The Superman Movie Rankings

Sean is joined by Van Lathan and Rob Mahoney to recap the opening weekend reaction to James Gunn’s ‘Superman.’ They share their final thoughts on the film, analyze the first weekend box office numbers, highlight why it performed significantly worse internationally than domestically, and hypothesize what the DCU could look like going forward (1:30). Then, they talk through every Superman movie ever made and rank them (32:40). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Van Lathan and Rob Mahoney Producer: Jack Sanders THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY THE STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY. ORDER NOW | STARBUCKS. COM/MENU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Starbucks. We are big Starbucks Frappuccino fans over here. So when we heard about the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage, we had to try it. It's a crave worthy iced blended beverage topped with cold foam, making for delicious layers of flavor.

• 0:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I love how Starbucks leans into the seasons, especially summer. From vibrant refreshers to cold blended beverages, there's always something exciting to sip on.

• 0:24Sean Fennessey?

  Available now for a limited time only, your Strato Frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks.

• 0:39Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fantasy and this is The Big Picture at Conversation Show about Superman. Again, joining me today to talk about James Gunn's Superman and to rank all the Superman movies, it's Rob Mahoney and Van Lathan. Couple of programming things. Last week on the show, Amanda and I broke down the movie in full, as did Van and the Midnight Boys on the Ringer versus as did Van and I on the House of R. So if you want to know what we think about the movie, you've heard it. There's roughly 14 hours of me and Van potting about it. But Rob Mahoney, I think you're the last living Ringer podcaster.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  This is true.

• 1:15Sean Fennessey?

  Who has not had a chance to weigh in on this film. So before we start getting into the box office and where this movie sits in the hierarchy of power in the Superman universe, you saw the movie Superman?

• 1:29Speaker 02

  I did.

• 1:30Sean Fennessey?

  Did you, what did you think? Did you like it?

• 1:32Speaker 02

  I just think it's really affirming when you see characters that are really important to you represented well on screen. And it's been a while, but they finally got Big Head Green Baby. Just right. They fucking nailed it. They aced it.

• 1:45Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. It's amazing that James Gunn knew exactly what you were looking for and he delivered. Do you care about Superman? Is he a character for you growing up in the movies? What's your relationship to him?

• 1:55Speaker 02

  He is a guy in the mix for me. So I grew up as part of the Lois and Clark generation, the Smallville generation as I was a teenager, like the DC animated stuff. Like that was kind of my entry point, you know, like Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, those kinds of things, more so than eventually finding the Reeve movies a little bit later. But I would say I'm definitively more of a Batman guy, but.

• 2:16Sean Fennessey?

  Superman can hang out. We can, we can do world's finest. We can do, I guess, Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice. And through that, I'm finding all these other entry points to some pretty good Superman stories here and there.

• 2:26Speaker 03

  You know what's interesting about that is I think that he was, all of those things that he's describing, all of those properties, it was a part of people's willingness or their want for Superman to not culturally expire. Because when the Reeve movies are coming along and when, you know, we're growing up in the eighties, Superman is still a very strong cultural force. Like a really strong cultural force. Then, you know, Batman's there. He's huge, big deal. But Tim Burton's Batman comes, that changes things. And that reorients DC and also reorients people's connection to those characters. And then it's kind of Batman first and it's Batman led for a long time.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Superman comes back to TV, then Smallville comes, and then a whole new generation of people kind of get into the Superman lore. But we might've been the last actual Superman generation to where our fathers, that was the biggest deal in the world for them and then they talked us into it.

• 3:26Sean Fennessey?

  Well, there's, there's a funny conversation that we could have that we are not prepared for, but I think is relevant to what we're discussing today, which is, you know, we've talked about the championship belt a lot over the years. Bill kind of developed this concept many years ago that like only one person can be holding the belt as the very best at a certain thing. He was often talking about the NBA. Shay Serrano's done this a lot. Chris and Andy do it about TV shows on the watch. What's the number one show right now in the consciousness overall? The superhero belt in terms of decades is really interesting. Cause like in the fifties, you do have a Superman TV show, but then in the sixties, you have a Batman TV show. And then in the seventies, you finally get a Superman movie. And then in the eighties, Superman reigns. And then in the nineties, Batman takes over.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 4:08Sean Fennessey?

  And then in the two thousands, I think it's Spider-Man. And then you get maybe X-Men, Iron Man's not till 2008.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Well, in the 2000s, it's Spider-Man, but then you get Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

• 4:20Sean Fennessey?

  Right. And then obviously, in the 21st century, we have this wave of superhero movies and properties. So it's a little bit harder to sort out that period of time. But I agree with what Van is saying, that when I was a kid, Superman was like Clorox or like Kleenex. Like, it was just like a part of the fabric of day-to-day life. In the 90s, my experience with Superman is basically entirely through Jerry Seinfeld.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  An adult man obsessed with Superman?

• 4:48Sean Fennessey?

  He loved Superman. He had routines about Superman in his stand-up act, and he often talked about him on the show Seinfeld.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:54Sean Fennessey?

  And Superman kind of went away with the exception of Lois and Clark. It's interesting that you were exposed to Lois and Clark.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Probably a little too young, but you know, I'm here for the Superman antics, and my parents are there for the Lois and Clark.

• 5:06Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right. That was a show that I watched with my parents, too, which is really interesting. The Superman stuff probably doesn't look very good these days if you go back and look at that show. Have you gone back and looked at that show?

• 5:14Speaker 03

  The Lois and Clark stuff?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  The Dean Cain stuff doesn't look very good, but what can you do?

• 5:16Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's a whole other conversation as well.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  Dean Cain aged against Superman. If you, people are pulling up all of the clips from that show where they're treating Superman like an illegal alien, and Superman is talking about the rights of people, and he's talking about what he's standing up for.

• 5:34Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, you think that being on that show blackpilled Dean Cain?

• 5:37Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no. I'm thinking.

• 5:38Sean Fennessey?

  That would be an incredible take.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  That would be, but no, that's all right. What I'm saying is, I don't think Dean Cain remembers the portrayal of Superman. Like, Lois and Clark were some coastal elites, or not coastal elites, coastal liberals.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  That really looked at the world.

• 5:54Sean Fennessey?

  Members of the media.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  Members of the media. And so people keep reminding him about this, and it's just funny to see.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Well, in fairness, if you did a pod 30 years ago, would you remember a single take that you had on that pod?

• 6:05Speaker 03

  It's probably gonna be the same stuff.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Does it recycle it?

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Kind of. I use different lenses to funnel in the kind of the same.

• 6:11Sean Fennessey?

  I am kind of re- I'm kind of hitting an endpoint, I think, in terms of like, stuff I got to share with you guys.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  I disagree.

• 6:18Sean Fennessey?

  I'm rounding into like, my second decade of this, and you, there's only so much material.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  That's true, but I mean, I find that you're having existential crises on this show all the time.

• 6:27Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  So you're hitting new depths to explore. Honestly, I think we're hitting new depths with Superman, too. Like, one thing I'm fascinated by, as we're talking about the timeline of when Superman was popular, when was he not? During my formative years, Superman was very lame. He was straight Boy Scout. I want the edge of Batman. I want the cool of X-Men. I want all that stuff. This movie supposes and implies and suggests, like, what if this is cool? Like, what if this version of emoting and caring and this kind of expression of power is cool for today? And if you're a teenage, especially if you're like a tween into teenager right now, I would love to know what their relationship is to this Superman movie. Like, is this a cool movie, or is this still a Boy Scout, like, story?

• 7:07Sean Fennessey?

  I've been thinking about that a little bit, too, because, you know, my perception of this Superman is very kind of pop punk, post emo, very sensitive, very thoughtful, very engaged with the world, very engaged with humanity. But that is also still not present day teenagers. You know, that is actually maybe more speaking to somebody that's your age, or even a little bit younger than you.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a direct hit, unfortunately.

• 7:27Sean Fennessey?

  Like, they, now the superhero movies that are being made by 60-year-olds are not being made for me and Van anymore. They're now being made for you.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  How do you feel about that?

• 7:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's fine. You know, I'm good with it. I can also tap back into how I felt when I was 30 or 15 pretty easily, I think. But I find it fascinating, because I, it's a really good point. Do teens like this movie? Which is kind of important for the DCU to really proliferate in the next 10 years? I don't know if, I don't know if you have anything else you want to say about the movie before we talk a little box office stuff, too.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  I mean, I think it is fun and bold and genuinely moving, which is something that, to me, is very important for a Superman movie. And it has all of, all the elements of a Superman story that I want, and a lot of things I didn't know you could do with a Superman story. So that you're able to- Pack all that stuff in and we can talk about the varying degrees to which they're successful or not. I know you guys already have talked about a lot of that. But I'm, I'm, I have incredible admiration for the fact that they tried so much, that James Gunn tried so much. That so much is packed in here as far as the messaging and the themes and the characters and introductions of world building. Like it all kinda worked for me, give or take a proton river or two. Like I, I think most of the stuff in this movie really, really works. Did you like corn sweat? I really loved him. I, I think they nailed kinda like the big three casting with Clark and Lois and Lex Luthor.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Like all three of those I think are knocked out of the park. Has not historically been the case for most Superman movies. I would say most of them get maybe two, sometimes one, sometimes zero, to be honest with you, as far as those three go. So the fact that all three were hitting at a really high level right off the bat. I understand what the relationships of these characters are. I'm understanding this articulation of Lex Luthor in a very specific and important way where he's like. And, and this is the thing about like the Gene Hackman Luther two, where he's just kinda like a, a weird terrorist living underground. I want the Nicholas Holt's untouchable quality to Lex Luthor, where he is the guy in the high tower. Superman needs to walk up to him and he needs to want to punch Lex Luthor and we need to want him to punch Lex Luthor. And he's not gonna do it.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Cause like the restraint is such an important part of this story. And I feel like a lot of Superman stuff misses out on that, but this movie certainly did not. It's a good point.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  It is. I think our relationship to guys like Lex has changed. And it actually evolved over the course of Lex's comic run. Obviously Lex starts off as this really brilliant corporate captain of industry who hated Superman and used all of his money and wealth and genius to do that. But you know what's funny? When I go back and watch movies from like past eras, captains of industry, titans, like really wealthy guys, were pretty much celebrated. Like it, it, they were, it was, it was always thought, what type of exceptional person?

• 10:16Speaker 03

  You would have to be to get to that perch, right? And it was kind of celebrated in movies. Of course, there was like the asshole rich guy in in in movies that existed. But I think about movies like The Edge with Anthony Hopkins, where he's this billionaire. And he knows everything and he's completely in control of all of these situations and all of this stuff. It's actually not till Superman three that there's like just somebody's complete corporate greed that kind of gets litigated. And then over time, Lex Luthor himself becomes the president in the comics. And it's like, that's the kind of guy that becomes the president. So now this version of Lex.

• 10:55Sean Fennessey?

  That would never happen in the real world, though, just in comics.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 10:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's just a comic story.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Now, this version of Lex that you're talking about, I think, is freer for examination than than it's ever been. And it makes that character a little bit easier because even as I was doing my rewatch, Kevin Spacey's Luther, like kind of a fast talking loser.

• 11:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  Right? Like a fast talking loser.

• 11:20Sean Fennessey?

  A con man.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  A con man, bright, brilliant, but takes advantage of an old lady and all of that.

• 11:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  It was really the Smallville re re sort of centering of that character that kind of got us to the point that we are at now.

• 11:33Sean Fennessey?

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• 12:18Sean Fennessey?

  Terms and conditions apply. I think part of that, obviously, there's a lot that has happened in the world in terms of the industry that he captains that I think makes him, in theory, more vulnerable to some of those criticisms and the way that we're framing him, like him being a tech billionaire specifically. That's a very loaded phrase in our modern time. More specifically, though, the like, real, the matching sensitivity of Lex and Superman, that in a movie, they both are like, kind of frail emotionally. Like, they're kind of, they're very unsure of themselves, and they're kind of, I don't think Superman overcompensates in this movie. Lex is really overcompensating in this new movie. But Superman is almost having to convince himself of certain things at times, which

• 13:03Sean Fennessey?

  is just like, maybe a slightly different emotional valence than we expect from these movies, where square-jawed Chris Reeve is...

• 13:10Speaker 03

  So confident in his good, so confident in his goodness. Like, so confident in his goodness that he nearly lets Lois die because he promised somebody that he was going to, he promised Tess Mochek that he was gonna save her, her mom in New Jersey first. Like, so confident. And this Superman isn't really confident at anything as much as I say, but it's also because he's continuously being questioned, which they never do for past Superman.

• 13:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very curious to see what the reception is of this movie over time. Like, not just will it continue to do well at the box office, but will it be warmly accepted? There's two components to judge that. One is the box office, and the other is the DCU movie. So let's just talk about that very quickly. So, this movie came in at $217 million worldwide, which I think is a little low. It did very well domestically. It made $122 million domestically. That puts it roughly where we expect a Superman movie to live in America. It's above Man of Steel slightly, 12 years later, and it's lower than Batman versus Superman, even though that was a huge event movie that we'd all been waiting to see for decades,

• 14:26Sean Fennessey?

  but then had a precipitous drop in the second week. So I think for, like, Warner Brothers... It did pretty well here. I thought it was gonna go to 150. I thought people were gonna go crazy, maybe just because of my own personal bias of really liking the movie. Yeah. Didn't quite get there. Probably a variety of reasons for that. I think there, you know, there's a Jurassic movie that's still doing well. There's an F1 movie that's still doing well. And also, I think like, you know, the right kinda like jumped on this movie and said, "Don't go see it." Yes, politics, yeah. And there's some politics to it that people are probably keeping some people away. Yeah. I think this is a good outcome for the movie. Now, overseas, there's two ways to look at it. It was light, man. It was light in a lot of places that you, that they thought they would do better. Very light. Europe, extremely light. Yeah. Now, what America represents in 2025 Yeah.

• 15:12Sean Fennessey?

  and the American ideal is very different than in 1978 or even in 2013. So, this movie's gonna struggle to get to some of those like 600, 700 million dollar thresholds. Sure. Yeah. And I guess that matters to what is and is not made over time. The next two movies that are confirmed for the DCU are Supergirl and Clayface. Those are much more modest propositions on a worldwide scale. So, it would be kinda fascinating if we had a comic book universe that was more like singles, doubles, and the occasional home run with very few desires to hit grand slams. I feel like the MCU set this precedent, and the DCEU kinda followed the precedent of like, "Yeah, we could just throw off a billion dollar movie."

• 15:53Speaker 02

  I feel like when that happens, you don't get this kind of messaging. Like frankly, this is the cost of doing this type of business. You wanna make a Superman movie that's overtly about immigration and Gaza, this is what happens. Like, there is going to be a cost in certain markets. As you say, there's a projection of Americanism in Superman that is distinct among every superhero. Like, I would say Superman is more American than Captain America is. It is truth, justice, and the American way. It's baked into the character. He like, he interacts with the American government in this movie and all these movies more than basically any other superhero does. They all have like fake dummy governments that represent whatever place that they're from, but this is like an American story.

• 16:31Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  And if it's an American story at a particularly turbulent American time, dealing with incredibly complex world issues, I think there are just gonna be some people who aren't gonna see it. As long as it creeps over the line of "Let's make more interesting things", I'm totally fine with it. I don't need the grand slams, frankly. And if we wanna play double baseball all day, I'm cool with that as long as you get runs on the board.

• 16:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. What do you think? Um, well, it depends on their approach to the movies that follow.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  If the movies that follow go, you know what? We need to make sure that these are the most four quadrant things that could possibly exist. Let's snatch a little bit of this stuff out, the real world critiques out. I would be disappointed. I'll be disappointed because the DCU has the opportunity to actually tell these stories the way they're told in comic books. And there are very few stories that are told in comic books that are not directly influenced by the world that we live in. Like, you see world leaders show up in these books sometimes. So I thought that the movie was pretty on the nose with some of the stuff that it was talking about. And I was surprised. But I also felt like it gave the movie some weight.

• 17:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, totally agree.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  It grounded it a little bit, and I was happy about that.

• 17:44Sean Fennessey?

  I was too. I wouldn't ask for less of that. Gunn in particular is, I say this as a compliment, a very strident filmmaker. He's very comfortable saying, this is what this movie is about.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:55Sean Fennessey?

  And I will make you understand in clear terms what it's about. And even in the press sometimes, I'll tell you what the themes are.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:01Sean Fennessey?

  I interview a lot of filmmakers. Many of them are very reluctant to do that. He always goes the opposite way. This is sometimes the downside of that. 122 million in the US is a huge success. Like, I'm not criticizing that. But it's not, we are far away from the $357 million opening of Endgame. I don't know if we're ever coming back to that. I'm sorry to the Ringerverse for that. But that feels like 50 years ago now.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  No, it's over. But it's also over because I think sometimes we underplay or under-discuss just how impressive the filmmaking experiment that the MCU was. To lead people throughout all those different episodes of the MCU, which is essentially what those movies are, to this. Grandiose final act where every single character, for the most part, gets their ending. There are a couple of new beginnings that we all were like, it's not gonna work. Even when we, even when we're in movies, we're like, I don't know where they're gonna go with that. But it was just very special.

• 19:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  Very special. And it kind of spoiled us a little bit. It went almost perfectly. And I don't know if, like, Secret Wars at this point, Doomsday at this point, they're just saying, hey, we're gonna throw everybody in a movie

• 19:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  and expect kind of the same results, but it, it wasn't the same lead.

• 19:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, they haven't built us up to something in the same way, obviously. So I do want to do some quick accounting on Warner Brothers, which at the beginning of the year was the punching bag of the punditry about how they're going to fail this year, and they are in fact currently the most successful movie studio. Maybe not from a pure dollars perspective, but in terms of the swings that they're taking and the fortune that they're reaping from exciting movies. So Minecraft movie, nine hundred and fifty-five million dollars worldwide so far. Sinners, three hundred and sixty-six million dollars worldwide. That's crazy. Maybe even crazier, Final Destination Bloodlines, two hundred and eighty-five million dollars.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Oh shit.

• 19:57Sean Fennessey?

  That's bananas.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:59Sean Fennessey?

  F1, three hundred and ninety-three million dollars and counting. Now, they just distributed that movie. They didn't produce it. Apple produced it, but still, that's a win for them. And now Superman two seventeen in one week. Only a couple more movies for them for the rest of the year. There's Weapons, very excited about that on this show. The Conjuring Last Rites, apparently the last Conjuring movie. Then there's One Battle After Another. Probably do an episode or two about it.

• 20:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:20Sean Fennessey?

  I can imagine. Seems important. I don't know if it's gonna make two hundred and eighty-five million dollars like Final Destination Bloodlines, but we'll see.

• 20:26Speaker 03

  What makes you say that?

• 20:27Sean Fennessey?

  You never know. You never know. If it does, we're, we're eating good.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  You throw a lawnmower and some class.

• 20:34Sean Fennessey?

  We are, we are getting filet.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  I love Ruth Chris.

• 20:36Sean Fennessey?

  Ruth Chris is fantastic.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Um, I'm scared of Weapons, guys. I don't know if I can do it. Weapons is freaking me out, man. I keep telling you this.

• 20:43Sean Fennessey?

  Terrifying.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Weapons is freaking me out. I don't even know what Weapons is about. But it, it, it, Weapons, you know what Weapons reminds me of? Just real quick, thirty seconds. Big pick audience, I'm sorry, I'm doing a van thing.

• 20:58Sean Fennessey?

  Don't, don't self actualize, just do it.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  So remember that movie The Ring?

• 21:02Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, yes.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  Alright, man. There was a show that came on BET called BET Uncut.

• 21:08Sean Fennessey?

  I know it.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  You know it very well. Alright, Rob, you know BET Uncut?

• 21:11Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, fill me in.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  It was exactly what it sounds like.

• 21:14Sean Fennessey?

  It sounds like a lot of things.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  BET videos.

• 21:16Sean Fennessey?

  After hours.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Uncut, after hours.

• 21:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  So I would watch BET Uncut, obviously. And the commercial for The Ring came on.

• 21:25Sean Fennessey?

  And it was, who was, who was going that was like too short video? Like who is really?

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Oh, this was.

• 21:30Sean Fennessey?

  Who's in the rotation?

• 21:30Speaker 03

  This was, so this might have, I don't think this was Tip Drill era, this was the.

• 21:34Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Tell me what that thing smell like era. I'm gonna kick it tonight. Uh, uh, uh, baby, tell me what that thing smell like? That was, that was the song. I promise you, Rob, that was the record. And, you know, it's late. And so the commercial for The Ring came on and that was a freaky commercial.

• 21:57Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  The little girl, she's crawling, the ring, I'm like, and a lot of times you're high. I'm like, yo, what the fuck is going on? I've never seen The Ring. I can't make myself watch.

• 22:09Sean Fennessey?

  You couldn't get there.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  I couldn't get there with the movie.

• 22:11Sean Fennessey?

  So you never saw it?

• 22:12Speaker 03

  I, I never saw The Ring.

• 22:13Sean Fennessey?

  It's very good. My, my guy Gore Verbinski.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  I never saw The Ring.

• 22:16Sean Fennessey?

  This show sounds like great content waiting to be made. Man watches The Ring.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  I never saw it, never saw it. And for some reason, Weapons is doing the same deal to me. Like Weapons is freaky, is kids, it's all of these really talented actors.

• 22:30Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Tells you that the script is good.

• 22:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 22:33Speaker 03

  If all of them are in it, normally that means it's a good scary script.

• 22:36Sean Fennessey?

  Supposed to be in it instead of Josh Brolin.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Who?

• 22:38Sean Fennessey?

  It was supposed to be Pedro Pascal, which would have been a lot of Pedro Pascal this summer.

• 22:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:43Sean Fennessey?

  And he dropped out.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Not mad at that switch, to be honest with you.

• 22:45Sean Fennessey?

  Me neither.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Relax.

• 22:46Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Weapons, we're very hopeful here on the big picture. And then the last movie that WB has is Mortal Kombat 2. Oh, sure.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  I'll do it.

• 22:54Sean Fennessey?

  I thought the first one was not great, but I weirdly think the second one will be great. Why do I feel that way? I don't know. I'm an idiot. I just have vibes.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Johnny Cage. You gotta have Johnny Cage.

• 23:03Sean Fennessey?

  There's, I thought you were saying Sean is a Johnny Cage type.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  A Mortal Kombat movie? The first Mortal Kombat movie was, it's got a special place in my heart because.

• 23:11Sean Fennessey?

  The original, the Paul W. S. Anderson one.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  No, that one is legitimately good. Okay.

• 23:17Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's not, but okay.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 23:19Sean Fennessey?

  It's fun.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  It's, that's legitimately good. Okay. But, uh, the one that came out a couple of years ago, it just, it was in the pandemic.

• 23:27Sean Fennessey?

  It was.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  I was ready for it and it was so stupid. But it just has a special place in my heart.

• 23:33Sean Fennessey?

  They're selling the new one on Johnny Cage so hard. Karl Urban will be Johnny Cage in this movie.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  I do love Karl Urban.

• 23:38Sean Fennessey?

  Poster. It's the, it looks like the name of the movie is Uncaged Fury. What's going on here?

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:44Sean Fennessey?

  This doesn't even say Mortal Kombat 2.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  Absolutely not. They, they.

• 23:47Sean Fennessey?

  Not interested.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  They, they teased Johnny Cage at the end of the movie.

• 23:49Sean Fennessey?

  I'm waiting for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. You know, can we get to the proper installment? I'm not fucking around.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Understood.

• 23:56Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, future of the D C U, aside from Supergirl and Clayface, you know, technically the Batman 2, they turned us, Matt Reeves turned a script in.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:04Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I think the first time we convened this panel, was it the first time or was the Nicholas Cage Hall of Fame the first time?

• 24:09Speaker 03

  It was one of the two.

• 24:10Sean Fennessey?

  So one of the two during the pandemic, we talked about the Batman and we ranked Batman movies. And so I thought it was right for us to come back together to do that. What form Batman is going to take is interesting. I heard a, I heard a rumor slash sourced rumor.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:26Sean Fennessey?

  Aggregate this. That I cannot share. That was very exciting to me.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:32Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you off mic.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 24:33Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I'm very sorry to the audience for that, but I just cannot share it.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Great podcasting right there, Sean.

• 24:37Sean Fennessey?

  That's called, uh, holding the information. I'm holding it for a later date. But, uh, I think what they decided to do with Batman is obviously pretty important with all this. Whether they can actually make characters like Lobo matter to movie going audiences, we shall see. Is there anything you'd really want to see? I, did you talk about this on your Midnight Boys episode? You didn't, right? Like, what is the D C U movie you really want?

• 25:01Speaker 03

  I think I I more so want to see characters than I'll want to see specific movies. I was really actually excited for the Authority movie, which it doesn't seem like is going to happen now. Uh, they were always really cool, even though the engineer is in this film. It doesn't seem like uh she is coming back as part of the Authority.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  She did survive the movie.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  She did survive the movie, which I thought that maybe there might be a turn for her at the end. But she was a little bit skeptical of Lex at certain points in the film.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  I think they set us up for that.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  A little bit, right? But I'm interested in Lobo. Uh, Clayface will tell me whether or not the DCU works. That's the movie to me, they'll tell you whether or not it works.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  This one, the fact that James Gunn can make a fucking awesome superhero, uh Superman movie. I always knew that, but.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Did you?

• 25:49Speaker 03

  I did.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  I remember you being so scared.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  I was scared once I saw the trailer.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Hmm. Before that, it seemed like it made sense.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, before that, it's like, oh, you need an earnest, sweet movie with a lot of spectacle. James Gunn.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  But now Clayface, it's such a swing and it's it's such a distinct and interesting project to even either even take on. That tells me whether or not their world has form and shape.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. Honestly, I'm really looking forward to the Damon Lindelof lanterns show.

• 26:19Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Yeah.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Uh, Green Lantern, a character like, again, is kind of like in the mix for me, but not like one of my guys distinctly. So I'm very curious to see what they do with a variety of lanterns in that context. Obviously, we get one here in Superman two. Actually, I was really pleasantly surprised and heartened to see Hawkgirl in this movie. A character who I know, again, mostly through the Justice League animated show. And is a really cool character in the context of that show. And I just assumed like would never really be on screen in a meaningful way in a movie. And so the fact that she can be done well in a movie, I think is it bodes very strongly for what they could do with some of these minor characters. Now, can they hold their own movie in the way that like, I'm sure they hope that Clayface will and hope that a Lobo will?

• 27:00Speaker 02

  We'll see about that, but incorporating some of these world building elements, I think so far has gone more smoothly than I would have imagined.

• 27:06Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very curious to see if they market Clayface as an as a hard DCU movie or as just a movie along the lines of The Conjuring. Like, it's directed by James Watkins, it's written by Mike Flanagan. These are horror filmmakers.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:19Sean Fennessey?

  And they might just position the movie in like a. DCU dark, like there might be a kind of like sub-universe in which they can make fifty to seventy-five million dollar movies that don't have to make eight hundred million dollars to justify themselves. I would love that. I was asking for that from the MCU a long time ago while understanding that they were building towards these epic events. That's part of the fun of comic books is like not every comic book needs to be, you know, the infinity crisis or whatever, like it doesn't, they don't have to be these like lead-ups to something. Anyway. Do you remember how we ranked the Batman movies? Do you want, do you want to hear how we did it some years ago?

• 27:54Speaker 02

  I would love to hear it.

• 27:56Sean Fennessey?

  There were fourteen Batman films at that time. I think there are still only fourteen Batman films if you don't include those animated films that you're talking about.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  Other than that, I remember we did Mask of the Phantasm. That one's a theatrical.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Fucking fantastic.

• 28:07Sean Fennessey?

  Anything related to Batman, the animated series that was theatrical, we would do. So fourteen, well, first of all, three of these movies will come up again today in our rankings. Batman and Robin was fourteen. R.I.P. Joel Schumacher. Justice League, directed by Joss Whedon, was thirteen.

• 28:24Sean Fennessey?

  Batman, the Superman, Dawn of Justice was twelve. The Snyder Cut was eleven. The nineteen sixty-six Batman movie.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:36Sean Fennessey?

  Was ten, a movie I really liked.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  It's good.

• 28:39Sean Fennessey?

  The Lego Batman movie was nine.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Too high.

• 28:43Sean Fennessey?

  Batman Forever was eight. Mal would kill you if she heard you say that.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  It's not a funny movie. I don't.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  You don't think he's funny? I think we talked about it.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  It just didn't work for me.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  You know, and so if you've got.

• 28:53Sean Fennessey?

  I'd be sitting at nine because of you.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  I think it probably was. If you've got a joke a minute movie and the jokes aren't landing, I just feel like I'm being humbled at a certain point.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Watching Batman eat lobster thermidor. It's like unreal. He's hysterical to me.

• 29:06Sean Fennessey?

  Number seven is The Dark Knight Rises. Very silly movie. Maybe funnier than Lego Batman movie. Number six is Batman Begins. Number five is Mask of the Phantasm. Number four was The Batman. Number three was Batman Returns. Number two was Batman and number one was The Dark Knight.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Are you guys ready to admit that Batman Returns is better than Batman eighty-four yet? Are you, are you ready to put the proverbial bird in your mouth, ala Catwoman?

• 29:31Sean Fennessey?

  You don't know.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  And just swallow it down?

• 29:33Sean Fennessey?

  You weren't there. You don't know.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  I know which movie's better. I remember arguing about it. I still am quite upset and I just, I feel like a residual frustration in my chest with the two of you.

• 29:43Sean Fennessey?

  I don't want to generationally other you, but I will. And you weren't there.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  It's tough.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's not better, but for some reason, it's not better. It's, it's not better. But because Nicholson, bruh. Like it's, it's, it's, it's not better.

• 29:58Sean Fennessey?

  Prince.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. It's, it's not better.

• 30:01Sean Fennessey?

  Jack Nicholson participated in Batman.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Jack Nicholson participated for eight minutes.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  He was fucking cooking in that movie.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  But it is.

• 30:11Sean Fennessey?

  He got paid so much money to do that movie. And what'd he get, like 10% of the gross or something?

• 30:15Speaker 03

  And first dollar.

• 30:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Over a top dollar. Yeah. Over there. But it, I will say that Batman Returns is the more contemporary story of the two.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Oh, it's, it's Trump.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  It's, yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  Oswald Cobblepot.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  Batman Returns is the more contemporary story of the two.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Precient.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. It like did, the, the first one is a better, uh, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a better movie to me, but when I watch, I can connect more to Batman Returns, watching it right now than the original Batman.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  I appreciate that Olive Branch fan. Thank you.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. Keep it real.

• 30:46Sean Fennessey?

  I offer you nothing.

• 30:49Sean Fennessey?

  Superman rankings. I'm gonna list the movies that we're gonna rank today and I think we should talk about each of them with some care.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Can we go, before we leave, you know, it's a, before we leave Batman, real quick, like we leave Batman, leave Crime Alley?

• 31:04Speaker 03

  There is a discussion to be had

• 31:08Speaker 03

  about, that I think the nerds will back me up, about The Dark Knight Rises versus Matt Reeves, the Batman.

• 31:17Sean Fennessey?

  Now, we, we did do this ranking in the immediate aftermath of the Batman.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:24Sean Fennessey?

  The Dark Knight Rises is very silly.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 31:27Sean Fennessey?

  It has cool stuff in it.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:29Sean Fennessey?

  We did, we were-

• 31:30Speaker 03

  Ridiculously cool stuff. Like, like shit that's so fucking cool that, like, Bane's interest into that movie is-

• 31:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's great.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  It's so fucking cool.

• 31:40Sean Fennessey?

  Incredible.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  It's like shit that's so cool that you go, okay, all the pilot. But like, it, it, it, but it's like really cool shit.

• 31:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  I think there's an, an argument there. I still would have Reeves' Batman a little bit over it. Charles would not. He loves The Dark Knight Rises. And I think The Dark Knight Rises is, it's got some momentum with the people right now.

• 32:00Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting. Are they familiar with the back half of that movie?

• 32:04Speaker 03

  They are, and they like it, which is, it, it, it-

• 32:07Sean Fennessey?

  It's a pretty terrible third act, in my opinion.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Quite, quite bad.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Look, all I'm saying is, there, there are a lot of people who are looking at Bane. They're looking at Batman's, uh, arc in the movie.

• 32:20Sean Fennessey?

  I'm looking at Catwoman.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  I was about to say.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Looking at Catwoman.

• 32:23Sean Fennessey?

  There's something all of us were looking at, I think, in that movie.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  She's fantastic in it.

• 32:26Sean Fennessey?

  She's very good.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  The movie was, it was-

• 32:29Sean Fennessey?

  Glenn Powell as a stockbroker?

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Sure. Concussion. It was received, to me, in a fair way, which is, this is a movie that, like, doesn't really work towards the end, but still, there's, the Robin thing is stupid and all of that.

• 32:43Sean Fennessey?

  I like, I, I actually liked the, like, setup and reveal, but it was annoying, knowing this would never happen. Like, even watching the movie in real time, I was like, there will never, this guy will never be back. Like, no one's ever making another one of these movies. They're not gonna continue this universe, and they didn't.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Right. But I think that the movie's aging really well, and people are reexamining it. I don't know why. Maybe because it's on cable so much, I'm not sure.

• 33:01Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  It's very rewatchable.

• 33:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  In a, in an idol, like, I can just walk out of the room for 20 minutes during the back half, like, that genre of movie. I think it's quite successful.

• 33:10Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. We did a watch-along on this show of the movie, because it's just a fun to watch. It, whether it's good or not is debatable. I think also how The Batman 2 is and what Reeves does in the future will probably help determine some of the, these rankings in the future.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Certainly.

• 33:23Sean Fennessey?

  But we're not, we're not doing Batman right now.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 33:24Sean Fennessey?

  We're doing Superman. Um-

• 33:28Sean Fennessey?

  There have been a lot of Superman movies, probably not too many yet. I think there's, it'll be interesting to see how many movies either James Gunn or the DCU decides to focus on Superman. When we were kids, there were four straight Superman standalone movies. And I don't know if it was Zack Snyder or Warner's or whatever, kind of blinked in that era and immediately was like, not another Superman movie, it's gotta be Superman and other stuff. And that's quite fascinating and even different from what the MCU has largely done. So you've got technically five, but literally four Superman movies from the Reeve era. We will be talking about the Donner Cut here on this episode.

• 34:10Sean Fennessey?

  One Brandon Ralph movie from 2006, directed by Bryan Singer. Then the Henry Cavill era, there is Man of Steel, Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League and Zack Snyder's Justice League. We will not be addressing the ultimate cut of Batman v Superman, which has an additional 30 minutes of footage that I have not watched in preparation for this episode and will not watch probably ever. And then now we have David Corn sweat era, James Gunn Superman. How many movies is that?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  11.

• 34:38Sean Fennessey?

  11 movies. Okay. You've talked a lot about the Christopher Reeve era. The first two films are directed by Richard Donner, one of the signature Hollywood directors of the 70s and 80s, you know, responsible for the Leith Weapon franchise, The Omen, number of really good movies. Inside Moves, big Bill Simmons movie that Chris Ryan refuses to watch for the rewatchables. Conspiracy Theory, he directed that movie.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  I remember that.

• 35:08Sean Fennessey?

  Julie Roberts, Mel Gibson, have you seen it, Rob?

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Have not.

• 35:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's about 4chan. So is Superman, it turns out, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of posting happening. There's a lot of posting. So you came to the Reeve movies later.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  A little later. Like I would say I watched the first two in my later teenage years and I had heard the third and fourth ones were so bad, like, don't even bother watching them. Came to those a little later in life. I have differing opinions on them to some extent, but yeah, the first two I was not as locked in as I was on Batman, but early enough to kind of have it be a semi-formative part of the experience.

• 35:44Sean Fennessey?

  So for me, the first Superman movie. And this is not a criticism, is at the very top of the second tier of 70s blockbusters.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:54Sean Fennessey?

  The first tier is very clearly Jaws.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 35:57Sean Fennessey?

  Star Wars. There's a handful of movies that are so totemic, that are so impactful in my life. That Superman doesn't get over those, but it's right below those.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:09Sean Fennessey?

  Because I watched it all the time from four to 12. Reeve is Superman to me, will always be Superman to me. And the movie did something that I think was very smart that other filmmakers have tried to do, but have struggled to do with this character, which is that they cast a lot of really, really good actors to elevate the material. Zack Snyder tried to do this too, and it didn't work quite as well. But when you look back on those movies now and you see Marlon Brando's face, and he's kind of terrible in Superman, but it doesn't matter because he has so much gravitas.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:44Sean Fennessey?

  That you're convinced that even though he's pronouncing the word krypton instead of krypton, you still kind of buy it.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  He has that like Alec Guinness in Star Wars effect.

• 36:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  Where it's like credibility, like immediately right off the bat, like he's so featured so early in the movie and then like robbed out of the second one. But like he does bring a sort of like a sense of legitimacy and grounding to it for sure.

• 37:06Speaker 03

  And he was the father of acting for that time.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  He was everybody's dad. He, and so seeing him, he was legitimately the father of the greatest film that's ever been made.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  So him going from Vito Corleone.

• 37:22Sean Fennessey?

  Island of Doctor Moreau, you're talking about?

• 37:25Speaker 03

  It's a Van classic, by the way.

• 37:26Sean Fennessey?

  I'll bet it is, yeah.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  It's a Van classic.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  I'm worried about you, Van.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  It's a Van classic. To him being Superman's dad, it just made sense.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:37Sean Fennessey?

  You know who didn't really respect it is Christopher Reeve.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  He fucking killed him.

• 37:41Sean Fennessey?

  He really did not like him and talked about it publicly about how he did not work hard on this movie.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  So you.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  When I saw that for the first time, it made me respect Reeve so much more. He did that on David Letterman.

• 37:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Just ripped Brando a new one. That is something that would never happen now, like never. And it didn't seem uncomfortable for anyone. He was just talking his shit.

• 38:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  And I'm like, he must really have had an odd or bad time with this guy.

• 38:13Sean Fennessey?

  I think I had seen that before, but seeing it in the recent Christopher Reeve doc that came out last year is, it's bracing. And Reeve, that's an interesting portrait of him as a man and the kind of the positives and the struggles that he had and the way that he got a little big for his britches too, when he was Superman and like his relationship to his family. Very interesting movie. But he's not really portrayed as like a braggadocious A-list movie star. He actually seems relatively humble about his work. So for him to have done that, he must have really hated Brando.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:45Sean Fennessey?

  Superman holds a very special place for me. Do you agree with that A-tier thing or is this movie over those others to you?

• 38:50Speaker 03

  No, I have to agree with it. And it's funny because in the research, they wanted Spielberg maybe to have a shot to direct this movie. But after Jaws, they couldn't get him. So they just, they thought he was out of reach. So it showed that there were tiers to it. Donner was obviously a big director, a big get for them. The movie and the production of it is almost itself deserves a documentary or a film made about that. But no, it's certainly under those movies. But it is unique in that it is proof of concept to big budget superhero storytelling in a very direct way. It's legitimately the father of all the other films.

• 39:33Sean Fennessey?

  It is like Patient Zero. It's the thing that kicked every, I think it is really the thing that kicked everything off. Like without this movie, we're not in this place right now. Superman two, I think the Lester cut is fine and it's what I grew up watching. The Donner cut is like roughly 15 minutes shorter, tighter. It's a little bit hard to evaluate because there's ADR and there's some like special effects stuff. That's not as sharp as you would want it to be and you would expect if he remained on the film. But he was fired from it and replaced by Lester, who I think to that point was probably best known for like the Three Musketeers movies. And then before that, the Beatles films, Hard Day's Night and Help and stuff like that.

• 40:13Sean Fennessey?

  I unequivocally love the, this movie. So I don't, even the two cuts, like it's not even like a problem area for me. It's not, we were discussing the idea of like the, which cut is better than the other history on House of R earlier? And it's gonna be hard to move past these two in these rankings. It's kind of interesting that they're almost 40 years old.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  I know.

• 40:35Sean Fennessey?

  And they still feel like maybe the purest conception of the character.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Superman two is fucking amazing, man. It's just, it's, it's, it's fucking amazing. The first movie is proof of concept to the fact that you can make a man fly. The second movie is proof of concept that you can make people care about not super, but man. By overwhelming him with forces, by making him contend with the legacy of his family and the past of his planet. Depowering him, repowering him is, it's just a really fucking good movie.

• 41:15Sean Fennessey?

  There's a surprising choice that is made in the first movie of, you know, inserting Terrence Stamp, you know, Zod.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:22Sean Fennessey?

  And sending those three figures from Krypton to the Phantom Zone and then paying that off in the next movie? Which is that, is that the first kind of purposeful, not even Easter egg?

• 41:34Speaker 02

  That's the first Thanos, I'll do it myself.

• 41:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It's like, and it's a, it's not a stinger, it's a, it's a, it's a pre-stinger, you know? It's a little amuse-bouche before the, the meal of Superman two, which is kind of a fascinating. I mean, I'm sure they thought Superman would be successful, so it's a good idea to set something like that up. But in 1978, that was pretty bold.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  And it was kind of a double production, but also kind of not. I, I would say if you're gonna pick any nit with the first Superman, it's that it takes like an hour for Christopher Reeve to show up. And the second he does, that movie takes off.

• 42:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  And so it's like, do you need the Zod preamble and the Kryptonian justice system up top? Maybe you don't, but I, I admire that they were trying to seed that stuff so early.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  So the thing, first of all, I was gonna ask you this about the double production of movies. Had that happened before, because now we see it on, on film, that undertaking, them knowing that we are getting into a franchise here. That this is a franchise.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  Like we're getting into a franchise.

• 42:32Sean Fennessey?

  I can't think of one off the top of my head.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Um.

• 42:35Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sure there must've been some version of this, but.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  The thing that works about Superman one in terms of the beginning to me. The Krypton stuff is like, you watch it and you go, oh shit.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Alien. Like, I'm on another planet. Yeah. And I think to myself, for all of Man of Steel's problems, which it has a lot, the Krypton stuff in the movie is really well done to me. It tastes pretty good. Yeah, it is really well done.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  We'll come back to that. But, but when you watch that stuff and like, the, the, it's glowing and it's, and you're like, Yeah. Oh. He's riding a fucking dragon all of a sudden. No, I'm talking about the original Superman. Oh, okay, I thought you were talking about the original. It's kind of the same thing, but it's kind of the same thing, though. But like, when you watch that first movie and it's like, oh shit, and it's like the little baby that's walking through the thing, you're like, Jesus Christ, this is where he's from. And it's such a contrast to the world that we live in, that I think it was probably deeply, deeply curiosity inspiring for a lot of people who watched the movie. Yeah.

• 43:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Superman three. Trust me, I got a lot of Man of Steel takes. Superman three. Richard Lester stays on this project. I hadn't seen this movie in some time. And I think it's very silly. And yet I liked it. I didn't love it.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a little long. It's a little long. And it definitely wants to be Silver Streak? Instead of a Superman movie?

• 44:06Speaker 03

  It's a good call.

• 44:07Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like it wants to be a zany Richard Pryor movie and it kind of like won't let itself be a Superman movie for long stretches of time.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:16Sean Fennessey?

  But I didn't hate it. I'll also say,

• 44:19Sean Fennessey?

  Annette O'Toole is very important to me.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:21Sean Fennessey?

  And

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Very pretty.

• 44:22Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't, I don't love the sidelining of Lois. We understand some of the reasons why Margot Kidder having some struggles. This affects both of the next two Superman movies. But I was happy to be with Lana quite a bit. And I got maybe a little bit too much Robert Vaughn and Pamela Stevenson.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Superman got a lot of Pamela Stevenson in that movie.

• 44:42Sean Fennessey?

  He did.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  He basically like did a BP oil spill just so he could get with Pamela Stevenson.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 44:49Sean Fennessey?

  These are some.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  The original thirst trap was Lord Lai.

• 44:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  These are some low key like super horny movies. Like every woman in the Reeve Superman is like trying to get with Superman all the time. I respect it. Kind of makes sense.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  What did you think about Superman 3?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I like how weird it is. And honestly, if you're gonna make me pick between the flawed Superman movies, as we will, give me the one that's like a little funnier and lighter on its feet. And then I'm trying to, I'm like constantly trying to figure out like, what is this movie? In a way that I don't mind.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  What do you think of it?

• 45:22Speaker 03

  So contemporary superhero comedy, which they kind of hadn't tried to do that, right?

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Everything is a first, it's almost. But like, when you watch the film, what I didn't remember about watching the movie before was the beginning sequence, which.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Which, the Richard Pryor at the unemployment office or the like five minute Mr. Magoo sequence that sets up various Superman saves?

• 45:47Speaker 03

  That, the.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  It's so silly.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  The credits save, which is super, it's almost as if Lester went, you know what? I came in and I did the Donner movie. And even though it became my movie because he reshoot tons of stuff, it was Richard Lester's movie to the degree that it could be. If I was making a Superman movie, this is how I would make it. This is what I think we should do. There should be a lot of comedy. There should be Richard Pryor, all of this stuff. It's like, because it's totally so different than what we just saw.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Like completely different. The, the beginning scene annoyed the shit out of me because I didn't remember it as much. And I was like, let's get to, let's get to the shit. But there's some good stuff in there, man. There's the, we fucked up the kryptonite and it really just turns Superman antisocial rather than it kills him.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Synthetic kryptonite doesn't hit the same.

• 46:42Speaker 03

  Doesn't hit the same.

• 46:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's a cool idea that leads to arguably the best Reeve performance because he's playing opposite of each other. And so he gets to do something a little different than kind of dopey bumbling Clark opposite the majestic Superman. He gets to play like a lot of colors.

• 46:59Sean Fennessey?

  From like a storytelling logic perspective, Superman like splitting in two? I don't, I'm not sure I fully get, get the math on that one.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  I mean, I think it's a metaphor.

• 47:10Sean Fennessey?

  I could be wrong.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  I mean, it is a metaphor, but in a very literal move.

• 47:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 47:16Speaker 03

  During those scenes, you can tell that Reeve is having so much fun. He likes it, even the, even.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  He does.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  Even when he's just a little bad, right? And he starts trying to hit on Lana. And he goes, I always get there on time. Sit down. Have a little time, let's have a little talk. Superman trying to holler at those.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Whoever did the eyeliner in that movie went crazy. Crazy. And then Superman starts getting the five o'clock shadow coming in. Oh, it's so good.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  Huh? What are you looking at? What are you looking at, huh? Get out of here.

• 47:45Sean Fennessey?

  I really like that, that scene early on when he has just received the, the wheat, the altered kryptonite, where he's in Lana's house and she gets a phone call that there's like a bridge call.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  That's probably what I was hoping for.

• 47:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Cause he's just a little bad right now.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  And he's looking at her like, what's up with you? You know what I'm saying? It's Superman. Like, what's, what's the deal, baby?

• 48:09Sean Fennessey?

  Superman four.

• 48:13Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's a movie. It's, uh, let me, let me put it this way. It's not as bad as I remembered.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:19Sean Fennessey?

  And I kinda speak on it. What, what, what spoke to you this time? Well, so the film rights, uh, go to Golan and Globus from Canon Films. Famous, kinda like schlockmeisters who made a lot of movies in the seventies and eighties that were very genre focused. They're kind of like spiritual, but not creative successors to Roger Corman. And they made a lot of movies in that time that, um, are not great, but are fun.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  If you were a kid in the eighties and the Golan Globus thing came on before a movie, you just knew that the movie was about to have a lot of action and it was probably a good hang.

• 48:55Sean Fennessey?

  And probably some babes. That was the other thing, that they were very interested in babes.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:58Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie is not as lewd as some of their movies and not as violent as some of their movies, but it is as silly as a lot of their movies. I had forgotten how much I remembered about Nuclear Man.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:11Sean Fennessey?

  When Nuclear Man shows up in this movie, I was like, oh yeah, I watched this a lot. I'm very familiar with this very strange actor and his kind of growling voice that has been ADR'd by Gene Hackman.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Yes. What's going on with the Gene Hackman voice? Do we know?

• 49:25Sean Fennessey?

  Did you know that, that Gene Hackman is doing Nuclear Man's voice? Isn't that bizarre?

• 49:29Speaker 03

  It is, but Nuclear Man has part of Lex's DNA.

• 49:33Sean Fennessey?

  I get it.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  And also part of Superman's DNA, right?

• 49:36Speaker 03

  Well, it's most of Superman's DNA.

• 49:37Sean Fennessey?

  His hair.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  The hair.

• 49:38Sean Fennessey?

  The hair. We didn't talk about this, but

• 49:40Speaker 02

  This is straight up in the new movie.

• 49:44Sean Fennessey?

  There was something else, you better be honest with you. He pulls a couple of things.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 49:50Sean Fennessey?

  James Gunn from this movie.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:52Sean Fennessey?

  The fact that this is an inspiration for the new Superman is really interesting and I didn't, I didn't clock it at all until I rewatched this.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  He, he, he pulls a couple of, he literally redoes like a couple of scenes from past Superman movies just to go, this is my version of this.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  This is my version of this. This is my version of this. But I'm sorry I stopped talking about it.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  Oh, and I was gonna say, I think, starting with the fact that both are movies of advocacy, like this movie gets made because Christopher Reeve wants to make a movie about nuclear proliferation. Like that was, that was his cause in, in the making of Superman four. And so if you want to take like the lineage of these Superman movies and how they influenced the new one, like it's all over the place in terms of this like really direct connection with a quest for peace of all things.

• 50:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's at least a really easy watch because it's 90 minutes. Reportedly, there is like a two and a half hour cut that features many long Christopher Reeve di- like, uh, monologues about nuclear warheads.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:47Sean Fennessey?

  That the producers in studio cut.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 50:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's a tough, tough beat for Reeve.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  We already talked about on another podcast, my fear of nuclear war era of my life.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:58Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  So.

• 51:00Sean Fennessey?

  You talked about it on the Ryan Rusillo podcast, one of the craziest and most entertaining. I texted you both right away when I was listening to it. I was like, this is insane. I love this.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  So imagine that kid.

• 51:12Speaker 03

  Obsessed with comic books, right? And then Superman comes out and saves the world from nuclear war. I cannot in any way be objective about the movie. I fucking love it. It's not very good. I get it, God's not, I get it. There's so much, there's, uh, Lenny Luther is like,

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  A really goofy, weird John Cryer performance in there.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know what's going on with the accent, like the voice he's doing. I don't know what it is.

• 51:43Sean Fennessey?

  Bizarre.

• 51:43Speaker 03

  It's,

• 51:44Sean Fennessey?

  Who was Lex's sibling?

• 51:46Speaker 03

  I have no clue.

• 51:46Sean Fennessey?

  That birthed John Cryer?

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Great question.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:49Sean Fennessey?

  We'd never meet that character. Mary L. Hemingway?

• 51:51Speaker 03

  In the movie, beautiful.

• 51:53Sean Fennessey?

  Beautiful.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  Like the whole nine.

• 51:54Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty good performance. I feel like she's really game for the tone that they're trying to do.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Also heartening that, you know, a magnate who buys a newspaper could appoint their daughter, you know, a nepo baby to run it, and she could understand through time and experience, the value of good journalism. Really good point.

• 52:10Speaker 03

  Even the part, when I was rewatching it, I was like, Jesus Christ, I love this. When Lex sends out the signal and only Superman can hear it and the whole thing.

• 52:19Sean Fennessey?

  Dog whistle, yeah.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  I just remember so much of that. It's one of those, everybody has one, guys. Everybody has one, a movie that is whatever, from your past, and you just can't judge it with straight eyes. That's Superman.

• 52:34Sean Fennessey?

  I kind of agree with you in that I would rather watch this than Superman 3, personally. Now, it doesn't mean that it's better.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:40Sean Fennessey?

  From an aesthetic perspective, but for example, the scene where Clark and Superman need to entertain Lois and Mary L. Hemingway's character simultaneously.

• 52:51Speaker 02

  That's just really fun.

• 52:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's good.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  That part is great. But also, why would he ever agree to that double date? Why would he think that that's a thing?

• 52:57Sean Fennessey?

  Good point. Flawed screenwriting and yet brilliant.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  You know, Ben, you raised your specific fears with nuclear war. I have a very specific fear about Superman 4 that I need to share with you, which is, I think Lois's brain at this point is just mush. Like, her brain has been wiped by Superman so many times at this point. But she does remember certain things over time, right? What's the one thing she remembers she calls out to?

• 53:22Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Superman about that she's.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Uh, Kalel, that your name is Kalel.

• 53:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  It starts coming back to her.

• 53:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  But like, she has been like Men in Black mind wiped several times in this movie and in the previous two movies that she's in like, I just, I'm concerned about the state of.

• 53:38Sean Fennessey?

  Is that a canon power that Superman has?

• 53:40Speaker 02

  Well, certainly not the kissing mind wipe.

• 53:42Speaker 03

  I don't remember it. But it, it became something that like, I was always waiting for him to do to everyone.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Fly in, you just kiss everybody, don't even remember you're there.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 03

  But.

• 53:52Sean Fennessey?

  That's can't do that post me too.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Can't do that post me too.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  But they all wanna kiss you in these movies.

• 53:55Sean Fennessey?

  That's true.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  It seems pretty consensual in the first four Superman.

• 53:58Speaker 03

  By the way, and these movies are so male. You guys have already, you guys have already talked about it. The only thing that's stopping Superman from being a weapon of like, a complete enemy of female lady advancement is the fact that he's such a nice guy. Cause he gets fond over, he does whatever he wants. He dictates, he looks at Lois's panties, even though she asked for consent.

• 54:23Speaker 02

  What color?

• 54:24Sean Fennessey?

  She did ask him to look.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  She did, she asked, she asked, and then he looked, but he is so swinging his super dick around. Like not even trying to, but every single one, think about the coal into a diamond thing from three. Why you gonna overwhelm Lana like that?

• 54:40Speaker 02

  That's a lot.

• 54:41Speaker 03

  She ain't never seen nothing like that. She ain't never seen nothing like that before. He just, but that's some real, come on, bruh. You know, that's like Drake buying the girl the $10,000 Chanel bag.

• 54:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's the same thing.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  She ain't never seen nothing like that, bruh. You gonna get her up there in Toronto and she gonna hang with Drake and for the whole week? And then she go, she gonna call her, her family back in Tallahassee and be like, yo, I think I'm in love.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  And he crushes the big ass diamond, she ain't never seen.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  And, and literally gets down on one knee to give it to her.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  What is a woman supposed to think? Look, he didn't invent gaslighting, but he certainly protected it.

• 55:16Sean Fennessey?

  No, no. Come on, Clark, he took care of Lana in the end. At the end of that movie, they were together.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  They were.

• 55:24Sean Fennessey?

  And he was gonna be a father to that child.

• 55:26Speaker 02

  But canonically, then he apparently just like left the fucking plane.

• 55:29Sean Fennessey?

  Gullen and Globus were like, fuck that.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Uh, four is really fun. It's stupid, but it's fun.

• 55:36Sean Fennessey?

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• 56:59Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about Superman Returns. I had not seen this movie since it came out. I don't know why. Maybe I do know why now that I revisited it. But 2006, this is a canonical sequel to Superman 2. Now, the movie dispenses with the events of Superman 3 and Superman 4. And something that maybe didn't lock into my mind in 2006, but makes a lot of sense now is that Bryan Singer, who had been directing X-Men movies at this stage of his career, those movies were produced by Lauren Schuler Donner, who was Richard Donner's wife and a very successful producer. They ran the Donner Company together. So in their mind, who better to continue the legacy of the Donner Superman movies than Bryan Singer? Knowing what we know now, we know that was not the best idea for a variety of reasons.

• 57:43Sean Fennessey?

  Obviously some very serious ones, and also the fact that Singer is a messy director who makes messy movies, some of which reach great heights, some of which are bewildering. This movie is kind of neither. It's just like a stale piece of bread. It's like a crazy inert dull. Yeah.

• 58:05Sean Fennessey?

  Slog of a movie with none of the verve and oddity of the first four movies. But also none of the, at least the kind of like committed upon intensity and anger of Man of Steel, which I despise, but could at least defend as an artistic choice. I've totally forgot what a nothing this movie is.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  Can I posit a reason why that's the case? Like, it's really clear that this movie owes a lot to the Donner movies. Like, there are so, there are so many direct references to them, down to like Clark following Lois too fast into the revolving door and like all these little callbacks to the original movies that feel like cosplay to the point that I just, I'm like, I'm losing the earnestness. There's so much winking happening. But also, it feels like a movie that loves those movies and holds them so tightly, but is so ashamed to want to be them. And the way that honestly, like X-Men and X2 managed to overcome this a little bit, those are ashamed to be X-Men movies. They don't want to put anybody in spandex. Like, they don't want the bright colors. And so picking Bryan Singer, of all people, for all reasons, to be the director of this movie, which is like such a bad call.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  And I think muted it into just an absolute like snooze fest of a movie.

• 59:14Sean Fennessey?

  It's so drab. What, so did you, how many times have you seen this movie?

• 59:18Speaker 03

  I, I'm not sure. I don't remember when the last time I had seen it prior to this rewatch. It was by far the least fun part of me rewatching all of these. It's dreck. It's like terrible. It's the worst part of superhero storytelling. It's unambitious. It's derivative. It plays loose and fast with the canon of the character. It introduces things like a super son that it can't possibly in any way come to terms with. It just kind of dangles it out there and, and leaves it there.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  The leads have no chemistry.

• 1:00:02Speaker 02

  Now, crazy how off they both are.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  I mean, honestly, and like Spacey is fine, I would say, but I would say they go oh for three in the other, or maybe, maybe one for three. I think.

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  He gets, he gets one Spacey scene.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:14Sean Fennessey?

  If you liked him as an actor at the time before all the allegations, he was doing the thing that he was great at.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:19Sean Fennessey?

  Which was like that heavy, hyper-intelligence smarm. You know, the John Doe, the Kaiser Soze at the end, the kind of like, I will explain to you why I'm the best. Like, he had a knack for that kind of thing. So he made a lot of sense as Lex at that time. But he really only gets to do that one scene on the boat with, with Lois. And even the rest of the movie, like, they kind of redefine what kind of character he is because he goes to prison and then he gets out. So he has to be kind of like more of a con artist instead of a genius?

• 1:00:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's, he's dressed up and using southern accents and doing all of that stuff like that. It's like, that's stuff for Lex Luthor's minions to do.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  I mean, he, there's, I'm sure there's a little bit of that for, for Lex, but it's like, it's not. The movie just, it, it's made, it's nostalgia porn by someone who so loves the character that they're hugging Superman so tight that they're squeezing all of the life out of it. And it just does not work in any way, shape or form.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Not a bit.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  Like, it, it, it just, it, even at the end, when Brandon Roth, uh, who, this is no diss to him, it's like one of his very early movie roles. I'm sure that, you know, I, I read a story that says he sits down with, with, uh, a Brian Singer and the coffee being over on, uh, Sunset. And Brian, he stands up and Brian Singer goes, oh my God, he just kept going up and up and up and up. This is my Superman. This guy probably calls home and, every, this is the, uh, time of his life, the, the, of a lifetime, the role of a lifetime. So I'm not trying to get at a young guy that was doing that, but like, the end of the movie, he flies, he's flying, right? And he does the Christopher Reeve, look left, look right.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  And then look at the camera.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Don't do that. It's that's not, you can't do that. Fuck, I'm just being for real. Like you, you that, we don't wanna see that from you.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  But that's what he was cast to do.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  I, you know, I, I, you're right.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  It's so clear they're putting him in that costume and even Spacey in the Hackman costume, I think, to a degree.

• 1:02:18Speaker 03

  And it's, and it, it's not, the movie just in, in no way was fun. It didn't tell me anything new about Superman. There's a couple of scenes between Superman and Lois where I go, oh man, how hurt must she have been when he's off in space for five years?

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  But even that doesn't make sense. I get that nobody fucking knows that Superman is Clark Kent, cuz of the hypno glasses, but if Superman is gone for five years and Clark Kent is gone for five years, Superman is Clark Kent. It just doesn't make, the whole fucking thing doesn't make any sense.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Sean Fennessey?

  So I, that's the largest problem with the movie is that it's completely like unsustainable from a very basic plot. Premises, um, in addition to being boring, which is a sin in a Superman movie. Kate Bosworth, um, is could not be more wrong.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  She was young, she was too young.

• 1:03:04Sean Fennessey?

  Could not be more wrong for the part.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  Twenty-two years old.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  I mean, also just doesn't have it and certainly doesn't have Lois, like just no Lois energy whatsoever in Kate Bosworth.

• 1:03:12Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, this will be an interesting showdown to me between that movie and the next movie we're gonna talk about, Man of Steel. I shared this with you on the House of R episode. I really hate this movie and, but I think I might respect it more than I respect Superman Returns. So, um, Chris Ryan and I saw this movie together. We were working at Granland at the time. We went to a Saturday matinee. And we were like, sure, I liked 300. I'm ready for a new Superman. I don't really remember having any feelings towards Superman Returns. This movie is produced by Christopher Nolan, so we definitely were huge fans of The Dark Knight and,

• 1:03:52Sean Fennessey?

  uh, thought that that portended something exciting. And I was angry at the end of this movie. And I don't, there are not a lot of movies that have made me angry in my life. Maybe vexed. You pointed to my existential crises over the years.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:04:09Sean Fennessey?

  But the like profound misunderstanding of the character that I thought was elemental to this telling made me mad.

• 1:04:19Sean Fennessey?

  So I know that I that was a stronger reaction than some people had. The movie was ultimately considered a disappointment, both creatively and box office wise, but not like a fiasco or anything like that. They made sequels to this movie. Where do you stand on Man of Steel?

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  It's bad. I mean, it's just like a weird, moody cover of a pop song of a movie.

• 1:04:37Sean Fennessey?

  Totally.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  I don't like it. I don't, I agree. I don't think Zack Snyder like gets Superman on a fundamental level to a point that really bums me out to watch it. All of that said, I think there's stuff in the first hour that's pretty good. I actually do like the Krypton stuff, like the reinvention of that world and what we see there. I think some of the Costner like familial ties, like what you inherit from whom stuff that a lot of Superman stories deal with, I think it does it fairly well. Maybe like Jonathan Kent being a sociopath aside and being like, don't save that bus full of drowning kids. All of that just gets completely washed out once we get into very Snyder territory, which is like, there's a codex that's gonna reinvent the Kryptonian race.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  Zod shows up and the movie just grinds to a complete fucking halt and gets really gross and really unwatchable. And I'm just like so bored watching these two dudes pump like punch each other as they're flying through buildings.

• 1:05:31Speaker 03

  So it's a Superman for a cynical world. And the thing that Gunn did better than a lot of Superman filmmakers have done recently is he put Superman in his world. He built a world around Superman where Superman makes a ton of sense and where we can litigate that world with Superman and not litigate Superman in our world. Cause that doesn't work.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  But I would say the Gunn world is like adjacent enough to ours, that there's a lot of recognizable qualities. It is different, but there's something there.

• 1:06:05Speaker 03

  It is, but any world that James, you're right. Any world that James Gunn creates is a world that is, he creates the world of comic books to where there are forces like that that we see represented in our world, but also people are willing to believe, people are a little willing, and they are very, the human beings in James Gunn's Superman are almost Precocious. They're they're almost kid like and. Superman, are you an alien? You meant here he brought here the rest Lex Luthor is the only one that had the idea of like even the rest of the people in the fucking Pentagon are like, hey, everybody likes this guy. We have no reason to really have a beef with him.

• 1:06:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:46Speaker 03

  Right? Um, this one is different. Those people in the Pentagon are the ones that are saying, we don't trust you. We don't believe you. We're handing you over to Zod. It's legitimately the way it would happen. It just doesn't work, right? Just it doesn't work in any way, shape or form. If your Superman movie, the best thing in it is Jor-El, you didn't make a good movie. And by far, the best thing in this movie is Russell Crowe as Jor-El because he gets it. He gets it. She's flirting with a version of Lois Lane I can get behind, but it doesn't.

• 1:07:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think that character is very badly written. I don't get it at all.

• 1:07:24Speaker 03

  What I I think she's badly written, but what I in the performance of Lois, I kind of get her being an intrepid reporter. It never looks like they've ever had sex or touched each other ever even once.

• 1:07:35Sean Fennessey?

  I would say they have like anti chemist. Two performers I really like and they just have zero chemistry.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  Anti chemistry. I liked Michael Shannon as Zod and I think the movie at least at least justifies the time. It's a justifiable miss to me. I it's a justifiable miss. It's a it's a movie where I go, hmm, they don't get it, but there's cool shit happening.

• 1:07:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  And so I can at least justify the miss.

• 1:08:03Sean Fennessey?

  So it's interesting to hear you say that you and it seems like you also like the Krypton stuff at the beginning of the movie. What that has revealed to me, especially his last two movies that he's made is that he wanted to make a Star Wars movie. He did not want to make a Superman.

• 1:08:15Speaker 03

  Oh, this is this is an alien. This is an alien invasion movie.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  It is clearly a science fiction film in his eyes and science fiction is a huge element of Superman, but it's not the essence of Superman. And I find the last hour like.

• 1:08:29Sean Fennessey?

  Borderline sociopathic, the idea, because there's something interesting in Superman Returns, where they wanted to make it a 9/11 parable. And there is a moment where Superman falls from the sky that looks like the Falling Man from 9/11. That's, I feel that that is a purposeful choice.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  Well, they turn it from subtext to text in Batman v Superman.

• 1:08:49Sean Fennessey?

  I'm getting there.

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:08:51Sean Fennessey?

  The idea of destroying Metropolis through a punchfest at the end of this movie is insane material that like, no, no truly thoughtful person would pursue, in my opinion. Like, I really do not understand how he thought that this is something that would make sense for this character. That it kind of just destroys anything else around it that I kind, that I enjoy a little bit. I think this is one, genuinely one of the last great Kevin Costner performances. It's clear to me that he completely rewrote all of this stuff, because that conversation that you cited where they're sitting on the back of the truck and teenage Clark is trying to reconcile what he's learning about himself, and his father is trying to guide him away from sharing the truth.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:33Sean Fennessey?

  Is way more nuanced and thematically deep than anything else in the movie. Now, you could say that Clark is a sociopath because of the way that he is trying to guide his son, but it's at least something. It's at least like something that makes you consider the character from a different perspective. Everything else, it makes me want to have a punchfest.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  I think a lot of people focus on like, the ending with Zod, and specifically like, snapping his neck as Zod is trying to laserize this like, family or whatever. Getting to that point would be a different conversation if Superman hadn't just single-handedly killed, I don't know, a million people on his own. Like, just by throwing Zod through various buildings and shit. Like, I, I, you just miss me with the emotionality of a movie like this, and it starts to feel super hollow, when all of these people die, all of this unspeakable tragedy happens, all this destruction. Superman does not care. He is so divorced from the reality of that moment, and then at the end, I'm supposed to believe that he's so distraught about the decision to kill one Kryptonian or sacrifice this family.

• 1:10:32Speaker 02

  Contrasting that with the gun Superman, where this dude is trying to save not just every squirrel and every person and every building, but every Kaiju.

• 1:10:40Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  That feels like Superman to me.

• 1:10:42Speaker 03

  So, go back to Superman 2, when Zod and Ursa and all of them, they're, they're in Manhattan and they're fucking shit up. Throw somebody off, they're doing, and what does Superman scream at Zod? No, like he's like desperate.

• 1:10:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Speaker 03

  He screams, no, you can't, the people. And he's desperate. Like, he doesn't come out of his body a lot, but he is like, you can't hurt people. He's like, and this Superman, I don't give a fuck. Right? Like.

• 1:11:13Speaker 02

  Isn't that such a weird choice?

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't give a fuck about none of it. Punch, punch, punch, throw you, then he kills Zod. Snaps his neck right in front of the fucking, snap, snaps the shit.

• 1:11:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Speaker 03

  Bucks the shit up. We got to the point and I was, look, Man of Steel doesn't work, man. I'm saying there was some shit in Man of Steel that was cool to look at. And I think Zack overreacted to what happened in Superman Returns. And the fact that Kevin Smith said, you can't have a Superman movie where Superman doesn't punch one thing. And, and that went everywhere and everybody laughed because Kevin Smith has a way of, uh, analyzing and critiquing these movies that is so sticky with everybody who watches them. Cause he's like.

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  Well, he knows the characters inside and out.

• 1:11:57Speaker 03

  He's kind of the king of us.

• 1:12:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  In a way.

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  But he's also written comics.

• 1:12:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  So he knows that there are certain kind of like, not rules, but bylaws that you have to understand. And so whenever one transgresses, I mean, he's also very positive about movies that I don't think are good. But when one transgresses, he's very sharp about identifying how it does that.

• 1:12:17Speaker 03

  Right. And so like Zack went, okay, he's gonna punch everything. They're like punch, punch, punch everything. I thought Zod was an interesting character.

• 1:12:25Speaker 02

  I just think it's because Michael Shannon is so gifted.

• 1:12:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I thought Zod was an interesting character in that Zod didn't see himself as a villain. And Michael Shannon during the press run of the movie was like, he was very adamant that Zod is not a villain. At the end of the day though, it just doesn't work. None of it worked.

• 1:12:41Speaker 02

  I think we've identified kind of the two types of Superman villains. You either have the ones he has to punch, the Zods. I guess if you, like, maybe if they had made it to like Dark Side and Doomsday and all that. Or you have people like Lex, who put him in situations in which he feels trapped and can't punch his way out of, right? If it's like, you're fighting public opinion, a punch is not going to help you. And it's like, those are the two genres that kind of work. And ideally you want some of both. You want Superman to feel trapped within the conflict where he's trying to fight his way out of it physically. But even that has its limits and this movie does none of that.

• 1:13:13Speaker 03

  You know what? To that point, you know what you want more than anything? You want Superman to care about the damage that he's doing.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:13:19Speaker 03

  He's super fucking powerful.

• 1:13:22Speaker 03

  Superior, the top, right? So even when he's beating the shit out of somebody, or even when he's fighting the Kaiju, he has got to care about the squirrel.

• 1:13:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:13:31Speaker 03

  He has to care about the squirrel. And this Superman, at least at the beginning, I do have a take. At least at the beginning, just didn't care about the squirrels or the people.

• 1:13:41Sean Fennessey?

  There's a funny thing that happens in this movie. We're spending a lot of time on Man of Steel. I also hadn't seen this since it... No, I think maybe I watched it before the Snyder Cut, but I haven't seen this movie very much. But the seasons needle drop, the Chris Cornell song, when he's emerging from the fisherman's wharf, which is a very...

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  Do you like that?

• 1:13:56Sean Fennessey?

  Superman does care about two things. Punching Zod and the greatest catch of crap.

• 1:14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Sean Fennessey?

  Or whatever. And grunge music.

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  Right, that's true.

• 1:14:03Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Gen X Superman.

• 1:14:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:14:06Sean Fennessey?

  This is the only Gen X Superman that we're ever gonna get. Even though James Gunn and Zack Snyder are very similar in age, Zack Snyder is basically making... Or James Gunn is basically making like the 1959 Superman. Yeah, like a much more optimistic Superman. And this is one that is bumping the single soundtrack. And that's just a weird choice for Superman. Okay, the next movie in this story is Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice. Now, I think this movie is not as bad as Man of Steel has a laughable conclusion, but there are elements of it that I enjoy in part because I think Ben Affleck is actually quite well cast as Batman.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Sean Fennessey?

  And he's actually one of the better Batmans that we've had. And I... God, I wish he had a different filmmaker. Maybe himself making a Batman movie?

• 1:14:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Sean Fennessey?

  Cause his like combination of the perception of perfection, but the kind of like corrosive insecurity that is definitional to the Affleck movie star persona is so right for Bruce Wayne. And he gets there sometimes, and then other times, this becomes a movie about like kryptonite spears and whatnot, and it loses me completely. What do you think about this one? I think it's pretty embarrassing. Like, I think it's a pretty embarrassing bit. And frankly, like, in terms of what's more embarrassing, the Martha versus Superman did 9/11. Like, that's a heavyweight bout of just truly embarrassing shit. I do think that that was a great way into getting Batman into this movie, though, was that, like, having Bruce, like, look around the destruction. I was like, okay.

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:37Sean Fennessey?

  That kind of, this kind of makes sense to pit them against each other. I guess.

• 1:15:41Speaker 03

  So I gotta say that, because when I went back and watched it, I only watched the ultimate cut of this movie, and I'm gonna talk about the ultimate cut a little bit. But when you go back, if you want to make Batman hate Superman.

• 1:15:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  Then watching him watch his family die again, like, all of the people, which obviously Lex says that, that they, all of the people that work at Wayne Metropolis or whatever, watching him have to watch them die again and, like, die in his arms, that is an incredible story choice.

• 1:16:09Sean Fennessey?

  I guess first follow-up, does Bruce Wayne or Batman ever give a shit about a Wayne tech employee who's not Lucius Fox? But he just doesn't care about the people who work for him. He never shows up. It's kind of true. He doesn't even show up to the meetings, like, well, does he even know these people?

• 1:16:24Speaker 03

  So maybe that Bruce Wayne, this Bruce Wayne, maybe he's a little bit more on top of things.

• 1:16:28Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe.

• 1:16:28Speaker 03

  I mean, he took a helicopter to Metropolis just to be in the middle of the shit. He didn't bring none of his tech with him. He didn't bring, he didn't bring the Batmobile.

• 1:16:39Sean Fennessey?

  Just wearing that three-piece suit.

• 1:16:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know he was like, he wasn't quite Batman. He becomes Batman again because this happens.

• 1:16:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Speaker 03

  So he hadn't been being Batman, but he doesn't bring anything with him that could have, you know, actually helped. He just goes in there to get to people.

• 1:16:53Sean Fennessey?

  What's your perspective? This is kind of a bigger conversation, probably something you guys have talked about over the years on this show, too, but evolution versus canon breaking. Like, I find the Zack Snyder movies to be very much these, like, rejections of clear understandings of how these characters operate. I'm not, in theory, against that. I think if they're done a little bit more creatively, I could get on board with it. Some movies evolve the characters. To me, the gun version is an evolution of how we understand Superman. You're smirking like you have a dangerous secret you're about to reveal.

• 1:17:25Speaker 03

  This is my Last Jedi thing.

• 1:17:27Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah. Here we go. This is it. You brought this upon us. Yeah, I did.

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:17:31Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, you teased us with this over the weekend.

• 1:17:33Speaker 03

  So I think Man of Steel and The Last Jedi are kind of like the same movie.

• 1:17:38Sean Fennessey?

  Uh-huh. First of all, fuck you.

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  When I say the last Man of Steel, I mean Snyder's version of this stuff.

• 1:17:48Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:17:49Speaker 03

  So to me, Superman snapping Zod's neck is essentially Luke throwing his lightsaber. It's something to where you go, oh, we're fucking with a new Luke. We're fucking with a, this is different, right?

• 1:18:06Sean Fennessey?

  There is a difference to me, though.

• 1:18:08Speaker 03

  Give it to me.

• 1:18:09Sean Fennessey?

  That's the eighth Star Wars film.

• 1:18:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:18:11Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe the ninth Star Wars film.

• 1:18:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:18:14Sean Fennessey?

  This is the first Superman movie.

• 1:18:16Speaker 03

  Well, no, it's the first, it's the, point taken. It's the first Zack Snyder Superman.

• 1:18:22Sean Fennessey?

  But it's the first movie starring this Kal-El.

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  I get it, but it is, it is something.

• 1:18:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's not a character's evolution or change. It is the first time we see them.

• 1:18:31Speaker 03

  Well, the reason why I would, I would still defend this is because we don't watch Skywalker change.

• 1:18:39Sean Fennessey?

  True.

• 1:18:39Speaker 03

  So when he, so when he does that, we're just like, oh shit. And then for the rest of the movie, what I was asking for, which Last Jedi people, by the way, I like Last Jedi. I just don't like Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi.

• 1:18:51Sean Fennessey?

  Don't at me.

• 1:18:53Speaker 03

  But what the people that are Luke purists wanted.

• 1:18:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  Was them to explain that move and the way he's looking at things. And to me, they never get there. I don't give a fuck what nobody says. We don't go from the Luke Skywalker that exists in a world where I'm willing to put the safety and security of the galaxy on the line to save my friends.

• 1:19:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14Speaker 03

  To.

• 1:19:14Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, yeah, like Obi-Wan would never do that. Yoda would never do that. The people who taught it would never do something like that.

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  All I'm saying is that, all I'm saying is, forget about them. All I'm saying is that he's willing to do that, right? And then his sister is in trouble and he's somewhere on an island, not even caring.

• 1:19:33Sean Fennessey?

  So here's an interesting question for you in the aftermath of that theory. Is there a perfect overlap, 100% to 100% of Last Jedi haters and Man of Steel defenders?

• 1:19:44Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 1:19:46Sean Fennessey?

  And what does that tell you?

• 1:19:47Speaker 03

  It's that I'm on the wrong side. But, but, but this is what I'll say about this Superman now. This Superman was an attempt, to me, to, uh.

• 1:19:57Speaker 03

  To rebuild the character in a world that is rejecting him.

• 1:20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:02Speaker 03

  And that doesn't work. Like, that doesn't work.

• 1:20:06Sean Fennessey?

  Why in the midst of the Obama era was that the Zack Snyder movie?

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  I, I, I.

• 1:20:11Sean Fennessey?

  Isn't that a, I mean, I'm sure there's somebody who will fire back with some political rhetoric about why that was the case, but seems odd.

• 1:20:18Speaker 02

  To be honest, there is one Zack Snyder movie. Like, the guy's got one move. He is Mikail Bridges off the dribble taking pull-up jumpers. It's the same thing every single time. So why would we expect something different from him, I think is the question.

• 1:20:29Sean Fennessey?

  Can you please not slander Mikail Bridges?

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  I'm just saying.

• 1:20:32Sean Fennessey?

  For god's sake.

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  Like, the man just refused.

• 1:20:34Sean Fennessey?

  We just went to the Eastern Conference Finals.

• 1:20:35Speaker 03

  Easy score.

• 1:20:35Sean Fennessey?

  Room chat co-host.

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  I'm still waiting for him to take a layup.

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  Just take the, take the shackles off of, of, let him cook. Okay, look, um, it doesn't work for Superman.

• 1:20:45Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just do it right here on the pod. Mikail Bridges, Mitchell Robinson for LeBron.

• 1:20:49Speaker 03

  For LeBron.

• 1:20:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yes or no? You'll do it.

• 1:20:50Speaker 03

  I'll take it.

• 1:20:51Sean Fennessey?

  And will you do it?

• 1:20:52Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm not involved.

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  Is Adam Silver? I will sign the paper.

• 1:20:57Speaker 03

  So it doesn't work for Superman, but it works for Batman to me.

• 1:21:01Speaker 02

  Does it?

• 1:21:01Speaker 03

  It, it, it, it doesn't work for Superman, but it works for Batman.

• 1:21:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's more interesting to me.

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  It, it, it works for Batman. It works for Batman. Batman being somebody that is hyper cynical. Batman being someone that like admits to Alfred, look, we're criminals. The shit that we're doing, the shit that we've already done.

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:17Speaker 03

  The shit that we've already done is criminal, so you can't really moralize with me. Batman using all of these different sort of extrajudicial ways to get to something that he believes to be true, right? To me, all of that works.

• 1:21:32Sean Fennessey?

  Can, can I?

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  And he understands the way Batman fucking fights. I'm sorry, that scene is breathtaking. He gets the way Batman would be. Except it's the fact that Batman kills a bunch of people.

• 1:21:42Sean Fennessey?

  I kind of sort of agree with that. The one thing that I'll say is I think we have a little bit more flexibility in terms of how we understand a, a portrayal of Batman now because we've had six movie Batmans. This was the third Superman.

• 1:21:57Speaker 03

  Fair point.

• 1:21:58Sean Fennessey?

  And so Superman was more ingrained expectation-wise in terms of what he stood for, what he stands for. And maybe it's because he's also kind of a character of absolutes and Batman's a vigilante. And so our perception of vigilantism is different than truth, justice in the American way.

• 1:22:13Speaker 03

  I will say, because I don't want to. The the fact that Batman is using guns like, you know, and like, and killing people is a huge departure for the character. So I don't want to underscore that. It is, there are similarities there, but I, I just felt like Ben Affleck really worked.

• 1:22:29Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think Batfleck watched BET Uncut?

• 1:22:31Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 1:22:33Sean Fennessey?

  He was locked in?

• 1:22:33Speaker 03

  Probably did. He probably did. From what I know about him, he probably liked that type of shit. But look, I, but I will say this, this movie doesn't make any sense.

• 1:22:42Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  At all, unless you watch the ultimate cut.

• 1:22:44Sean Fennessey?

  The ultimate cut is 30 minutes longer and I would say maybe worse, just because it's 30 minutes.

• 1:22:50Sean Fennessey?

  Like, the worst thing a bad movie can be is longer.

• 1:22:53Speaker 03

  No, but like, but Rob, you're about to piss me off.

• 1:22:57Sean Fennessey?

  I tried, man. It's so bad.

• 1:22:59Speaker 03

  The ultimate cut actually has a story that makes sense. What happens in this movie, the one that was released, doesn't even make narrative sense.

• 1:23:08Sean Fennessey?

  No.

• 1:23:09Speaker 03

  There's not a this happened and this happened. They cut so much out of the film.

• 1:23:13Sean Fennessey?

  Why did they do that?

• 1:23:14Speaker 03

  I, I'm not sure.

• 1:23:15Sean Fennessey?

  Just too long.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  Like, they cut so much because the ultimate cut's like three hours. They cut so much out of the film that from a story standpoint, the things that are happening don't make sense. And so I prefer the ultimate cut.

• 1:23:26Sean Fennessey?

  The Martha conclusion is heinous. It is terrible. It is abominable. Uh, Justice League. Now, this is a movie that, uh, Zack Snyder had to step away from and the Joss Whedon completed. And then some years later, I believe four years later, uh, Zack Snyder returned to and reshoot a lot of new material, created a lot of CGI mess. And we experienced that movie during the pandemic. It was

• 1:23:49Speaker 03

  Experience.

• 1:23:50Sean Fennessey?

  nominally known as the Snyder Cut online, but is actually officially called Zack Snyder's Justice League. So this is two movies in one conversation, not dissimilar from Superman two, which we didn't really get in the weeds too much of the differentiation between Superman two and the Donner Cut. There's a big difference between the Justice League movie and Zack Snyder's Justice League. I've only seen Zack Snyder's Justice League one time. I did not revisit it for this podcast. And when I was watching it, it was on a live watch along on this podcast, which is an insane thing we did during COVID.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  Four hours?

• 1:24:22Sean Fennessey?

  For all four hours.

• 1:24:23Speaker 03

  Fuck, I'm talking about.

• 1:24:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I want to say Amanda was pregnant when we were doing it.

• 1:24:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:24:28Sean Fennessey?

  So that was

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  That's a war crime.

• 1:24:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Sean Fennessey?

  No hazard pay involved.

• 1:24:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:32Sean Fennessey?

  And I actually thought it was kind of fun. Very stupid and fun. Justice League atrocious.

• 1:24:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, look, the Snyder Cut's much better. It's still a lot of watching a CGI monstrosity go around collecting boxes and then having Zoom calls with a wall. And I'm just not intrigued by that part of the story. And that's an hour of it. That's one of four hours. So.

• 1:24:55Sean Fennessey?

  Kieran Heinz was, uh, did a lot of voice work in this film.

• 1:24:58Speaker 02

  He really tried. They called him back. I'm sure he was in the booth for a really long time. Like, the first one, I would argue, is maybe, I don't know, like, in the running for the worst movie of its scale ever made. Like, the original Weiden Cut Justice League is so bad. Incoherent. The Snyder Cut is significantly better, but I don't know that it rises to the level of, like, good for me, per se.

• 1:25:19Speaker 03

  Um, the Snyder Cut is way better. Uh, the original movie was legitimately,

• 1:25:26Speaker 03

  it legitimately thrust me into a mini-depression, like, in the theaters. Like, I was, like, bummed out. I was like, man, you mean to tell me they didn't put Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman together in a movie and I can't like it? Like, what am I doing? Like, what is going on? This fucking sucks. And then I got my hopes up for the Snyder Cut, and it is better. It is better. I wonder, because I've watched it twice. Uh, I watched it when it came out, and then I watched it again, in totality, twice. I've watched different parts of it at different times. I wonder if part of the fact that I liked the Snyder Cut so much better, if I've, like, tricked myself into that. If I've tricked myself into believing, hey,

• 1:26:06Speaker 03

  this is a market step up from, uh, from, from the other one, or if it's just the fact that it, you know, if the movie just really is not doing too much more.

• 1:26:17Sean Fennessey?

  I, I think it's an interest, the one thing that is interesting to me about it, and again, I haven't revisited, but it's basically high fantasy inside of a superhero movie.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:26Sean Fennessey?

  Which is very, you know, only really Thor does that in Marvel, and it's a hard thing to pull off. And I do think it is kind of, the CGI is kind of ugly, but I, I kind of liked what he was trying to do, which is like, this is more like the Ridley Scott movie Legend than it is a, a Justice League movie. And then you have that crazy coda of like Batman's Nightmare, which is another thing that I was like, if this was a whole movie.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:46Sean Fennessey?

  This would have been interesting and like he had some ideas that he was trying to get out before he got out of this whole superhero complex. It not, it doesn't really totally work, but I like it a lot more than what he had done previously in the series.

• 1:26:59Speaker 02

  Well, you mentioned him wanting to make Man of Steel into a like a Star Wars movie or a sci fi movie. He just straight up made this into Lord of the Rings.

• 1:27:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:05Speaker 02

  It was like the humans and the Atlanteans.

• 1:27:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:08Speaker 02

  And the Amazons all have one box. It's like straight Rings of Power, like repurposed in a way that is not the worst idea I've ever heard.

• 1:27:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:15Speaker 02

  And I have to admit, the nightmare stuff does work on me.

• 1:27:19Sean Fennessey?

  Me too. I liked it.

• 1:27:20Speaker 02

  I am predisposed to a like post apocalyptic alternate timeline in which half the heroes died kind of storytelling. Like that really speaks to me for some reason. And so I thought that stuff was kind of good.

• 1:27:29Speaker 03

  He should have just made it in a justice movie.

• 1:27:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Speaker 03

  They should have had somebody make a classic Superman, right? And Zack Snyder should have, and maybe still should, have a complete injustice universe.

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:27:43Speaker 03

  I am for right now, guns D C U, taking Superman where it is right now. But Snyder, getting the chance to explore his evil Superman in a whole injustice Superman art, right? Cause that stuff was really, really fun. Kalika loves it. She calls him Batman in a trench coat. Like when it like.

• 1:28:09Sean Fennessey?

  Batman, the Flasher, like he's just straight up ready to go. I think there's two versions of the phrase, what is going on here while watching a Zack Snyder movie? One of them is, this is abominable and should be destroyed. What is going on here? And then the other one is, what is going on here? I remember watching 300 for the first time and thinking, what is going on? I've not quite seen a swords and sandals epic that looks and feels like this.

• 1:28:33Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:28:33Sean Fennessey?

  And that movie is not perfect by any means, but it's kind of cool.

• 1:28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:37Sean Fennessey?

  And it was, it was, it felt very novel at the time.

• 1:28:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:41Sean Fennessey?

  And the, the last 20 minutes of this movie also has like, huh, so you could have done this.

• 1:28:47Speaker 03

  Right. Which, which completely fits your sensibility.

• 1:28:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:51Speaker 03

  Which completely fits the high testosterone way that you like to tell movies. You get to take Superman, uh, Lois wouldn't be in it, cause she would be dead.

• 1:29:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:02Speaker 03

  Like you get to.

• 1:29:03Sean Fennessey?

  Just post apocalyptic Justice League.

• 1:29:04Speaker 03

  Right. You get to do your entire deal and they, we just never got there. And maybe, you know, Jared Leto's Joker gets to. Cook a little bit more, he's in there.

• 1:29:15Speaker 02

  You would love that.

• 1:29:16Speaker 03

  I didn't mind it.

• 1:29:18Speaker 02

  And then, of course, there's the David Corn sweat era from 2025, it's the most recent Superman.

• 1:29:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  Which we've seen and we all like.

• 1:29:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:25Speaker 02

  It feels, feels roundly liked.

• 1:29:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:27Speaker 02

  Unusual to have a movie like this where most people, you know, non Ben Shapiro class are like, I liked it.

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  He is Superman.

• 1:29:37Speaker 03

  Guns' one job was to make us believe that Superman is Superman. And that guy is Superman, that world is Metropolis, that's Lex Luthor, that's one of the best. Of all the people who nearly get to the original Superman levels of portraying their character.

• 1:29:57Speaker 03

  Rachel Brosnahan might be able to, she might be able to snatch Lois Lane.

• 1:30:00Speaker 02

  I think she might. Given enough time, I think she might.

• 1:30:03Speaker 03

  She might be able to snatch Lois Lane.

• 1:30:04Speaker 02

  Time will tell, Margot Kidder in one is unreal.

• 1:30:07Speaker 03

  I, I get it.

• 1:30:08Speaker 02

  Even in two as well.

• 1:30:09Speaker 03

  I get it, but like Rachel is doing something with Lois that is, she's sexy, she's inquisitive, she's inquisitive, she's strong, she's resolute. She gets her hands dirty a little bit. She, the more I watch the movie, and I've seen it like three times, the more I, I watch the movie, she might be able to snatch the crown.

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  I think she, watching all these movies in such close succession makes you really appreciate some of like the architectural stuff that's happening in the new Superman movie. One of which is that, that like Lois is challenging Clark and Superman. And also like even the things in the movie that you may not love as much, like the Justice Gang, I think your mileage will vary. Their presence in the movie not only gives you a way to resolve some of the final conflict stuff in the third act, but gets you the levity of the gun's style of humor, but Superman doesn't have to crack the jokes. Like, he gets to be earnest about what he wants and how important saving people is to him. Everyone else gets to make the jokes, everyone else gets to challenge him. And I think Superman kind of works best as a character in contrast. Like you need those opposition points, there's a reason why Batman and Superman historically work so well together.

• 1:31:13Speaker 02

  And this movie kind of gets that, like it doesn't, in, in doing so, it holds back a little bit of Superman where you could, I think you can fairly argue he should just be in it more. I also am fine coming out of a Superman movie being like, I want more of that Superman.

• 1:31:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Like I, I want to see David Corn sweat on screen as Superman again.

• 1:31:31Speaker 03

  He's, Superman is the ultimate straight man. He's the ultimate straight man. Everybody else has to, he reacts to sexiness. That's why I was so uncomfortable seeing him be sexy to Lana Lane. Like, we have to see Superman react to sexiness. We have to see him react to it. We see Superman react to these things and we see how, you know, strident he is. We see that interact with the world.

• 1:31:57Sean Fennessey?

  But I mean, if Annette O'Toole in 1984 appeared before you, what would you do? Who among us?

• 1:32:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, he ate dog food for her.

• 1:32:04Sean Fennessey?

  He enjoyed it.

• 1:32:05Speaker 03

  That's how he was trying to get to it.

• 1:32:06Sean Fennessey?

  Quite liked it. I forgot, but he was going back for more. Yeah, he dug in. Yeah. A lot of protein in there, one presumes. I don't eat dog food, just for the record.

• 1:32:15Speaker 03

  I was about to say, Sean.

• 1:32:16Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for putting that down.

• 1:32:17Speaker 03

  I like, what was happening?

• 1:32:18Sean Fennessey?

  Please don't clip that, Jack.

• 1:32:19Speaker 03

  What was happening pre Grandland? How bad were things?

• 1:32:23Sean Fennessey?

  It was a, it was a struggle. I will admit, we never got that bad, but, uh, all right, we gotta rank these movies. Um, you guys did a lot of work preparing for this episode and I wanna say I appreciate you. I know it's like not that hard to watch a Superman movie, but some of these movies suck, so. There are more bad ones than good ones. Unfortunately so. Let's work backwards. What is the worst one? I think it's the original Justice League. I would tend to agree.

• 1:32:46Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:32:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. What's your argument?

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  I got Superman Returns.

• 1:32:49Sean Fennessey?

  Ooh.

• 1:32:50Speaker 03

  I would watch the original Justice League. Like, any day of the week over Superman Returns. I never wanna watch Superman Returns again. I don't know why. The movie just, there's one cool scene where he gets shot in the eye. And then that's pretty much it, dog.

• 1:33:09Sean Fennessey?

  Superman Returns is like eating a bland cracker to me, which is not terrible.

• 1:33:17Speaker 03

  So many ways right there, go ahead.

• 1:33:18Sean Fennessey?

  Don't, don't play that game with me, sir, on my show. Don't raise me, Van Leeuwen.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  I think I did that in college one time, but.

• 1:33:29Sean Fennessey?

  You raised me as Superman? You ate it, oh, you ate it, I see, a bland cracker. All right.

• 1:33:35Speaker 03

  Experimenting.

• 1:33:36Sean Fennessey?

  We're gonna pivot right out of that one. Back into, to me, like Justice League and to some extent, like Man of Steel is like taking a bite out of Poison Ivy.

• 1:33:47Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:33:47Sean Fennessey?

  Or like the body would reject it and I would be ill for weeks.

• 1:33:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:33:51Sean Fennessey?

  Justice League is like eating what I usually call black licorice. Something that's just like, mm, like get that out of my mouth. I don't like that taste. So some, for some people, it's cilantro. You know, that's a thing that you're like, ah, it's soapy. I can't, I don't want it.

• 1:34:06Speaker 03

  Um, okay.

• 1:34:07Sean Fennessey?

  Or you're mad because the licorice is black and not red. Is that what you're saying? What are you, what are you reflecting on?

• 1:34:11Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 1:34:11Sean Fennessey?

  Just say it.

• 1:34:12Speaker 03

  Nothing, this is.

• 1:34:12Sean Fennessey?

  We're all friends here.

• 1:34:13Speaker 03

  No, no, no. So you guys want, you think Justice League is the worst one?

• 1:34:17Sean Fennessey?

  I do.

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:34:18Sean Fennessey?

  I hate Man of Steel the most. Justice League is unwatchable to me.

• 1:34:21Speaker 03

  Okay. Um, all right. I want it to be Superman Returns. I like, yes.

• 1:34:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'll, I'll, Superman Returns can go in the next slot.

• 1:34:28Speaker 03

  Perfect.

• 1:34:29Sean Fennessey?

  At 10.

• 1:34:29Speaker 03

  Perfect, perfect. Okay, cool.

• 1:34:31Sean Fennessey?

  I don't mind it. Now, to me, there's a, there's a, there's an interesting conversation here among Man of Steel, Batman versus Superman, Superman 4.

• 1:34:41Sean Fennessey?

  There's a lot of sentimentality for Superman 4 here on this podcast.

• 1:34:44Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:34:45Sean Fennessey?

  It is widely considered bad.

• 1:34:46Speaker 03

  Just let you know, in my list, I have Superman 4 ranked second to last, even though.

• 1:34:54Sean Fennessey?

  You do?

• 1:34:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:55Sean Fennessey?

  Why?

• 1:34:56Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:34:57Sean Fennessey?

  You love this movie.

• 1:34:59Speaker 03

  Because I'm being objective.

• 1:35:01Sean Fennessey?

  You're not, though. That's not what this is.

• 1:35:03Speaker 03

  Then the movie would be like third. So I can't, so I can't.

• 1:35:07Sean Fennessey?

  Make the argument.

• 1:35:08Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no, no. Cause it's like, you know, there have been guys that have been saints that I've really liked or guys that have played for LSU. There was a guy, a, a DB for LSU named Demetrius Hookfin, and he couldn't fucking cover. But I defended Demetrius Hookfin for the entire time. He was a Tiger. Cause I used to like the fact that he would blow somebody up.

• 1:35:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, like a nuclear man.

• 1:35:29Speaker 03

  Like, like, yeah. So I can watch this movie and say that I really, uh, it speaks to me. But when you're looking at it, it's, it's, the seams are bursting out of the film.

• 1:35:41Sean Fennessey?

  But I only want to know what speaks to you.

• 1:35:43Speaker 03

  Look, you, if you let me be me, if you let.

• 1:35:46Sean Fennessey?

  What are we doing here if not letting Batman?

• 1:35:49Speaker 03

  If you let me be me in some of these movies, I'll make arguments for all kinds of stuff. But I'm trying, I'm on, we're on the big picture here.

• 1:35:55Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:35:56Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:35:56Sean Fennessey?

  Indeed.

• 1:35:57Speaker 03

  We're on the big picture here. So I'm trying to say.

• 1:35:58Sean Fennessey?

  Superman of movie podcasts.

• 1:35:59Speaker 03

  Like I, I'm looking at this, well, talk your shit. That's what I like to hear. Like if, but I'm looking at this, I'm going, yeah, it's, it's probably in the lower third for sure of Superman movies. If I'm just looking at it from quality and all that stuff. Anyway.

• 1:36:12Sean Fennessey?

  Where are you at on Marques Colston, Pride of Hofstra?

• 1:36:15Speaker 03

  Love him.

• 1:36:15Sean Fennessey?

  He was great, right?

• 1:36:16Speaker 03

  He was the man.

• 1:36:17Sean Fennessey?

  He was the man.

• 1:36:18Speaker 03

  He was the man, big possession receiver when we were kind of getting back to it.

• 1:36:21Sean Fennessey?

  I was looking at his Wikipedia just now, thinking of Saints players. I always remember Marques because he went to Hofstra, which is near where I grew up. And, uh, it said he was widely considered one of, if not the greatest NFL players to never be selected to a Pro Bowl or an all pro team. How about that?

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  I think it's kind of interesting.

• 1:36:38Sean Fennessey?

  Anyway, moving on. Uh, I would say.

• 1:36:43Sean Fennessey?

  I would say Man of Steel nine, super, no.

• 1:36:50Sean Fennessey?

  You're not, you're not letting Man of Steel go into like the second tier. I'm just putting that out there. Oh, it's, it's right here with these next movies.

• 1:36:57Speaker 03

  I have it in the middle.

• 1:36:58Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. No, we're not, I think you're disallowing.

• 1:37:01Speaker 03

  I have it in the middle.

• 1:37:02Sean Fennessey?

  On what grounds?

• 1:37:02Speaker 03

  I have it, I have it in the middle.

• 1:37:04Sean Fennessey?

  No, it's, I think it's nine. I think Batman v Superman is eight. And so, wait, what's at 10? We said Justice League. Oh, sorry. We got to do 10.

• 1:37:14Speaker 03

  Superman Returns.

• 1:37:15Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, Superman Returns. Yeah. So we'll do Justice League, then Superman Returns. Then Man of Steel.

• 1:37:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:37:24Sean Fennessey?

  I, I. Then Batman versus Superman because of Batfleck, then Superman four.

• 1:37:31Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:37:32Sean Fennessey?

  I think.

• 1:37:32Speaker 03

  So if you give me that, I'll take, I will take the victory of Superman four being that high up. I will take that victory.

• 1:37:39Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:39Speaker 03

  I'm letting you know. You guys are gonna get fucking crushed for the Man of Steel thing.

• 1:37:45Speaker 02

  I don't give a shit. It's a bad movie.

• 1:37:49Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really don't care. First of all, I was hating on crypto on House of R.

• 1:37:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can't do that.

• 1:37:54Sean Fennessey?

  And, and, and they just came for me. First of all, Jomi just like cut that and was like, we're putting that on the internet immediately.

• 1:37:59Speaker 02

  That's, that's base.

• 1:38:00Sean Fennessey?

  I see you.

• 1:38:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. That's him getting his.

• 1:38:04Sean Fennessey?

  I clocked that.

• 1:38:06Speaker 03

  That's him, Jomi getting his revenge.

• 1:38:07Sean Fennessey?

  And, uh, I don't give a damn about the Man of Steel people. I really don't. Uh, I've been clearly proven correct if you look at the state of Zack Snyder's filmography right now. Okay.

• 1:38:16Speaker 03

  Shit.

• 1:38:18Sean Fennessey?

  He's a talented filmmaker. I wish he was making different movies.

• 1:38:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, Army of the Devil, okay. Okay, so, so, so where are we at? So where are we at?

• 1:38:25Sean Fennessey?

  Justice League, Superman Returns, Man of Steel.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:38:31Sean Fennessey?

  Batman v Superman.

• 1:38:32Speaker 03

  Batman v Superman.

• 1:38:32Sean Fennessey?

  Superman 4. Is Superman 4 or Zack Snyder's Justice League? What's going in the, in the six?

• 1:38:39Speaker 03

  Zack Snyder's, Justice, the Snyder cut's better than Superman 4.

• 1:38:43Speaker 02

  I'm willing to give it to Zack Snyder's Justice League.

• 1:38:45Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:38:46Speaker 02

  On, on ambition, on scale, like it, it is reaching for something that I think is cool. I don't think it gets there. I'm like, I'm a little allergic to just like his style of action filmmaking, to be honest with you. But I, I admire what he's trying for. In a way that I'm not sure Superman 4 is trying for a lot, other than Christopher Reeve trying to get the word out about disarmament.

• 1:39:05Sean Fennessey?

  Is James Gunn Superman a superior film to Superman 3?

• 1:39:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:39:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

• 1:39:12Sean Fennessey?

  So Superman 3 would be next.

• 1:39:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:16Sean Fennessey?

  You guys all getting this at home? Thumbs up?

• 1:39:19Speaker 03

  This is where it gets, this is where it gets crazy.

• 1:39:23Speaker 02

  I have an argument for, so we're at number five or number four?

• 1:39:27Speaker 03

  Four.

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  Number four is the Donner Cut.

• 1:39:31Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 1:39:32Sean Fennessey?

  So you think Superman 2 is superior to the Donner Cut?

• 1:39:36Speaker 02

  I do.

• 1:39:37Sean Fennessey?

  Can you make the case?

• 1:39:38Speaker 02

  One, it's an actual movie. I would say like, there are a lot of good component parts to the Donner Cut. It's not, it wasn't made as a movie, it doesn't stand as a movie. As a result, it's just like not as cohesive. Two, I think the Lois and Clark stuff in the Lester Cut is actually a lot better. And that's not just like, nobody's pointing a gun at anybody, or nobody's jumping out of a window per se. It's, it's funnier, it's sharper, I think their scenes together are stronger. And like, I'm here for that chemistry. Like, the Reeve Kidder chemistry is really important to me.

• 1:40:07Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting take.

• 1:40:07Speaker 02

  I think it's so much lighter on its feet. And Christopher Reeve is so funny in these movies, when they let him be funny. And I think the Donner version cuts into like, a self-seriousness that is almost Zack Snyder-y. Like, the scene where he's in the Fortress of Solitude, doing the like, "Haven't I done enough for humanity?" Speech. My guy, you've been Superman for like, four days. Like, straight up, you just became Superman. And he's like, "Haven't I done enough?" Doing one thing. And this, and really, like, the ultimate sin.

• 1:40:36Sean Fennessey?

  He did save the entire state of California.

• 1:40:38Speaker 02

  He did.

• 1:40:39Sean Fennessey?

  And that was pretty impressive.

• 1:40:40Speaker 02

  And he did it by winding back time, by flying around the world, and guess what? He did it again.

• 1:40:45Speaker 03

  Again.

• 1:40:45Speaker 02

  At the end of Superman 2, the Donner Cut.

• 1:40:47Speaker 03

  That's, that's the biggest...

• 1:40:49Speaker 02

  The ending, it's inexcusable to just recycle the end. And the ending of the Lester Cut is not good either, but it's not that.

• 1:40:56Speaker 03

  So, let's...

• 1:40:57Sean Fennessey?

  Strong case.

• 1:40:58Speaker 03

  I say so. Let's compare the, the exact scenes to one another. Okay? In the Lester Cut, Lois finds out about Superman being Superman, because he like, burns his hand in the whatever. And he's not burned. In the Donner Cut, you have the scene of Superman, uh, they're dressed up and touches the edge, he shoots.

• 1:41:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:41:22Speaker 03

  Or with the blanks.

• 1:41:23Speaker 02

  With the blanks.

• 1:41:24Speaker 03

  Which scene is more effective to you?

• 1:41:25Speaker 02

  I actually like the Lester Cut version of like, there's a part of Clark that wants to tell her. And he's like, he trips over a fucking pink bear rug, but he doesn't trip over a bear rug. There's just a part of him that wants to have that conversation.

• 1:41:38Sean Fennessey?

  I think the Donner Cut version is magic.

• 1:41:40Speaker 03

  I think the Donner Cut, I think that version works better.

• 1:41:44Sean Fennessey?

  I love that.

• 1:41:45Speaker 03

  I think that-

• 1:41:45Sean Fennessey?

  The gunshot is so exciting.

• 1:41:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:47Speaker 02

  It is exciting. It's, it, there are a lot of-

• 1:41:49Sean Fennessey?

  What is happening here?

• 1:41:50Speaker 02

  Moments in the Donner Cut. And I think overall, like, so Lois as a character in the Donner Cut is just so much sharper. Like, she is on it from the, from the jump. They're like, this dude is Superman. I just drew the glasses in my newspaper. Why are we even arguing about this?

• 1:42:04Sean Fennessey?

  Niagara Falls, the whole thing, yeah.

• 1:42:05Speaker 02

  And I respect like how that character is portrayed in the Donner Cut, but like, as a result, their scenes together are so much more adversarial in a way that I don't think it's like always that effective. Because I think it's rejiggered. If, if he had been able to shoot the whole movie as he intended from the start, I think it would probably be the better movie. But he didn't.

• 1:42:22Speaker 03

  The one scene that the Lester Cut has over the Donner Cut is the way Zod says my favorite line. It's like, why, like, why would you?

• 1:42:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:32Speaker 03

  You know, like, why would you say this to me when I know you, I will kill you for it? If you watch the Donner Cut, if the Lester Cut, he goes, why would you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it? He's kind of incredulous and he's more comedic. And the Lester, in, in, in the Donner Cut, he goes, why would you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it? It is not as funny. The scenes are, he actually delivers the line differently. That's the, that's the only thing that to me-

• 1:42:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:42:55Speaker 03

  The Lester Cut, I just want an excuse to put those two scenes in this-

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  There's a part of the Lester Zod that's like, kind of bored and annoyed-

• 1:43:01Speaker 03

  He's very-

• 1:43:01Speaker 02

  That I like.

• 1:43:02Speaker 03

  Right. He's very, very to the thing. And the, the other guy is like-

• 1:43:07Speaker 02

  A rage monster, honestly.

• 1:43:08Speaker 03

  He's very, he's very mad.

• 1:43:10Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I, I personally prefer the Zod in the Donner Cut, and I also think-

• 1:43:14Speaker 02

  Well, you're also a rage monster.

• 1:43:15Sean Fennessey?

  As we are seeing here on this episode today. Terrence, what Terrence Stamp brings to Superman to either cut-

• 1:43:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:22Sean Fennessey?

  Is-

• 1:43:22Speaker 03

  He's the man.

• 1:43:23Sean Fennessey?

  Is unbelievable to me. It is, there, maybe you could say, certainly Michael Shannon played the character again and brought something very specific. But that fine-grained combination of British-

• 1:43:37Sean Fennessey?

  Upscale arrogance.

• 1:43:38Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:40Sean Fennessey?

  A kind of very entrancing bizarre beauty. You know, he's a historically like a very handsome, like attractive, swinging sixties actor. But getting into his forties and fifties, that's a very, we don't see that look too often now. The like, the full beard and mustache that is manicured in such a way to make him seem like an evil magician.

• 1:44:01Speaker 03

  He looks Kryptonian. He looks like a guy from, an evil guy from another realm.

• 1:44:05Sean Fennessey?

  He's, he is fantastic. He holds those movies together in so many ways. Uh, I, I think you made a strong enough case. I don't really agree with it, but I also, we're giving each other things here.

• 1:44:16Speaker 02

  I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 1:44:17Speaker 03

  I, I, I dug what you had to say.

• 1:44:19Sean Fennessey?

  Now, do you think that, so the Donner Cut would go four, do you think that the Lester Cut is superior to James Gunn's Superman?

• 1:44:26Speaker 02

  This one is like a tie for me, and this is where I would open up the negotiation a little bit. I, but I think it says a lot that this new movie is already in this pantheon.

• 1:44:35Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think it's as good as Superman two.

• 1:44:38Speaker 03

  It's not.

• 1:44:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's fine.

• 1:44:39Speaker 03

  So it, it's not, but that's no knock to this movie.

• 1:44:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:47Sean Fennessey?

  I never was gonna put it at two.

• 1:44:49Speaker 03

  Superman, Superman the movie is, Superman the movie is gonna be at number one for me. It is.

• 1:44:56Speaker 02

  It's, I mean, I don't think there's a lot of debate on that.

• 1:44:59Speaker 03

  Superman two is probably better.

• 1:45:02Sean Fennessey?

  Better than the original?

• 1:45:04Speaker 03

  Then what are we, you're ranking it number one then? Okay, so, so let me tell you. Now, as a, you guys have to understand what I'm doing here.

• 1:45:12Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:45:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:45:13Sean Fennessey?

  Please walk us through it.

• 1:45:14Speaker 03

  We're ranking the movies.

• 1:45:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:15Speaker 03

  I'm not ranking the movies.

• 1:45:17Sean Fennessey?

  This is, this is what it's like in the Jets draft room every year, by the way. This is their war room, and this is why we keep fucking up.

• 1:45:22Speaker 03

  I'm not ranking the movies strictly on quality.

• 1:45:25Sean Fennessey?

  Why not?

• 1:45:26Speaker 03

  I'm not ranking them because I think that's, I think honestly, that's too subjective.

• 1:45:32Speaker 03

  Like that, that.

• 1:45:33Speaker 02

  Art is subjective, Van.

• 1:45:34Speaker 03

  I know. That's why, that's why, if, that's why if you're going to rank something.

• 1:45:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:45:39Speaker 03

  Then you rank it across a litany of different criteria and not just the thing that you like the most.

• 1:45:45Speaker 02

  I just fundamentally disagree with this.

• 1:45:47Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm just being for real.

• 1:45:48Speaker 02

  In the fiber of my being, disagree with it.

• 1:45:50Speaker 03

  I just, I just, you don't, because if.

• 1:45:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's been too long since I've seen you two together like this.

• 1:45:54Speaker 03

  You like something, I like something, you have a bunch of different inputs.

• 1:45:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:45:58Speaker 03

  I have a bunch of different inputs. I can recognize that something is the best and I don't like it as much.

• 1:46:06Sean Fennessey?

  What's more arrogant, thinking you have the power to see objectively or only using your own subjective point of view to evaluate?

• 1:46:14Speaker 02

  I would argue that subjectivity is all we got. Like, especially when it comes to something like a movie or a piece of music.

• 1:46:19Sean Fennessey?

  Spoken like a real fake news journalist, Jean Louise.

• 1:46:22Speaker 03

  So, so when I watch Superman 2, man, the, the movie has respect, the movie has, Lex is in this.

• 1:46:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:46:32Speaker 03

  And it has the super criminals, right? It has Zod and them. There's more happening there. Lois and Superman, what's going on between them? Is just way, way more interesting. The first one is delightful and it's very formative. And it's like, oh my God, they're flying. And it's like, all of that. She's in trouble. She is like another little nemesis to me. Superman loses his powers. He has to use his brain to reverse the fucking thing. There's just so much happening in Superman 2. That if I look at it as a movie.

• 1:47:05Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:47:06Speaker 03

  It's better than the original. The original is, is, the original is, it's, it's, it's the, the, it's a more important film. It's the number one film, but the sequel is better. It's better.

• 1:47:19Speaker 02

  The original one's better, but.

• 1:47:20Sean Fennessey?

  It is better.

• 1:47:21Speaker 02

  As I was watching Superman 2, I did have the thought and the Donner Cut. There's one thing in particular I need Van's opinion on, which is Superman in the Lester Cut. Getting together with Lois after losing his powers. Superman, the Donner Cut, fully empowered Superman. How, how are you feeling about the Clark-Lowis Superman dynamic, physiologically speaking? You know, like, what do you think is the, like, how realistic is this whole situation?

• 1:47:44Speaker 03

  I like it powered up.

• 1:47:45Speaker 02

  You do?

• 1:47:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, just be, you got, he can be gentle. Like he don't move around fast, going crazy, doing everything else. You see him running to his mom. He know how to control it. He could control it.

• 1:47:56Sean Fennessey?

  There is the faded, long running question of the super sperm.

• 1:48:00Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:48:01Sean Fennessey?

  You know, what do we do with that? Speaking of Kevin Smith, like, you know, this is-

• 1:48:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, the super sperm, I mean, I don't know if you can really control, I don't want to get into the whole thing, but I don't know if you can control what happens, the actual, you act of it. Well, I don't-

• 1:48:13Sean Fennessey?

  What happens?

• 1:48:14Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know if you could control that part, if it's gonna, you know-

• 1:48:17Sean Fennessey?

  Seems like an important part.

• 1:48:18Speaker 03

  If there's an exit wound or something like that, like, I don't know if you can control that, but the other stuff, it seems like you should be able to control, it's fine. I liked it. I think it's cool. It's fine.

• 1:48:30Sean Fennessey?

  You heard it here first, Van Lathan likes it powered up.

• 1:48:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:35Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I think that this is a fairly simple Superman two Superman the movie.

• 1:48:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:48:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'm cool with that. I, I, your passion is beautiful and, and-

• 1:48:48Speaker 03

  You guys back me into a corner. Superman one is the clear answer.

• 1:48:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but it just, it establishes and accomplishes so many of the things that are so essential to upending some of those things into. Yeah. And I think, you know, the point also, the idea of, uh, the way that two ends is just not very satisfactory, whereas the way that one ends to me, the first time you see it, is very exciting and very, because it's heartbreaking to watch Lois die. Totally. It is like, it's devastating. As a small kid, I was like, this cannot be happening. So I, I'm, I'm really curious to see where Superman 2025 sits, five years from now.

• 1:49:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:49:27Sean Fennessey?

  We're getting close to five years from the Batman, and here we are on this panel saying, yeah, is it a little overrated now? I think it's pretty great.

• 1:49:36Speaker 03

  Well, I, I, I don't know that it's, it's funny, because I said what I said earlier, and I, with The Dark Knight Rises, because I think both movies are aging pretty well. The Batman for me, when I first watched it, was like, man, this movie is long. He's walking very slowly. Like there's, you know, he is, he's taking his time, he's treating Alfred like shit.

• 1:49:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Speaker 03

  You know what I mean?

• 1:49:58Sean Fennessey?

  He's the world's greatest detective, not the world's greatest marathon runner.

• 1:50:01Speaker 03

  I get it, but- I watch that movie a lot more now. And I think, this is gonna sound stupid. The Penguin reignited my interest in all the other things that I had. It deepened the world and was, it greased the entry point for me in that movie. Now, man, the end of that movie, there's a lot that happens in that film. Like, that movie goes on and on and on and on.

• 1:50:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it actually kinda has a similar Dark Knight Rises energy to the conclusion where I'm like, why is this fight happening in the rafters of this political convention where there's a flood? Like, I have to probably have to revisit. I will say, my version of returning to the movie is just watching the Paul Dano no, no, no meme over and over again, whenever watching sports. Whenever I'm watching a team I care about, that's what I think of. I feel we've done, I feel we've done well.

• 1:50:52Speaker 03

  I think so as well.

• 1:50:53Speaker 02

  I think we nailed it.

• 1:50:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna recite these rankings for us. Number 11, Justice League, directed by Joss Whedon. Number 10, Superman Returns, which I didn't think going into this exercise, we all would have been so roundly against, and I would have disliked as much as I did. But it's nice to hear that we could at least agree that it doesn't work. Number nine is Man of Steel. Number eight is Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice. Number seven, Superman: For the Quest for Peace. Number six, Zack Snyder's Justice League: The Snyder Cut. Number five, Superman 3. Number four, Superman 2: The Donner Cut. Number three, Superman 2025. Number two, Superman 2. And number one, Superman from 1978. What a showing for Superman 3.

• 1:51:37Sean Fennessey?

  Just like by default ends up at number five? Pretty good outcome.

• 1:51:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:42Sean Fennessey?

  It's not, it's a pretty good Richard Pryor performance.

• 1:51:44Speaker 03

  It's a pretty good Richard Pryor performance, and it has some really good moments, man. The Cyborg Sister thing is fucking ridiculous. That's so stupid, bruh. Like, it's, it, it was stupid to me when I was a kid, by the way.

• 1:51:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:58Speaker 03

  Didn't make any sense, but Superman finding himself. Evil, dirty Superman. Superman, oil tanker Superman.

• 1:52:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:52:06Speaker 03

  Superman hitting on, it's got a lot of cool, good stuff.

• 1:52:09Speaker 02

  I love when Superman saves Richard Pryor from a pile of rubble by dapping him up. It's like the healing power of daps.

• 1:52:16Sean Fennessey?

  By the way, we didn't talk about how Pryor got in that movie, which is he just went on like the Dinah Shore show and was like, you guys see Superman? I love that movie. And then Alexander Salkin was like, we should get Richard Pryor in this movie.

• 1:52:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:52:27Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it'd be nice if things worked that way still.

• 1:52:28Speaker 02

  It's good on this podcast. Van, is there any movie you wanna be in?

• 1:52:32Speaker 03

  It's very funny that you would say that. Just guys, keep, stay tuned. Now, look.

• 1:52:36Speaker 02

  Whoa. Now, that's a tease.

• 1:52:38Speaker 03

  I'm serious. Stay tuned. Now, Pryor is also, we didn't talk that much about Richard Pryor. Him with the skis, Superman's a bad mother. He's, he is, he adds a lot to the film.

• 1:52:50Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 1:52:51Speaker 03

  He adds a lot to the film. Very funny.

• 1:52:53Sean Fennessey?

  I feel pretty good about what we've done here. Now, you can find this ranking and all of the rankings on this show on our Letterboxd account, which is at the big pick. Where's the group chat Letterboxd account?

• 1:53:03Speaker 02

  You know, we don't have one yet. I gotta, I gotta get those guys on. Actually, Justin's pretty active on Letterboxd. We gotta.

• 1:53:08Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you guys grind so much tape, too. I feel like, can you log the tape?

• 1:53:12Speaker 02

  It's a great question.

• 1:53:13Sean Fennessey?

  We should speak to Letterboxd about this.

• 1:53:15Speaker 02

  Does Hornets Blazers, like, is that registrable on Letterboxd? I don't know. Might qualify as a TV program.

• 1:53:20Sean Fennessey?

  Where's the, the Midnight Boys?

• 1:53:23Speaker 03

  We need a Letterboxd. I got my own Letterboxd.

• 1:53:25Speaker 02

  Do you?

• 1:53:26Sean Fennessey?

  What?

• 1:53:26Speaker 03

  I do. I have a Letterboxd. I don't think I understand how to use Letterboxd, though.

• 1:53:29Sean Fennessey?

  Did you follow anyone?

• 1:53:30Speaker 02

  Well, there's no 12-point scale.

• 1:53:31Sean Fennessey?

  You followed me?

• 1:53:32Speaker 03

  I followed you. It's 12-point scale, the midnight meeting.

• 1:53:35Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:53:35Speaker 03

  Proprietary, by the way. Um, explain to people the second apron. Just real quick.

• 1:53:40Speaker 02

  All the rules of the second apron?

• 1:53:43Speaker 03

  People are confused.

• 1:53:44Speaker 02

  I would say Man of Steel went over the second apron.

• 1:53:48Speaker 02

  Like, whatever they paid Costner, it was a lot.

• 1:53:52Speaker 02

  They're not gonna be able to make any one-for-one trades for a while. That's, that's why they had to blow it up. Like, they ultimately got stuck.

• 1:53:57Speaker 03

  I've been trying to explain this to my friends. Like, my friends will be like, why are they still? I'm like, bro, nobody has any money to get the second apron and all of that. And they're like, I don't want the NBA no more, man.

• 1:54:07Sean Fennessey?

  It didn't stop the Knicks from signing Gershon, Yabaseli.

• 1:54:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, huge signing, honestly. That's very good.

• 1:54:12Sean Fennessey?

  Pretty excited about that.

• 1:54:13Speaker 03

  Is Valanciunas going overseas?

• 1:54:15Sean Fennessey?

  Depends on if you ask him or ask the Denver Nuggets.

• 1:54:18Speaker 02

  I think he would like, he would like to go to Europe for a while. We'll see if that happens or not.

• 1:54:23Sean Fennessey?

  Has a, a take ever taken more of an L than your Jokic take from the early days on the Bill Simmons podcast?

• 1:54:29Speaker 03

  Man, look, I'm, I'm, look, okay, so let me put this into context real quick. Nah, because I'm probably still wrong. So let me tell you what triggered me about this. Bill said during that time that he thought that Jokic was as good as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. That's what he said.

• 1:54:47Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:54:47Speaker 03

  All right? That's two, three years ago.

• 1:54:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:51Speaker 03

  And I'm like, you can't say that somebody is as good as Magic Johnson or Larry Bird unless they win a bunch of NBA championships, right?

• 1:54:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:54:59Speaker 03

  You have, you, that you have to, that has to be a thing. And then Bill outed me for some reason. He was so pissed off that he outed me on Twitter about this whole thing.

• 1:55:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:11Speaker 03

  And, and sicked all the Ringer people on me, all the, we on group chat and Bill goes, yo, man, Jokic is, and look, you know what? Now it turns out that Jokic might be as good as, as those guys. He might be insane, but you couldn't say a thing, is all I was saying.

• 1:55:24Speaker 02

  It was too early.

• 1:55:26Speaker 03

  Right, but.

• 1:55:26Sean Fennessey?

  Do you as a, as a, as a ball knower, agree that he is in league with Magic and Bird?

• 1:55:32Speaker 02

  He's one of the, he's one of the best players of all time. It's just a matter of like what you prioritize as far as the titles, the individual production, all that stuff.

• 1:55:38Sean Fennessey?

  What do you, what do you prioritize?

• 1:55:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, see, don't do that. I'm not a. Hold on, did you see what he just did?

• 1:55:43Speaker 02

  Well, I followed up.

• 1:55:43Speaker 03

  Don't do that.

• 1:55:44Speaker 02

  What did I do?

• 1:55:45Speaker 03

  No, I'm asking, he asked you a question about it and you were like, depends, depends, depends. Who do you think is better out of like, it's subjective, be subjective. Don't do that. No, no, not like, who do you think is better?

• 1:55:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:58Speaker 03

  Bird, Magic, Jokic? Give it now.

• 1:56:01Speaker 02

  Here's the answer. I wasn't born when they were in their prime. I'm not qualified to answer that question.

• 1:56:07Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's at least.

• 1:56:08Speaker 02

  If you want me to compare Jokic to LeBron, I can do that. LeBron's, LeBron's better.

• 1:56:12Speaker 03

  LeBron's better than Jokic? He's a better player?

• 1:56:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Do you want me to compare like Stephen Jokic, we got in that conversation, but like, I, I don't feel qualified to get into the Kareems and the Larrys and the Magics in incredible detail.

• 1:56:22Speaker 03

  Way to wriggle out. This is what I'll say. Like Jokic.

• 1:56:25Speaker 02

  Yambusale is better than all of them.

• 1:56:27Speaker 03

  Jokic.

• 1:56:28Sean Fennessey?

  God willing.

• 1:56:28Speaker 03

  Jokic, all time great, all time great. I think the question that really that you guys should do on group chat that really gets the people going.

• 1:56:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:36Speaker 03

  Is Jokic better than Shaq all time?

• 1:56:39Sean Fennessey?

  I heard you addressing this.

• 1:56:40Speaker 02

  That's a good, that's a good conversation.

• 1:56:42Speaker 03

  That's a good one.

• 1:56:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:44Speaker 03

  Cause that gets the group chat, my group chat, my friends on fire. Cause one of my boys, Ryan, our most dedicated basketball knowledge guy.

• 1:56:52Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:52Speaker 03

  He says it's over. He says Jokic is better. And everybody else just goes nuts.

• 1:56:56Sean Fennessey?

  I will say, I have still never seen anything though, like the first six years of Shaq.

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:02Sean Fennessey?

  In professional sports. Where I was like, anything could happen at any given moment. The, the like breaking the backboard and pulling the back, the rim down thing.

• 1:57:11Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:57:11Sean Fennessey?

  When that was happening, not just shattering the backboard, which we saw a few times growing up, but him pulling the entire stanchion to the ground.

• 1:57:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:20Sean Fennessey?

  It was like watching Superman play basketball.

• 1:57:22Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:57:23Sean Fennessey?

  And then he of course was steel.

• 1:57:25Speaker 02

  He was.

• 1:57:25Speaker 03

  He was.

• 1:57:26Speaker 02

  Why didn't we rank steel?

• 1:57:27Speaker 03

  We should have put steel in there. That's a Superman movie.

• 1:57:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:30Sean Fennessey?

  I guess it is.

• 1:57:31Speaker 03

  I guess it's Superman.

• 1:57:32Sean Fennessey?

  How did we get here through meandering of five minutes of NBA talk?

• 1:57:35Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:57:35Sean Fennessey?

  We forgot about steel.

• 1:57:37Speaker 03

  [laughing]

• 1:57:37Sean Fennessey?

  Steel would be third overall?

• 1:57:39Speaker 02

  At least.

• 1:57:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably so.

• 1:57:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:57:40Speaker 02

  Shaq, great actor.

• 1:57:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:41Speaker 02

  Great actor, dominant player.

• 1:57:42Sean Fennessey?

  Very good.

• 1:57:43Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:57:43Sean Fennessey?

  Extremely good rapper.

• 1:57:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:57:45Sean Fennessey?

  I saw him live.

• 1:57:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:57:46Speaker 03

  Jokic can only do one thing and that's basketball. So.

• 1:57:48Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good point. So who's a better human being? Shaquille O'Neal or Nikola Jokic?

• 1:57:53Speaker 03

  I would much rather be Shaq. And I think a lot of people know why. But it, it, oh Shaq gets to it. Whatever. Let's, we gotta end the podcast.

• 1:58:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, let's end the podcast. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Listen to Rob Mahoney on a myriad of podcasts.

• 1:58:09Speaker 02

  Whatever you like, group chat, et cetera.

• 1:58:11Sean Fennessey?

  Prestige TV, uh, the Zach Lowe podcast.

• 1:58:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, now and again.

• 1:58:16Sean Fennessey?

  Well, what else? The Bill Simmons podcast from time to time.

• 1:58:19Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 1:58:19Sean Fennessey?

  What else are you getting on these days?

• 1:58:21Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm coming for Chris's head is the third chair of the big picture.

• 1:58:24Speaker 03

  Oh, there we go.

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  Wow. So.

• 1:58:26Speaker 03

  Chris, boy, I, I, there's a little talk on the streets about the CR, Mahoney. CR, you might be-

• 1:58:34Sean Fennessey?

  What is that talk?

• 1:58:35Speaker 03

  The Anthony Edwards to CR's, um, you might be the Anthony Edwards to CR's LeBron.

• 1:58:41Sean Fennessey?

  I don't even know what that comparison is.

• 1:58:43Speaker 03

  Might be the young pup that's pushing the old master.

• 1:58:46Sean Fennessey?

  Wow.

• 1:58:47Speaker 03

  That's what some people on the streets are saying, that's all I'm saying.

• 1:58:49Sean Fennessey?

  Many people are saying.

• 1:58:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:51Sean Fennessey?

  Van Lathan, Midnight Boys, Higher Learning, uh, the Rhyme or Still podcast, listen to that episode, it's insane. Uh, what else? What else you doing? Prestige TV for the bear.

• 1:59:00Speaker 03

  Prestige TV for the bears. I'm everywhere. It was like, whenever you want to piss people off, just put my name in the podcast and just see what they say.

• 1:59:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's just definitively not true. Thanks for listening, watching. Later this week, a new 25 for 25.

• 1:59:14Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:59:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's a movie whose title I will not reveal. Goodbye.

• 1:59:37Speaker 06

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• 2:00:07Speaker 07

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