Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour Superman And What's Making Us Happy About this episode After much anticipation, there is a pretty great new Superman movie. And he's bringing exactly what we look to him for: hope. Writer and director James Gunn and new Man of Steel, David Corenswet, team up for a new tale of the eternal struggle between evil billionaire megalomaniac Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and some people in colorful costumes who combine all their powers to stop him. And this time, there's a dog.
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0:00 Speaker 00 This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.
0:19 Linda Holmes? Heroes come and go, but there is only one Superman. By which we mean there have been many Supermans, super-men. And now, after much anticipation, there is another. And he's bringing exactly what we look to him for: hope.
0:34 Speaker 02 Writer and director James Gunn and new Man of Steel David Corenswet team up for a new tale of the eternal struggle between an evil billionaire megalomaniac and some people in colorful costumes who combine all their powers to stop him. And this time, there's a dog. I'm Glen Weldon.
0:50 Linda Holmes? And I'm Linda Holmes. And today, we're talking about Superman on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is writer Chris Klemic. Hello, Chris.
0:59 Speaker 03 Hello, Linda. It's not a bird, it's not a plane, it's just me. Hello.
1:03 Linda Holmes? Yeah, that's right. So James Gunn worked on, among other things, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad. Not the first one, not Suicide Squad, but The Suicide Squad. David Corenswet looks like he was born to play the role of Clark Kent slash Superman. You might know him mostly from supporting roles in movies like Twisters. His Lois Lane, played by Rachel Brosnahan, knows all about his dual identity. And she's concerned because, as the movie begins, he's not all that popular. It seems he intervened in an international conflict, and the fallout from that has made people doubt him, both at home and abroad. Pulling many of the strings is, of course, Lex Luthor, played by a very bald Nicholas
1:45 Linda Holmes? Holt, and written here as a ruthless bigot who's not above stoking people's fears that a man from another planet cannot possibly be here to help. The film is in theaters now. Glenn, tell me, you, I believe, wrote a book in 2013 called Superman, The Unauthorized Biography.
2:03 Speaker 02 I did.
2:03 Linda Holmes? And I am wondering, do you have any feelings about this version of Superman at all?
2:09 Speaker 02 I do, and they're pretty much mostly all pro. I mean, the thing I want out of any Superman film, any superhero property, but a Superman film in particular, is I want to feel moved, to cheer.
2:22 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
2:23 Speaker 02 To feel that surge of elation, or that vicarious joy that moves you, to cheer and to clap. And when you're in a crowded theater and that happens, you remember it for the rest of your life. You know, Avengers Endgame had On Your Left. I felt that same surge several times in this film. Now, I wasn't always cheering for Superman. Sometimes I was cheering for other characters. There's a character named Mr. Terrific, who's one of this kind of corporate-funded super team called The Justice Gang. He's played by Eddie Giffeggi. He gets a moment to shine. Mostly, mostly I was cheering for the dog. Crypto, the breakout character of 2025.
2:59 Linda Holmes? Crypto the dog. And I gotta tell you, Glenn, you know, you are the reason why I knew about Crypto the Dog before this movie. Because the book, your book, goes into some detail about your love of crypto.
3:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, it went into a lot more detail before my editor said, nobody cares about the dog. This movie proves him wrong.
3:16 Linda Holmes? It's true.
3:17 Speaker 02 I think this movie delivered on its promise. You know, this doesn't have the sweep and the epic scope of the 1978 Richard Donner film. Because that film spent a lot of time establishing the myth, the John Ford landscapes of Krypton in Kansas and the Arctic. And a lot of people, like Linda, wrong people, found all the Krypton stuff boring. But he did that because Donner needed to place this in that reality so that you will believe a man can fly. He had a big, very similar swing. Very similar to it, exactly. Was a watchword there. This doesn't bother with any of that, as you mentioned, because it doesn't need to. He's established, he's dating Lois, Luther hates him, let's go. I'll say more about this later, but I do think this movie gets Superman in a really essential way that recent attempts really haven't. But yeah, pro, all pro.
3:59 Linda Holmes? Awesome. Me too. And I also do think that this movie, in addition to understanding Superman, understands dogs.
4:09 Linda Holmes? All right, Chris, you are, as we speak, the listeners unfortunately don't know this, but you do have a Superman shirt on.
4:15 Speaker 03 I do.
4:15 Linda Holmes? I know you have some fondness for Superman, the character. How did you come down on this version?
4:21 Speaker 03 You know, I'm pretty high on this movie and I might go higher on it. This is another one where I know I will have an ongoing relationship with
4:28 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
4:29 Speaker 03 this film. And I think this is the kind of really good, but not euphorically satisfying movie that is like so reactive. And I guess maybe crypto is the thing that I'm about to say is missing. But I think this gave us everything that we've been saying we wanted, but maybe nothing that we didn't know we wanted. You know, that sort of extra element of magic.
4:53 Linda Holmes? I hear you.
4:54 Speaker 03 It's impossible not to receive this in a way that's just reactive to the criticism of prior attempts. I mean, this movie is bright. This movie is optimistic. This movie is shamelessly goofy. This movie is short. You know, this movie is barely over two hours.
5:07 Linda Holmes? For this kind of movie, it is short.
5:08 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah. It's like they took
5:10 Linda Holmes? Relative to recent years.
5:11 Speaker 03 All of our notes. And I love that it kind of starts in media res, like the world already knows about Superman. Lois already knows that Clark and Superman are one in the same. We skipped over all of that. I think that was a very smart choice and I like that they didn't even feel the need to backfill that in exposition. You know, Clark, when you told me that you weren't none of that, you know, I really appreciate.
5:30 Linda Holmes? You don't really know how she found out or how it went.
5:32 Speaker 03 Right, which is that, I mean, in the earlier, you know, this is part of the saga of the Donner Lester Superman, where basically depending on which edit of Superman 2 you're watching, Lois is either very shrewd or kind of dumb. You know, so. Yeah, so I love all of that stuff. But yeah, like I know, this sounds so ungrateful and I, maybe crypto is the thing. It lets it be a joke a lot of the time. There's a dialogue scene between Superman and Lois where just in the background of the frame, Guy Gardner, the jackass Green Lantern from the Justice Gang, is just hitting some floating disembodied alien eye with like a big green
6:08 Linda Holmes? Yes, I heard you laughing.
6:09 Speaker 03 laser hammer or something. And that bit just goes on and on and on. Somehow does not conflict with the emotional substance of the conversation that's happening between Lois and Clark in front of it.
6:18 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
6:19 Speaker 03 So I like all that stuff and I will probably warm up to this thing over time. I'm very high on it now, you know, I wanted to be a little more surprised than I was and I want a little bit of the grandeur. And for all of its problems, Man of Steel does have the grandeur. There's a lot of things wrong with that movie, we all agree. But like the moment when Superman figures out that he can fly and we get a new variation, not a variation, an entirely new theme, a Hans Zimmer Superman theme, that's not the John Williams one I love so much. And this movie, for all it does right, does not have anything quite as stirring as that. So that's what I missed.
6:53 Linda Holmes? Hmm, I don't know if I agree with that, but I get what you're saying. I personally am glad that what they are using here is a sort of an adaptation of the John Williams music, not exactly the same. I was wondering whether at some point we were going to hear just the straight on John Williams theme and they didn't do that. But they do adapt it and you hear the themes from it kind of over and over again through the movie. I really liked this. I think, you know, we've already mentioned Guy Gardner played with great relish by Nathan Fillion with the worst haircut of his career.
7:29 Linda Holmes? And I think Mr. Terrific is really a fun character. I think they have a lot of fun with that guy. I was not expecting to kind of be enamored of them. I think Hawk Girl, who's played by Isabella Marsette, is probably the member of that kind of little group that gets the least to do. But I still, I mean, I think she does fine. I think she does fine with what there is there. I feel like there are some choices in here that I thought were interesting. I was not expecting Five Years Time by Noah and the Whale to be a song underscoring a battle. I thought that was a really interesting idea. And um, I appreciated that. I also, I mentioned this to Glenn after we watched it.
8:12 Linda Holmes? You know, I appreciate that there are kind of a variety of aesthetics in this film, a variety of environments that doesn't kind of give you that heavy gray, sort of all one thing feel that I got from Man of Steel. The only thing I remember about Man of Steel, and I'm not saying this is all there is, I'm saying the only thing that stuck with me was gray. Gray, gray, gray, gray, gray. And in this film, you know, you get some Kansas. By the way, I think Pruitt Taylor Vince, who plays his father, really does a nice job with this part. They have a really nice scene with him laying out some themes in a way that could seem very clunky, but I think is pulled off so well that it ends up working. But
8:56 Linda Holmes? you get some Kansas, you get a kind of an other worldly place that they end up having fights. You get a lot of Metropolis fighting. You know, they kind of mix up the sections. Now, if I have, you know, there are some things that are inherently difficult about the Superman story. You know, Glenn and I talked also about the fact that when Superman goes and interferes in this international incident, this conflict exists between a sort of a poor country where the people are not white and a big militarized force of, as near as we can tell, kind of white soldiers. The optics of that are complicated when you know, the people who are being attacked are yelling for Superman. But to me, that
9:38 Linda Holmes? is a white Superman saves the world problem. Because if you're going to be honest about the people who tend to be imperiled by somebody like Lex Luthor, it's not going to be, you know, a thriving Western European country, probably, right? And so I think part of this is, it's not that it's not a thing, it's that it's inherent to Superman, right? And I don't know that there's a good way to completely avoid it. It did make me twitch a little bit, and I think it will make other people twitch. With that said, I think there's a lot to recommend this movie. I love the fact, and you guys touched on this, but I love the fact that it starts with this layout of text. It's not even really a crawl. It's just like a card.
10:24 Linda Holmes? And it's three, whatever ago this happened and three this happened and it goes through it and I realized this is why this movie is two hours long. In other versions of this, they would take an hour of movie, a literal hour of movie, and show everything that's on that card. And some people would prefer that. I personally would not prefer that. I like, let's start this story where it becomes emotionally complicated, which I think is what they do.
10:54 Speaker 02 Yeah. I would just underscore something that you both have touched on, which is that this movie doesn't give us a lot we haven't seen before. But when it hits those beats, it hits them cleanly. This movie is often corny. There are speeches here like what your actions make you, who you are, not.
11:12 Linda Holmes? Love it.
11:12 Speaker 02 Uh, there's a speech toward the end where he talks about being, you know, human.
11:17 Linda Holmes? Love it.
11:17 Speaker 02 That is corny. The first word out of David Corn sweat Superman's mouth in this film. He mutters it to himself under his breath, having just had his butt handed to him. It's golly. And that's when I relaxed and that's what I said to myself. All right. Cause coming into this, I've loved some James Gunn stuff. I've hated some James Gunn stuff. Chris and I texted each other when he was announced because glibness is what he brings to a lot of his superhero stuff. And glibness is kryptonite. It kills Superman. So Superman is corny. He's an ideal. He's the best we can aspire to. Past attempts to make him quote unquote relatable have made him only darker and brooding. That's not who he is. And that's what I think this movie gets right.
11:58 Speaker 02 I agree with you that brown people being used as props to underscore how villainous our white villain is, that felt like a vestigial tale. That felt like a hole over from the seventies and eighties.
12:09 Linda Holmes? I agree.
12:09 Speaker 02 It doesn't belong in this movie. There's no reason for it.
12:12 Speaker 03 I, I don't know. I like, I don't think the film is entirely unconscious of, of that.
12:18 Linda Holmes? No, I don't think it's unconscious of that at all. I, I think one of the things that made the open, probably the first hour of this film hard for me to watch is that, you know, you are watching. Lex Luthor really capitalized on people's fear of people who are different from them. You are seeing the military decide to essentially outsource detainment and capture of its enemies to this private company run by this evil billionaire who, you know, runs a gigantic, as it turns out, private prison. Yeah. And there is a lot here that is hard for me to watch right now. And it made me feel kind of, I felt like there better be a big payoff here and I better,
13:01 Linda Holmes? because I, and I think part of this is down to Nicholas Hoult, who I think really manages to make Lex Luthor, he both is what Lex Luthor usually is and is kind of even worse than that because he has a sort of slickness that you didn't really see in the Jesse Eisenberg one, right? Where the whole thing was that he was kind of awkward but evil, right?
13:26 Speaker 03 He does have a moment of shocking violence from Lex Luthor that, I mean, and it lands exactly where it should. It's not excessive. It's not handled, you know,
13:34 Linda Holmes? Right.
13:34 Speaker 03 callously.
13:35 Linda Holmes? I think that he, I think that Holt is really able to play Lex Luthor as an evil guy that feels so close to an evil guy we might really run into that it feels like, yes, this is the kind of thing that I am afraid of. The way that he is able to manipulate via television and social media, there's a great joke, kind of a joke, kind of a horror thing about angry social media posting that I'm not going to spoil.
14:05 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's fun.
14:05 Linda Holmes? It's awesome. So I appreciated where Holt came down, I think, on Lex.
14:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, who's having a better career than Nicholas Hoult? I mean, that guy, what a, what a run that guy is having.
14:15 Speaker 02 But I'm really glad you brought this up, Lynda, because I wasn't thinking about this, but now you've articulated something. I think that every era gets the Superman it needs. Seventy Eight Film came out, post Vietnam, post Watergate. And this happens over the years. Whenever the ideals of what America supposedly stands for, justice for all, right? Whenever that feels the farthest away, you know, things like equality and safety and just the notion of defending the defenseless, right? Helping those in need. It is inspiring to be reminded in this very, you know, admittedly simplistic light of what those ideals can look like. Is it hokey? Is it corny? Is it cheesy? Yep. Because what we're dealing with is abject sincerity, right? This deep
14:57 Linda Holmes? Yes.
14:57 Speaker 02 feeling. And that speech I'm talking about, it's cornball, but it's an accurate reflection of who this character, not just is, but who this character has to be to work at all, right?
15:09 Linda Holmes? And also, I gotta say, like, when he explains, it's basically a conversation about what it means to be human. And I feel like, is it corny? It is. I also agree with it.
15:22 Speaker 02 See, that's important.
15:23 Linda Holmes? So it's like, and I am a corny person, I guess, but I also really believe that. And I think, not to keep going back to Glenn's book, but like, one of the things that I picked up from that and that I have picked up from other kind of pop culture histories, is that very often, the state of the world and what was on people's minds has always been part of the development of Superman. The fact that it's an immigrant story has always been part of what Superman is and sort of the way that the real world is, has always heavily influenced how these stories are told and how they're received. And so this one does too, I think.
15:59 Speaker 02 I mean, Gun in Promos has been talking about how Superman is an immigrant. That is not an opinion. That is not a take. That is not woke. That is a statement of fact.
16:06 Linda Holmes? Well, and it was intentionally done that way. You know what I mean? Like, that is part of the mythology on purpose, you know?
16:13 Speaker 03 Right. And I mean, how deep into the character are we when he's fighting the Klan? I mean, he's, the character's only been around for a few years at that point, right? This is the 40s. So this has always been part of the character.
16:22 Speaker 02 It's just, when we become enamored of the anti-hero, it's, it's good to be reminded that the best distinction between a hero and a villain is what you do with your power and privilege, right? If you use your power and privilege to help people, to put the needs of others above your own, like, say, your body is instructable to some of us, that's gonna be, well, I can get away with anything, and no one can stop me. Other people will think, the best use of my indestructible body is to act as a shield, to place it between innocent people and those who would do them harm.
16:50 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
16:51 Speaker 02 We get to see him in this film do exactly that again and again and again. I give so many extra points anytime we see superheroes actually saving individual lives.
17:00 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
17:01 Speaker 02 It's inspiring. Gonna say it. Gonna use the I word.
17:03 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
17:04 Speaker 03 I mean, that's another thing that felt, I mean, and I am entirely in favor of it, but that was one of the things that felt reactive to me. It's like, you know, James Gunn is listening to us and many others talk about Man of Steel 12 years ago and being like, you know, didn't Metropolis get flattened? How many tens or hundreds of thousands of people are dead in Metropolis as a result of this mass casualty superhero fight?
17:24 Linda Holmes? Right, sure. And I think, you know, this is a movie where, you know, they try to suggest that, for example, that people attempt evacuations so that you don't have to know what the body count is necessarily.
17:35 Speaker 03 And the people of Metropolis obey evacuation orders happily.
17:38 Linda Holmes? Right, absolutely. And the other thing I think is interesting, you know, you talk about him saving individual lives. The other thing I think's interesting is that you start with him in a moment of vulnerability and not in a moment of, you know, look what a hero he is, which is often where you start with Superman, is that you're introduced to him as he is, you know, floating in the air or something like that. Here, you do start with him having just lost a fight. He's bloody, he's bruised, he is clearly not invincible, right? That's the opening idea. And, you know, the last thing that I want to touch on is Rachel Brosnahan and her kind of take on Lois. I think the interesting thing about Lois in this is that she's really in this as his ally. And very often, I say this as
18:23 Linda Holmes? somebody who has always kind of embraced the romantic comedy elements of the Clark and Lois kind of story. The two big sections of that story are typically, when is she gonna find out he's Superman? When are they gonna get together? You meet them in this story already past both of those points.
18:42 Speaker 03 Right.
18:42 Linda Holmes? Which is a really interesting thing, I think. And I ended up kind of liking it. And I think there was some of this in the Zack Snyder take as well, but it means that she can kind of participate. And she takes a pretty strong hand in this film, and I appreciated that.
18:56 Speaker 03 Yep.
18:56 Linda Holmes? I think we all enjoyed Superman. I look forward to seeing it again. I encourage folks who like this kind of thing to enjoy it. Tell us what you think about Superman. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what's making us happy this week.
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20:36 Linda Holmes? Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy this week? Glen Weldon, what is making you happy this week, buddy?
20:44 Speaker 02 The actor Jeff Hiller.
20:46 Linda Holmes? Oh, yeah.
20:46 Speaker 02 If you listen to this show, you know him from the HBO series Somebody Somewhere. He plays Joel, but he's a guy who's been putting in the work for years. He has a new book, a memoir called Actress of a Certain Age, and it is very funny and very engaging and self-deprecating as hell. And not for nothing, it is knowing, and that's what I appreciate about it. He knows the cliches of celebrity memoirs. Each chapter is titled after a different celebrity memoir that he loves. And whenever he deploys one of those celebrity memoir cliches, which he does, you know, often, he does so by, you know, putting a hat on it. He warns you that it's coming and it kind of points out when it just passed. And as I say, every time I recommend a book by a performer, get the audiobook. He reads it. And, you know, whenever he says something funny, he does a little giggle, the little
21:31 Speaker 02 hee hee like that. And you think it would get old. It never does. It's always charming AF. That is Actress of a Certain Age by Jeff Hiller.
21:41 Linda Holmes? Yeah, there is also a wonderful interview that he did with our old pal Sam Sanders on The Sam Sanders Show that I highly recommend you listen to also. Big fan of both of those guys. All right. Thank you very much, Glen Weldon. Chris Klemick, what is making you happy this week, my friend?
21:56 Speaker 03 I refer you to the glorious, brand-new Criterion Collection reissue of William Friedkin's Sorcerer from 1977. It's one of the things I love, a sort of a famous flop. And history has kind of recorded this as well. It came out at the same time as Star Wars, which like this movie was never going to have the kind of appeal that Star Wars does. This is sort of a remake of The Wages of Fear. It's about four dead-enders who accept this basically suicide mission transporting a truck full of explosives through South America. It is one of those movies that recalls the thing that Soderbergh said about Mad Max: Fury Road, where you're like, how did they shoot this? How is no one dead? And apparently, when you look into this, this production was racked by weather disasters and accidents and all
22:39 Speaker 03 kinds of hazards that do find their way into the frame. So yeah, the danger that you're feeling as you watch this film is palpable and real. Not a lot of quips, not a lot of jokes, but it is a magnificent suspense film, available in superior presentation to any we've had available to us at home before. So the Criterion Collection 4K reissue of William Friedkin's Sorcerer, I recommend it.
23:05 Linda Holmes? All right. Thank you very much, Chris Klemick. On Disney+, you can find a documentary called Jaws at 50, which, you know, we've talked a little bit about Jaws and the fact that it is 50 years old. This is a new doc with, you know, lots of Steven Spielberg interview. I think for me, as somebody who is kind of a casual Jaws person, like I've seen Jaws, but I've never really immersed myself in the story of it, it was very interesting, not only to hear, you know, about just how cataclysmically badly the shoot of this movie went from a point of view of budget and time. You know, people didn't really have James Cameron-style operations at that time. They were really a film crew that just went out on the water in boats and tried
23:48 Linda Holmes? to shoot a movie. But also, I think Spielberg does a lot of reflecting in a way that's probably evolved over the course of his life about the traumatic experience of making that film, how it affected him, the kind of double-edged situation that he was in there, where on the one hand, it made his career, and on the other hand, it almost destroyed him as a person, I think. This is not the first documentary made about Jaws. You can tell when you watch it that it's not the first documentary about Jaws, because you're clearly looking at other footage from other interviews from other documentaries made about Jaws. Nevertheless, I think it does a really good job of talking about the legacy and the story, and I very much enjoyed it. And I don't think you have to be a super
24:33 Linda Holmes? fan of Spielberg or Jaws to enjoy it. Again, it is on Disney Plus, and it is called Jaws at 50. That is what is making me happy this week. All right. And also, this Sunday, in our podcast feed, we will have another monthly bonus episode for our Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus supporters. Stephen and Ayesha are talking about the movies that landed at the bottom of our Pixar poll, including the film that received zero votes. Place your bets. They have thoughts on thoughts. Sign up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happy. We will also have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Chris Klimick, Glen Weldon, thank you so much for being here. You are both superheroes
25:18 Linda Holmes? to me. Thank you, Lynda. Thank you. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Hufsa Fathama, and Mike Katsev, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. And Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next week.
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