about peeing were all from Storyblocks,

[1:35:37] and I did not want for anything.

[1:35:40] All the ideas I had, they had great options for it.

[1:35:44] So A-plus, Storyblocks.

[1:35:46] Everything in that one from waterfalls to people clinking their beer signs

[1:35:51] to some kind of whimsical clown.

[1:35:53] Was the clown dancing?

[1:35:54] I can't quite remember.

[1:35:55] Yeah, it devolved a little bit.

[1:35:57] I think there was maybe an Elvis impersonator there at one point.

[1:36:00] I'm not sure.

[1:36:00] There was like a flash dance style dancer at one point.

[1:36:03] It was really, it was beautiful.

[1:36:05] And we can give all of the credit to Storyblocks.

[1:36:07] Go ahead, explore their library and subscribe today at storyblocks.com slash flop.

[1:36:13] Again, that's storyblocks.com slash flop.

[1:36:17] Also, we are sponsored in part by HelloFresh, which lets you skip those trips to the grocery store

[1:36:24] and makes home cooking easy, fun, and affordable.

[1:36:27] And that's why it's America's number one meal kit.

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[1:36:57] I had some HelloFresh, you know,

[1:37:00] they gave us some samples, very nice of them.

[1:37:02] I very much enjoyed them.

[1:37:04] Sometimes I'm a scoffer.

[1:37:06] I like to make my food complex.

[1:37:09] I make, don't make it hard.

[1:37:10] I want it to be a big project and everyone to say,

[1:37:12] good job, Dan.

[1:37:13] Look at all that work you put into that food.

[1:37:15] But, you know, life isn't always like that.

[1:37:17] Sometimes you want it a lot simpler,

[1:37:19] and HelloFresh was a lot of fun

[1:37:21] to make these tasty meals

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[1:37:37] That's HelloFresh.com FLOP10

[1:37:39] and code FLOP10

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[1:37:43] meals.

[1:37:44] Stuart, I believe

[1:37:47] you have a Jumbotron.

[1:37:49] j-j-j-j-j-jumbotron coming out of the jumbotron zone it's me stewart wellington with a hot new

[1:37:56] jumbotron for your ears hi flop fans i'm bex aka potato lady podcast reviews a few months ago i

[1:38:05] accidentally became a podcast reviewer on twitter now i have a long list of good indie podcasts and

[1:38:12] i think it'd be cool if i could connect listeners to new pods so if you're looking for new and

[1:38:19] enjoyable ear content please follow me on twitter and or instagram at b-e-x-g-o-o-s

[1:38:28] bex goose or goose feel free to at me for specific recommendations based on your interests

[1:38:36] also there's more info in the pinned tweet on my profile so follow potato lady podcast reviews on

[1:38:44] twitter at bex goose to get podcast recommendations yeah i am looking for better ear content because

[1:38:52] right now my ear ear mostly just has wax in it which is uh-huh not very good hey i realized that

[1:38:59] um so for candles candles some way some ways back uh we did a behind the microphone uh which can be

[1:39:09] found in the bonus feed if you're a max fun uh uh donor member um and we did a little trivia game

[1:39:19] and i just realized i've had in my inbox to do this for a long time and i keep missing it every

[1:39:24] time i apologize so much to the people involved i was supposed to shout out my team which won that

[1:39:32] game uh that was part of the the big prize is us shouting them out but uh i don't want to sorry i i

[1:39:40] that makes it sound so belittling i'm belittling the idea of a shout out being a prize from me but

[1:39:46] um uh i just want to say thank you to pat less than monica anastasia josh and john uh for being

[1:39:56] my team and writing

[1:39:58] the Dan McCoy train

[1:40:00] to victory over the evil

[1:40:02] Elliot Kalin. Yeah, that was really

[1:40:04] fun.

[1:40:05] It's a friendly game. I don't know why

[1:40:08] one of us has to be evil.

[1:40:09] Well, I don't know either, Elliot.

[1:40:12] Maybe you need to look inside yourself.

[1:40:14] It wasn't even required that you were evil.

[1:40:16] You were just evil.

[1:40:17] Now I feel bad.

[1:40:20] Look at his face. Guys,

[1:40:22] by marriage

[1:40:24] I'm half evil.

[1:40:26] you know evil has had it too hard for too long you know yeah what am i talking about evil is

[1:40:31] rampant around the world evil's having a great time right now uh before we get back to the show

[1:40:35] any uh personal plugs you guys have yeah please if you get a chance uh you can support uh my so

[1:40:43] in addition to being a world-class podcaster i also have a little side hustle where my wife and

[1:40:50] i own a couple of bars and you can support them by going to visit them that's minnie's bar in

[1:40:55] sunset park brooklyn or hinterlands bar in kensington brooklyn you can also email hinterlands

[1:41:00] bar merch at gmail.com uh to get in on our selection of t-shirts hoodies and bandanas

[1:41:08] shipped right to your door your door you sound like you're figuring something out

[1:41:16] that was the activation code for a brainwashed assassin somewhere in america

[1:41:20] yeah i'd like to promote three things number one sharko and hippo my children's book from

[1:41:26] from fall of last year still out there please pick it up for the child in your life or the

[1:41:31] person with a childlike level of entertainment there's also my comic book maniac of new york

[1:41:35] number two comes out in march there's a second printing of the first issue was coming out of

[1:41:40] march it was a big hit seller and so it might be hard to get that first issue in march pick up

[1:41:44] number one and number two i hope you're gonna like it pat noswalt likes it and if he likes it i think

[1:41:49] you're going to like it too number three less a plug and just another thank you to everybody who

[1:41:53] watched our teen wolf live show uh it was a big success we really felt loved by our fans and we

[1:41:58] really appreciate it so thank you yeah i got another plug but if anyone has a a way to get

[1:42:04] rid of hay fever just uh let me know i did all those things i said before i've been drinking

[1:42:08] this thing put some hot water with some tea some ginger honey lemon turmeric uh there's some

[1:42:17] pineapple vinegar in there hey dan dan i actually i actually have a i i have a uh a thing to help

[1:42:25] you what's that it's it's a little trick it's so you gotta first you gotta open the door uh-huh

[1:42:30] then you gotta then you gotta get on the floor uh-huh and then you gotta walk the dinosaur

[1:42:34] i'll try anything once anyway now that that's been established i guess back to uh back to the

[1:42:45] rest of the show uh but let's move on now to letters from listeners like you who knows maybe

[1:42:54] maybe uh did you send in a letter if you did then possibly yeah uh you know and if you're not

[1:43:02] it's not our fault gotta be in it to win it anyway you tell them dan you tell them you get

[1:43:09] at them for not sending in letters uh just like uh wayne gretzky always said gotta play the game

[1:43:14] to score some points.

[1:43:15] Guys, if I can,

[1:43:17] letter writers,

[1:43:18] learn from my mistake.

[1:43:19] When I was young,

[1:43:20] I had a certain amount

[1:43:21] of envy for Zeb Wells,

[1:43:22] the Marvel Comics writer

[1:43:24] who won the

[1:43:24] Marvel Comics Talent Search

[1:43:26] and became a professional

[1:43:27] comics writer.

[1:43:27] And I was like,

[1:43:28] oh, I should be writing

[1:43:29] Marvel Comics.

[1:43:30] I didn't even enter

[1:43:31] the contest, everybody.

[1:43:32] I didn't do the basic

[1:43:33] minimum to win.

[1:43:34] You know what?

[1:43:35] Good on you, Zeb,

[1:43:36] for actually getting

[1:43:37] some skin in the game.

[1:43:38] And me,

[1:43:39] I guess I'm living

[1:43:40] in the wreckage

[1:43:42] of those mistakes.

[1:43:43] So letter writers,

[1:43:44] If you want to be part of the show, just write a letter.

[1:43:47] It takes no time.

[1:43:48] And Dan will only wait years to get around to answering it.

[1:43:51] So this first letter is from Joe, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:43:57] Hey, guys, I want to preface this with this is entirely my fault.

[1:44:02] I couldn't find my earbuds, so I was listening to the prequel mini through my phone's speaker.

[1:44:08] While on one of your back-and-forth runs, my wife walked by, stopped, and said,

[1:44:13] Is that Ted Cruz on your phone?

[1:44:15] Why are you listening to a Ted Cruz podcast?

[1:44:17] I immediately had to stop the playback, rewind,

[1:44:20] and find out which one of you three she thought

[1:44:23] sounded like the junior D-bag from Texas.

[1:44:25] That's it?

[1:44:27] All right, so who do we think?

[1:44:29] Who do we think it is?

[1:44:31] Who do we think?

[1:44:32] No one wants to.

[1:44:32] Probably me.

[1:44:35] My instant reaction to Ted Cruz's voice

[1:44:38] is always for my eardrums to spontaneously shut down,

[1:44:40] so I don't really remember what his voice sounds like.

[1:44:43] Sadly, Elliot, it was you.

[1:44:45] It was you.

[1:44:46] Wow.

[1:44:47] Really?

[1:44:48] Probably just because of my heavy Texas accent.

[1:44:49] Yeah, yeah.

[1:44:52] Yeah, you're twang.

[1:44:53] Yep.

[1:44:53] Definitely.

[1:44:54] So Joe asks, is there anyone that someone said you looked like or sounded like that

[1:45:02] you couldn't see or even just totally offended your sense of self?

[1:45:05] Thanks and love the content.

[1:45:07] Joe, last name without a L.

[1:45:08] I assume Ted Cruz is your answer to that, Elliot.

[1:45:11] That's pretty.

[1:45:12] I mean, I've certainly jumped the list.

[1:45:13] Yeah.

[1:45:14] I mean, there is a, there's literally a video on YouTube.

[1:45:16] I don't know if it's still there.

[1:45:17] That's called, that's titled Elliot Kalin in Dracula, dead and loving it that someone

[1:45:20] put up, which is just a nerdy looking guy in Dracula, dead and loving it.

[1:45:23] So like any, any nerd or a whiny voice I get compared to.

[1:45:28] So like something, something I learned early on when I was a young man is no one ever likes

[1:45:32] being told, Hey, you look like this person or he's not like this person.

[1:45:35] Yeah.

[1:45:35] Unless that person is the, is the most attractive person that you can imagine.

[1:45:40] you know no one likes to be compared this is something that they uh uh are you know our

[1:45:45] network uh mates uh jordan jesse go they have a rule which is uh do not tell someone that they

[1:45:52] look like someone famous unless that person is famous for being attractive unless that is the

[1:45:56] reason they are uh because yeah but that's not the point of the question the question is free

[1:46:01] to spill them dirty deeds dude even even then when you're compared when you're compared even

[1:46:05] to an attractive person what you're being told is hey you're not unique there's another person

[1:46:10] more successful and famous than you

[1:46:12] who has your face, and they're using it

[1:46:14] better than you are.

[1:46:15] Or in this case, someone else has my voice

[1:46:18] and they're using it to destroy lives and

[1:46:20] take their family to Cancun during a blizzard.

[1:46:22] It's hard to say why you

[1:46:24] might have a hang-up, too, because

[1:46:26] a lot of people, because I have a

[1:46:28] close-cropped, dark beard,

[1:46:30] a lot of people have been like, oh, Dan

[1:46:32] looks like Riker. And now

[1:46:34] Audrey is like,

[1:46:36] why does this bother you? She looked up

[1:46:38] pictures. I'm like, he's a handsome guy. He's a handsome guy.

[1:46:40] I'm like, yeah, but Riker's such a doofus.

[1:46:42] And she's like, well, I'm not saying you're a doofus.

[1:46:45] You're saying that you look like Riker.

[1:46:47] I'm like, yeah, but I can't separate it out, man.

[1:46:49] I mean, William Frakes is a successful director of television and films now.

[1:46:54] So, you know, that's not bad.

[1:46:56] Two takes Frakes, I think they call him.

[1:46:57] Stuart, Glenn, do you have anything that applies here?

[1:47:02] I'll go.

[1:47:03] Let's see.

[1:47:04] Back in the aughts, I went to a comedy show.

[1:47:06] My friends wanted to sit right up close.

[1:47:10] I asked, is this guy going to do crowd work?

[1:47:13] And they were like, I don't know.

[1:47:14] And, of course, it was all crowd work.

[1:47:16] And so both, I remember this because both the featured act and the headliner came out

[1:47:24] and at one point called me the commish.

[1:47:26] Not the dude, not chickless, but the commish.

[1:47:32] Because at the time I was, you know, I mean, not because, but I was a huskier gentleman at the time.

[1:47:38] I was about pushing 280 at the time.

[1:47:40] there so uh and uh i was bald and uh a little husky and i think that was the low-hanging fruit

[1:47:48] that they kind of you know reacted to it was like they can sense movement um but i mean there was

[1:47:54] like i mean i had glasses uh chickless at the time had uh the horseshoe i was shaved bald it's just

[1:47:59] like yeah that's what i was gonna say like yeah the commish chickless is a little although weirdly

[1:48:05] the commish checklist

[1:48:06] looks older

[1:48:07] than he does

[1:48:08] at the start of the shield

[1:48:10] yeah

[1:48:10] you know

[1:48:11] yeah they didn't say the shield

[1:48:12] and the shield was on

[1:48:13] the commish

[1:48:14] was like

[1:48:15] gone off the air

[1:48:15] in like 99

[1:48:16] it's more fun to say

[1:48:17] the commish

[1:48:17] and you were there wearing

[1:48:17] yeah you were wearing

[1:48:19] a Wilson's leather jacket

[1:48:20] and you had a fucking cell phone

[1:48:22] on a holster on your hip

[1:48:23] yeah so that's me

[1:48:25] the mom jeans

[1:48:27] of the commish

[1:48:28] is one of my

[1:48:28] or the mom jeans

[1:48:29] of the shield

[1:48:30] is one of my favorite things

[1:48:31] of TV style

[1:48:34] now Stuart only gets

[1:48:35] compared to attractive people?

[1:48:36] I mean, when I was younger,

[1:48:38] I got compared to John Goodman a lot

[1:48:40] when I was in high school.

[1:48:42] I was also a larger,

[1:48:43] there was a larger Stuart walking around.

[1:48:45] And you were briefly named King of England

[1:48:49] due to a mix-up.

[1:48:51] It wasn't a mix-up.

[1:48:53] It was more like the entire royal family

[1:48:57] got electrocuted.

[1:48:59] It was a mix-up between a wire and some water.

[1:49:03] I've gotten some complimentary comparisons.

[1:49:05] My favorite was when two different people within two days compared me to Michael Fassbender.

[1:49:12] So, of course, I rushed out and rented shame, and I was like, yep.

[1:49:16] Okay.

[1:49:17] It's me.

[1:49:18] All right.

[1:49:19] There was a brief time.

[1:49:21] The only, I think, slightly complimentary comparison I forgot was there was a brief time in the early 2000s when people would be like, oh, you look kind of like Casey Affleck.

[1:49:31] And now even that's been tainted forever.

[1:49:33] So thanks a lot, Hollywood.

[1:49:34] Yeah.

[1:49:35] Yeah.

[1:49:36] When I was younger, yeah, I would get John Cusack a lot, which seemed complimentary at the time.

[1:49:42] And as he's aged, it has seemed less complimentary.

[1:49:45] But he has become kind of a strange, strange man.

[1:49:49] I think he was always a strange man, Dan.

[1:49:53] I think it was just we weren't aware of it.

[1:49:55] Yeah.

[1:49:55] Okay.

[1:49:56] Well, our second and final letter is, oh, it says Roger Ebert.

[1:50:01] From the grave.

[1:50:02] Hi, guys.

[1:50:03] It's your boy, Roger, or Mr. Ebert.

[1:50:05] It's nice hearing that things are still going well.

[1:50:08] You're nasty.

[1:50:09] As long as my name is still uttered, it is almost like I never pass.

[1:50:13] My ghost in the machine grows stronger with every mention.

[1:50:16] Soon I will control all internet movie reviews.

[1:50:19] Spread my word and legacy, you poor fools.

[1:50:22] And soon I will control you as well.

[1:50:24] Enjoy your final days.

[1:50:26] Two thumbs down.

[1:50:26] So that was a chilling message from beyond the grave.

[1:50:31] Ironically, because I think he gave a thumbs down to Lawnmower Man, and yet that's his life now.

[1:50:36] Did not like Supergirl.

[1:50:39] Yeah, he didn't.

[1:50:41] Thought Helen Slater was likable, which is true.

[1:50:44] We talk about how they don't give her much to do.

[1:50:46] I don't know whether it's Stockholm Syndrome of this and Secret of My Success and Legend of Billie Jean being on HBO on repeat when I was young.

[1:50:54] I've always liked Helen Slater.

[1:50:57] I thought she was fun in this.

[1:51:00] But Roger Ebert is haunting us and will soon take control of the vertical and the horizontal.

[1:51:07] I'm confused by how he's going to take control of what, the podcast or our lives?

[1:51:13] Am I going to wake up one day and suddenly be like, I've got to get back to Chicago.

[1:51:17] I'm Roger Ebert now.

[1:51:18] Yeah, I mean, we'll just have to wait and see what his dark design is.

[1:51:21] Hold on, wait.

[1:51:26] Light swinging back and forth, erasing all the things around me.

[1:51:30] Let me get to his design.

[1:51:31] No, it's still just him sitting at a typewriter.

[1:51:33] It doesn't tell me very much.

[1:51:34] He's going to close all our balconies.

[1:51:39] Let's get into our final segment,

[1:51:44] which is recommendations of movies

[1:51:47] that you could watch perhaps instead of Supergirl.

[1:51:51] But if you like the sort of thing that Supergirl is,

[1:51:53] you'll probably like Supergirl.

[1:51:55] I'll recommend...

[1:51:56] What Dan's saying is, audience,

[1:51:58] You don't need our permission to watch Supergirl or one of these other movies.

[1:52:01] We're not gatekeepers trying to keep you from your favorite movies or whatever.

[1:52:05] Just watch whatever you want.

[1:52:06] Maybe you like one of these, too.

[1:52:08] I want to recommend, I watched Saint Maud, the horror movie.

[1:52:15] Spooky!

[1:52:16] Yeah.

[1:52:17] It was delayed.

[1:52:18] That's the sound effect I do whenever somebody recommends a horror movie on this podcast.

[1:52:22] I remember seeing the trailer over and over at the Alamo Draft House before the pandemic.

[1:52:28] And then finally a year later, after seeing it like 70 times, the chance to see St. Maude and, you know, very good.

[1:52:37] Very good movie.

[1:52:38] Mostly just two great actors going at it.

[1:52:44] Creepy.

[1:52:46] I don't know.

[1:52:47] I'm going at it by doing acting, Stuart.

[1:52:50] Don't give me that face.

[1:52:51] I don't know what to say.

[1:52:53] The thing is, it's one of those movies.

[1:52:55] It's very clear you don't know what to say.

[1:52:56] No, I know.

[1:52:57] I'm sorry.

[1:52:58] The hay fever's catching up to me.

[1:53:00] It's just a, you know, it's a very tight horror movie.

[1:53:04] It's less than 90 minutes.

[1:53:06] It's one of these movies that sort of explores the line

[1:53:09] between, like, madness and religious passion

[1:53:14] and increasingly, like, someone's life falling apart

[1:53:20] in increasingly dramatic ways, but I don't know.

[1:53:24] I like frailty with Bill Paxson.

[1:53:27] Not exactly like that, but it is kind of what you would expect out of the movie.

[1:53:33] Like, if you've seen the trailer, I wasn't like, oh, my God, this isn't the movie I expected,

[1:53:37] but it's the best kind of version of that.

[1:53:39] I thought this was the movie version of the show Maud.

[1:53:41] What's going on here?

[1:53:42] I'm not doing a good job, so I'll just say St. Maud, I enjoyed it.

[1:53:46] Let's move on to someone whose head is more in the right place.

[1:53:49] Stuart, what do you want to recommend?

[1:53:52] Yeah, I'm going to recommend a newish movie that also features two great actors going at it.

[1:53:59] That's right.

[1:53:59] I'm going to recommend a movie called Synchronic that is written and directed by the Moorhead and Benson duo that made, they made, oh man, Spring.

[1:54:15] And they made, what's the, The Endless.

[1:54:20] And it is a movie with Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan.

[1:54:25] Jamie Dornan, of course, beloved of the Flophouse podcast because he's a bee.

[1:54:29] The two of them play New Orleans paramedics and they start investigating or they start they turn up a string of bodies of people who have died.

[1:54:41] Not that have overdosed, but also have died under mysterious circumstances.

[1:54:47] and they begin to kind of launch

[1:54:49] their own personal investigation of it.

[1:54:51] And just like the other Moorhead and Benson movies,

[1:54:54] it's a little weird.

[1:54:56] It's a little straightforward,

[1:54:58] and there's some scenes in there that are unsettling,

[1:55:00] but in ways that it's hard to kind of put your finger on.

[1:55:04] The performances are fun.

[1:55:06] Check it out.

[1:55:07] Synchronic.

[1:55:09] Oh, by the way, Stu,

[1:55:09] I didn't recommend Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar

[1:55:13] because I assumed you would,

[1:55:15] But since you mentioned Jamie Dornan, I just want to say, you know, like, obviously, Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig are the driving forces behind that.

[1:55:24] So props to them mostly.

[1:55:27] But I also want to say that movie totally turned me around on Jamie Dornan.

[1:55:31] I'm like, oh, okay.

[1:55:32] When you're a big goofball, you're so much fun.

[1:55:34] Another movie that just has two great actresses going at it.

[1:55:37] Okay.

[1:55:38] Well, Dan loves.

[1:55:38] Let's not keep this.

[1:55:39] I call them an official couple.

[1:55:41] Let's not keep this.

[1:55:43] Elliot, do you have a...

[1:55:44] Speaking of movies where two actresses go at it...

[1:55:47] No.

[1:55:47] I'd like to recommend a movie called Daisies.

[1:55:52] This is newish for me.

[1:55:54] It's from 1966,

[1:55:55] so it's new compared to other movies I watch.

[1:55:57] And it is a landmark work from the Czech New Wave,

[1:56:00] one of my favorite...

[1:56:01] I'm going to say my favorite New Wave.

[1:56:03] I like it even more than the French New Wave,

[1:56:05] to be honest.

[1:56:05] I love Czech movies from that time.

[1:56:07] We're going to get so many fucking emails now.

[1:56:11] The French New Wave was the best, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[1:56:14] And I'll be like, forget it.

[1:56:15] Anyway, so it's kind of like if two young women starred in the Marx Brothers movie that Salvador Dali never got to make.

[1:56:23] In that it's these two women who are doing their best to kind of like, in scene after scene, and it's not a plot-driven movie, but it's very much a scene-driven movie, kind of take apart the society around them and indulge as much as possible, especially in food, but also in like avoiding responsibility or just getting into very surreal types of trouble.

[1:56:48] And there are things that the director, whose name is Vera Chytilova, I think I'm pronouncing it wrong probably, but the writer-director, there are things that she does in it visually that are really neat and things that she does with editing that are really neat.

[1:57:00] But it's just a real straight shot of anarchy right into your eyeballs, and I really enjoyed it a lot.

[1:57:08] So that's Daisies, and I think it's on the Criterion channel now, but I'm not sure about that.

[1:57:13] I know it's been there in the past.

[1:57:15] I've seen it as I've scrolled.

[1:57:18] And Glenn, what would you like to recommend?

[1:57:20] Well, if you want to see a little bit more

[1:57:23] from Peter O'Toole without the tunic,

[1:57:25] then I would recommend the 1972 film

[1:57:28] The Ruling Class,

[1:57:29] which is based on the Peter Barnes stage play.

[1:57:32] Watch Peter O'Toole in a role that,

[1:57:35] if it wasn't written for him,

[1:57:37] he makes it feel like it was written for him

[1:57:40] that only he could do it.

[1:57:40] He's the Earl of Gurney,

[1:57:43] who didn't think he was going to inherit the title,

[1:57:46] but his father dies suddenly,

[1:57:47] and he plays a person who believes himself

[1:57:51] to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

[1:57:53] It is a very caustic and very satirical

[1:57:56] takedown of the aristocracy with show tunes.

[1:58:00] So what's not to love?

[1:58:02] That's The Ruling Class.

[1:58:04] Excellent.

[1:58:05] Well, Glenn, thank you so much for being here

[1:58:09] and giving us a thin veneer of respectability.

[1:58:14] The veneer is as thin as the lead sheets

[1:58:20] lying on the ground of Argo City.

[1:58:22] It's okay because...

[1:58:25] Sorry, you want to say, Sue?

[1:58:26] I was just going to say,

[1:58:27] it was nice to have somebody on the show

[1:58:29] who knows about superhero stuff for a change.

[1:58:31] I was going to say,

[1:58:35] it's okay because Argo City has a layer of kryptonite

[1:58:37] covered by a layer of lead

[1:58:38] covered by a layer of asbestos,

[1:58:39] covered by a layer of radium,

[1:58:41] covered by a layer of hydrochloric acid.

[1:58:43] It all cancels out.

[1:58:45] It's safe in the end.

[1:58:45] Yeah, there's some black mold in there, too.

[1:58:47] Oh, there's a lot of black.

[1:58:49] You get underneath that.

[1:58:50] There's a thin kind of plastic

[1:58:52] that we don't know gives us cancer yet,

[1:58:54] but will, and underneath that is the black mold.

[1:58:56] It's, oh, boy.

[1:58:57] Yeah, like the walls of Argo City

[1:58:59] look like they're always wet,

[1:59:00] so that can't be good for you.

[1:59:02] No.

[1:59:02] You don't want to get the damp in.

[1:59:05] You don't want to let the damp come in.

[1:59:06] Before we sign off, Glenn,

[1:59:08] Do you want to plug anything in particular?

[1:59:09] Well, I listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour.

[1:59:14] It's bigger and better than ever.

[1:59:15] It's now daily.

[1:59:16] And I'm having a ball with that.

[1:59:20] I'm writing a book that's coming out in June.

[1:59:22] Actually, why did I say that?

[1:59:24] The book's written.

[1:59:24] It's coming out in June.

[1:59:25] No, no, continue the illusion that you're writing it up to the moment of release.

[1:59:30] It's a guide to how to conceive and launch a podcast with a lot of NPR voices.

[1:59:38] And it's written on behalf of NPR.

[1:59:42] It's called the NPR Startup Guide.

[1:59:43] And, yeah, that's coming out at the end of June.

[1:59:47] Yeah, this is a really funny way for you to ask us to be interviewed for that book, Glenn.

[1:59:52] Yeah, it seems like you...

[1:59:54] It's already written, you say.

[1:59:57] I'm telling you, I would have, but it's just NPR People.

[2:00:02] It's a company book.

[2:00:04] I'll have to do my own.

[2:00:07] Okay, well, thank you for being here.

[2:00:10] Thank you, listeners, for being here as well.

[2:00:12] Why don't you go on over to MaximumFun.org.

[2:00:16] Check out the other great podcasts over there.

[2:00:19] Tweet about us.

[2:00:21] Spread the word.

[2:00:22] Write a review on iTunes.

[2:00:23] Please make it nice.

[2:00:25] If not, what's the point?

[2:00:27] Do you really want to take your time doing that?

[2:00:29] But until next time, for The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[2:00:33] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[2:00:34] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[2:00:36] I also want to thank our editor, Jordan Cowling.

[2:00:38] I know Dan was meant to do that, but the hay fever got to his head.

[2:00:40] That's okay.

[2:00:41] I'm about to sneeze.

[2:00:42] But a special thanks to our special guest.

[2:00:45] And I'm Glenn Wilden.

[2:00:47] Bye.

[2:00:48] Bye.

[2:00:57] real quick

[2:01:01] watch me pace this

[2:01:01] pathetic palooka

[2:01:02] with a powerful

[2:01:03] paralyzing perfect

[2:01:03] pachydermic percussion

[2:01:05] pitch

[2:01:05] yep

[2:01:06] we're good

[2:01:07] I like that you guys

[2:01:09] have your own warm ups

[2:01:09] you have a real

[2:01:10] tongue twister

[2:01:11] and Dan sneezes

[2:01:12] yeah that's right

[2:01:13] maximumfun.org

[2:01:19] comedy and culture

[2:01:20] artist owned

[2:01:21] audience supported

Ep. #336 - Supergirl, with Glen Weldon

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