SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE

Moving money used to be slow. But now you can move money fast with Visa Direct. Meet the need for speed, even across more than 11 billion cards, accounts and wallets. Move money your way. Learn more at Visa.com slash Visa Direct. Hey, I'm Kevin. And I'm PJ. And together we host the podcast. I'm Grandman. And our podcast is currently sponsored by Compare the Market. Where you can now get personalised car and home insurance deals delivered by AutoSerge.

One absolute faff that I've come across is home insurance. Well, I found a shortcut to make things simpler, right? Tell me more. You need to meet Otto Sergei, right? He's one of the meerkats who does the hard work for us by scurrying around to find great home insurance deals. It's simple and...

easy to use and after I use it this year, AutoSorge will sort out next year and in the future. Just make it simple with personalized deals delivered by AutoSorge from Compare the Market. Prices are generated from information you've provided. Review before purchasing. Simple. That was good. Disgust Cause nothing's more Relaxing Than the cries of death So spend a tender hour With boiling and rest Oh boy

We don't have to reference. We can jump right back into it. It's all good. Well, listen, listeners and streamers, you know this. They're probably screaming, the red light isn't on. The red light isn't on. We did a whole opening that didn't record, which included us doing... Balloonies. Yeah, so for those of you who don't know, most people are probably going, oh, balloonies. Of course, I know what a balloonie is. But after Superman 3...

When we watched it, Matt and I both had the shared memory that Superman, at the end, the supercomputer traps him in a bubble that looks like a balloony. Yeah. And that's B apostrophe. L-O-O-N-I-E. Like, this balloon has gone quite loony. Yeah, but they're like toxic plastic goo that you...

like squeeze out of a tube onto a straw and really like hemorrhaged your cheeks to blow up. Yeah. And you did, you got it going. Yeah. And if you're, if you were live streaming this show, which you can at a patron.com slash with Gourley and Rust, you would have seen us. do these balloonies. Now you only hear about the distant memory. I'm so sorry. We had already discussed.

Started our discussion on Superman 4, the quest for peace. I'm Matt Gourley. And I'm Paul Rust. And yeah, this is the final cap, final cape. The final cape on this series of Superman movies, the Reeve ones. Yeah. Now, maybe before we jump right back into the discussion, just to give us a little breather from that, since we were just talking about it for 10 minutes. I'm glad I looked back.

They're from the balloonies. I know. The toxic smell. We could take a moment to talk about next season. Let's do it. Okay. So, you know, we've been teasing these ideas we had for future seasons. This one was not. in that list. And I just thought of it because I think it's, it's both timely seasonally. That's true. And for, I believe, timing out wise about a new film coming out. That's right. Which is the, I know what you did last summer series. Woo.

Getting back to our roots of horror here. Yes, yes. Now, what we need to discuss is how we want to approach this series, because there's the original. the sequel, a direct-to-video sequel, and the new one coming to the theaters, I think, is it July, I think, maybe? Mm-hmm. So it would time out pretty well. Yeah, that's good. It would be in theaters when we get there. So we can... The question is, do we want to include the direct...

To DVD. I think so. I mean, I've seen the first two, but I never saw the direct to DVD one. Okay. Yeah, I've seen both the originals as well. Because what are the titles? I know what you did last summer. Let me look it up. By the way, I want to say thanks to James Shesky or two who alerted us.

To put us on the trail of the balloonies, which you can buy on Amazon. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm going to keep working on my balloonie. Matt was able to blow his up, but I tried. But the smells brought me back to my... To my youth, Matt. Yeah, so it's I Know What You Did Last Summer followed by the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer in which Hewitt, Prince, Jr., and Watson reprised their roles.

A straight to video standalone sequel. I'll always know what you did last summer. I'll always know. Features an entirely new cast. Do you think that's a crossover with the Richard Dreyfuss Spielberg movie? Always. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, and summer rental. It's a mashup. It's like the Batman versus Superman. I always know what you did last summer rental.

Starring Richard Dreyfuss. Richard Dreyfuss, John Candy, together again. There's a television series adapted and released by Amazon Prime Video in 2021. What was that called? Just I know what you did. I guess so. I know what you did last order. It's a legacy sequel. A legacy sequel to the first two films is scheduled to be released July 18th. 2025. So that would mean we can time this out, I think, fairly well. Yeah, you know what? Combining that with the batch of movies we just saw...

It's I Know What You Did Last Super. Yeah. In July, it all comes together in multiplexes across the country. I Know What You Did Last Super. Oh, my God. So we'll get back to you on how it times out with our schedule because I'm also going away for a couple weeks and then whether we can figure out that third one or not because we could go... part one to into the movie. That's true. That would make more sense. And then we could always do that standalone thing after. That's good.

if it times out or not, depending on, we'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you guys join us on our I Know What You Did Last Summer vacation. Yeah, let's see. Here on the live screen. Yeah. Got a nice batch of people here sharing their thoughts.

On the live screen, he made a joke about how he was looking forward to the heaps of praise. We're about the imminent heaps of praise that we're going to put on Superman 4 Quest for Peace. Yeah, and I was saying last time that... Even though this movie is highly unsuccessful, and I wasn't a huge fan of Superman 3, There's something about this that tips over into the absurd that gives me slight, not anywhere near, but slight Jaws 4 vibes. And there's something quaint.

About it, in a way, it still doesn't put me in that cozy place that Jaws 4 did. No, you know what, though? When I was watching Superman 4, it is a weird, bad... Superman movie, and you know I love Superman 3, but because Superman 4 shares actually more qualities with Superman 1 and 2, it weirdly makes Superman 3 more of an outlier. It does. Yeah. Because if you had said, there's a Superman movie with no Lex Luthor.

Little Lois Lane. Little Lois Lane. Little Lois Lane. Like next to only a few minutes of Lois Lane and was a Richard Pryor comedy vehicle. That sounds way more weird and off the beaten path than Superman four is. Right. And in a way that sounds like a Superman four movie. Yeah. Like if you described a Superman four movies, like, yeah.

Gene Hackman didn't come back. Marco Kidder's hardly in it. It's mostly a Richard Pryor movie. You'd be like, that makes sense for a part four. It's kind of weird how, because this has a lot of the... qualities of the first two Superman movies. Unless you put it in the vein of a Halloween 3 where it's just they tried this thing, although it doesn't go full Halloween 3. No. But then this, another reason I guess this reminds me of Joss 4 is that you've got...

Hackman coming back, but Hackman in his fallow period, like Kane was for Jaws 4, were just anything for a paycheck. You know, Hackman was not doing his best work. When did he do Hoosiers? Uh... 86. Okay, so he is... Although I don't think he really believed in that movie until afterwards or something. Right. But he's just about a payday here, clearly. And...

Even Hackman's phoning it in is still better than... Oh, without a doubt. Yeah, but he's nowhere near at the level he was in one and, you know, his parts for two. But the Jaws comparison, he's like Lorraine... uh gray yeah where he's in the first two and the fourth but not the third Yeah. And when you compared it... Like Loomis. What's that? Like Loomis, like Donald Pleasant. Yes, yes. When you compared it to Jaws 4, I was like, oh, these both came out in the summer of 87. Yeah.

both part fours and also feature not John Williams conducting, but a John Williams score being... Butchered. Butchered, reappropriated by a different composer. So like you got, yeah, Jaws and the Superman themes too, like echoic John Williams scores. And then they're just kind of...

dumped in summer 87 with these two lousy movies. The way this movie starts, like... starts on an instant high note where it's the Superman theme, which we didn't get a ton of in Superman 3. No, I know, I know, I know. And it's just on solo trumpet. And for a second, I'm like, oh, this is really cool. And then the main titles kick in, which look abysmal.

And then the music just, it's like, it's like they gassed the musicians because it starts so strong and then it just kind of gets sour. Yes. It's like they're watching the titles. They start on the... The musician is playing, and you see the Warner Brothers logos, and you're like, I've made it. Prestige. And then the titles start, and it's the... I also thought that opening trumpet theme, like over, you know, when it's just solo before the rest of the orchestra kicks in, it sounded like taps.

Yes. I mean, it sounds like the sad, like it's the end of the day. It's the end of this franchise. It is. Yeah. They're blowing taps for Superman. Little mournful taps blowing at the beginning of this movie. And then those titles. I mean, those titles are sort of like a perfect microcosm for comparing part one to part four, because in part one, those credits, this is how they work. They get small, they get closer, they get big, and they jump out of the screen. That's amazing. This is they...

go away from you. Did you notice that? And they get like smaller. As if to say, don't look at me. I'm hideous. Yes. And somebody coming out of the bathroom being like, don't look at me. Let me go put my face on. Don't take a picture. Because then the colors.

They're kind of... It's like, should... be red and yellow but they're more like orange and yellow no you know what it is they're little cockroaches and you come in and turn on the light and they all scurry yeah yes yes yes because then it has that weird like blur on it too underneath the letters that like

It's so ugly. It's rough, and it actually made me pity the movie, not hate the movie. That's the thing. I think I pity this movie. I have a sympathy for it in some way, and there's always a charm to the Gollum Globus.

films and unintended charm. Yes. Despite all their kind of like cynicism and how they make movies, there's like a quaintness to it. And then it is weird because it's that ersatz Superman. You've got the original cast back with no money, no decent script.

No music. It's just weird. Yeah. It's just weird. It is a weird movie. And we were, I think this is the last piece of business that we had discussed was like, that effect that gets reused and recycled through the whole movie where Superman is flying toward the screen and he's kind of like... But I guess when they couldn't afford a flying shot, they just keep reusing that same... But the lighting's all off. It's like they shot it in a carport in a driveway. Yes. Where it's slightly shaded, but...

And it's so weird when it's like, we know you have the technology to do this right. Well, yeah, I read about that in Brantley's wonderful notes that they chose to do it optically. this time because it would be a lot cheaper but yeah it's far inferior especially if you don't necessarily do it well can i read that a little part of uh the excellent brantley palmer's excellent notes um

Canon used a lower cost optical system for flying scenes, a system which had been rejected by the Salkinds 10 years earlier. Which is saying something. Yes. Visual effects supervisor. Harrison Ellenshaw. Who I believe is the master matte painter, right? Going all the way back to... Did he do some Disney stuff, I think? Yeah, okay. I did not know that. To quote Johnny Carson, Data Carvey's impression of Johnny Carson.

Harrison Ellenshaw stated that traveling mats and a blue screen allowed the filmmakers to capture eight to ten shots per day, as opposed to two or three shots. with the front projection system used for the previous films. Now, Reeve noted that Cannon did not want to risk a lawsuit from Zorin Pirisek, P-E-R-I-S-I-C, who held a patent.

on the front projection system. And director Sidney J. Fury claimed that an optical effects company in London could complete blue screen effects more efficiently. Now, whatever that... effect is that they were afraid that they'd get sued for using that's the the effect i like most whatever that rear projection and moving superman in front um

So instead, yeah, they do that over and over, this like weird, like a mat, and then just like having something move across it, but there's not much dynamic movement. Result of... the film's budget being 30-something million, and then Globus and Canon Films nearly entering bankruptcy and having to cut it to $17 million. Yeah. So I think more than half.

the budget disappeared after they started making the movie and you know christopher reeve had signed on for six million dollars the biggest salary by far of any of his superman movies but i think with the understanding that he could develop the story he got to do another film and he when i say jaws 4 was this time it's personal this was personal for christopher reeve because this was his like cause Celeb, the nuclear dearmament and all that stuff. And I think...

That seemed to be there was a lot of tension on set, even with Christopher Reeve and the director and Margot Kidder. And he was apparently very intense. So this was like somehow both a paycheck and a passion project. Yeah, that's well said. Like weird, you know, that's an interesting. mixture, right? Which I guess is the way it should be, but it doesn't seem like they were connected in a way. I don't know. Yeah. He would...

Yeah, one wonder is like with a movie like this where there's so many production problems and stuff, like can a movie be cursed if it's coming from like a... a sour place. Like it seemed like nobody was doing this with really good intentions outside of like Christopher Reeve wanting to tell like a...

nuclear disarmament story. Basically saying, like, if I'm going to do this, I might as well make some good come of it. Yeah. And he also, part of the deal was... canon said well if you do this we'll also make this movie street smart but like so yeah like nobody seemed to be doing this for like

the quote-unquote, like, right reason. And this is also at a time when nuclear war, like, the threat and fear of nuclear war was waning in the world. So it wasn't like... top of mind for people, I think as causes, I mean, yeah. And then the movie doesn't like, I know that like the, those fears were prevalent enough. You probably don't have to like go out of your way in a movie to explain why it's bad, but like they give no emotionality to like the decisions being made. Like why a kid.

would write a letter yeah and why superman would be so taken by the letter like when you're like nearly 40 years away from it now you're just sort of like wait what what's the why is there so much feelings wrapped up? I mean, I understand why, like living during that time, but like they could have done a little bit of like a, or just what the repercussions would be. Cause I mean, think of it now, but especially back then.

If Superman did that, I think knowing the American hearts and minds and spirits, there would be a big cross-section of the country that'd be like... You're doing what to our nuclear arms? Well, I mean... Don't keep your hands off my guns and my nukes, you know? This is a very lefty Superman movie because it starts... With him saving a Russian space crew. Yeah.

And I think his first words are speaking in Russian to them. So you can imagine, like, if this movie came out during the McCarthy era, and it's like, yeah, it starts with Superman saving Russians and then speaking to them in their Russian tongue. Yeah. And the Russian singing Sinatra, you know, that's what he was singing. When the one guy singing in space, he's singing my way. Oh, I didn't notice that. Yeah.

My way or my hammer and sickle. That's what he wishes he was. But like, so that is kind of, and hey. My hat's off to Christopher Reeve. This guy was like a child of the 60s. You can see during the Reagan era is trying to make a very non... like a left wing movie during very right wing times, especially with action movies. I mean, this is like Rambo time. Yeah. So he's coming out and he's making a movie that's about like, we need to make peace with the Russians.

When he goes to the farm, his farm on Smallville, He's saying, I'm not going to sell my farm so you guys can put up a shopping mall. So he's like anti-corporate. And then the whole Daily Planet subplot is like a Rupert. Yeah. Murdoch. Because this movie started shooting December 86. I went and checked online. Rupert Murdoch in September 85 is when he became a naturalized citizen of America.

This is the craziest bending of rules that have ever been made so that he could buy. You can't buy a bunch of television stations if you're not. an american and so he became a naturalized citizen so he could buy up a bunch of tv stations to start the fox network which then births fox news but even like the little the conversation at the end between Mariel Hemingway and her father, the Murdoch stand-in, is about like, Dad, you can't sensationalize the news and use fear as a way to...

get people to like watch your news or read your news like prescient. Yeah. It's just, he should have disarmed, um, like corporate broadcasting licenses and throwing those into the sun. Nuclear man picks up Kermit the Frog from the Sesame Street set, throws him into the sun. But yeah, it's a very...

lefty uh movie yeah and there's a funny story i think it's in the research about how superman 3 was screened at the white house and um christopher reeve i think had been somewhat outspoken about Reagan and not being a fan. I mean, just to show you the difference between Reagan and Trump. And I guess Trump has this element to him too, but Reagan's thing was not to battle him, but to charm him. Yes. He's quoted as saying, he's like, I think I got through to him.

Yes, yes. And in the notes it said people think maybe Superman 4 was sort of a response to whatever that, like, interacted. Like, what would Superman... do with a president or elected officials that he was disagreeing with there. Although this would have been the time when Reagan had become a sort of pro... That's true. Deep proliferation, yeah. Yeah. So maybe he was the ghostwriter on this. Yeah.

Nancy, I can't go out tonight dancing. I have to finish the nuclear man versus Superman face-off at the end. Mr. Reeve, tear down that wall, the Great Wall of China, and then build it back up. in reverse motion. That's a great Reagan. Well, Matt, that reminds me of you laying out the great Reagan. My first note that I wanted to say today.

So, this occurs to me every once in a while, and I wanted to share it with you, which is, sometimes it hits me, Matt. that I am co-hosting this show with a podcasting legend. First of all, there's no such thing. No, like you're beloved in the community. You've made such an impact on it. And so I was like, oh, the fact that I get to do a podcast. With the podcasting world's own Superman.

It's pretty cool and it's a privilege to do this with you, buddy. This is funny you should say this because I was watching Pee Wee as himself, the documentary, which is incredible. And then in the end, you show up in it and I was watching with a man and I turned to a man.

I go, this is so fucking cool that my friend Paul's in this thing. And I turned to her and I go, I get to podcast with this guy, this guy who's part of peewee lore and a big part because that third movie is so enjoyable. I've told you this before. And just seeing you on that screen with him and knowing that you worked hand in hand and were friends with him, I don't know. And...

Sorry to turn this all on you, but it makes me more comfortable to compliment you. Yeah, I was going to say, let's keep the compliments on you, buddy. No, because I have one more, and that is to say... It was my birthday over the weekend and you put up a post on the Patreon and I just wanted to say thank you to the trustees because they wrote such, not only just kind and genuinely funny things, but...

it touched me how well they know me. And I know because a lot of my life is talked about on these podcasts and stuff, but what people retain and remember and are able to kind of like make a funny observation or comment out of, I went through and it was just tickled. by all of them so thank you guys that was really touching to me yeah you're beloved well so are you that's very nice of you it's a real gift to get to do this oh I appreciate that yeah it is and

I'm excited about our next season too. So yes. Yeah. To get back to some horror. Um, uh, well, Jennifer love Hugh doing it. Do it. I Jennifer love you it. You're a Freddie Prinze. Junior. Junior. And whoever else is in that movie. You got some Ryan Felipe. Oh. So you're a Ryan Felipe pal to me. And then Sarah Michelle. Yuri Geller. Geller. Yeah. Geller, and never even somethinged her. There's nothing to go with Gel. Gel is not a word. Gel-er about it. Gel-er all your crazy dreams.

We should try, not now. But try to take the entire work of Billy Joel and sing the actors in the I Know What You Did Last Summer movies. Combine it. Right? Don't you think that would be good? I'm already trying. Sing us a song. You're the Felipe man. That's good. That's good. Hey, they both start with P. They don't make the same P sound. That's true. Felipe Man is good. Oh, my God.

We didn't start the Freddie Prinze Jr. Freddie Prinze, Sarah... Philippe, Freddie Prinze, Sarah... Sarah Michel blown away. What else do I have to say? And you mentioned...

Yes, the Patreon, because we haven't, people can go visit patreon.com slash with Gourley and Rust. Today, our Superman 2, the Donner cut went up today. Commentary. We did a feature.

A length commentary that you can watch along. That was fascinating. Yes, and we do lots of commentaries and mailbags and special episodes and our whole collection of, what, hours and hours, hundreds of hours of past podcast episodes. Another thing we have to factor in is if we want this... i know what you did summer season to coincide with the release of the movie somehow at least to the point where it's still in theaters um we talked about doing hero at large after this

Also, people are clamoring for Supergirl. I don't know how to make all of this work. Paul and I were talking about how we've both seen Supergirl not too long ago and how hard it is to get through. So I'm not sure what we should do. Yeah, I don't either. Yeah.

This isn't, you know, there's that term. I feel as foolish as John Cryer's character in Superman 4 right now. Lenny? Yeah, I feel like a Lenny. Refer to him by name, please. Let's have some respect. Lenny? You know, there's that term. That's funny. So it's like a George and Lenny sort of thing? Like he's the dumb to the... And Lex Luthor is George? No. Yeah. Whoa.

I guess, yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I was going to say... I guess that explains why John Cryer in this movie snaps the neck of a baby bunny by petting it too hard. And kills Curly's wife. The Three Stooges Curly. I was going to say, us trying to figure out whether to do Hero at Large and or Supergirl in time for I Know What You Did Last Summer series.

I wanted to use the term that's like a high class problem, but that's not. What is it? What kind of problem? I guess it's just not a problem. It's inconsequential. To use a superhero. I guess it's kind of like in the Superman movie when... Lex Luthor puts two problems up and Superman can't do both, so he has to choose one or the other. That's like... Right. Yeah. And now, let me just say briefly about this to our devoted listeners. We...

take it under advisement and we take your request seriously. I'm not saying we're trying to skirt doing super girl, but in, in the interest of doing the best podcasting, there is a certain amount of like, line in the sand we have to draw it it's like i just don't know that you're gonna be served by us doing supergirl it's i think it's a little over two hours long or it's right under yeah and and i just remember it being

the kind of boring that isn't entertaining. And I could be wrong about that, but I don't know. I think that's apt. I told you my memory, like my family rented it. My parents went out.

So a babysitter and my sisters went down and we rented Superman 4. Yeah. And hey, renting a movie and watching it was like guaranteed like... direct interest eyeballs on the screen because hey we rented this movie and let's watch it and I remember like the saddest thing that can happen to like a movie on TV where the group starts to like

dissipate and kind of move to other parts of the room. And you're talking about the cast on screen. But the babysitter, my sisters, me, we kind of all scattered to the winds and started doing our own thing while the TV continued. on separate superman movies and corners of the room well we could do it as a commentary because i think oh that's good if if i'm not mistaken is the next one the trustee chosen commentary

Yeah. What was before Donner Cut? Friday the 13th part. Oh, no, no, no. Freddy vs. Jason. And what was before that? Was it Force 10 from Navarro? Uh, that or, or Friday five. Either way. No, it would have been force 10. Yeah. Okay. So the trustees chose that. You chose Freddy versus Jason. I chose the Donner cut. So I am totally fine if they want to vote. Because I do want to heed. Yeah. This one was just a...

A tough one. Superman 4. Well, no, I strangely did okay with this one, I think, because it's an hour and 30 minutes on the dot. That really does help. And after a weekend of Mission Impossible, oof. I would be happy to watch the commentary of that. To do a commentary. If they vote it. To do a commentary for Supergirl. That's on you, America. Yeah, I'd do that. That'd be fun. And we'll give them that opportunity because I do feel like...

We've got to respect the desires of our loyal listeners. And now the question is, do we want to do Hero at Large? Or do we want to... You know, we usually take a week or two off in between seasons. Like I said, I don't remember if it was on this or the failed it. recording we did right before this but i'll be out of town for almost a couple weeks so there has to be a little break built in there which doesn't get us much time to get to the opening time for

I know what you did last summer. Well, I'm fine with squeezing in Hero at Large, however need be, because I've never seen it. I once ate a hero sandwich and it made me large. I don't know if that is similar. I guess that counts. We can just go straight to record. So, yeah, yeah, I'm down whatever's clever. All right, so we'll figure it out and we'll put a post up on the patrons to keep your eyes peeled there as, you know.

all of the schedules subject to change, but please, and I'm not just saying this to like make justifications for us not covering Supergirl as a, as a, I feel kind of bad about it because I think people want it, but it's so that we can do.

the best podcasting we can do because I do a lot of podcasting and, uh, some me at the top of that list, maybe too much podcasting. And I want to make sure that I, I'm not like, not having anything to say, you know what I mean? It's important to have the right, you know how I got in the last Chucky movies.

I just don't want to do that to anyone again. And that's not a cop-out. That's a serious concern of mine. And I wish I had more strength and fortitude to rise above that. Remember that funny story you told when we were doing the Chucky movie? that you said to Amanda, you're like, and I got a Chucky to watch tonight. I know. And it wasn't even like ironic. And I had a similar situation with that yesterday where I may have mentioned before that my dad...

He had a temper that would... He had a type of jazz cursing that when he would get upset, he would say these phrases that I'd never heard before, like, God... damn it all and god damn it anyway these little tag-ons that were so unique to him and like god damn it all like all of it you've got to damn all of it god damn it yeah it's god damn it all Anyway. And I realized I've not only inherited that, but...

I have one of my own and I bumped my head yesterday working outside on a like yard work thing on a lantern. I just stepped up right into a lantern and with no irony in all sincerity, I said, what good is any of it? And I just immediately laughed and thought of my dad and went, oh, it's genetic. I remember my wife was like, I know you're trying to hang something up on a wall. when I hear your voice going, God damn it. Yeah. I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. Oh no, no. I mean, uh,

Uh, it's a, it's a real thing. Maybe that's why I love when Clark Griswold goes on his tirades. Cause I see so much of my dad and me now more than all of us. Yeah. Uh, we all end up saying, uh, holy shit, where's the town all? Yeah, yeah. You know, when you were talking about this movie,

being 90 minutes. It made me think about how... You know, this movie has a whole additional like half hour of material and Canon cut it down to an hour and a half. Yeah. I think because they knew it was bad. So it was like, hey, if it's short. People might like it if it's just like you don't have to eat as much of the bad food, just a couple bites. But then also that they thought they could get more screenings in if it's 90 minutes and try to recoup.

costs um but the sort of uh blink and you'll miss it in theaters notion is uh uh i was sharing that like i

didn't know Superman 4 existed as a movie until it was on an HBO free weekend. And I had seen Superman's 1 through 3, Superman 1 through 3, like... close my eyes and imagine all those movies in my mind. So imagine my shock when I see like a Superman four that looks different. I mean, the cinematography is very like late.

But that it has all these other Superman 1 and 2 kind of features. But what's crazy is that Gene Hackman... stood the line it would not come back unless Donner was there and then he comes back for this one it just shows how much he had changed

I wasn't aware of this movie, but I am having a vague recollection of seeing the poster art in the newspaper as an option to see. But this was when I was not only going to theaters, but going to theaters with friends. In 87, I would have been 14, so it would have been dropped off by my mom. But I, yeah, I think I'd hit that age where Superman was probably a little passé and when you could go see Robocop and Christmas Vacation.

That's what you go see, you know? Yeah, this just was coming out at a different time. Things were a little... harder i guess by 87. yeah i mean look at robocop yeah it's very edgy Yeah, same summer as like a full metal jacket. Right, which I saw in theater too. Oh, so yeah, this is like, you're like, I'm not going to put money down for a thing where a kid writes a letter to Superman. I know, and coming off...

During the year where I saw Platoon in theaters six times. Yeah, so this is the... For me, it's the quest for war. You're like, what's...

Now, did we talked about the titles yet? No. Oh, on this? Yeah. No, maybe you're right. So I was saying how I got this.

real serotonin hit when you hear the solo trumpet over the Warner Brothers logo. And I thought, this is cool. And then the title start, and I was saying it was as if... the musicians were watching it while they're recording it which i guess in a way they are and they see the prestigious warner brothers emblem and then the the canon title start and i feel like you can hear the music react to that

And it just goes flat and sour. The titles are so awful. They saw the composer, like his hands slowly kind of sink. Just the look on his face. And we were saying that the titles look like when you come into a room to take someone's picture.

and they like are coming out of the bathroom going wait no I'm hideous don't look at me or cockroaches scattering when you turn the light on like the titles know what they are and they want to get away from you as opposed to coming to the screen like they do in the other movies yeah because the difference between Superman 1 credits and Superman 4's credits is Superman 1 is like the credits go from small to big and come at you. Yeah.

And these, they go away from you and get smaller and then like hide behind the earth. And then it has ugly. Hide behind the earth. They kind of go behind the planet. Don't look at me. Yeah. It's like an awkward, yeah, like a teenager or something. Yeah. Don't bother me. I'll be in my room. Yeah. And then those colors are ugly with the little blurring effect. Yeah. The music sounds teeny. Yeah. I mean, that opening.

horn over the Warner Brothers logo, it sounds like taps. Yeah. It's this kind of like mournful, hey, it's the end of Superman. It's the first time that the Warner Brothers shield...

logo is used and not the Saul Bass red and white. And I thought there was a missed opportunity. Oh, I know what you're about to say. Yeah, there's a cloudy, there's a beautiful blue sky with white clouds. Superman could have just like flown right by through the sky. I thought you were going to say they should have done the Warner Brothers emblem in the shape of the Superman.

Hell yeah, dude. That's with just a WB in there. That's cool. Yeah, they look like the little S could fit in there. But wouldn't it have been funny to see Superman fly behind the shield and kind of like loop around and like fly away? Yeah, because what are the movies that does like... 20th Century Fox and Cannonball Run or Smoking the Bandit. The cars animate around it. Yeah. And there's something else. It's a sign of a prestigious movie when you add the character to the logo.

But I love that because it tells you right away what you're going to get. Yeah. But yeah, this, this, I, it was, it just kind of. came in and went. Uh, so like, uh, I remember seeing the poster too. Like it's a picture of Superman and then they do those like little squares with the faces at the bottom. Yeah. And it's a decent like hook. He's like,

got a nuke midair. Yep. Oh, and I'll say this for the credits that I like the treatment of the title. Uh, it's the first time they kind of do like the old comic book style of the, like, The S is big and the Ooperman gets kind of smaller. Yeah. And it's like red and blue. Like they haven't used that treatment for any of the previous movies. And that looks cool. I feel bad for Christopher Reeve because he's, you know.

a couple of times said how this was a mistake. And apparently I read on IMDB trivia that, uh, he asked his father not to go to part three or four, part four. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. When you ask your parents not. to go to the school play, that's a bad sign. Yeah. Yeah. Your observation about it being part... money grab part passion project i think is what makes this movie feel like as far as franchises go that does kind of make it a very singular type of sequel yeah you don't usually get that uh

And it's interesting that reportedly they asked Donner to do it, and he was doing lethal weapons, so he politely declined. There's some reporting that... They asked Richard Lester as well, but Sidney Fury directed it. He directed the Ipcris file. But I don't know if you could ever tell if a director is any good by this movie. Just, I think, working with canon and with that. budget it i wouldn't judge him on it you know yeah that's true that's true um the like uh the the person making it um

Yeah, it made me think of how... Oh, that it's a part four, and you and me are four boys. We're big four boys. I mean... We'd love Friday the 13th Part 4, Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Halloween 4. As far as horror franchises go... Four could be pretty good, but it seems like in other franchises, part four is when things get a little bad. Your Phantom Menaces. Some would say your Thunderballs.

Your Godfather 4, which was never even made. That's how bad it was. That's how bad it is. Yeah. Or The Last Dawn, if you'd consider that it. This...

So it does open with space and the Ruskies and Superman saving the day. I love that they're just down to their red cosmonaut suits. Maybe they did have those, but I love that touch. I have to say this opening and some of the beginning, I'm kind of, okay, this isn't as bad as I remember. Oh, hell yeah, dude. There's a lot of stuff in this that's like...

Go harkens back to the first two in a way that's really satisfying. And yeah, with this being an opening kind of like, let's start a Superman movie with a Superman action sequence. I don't think any of the previous three. Do that. One can't because he's not around yet. Two, it takes a little bit. They have to do the like previously on before they get to the Eiffel Tower. Part three has that like crazy comic. Right. So.

This is the only Christopher Reeve Superman movie that just opens with an awesome Superman flies up to space and saves some astronauts. That's pretty cool. And then you cut straight to the English gloom of Kansas.

Oh, my gosh. It's so clear that they're in England when they cut to Kansas there. And it is funny. It goes from, yeah, him speaking Russian and then being like, don't worry, don't worry. We're going to put him right back in the heartland. Yeah. What happened to Superman's mom? Oh. Like, she's not on that farm. Yeah, good point. Is the last time we see her in part one when he says goodbye to her?

Maybe. I guess she died. Does he go back in Superman 2? I don't think so, right? I don't think so. I watched that.

This morning, I watched that whole half hour of deleted Superman four scenes. You did? Yeah. I didn't know they were out there. Wait, so what's... They're online. So it's the thing with the failed attempt at the first nuclear man? Yes. And that poor actor got cut out completely, right? He's a different person. And he's kind of like Frankenstein's monster, which if you're a young Frankenstein fan, you kind of get to...

Uber man. Yeah, you get a recreation of the Gene Hackman scene in Young Frankenstein. He's like, cigars. Yes. But like the... What's your name? I didn't get that. But yeah, he makes this guy who's like the first crack at the bat before the other nuclear man comes along. Oh, I didn't know that was out there. Yeah. So is it...

helped the movie it would have helped with there's something weird about how Luthor steals Superman's hair what the fact that he can cut it with Oh, right. I never thought about that. And how does Superman get a haircut in the first place? You know, I had a little children's like record storybook. One of those, like you put on a record and you can flip through all the stories being read. And I loved this.

book record and it had a part where little Clark Kent goes to get his hair cut and the barber like the scissors would break while he was trying to and I love that I was like Clark has to shoot laser eyes into the mirror and bounce back. He's holding a hand mirror and another mirror and he's using his laser eyes to get the always smells like burnt hair.

Because, yeah, he pops back up in Kansas, which is, like, it's satisfying to see, like, seeing him back. I mean, the whole movie does kind of have this, like... England glue. For sure. Yeah, it's there. Like that last scene when they're like, uh, when Superman gives his final speech.

everybody looks so cold. They're all like, and then when Superman's giving a speech, he has this thing that I recognize from growing up in the Midwest, but it's like really cold where your eyes like water. Oh yeah. Superman's eyes. are watering oh man a steel is very cold right now um but oh oh so yeah the thing that's confusing is that um

And I got to say, I love that Lex Luthor's first two scenes are a prison break and then sneaking into a museum to steal Superman. That's amazing. Those are awesome, fun scenes. But when he steals the hair... And then immediately in the theatrical version that we watched goes... I bet if I put that hair into one of these rockets that Superman is sending into the missiles that he's sending into the sun, I could create it. That's in the deleted scenes.

He initially uses the hair to make this other Superman character. And I like the notion that it's sort of like, in part four, Lex Luthor is going kind of like, what if I made my own part two Zod? On my own. I realize I have to have a super strength. So then that guy's dumb. But is it funny at all? Is it meant to be funny? It's trying to be funny. Yeah. He's like, father. Oh, yeah. And he's like naked. And Luther's like, is he really? He's got a little thing covering up.

Because I was wondering like how nuclear man is born fully costumed. While he was going through space, going from fetus into man, if you look closely, you see a little wardrobe designer come up with a length of measuring tape and pins in its mouth. Quickly. But then when that fails, Luthor goes like, oh, maybe I made a mistake and I should use the sun somehow as a way to like harness the power.

That'll do it. Yeah. And then when he sees then that Superman is throwing missiles up into space, that's when he goes, ooh, what if I added the hair into one of those missiles? And maybe that would help make... nuclear man so when that those scenes are out it does kind of it just seems weird that it's like wait so you stole the hair without necessarily knowing what you're gonna do with it and it just you kind of lucked out uh

that superman was throwing stuff into the sun and you were always going to use the hair to make a sudden it's confusing but um other stuff is like um

You see Superman go into the classroom to the boy who wrote the letter to explain why he's not going to do it, which is kind of missing. He just sort of pops up. And goes to the UN with the kid. That's a little... And then there's... More like... Lois and stuff with Mariel Hemingway and Clark Kent. It's weird that they got Lois back full on and they do nothing with her.

Is that just the state she was in? Because she also seems to be, you know, there's that time when she comes into Clark's apartment and she's holding paper and she seems to be reading off the paper. That time she looks down. I can't 100%. It sure looked like it.

Wow. But she was either doing that or, you know, when actors sometimes don't know their lines very well, so they kind of look away to, like, make it seem like they're thinking as a character. But what they're really doing is trying to remember the lines. To recall the lines. I mean, I've certainly been there. Yeah. Well, it... it is like, I'm so happy that Lois Lane is like back and she gets two scenes with.

Christopher Reeve where it's just her and Christopher Reeve which we haven't seen like since Superman 2 where it's just like only two of them one on one she's just nothing to do with the plot though it's weird yeah and I mean

Superman is a psycho. How he reveals to her that he's Superman. He terrifies her first. He like jumps off the building and pulls her with her. And she's like, what the fuck is Clark doing? Oh, he's Superman. He's like, gotcha. He's super roofing her, basically. And then, yeah, he just does it. He doesn't even really get advice from her about like he says like, Lois, I came to you because I can only feel myself around you. But it's not like then she says like, yeah, you got to do.

disarm the world like it's kind of murky there and then he kisses her again to take her memory it's like you've done this twice now Superman what are the ones we haven't seen This is what I'm saying. You're messing with somebody's brain. It's really weird. It's a weird thing to do. Ah, the 80s.

But it's also super roofie someone in terms of like drama. It's pointless. Yeah. Cause it's like, think of how much better. This movie would be if in Superman 2 he never erased her memory and Lois is working with Clark Kent knowing he's Superman and then this woman comes in and likes Clark Kent. She can't argue, well, don't like Clark, because he's super, like, she would just, it'd be an interesting little triangle that they're in. And instead, they just go back to...

the part one where Lois has no idea that Clark is, it's just like, we're back here again. This stuff could be way more interesting if Lois just has this information. So, yeah, the Lois stuff doesn't crackle like it could because she's behind the eight ball again. Yeah. And...

I think Muriel Hemingway seems like a good person, but as an actor, she has never really gripped me. John... No, she's not so good in this. Yeah. And so she can't be the force that she's supposed to be in the movie. And like, again, I'm sure John Cryer is a good man, but I've never really liked any of his performances. The fact that he's in this movie, but also playing a really obnoxious... Why not bring Ned Beatty back?

So forget Superman's mom. What happened to Miss Tessmacher? What happened to Ned Beatty? Yeah, is Otis still in jail? It's like that guy they throw down to that he calls you, what does he call you, low-foreheaded? someone or other, kind of looks like Otis. He's formed into Otis. I mean, it does seem like this is like a late 80s play of bringing in John Hughes teen actors in their Superman movie to

squeeze in a few. The teenage audience, they knew they were losing to the platoons. Boy, they got him back. They really did it. Because his voice is just so... And the costume. Cringy cringe. It's rough. When he's like, when he calls Superman the dude of steel.

That was the original title. There's a few low points in this movie that could be like low points of the whole franchise. But one of them for me is when... Nuclear man spins... Yeah, for quite a while. ...up in the air, and then when he comes down, it's like this bad ADR, like... It's like, I know that there's...

maybe worse points in the movie, but I think that might be like the lowest point for me. One of them for me was early on when he goes to the farm and looks at his pod that he arrived in that is now...

was inexplicably buried under the barn. I don't think it was there before. It was just a crystal before, right? Yeah, and it makes sense if you go, oh, the Fortress of Solitude is destroyed. at the end of part two, so he had to kind of take whatever materials there and hide it in the barn in Smallville. But then he goes to the Fortress of Solitude later and is like, who rebuilt this?

I guess in the time being, like Superman went back up and kind of like re... And does he ever use this crystal again that is set up? They don't show it. They just show him taking it out and you hear the mom's voice go like... This has all the power of Krypton. She says Krypton. Am I wrong that she actually used to pronounce it Krypton? Yes. And now she says Krypton. Wow, Brando really seeded that.

But like, yeah, what does he do? Does he have to like slide it up his butt for it to like work? I don't know what he does with it to make it work. But the thing... where I realized we are in serious trouble was when he disintegrates the pod to like erase the evidence, but. I think they were meant to do laser eyes there, but didn't have the effect because he crouches in this weird way. But without the laser effect, it just looks like he's like taking a dump. And that's like, he's like...

clenching his buttocks and that's what erases the pod? It's so weird. Yeah, I mean, I...

As a Midwesterner, the notion that you could walk into a barn and like open up the floor and there's like a green glowing crystal there is just like, it scratches such an itch for me. Like that's what I... Hope for as a kid. Because isn't that where Clarice hid a lamb, too? Didn't she do that? Yes. Something like that? Yeah. And I never came across a basement in a barn.

I've never been in so many barns, Matt, like truly. I have not. They're really, they're dangerous to play in, but they are fun to play in. Like you can stack up hay bales and like jump from hay bale to hay bale. hide underneath one. Like allergy wise, it's a nightmare. Like you'd come out of there like all sweaty and be like, but would you always just play Friday the 13th part three? I'd be chilly. And I love the image or whatever, the movie moment of like a green glowing mist.

accompanied by a woman's voice like that's rules like I love that You got a real fetish. Hey, Matt, put on this green glowing orb for me. Talk like Susanna York. Do you think Gene Hackman ever saw this movie?

Because I also learned that Sidney Fury didn't. Yeah, he never watched it, right? Because it got taken away from him. Which tells you how much he didn't get to do. And Christopher Reeves telling his dad not to see it in the theater. Yeah, I doubt Gene Ackman ever saw this.

How many of Gene Hackman, like what percentage of Gene Hackman's body of work do you think he never saw? I think towards, even the good stuff towards the end, I could see where he didn't even go see it. Like, has he seen Enemy of the State? Has he seen...

And that time around, what's the movie he does with Dan? Loose cannons. Is that Dan Aykroyd? I doubt he's seen loose cannons. No. Yeah. Has he seen the package? Have I seen the package? Have I seen Gene Hackman's package? Yes. Yes. Yes, indeed. On many occasions. When he's in the barn, though, and the effect isn't good.

but the x-ray he uses to see the car. I was like, I wish there had been more Superman x-ray stuff in all these movies. It's a cool power that Superman has. He just does it to look at Lois Lane's underwear to see... To try to see Kryptonite. To try to see it, but can't. I mean, it's such a cinematic thing to be able to look through something and see it. I just wish there had been more of that.

guy's leg right or jimmy olsen yeah he's able to see that there's a yeah there's a broken bone um the uh um

I also like the little callback to, in the first movie, remember he kicks the football like secretly? Yeah, yeah. How he hits the baseball. into space i thought i thought when they show that go to space that like the nukes releasing the phantom zone zod People that this was going to create nuclear, man. I couldn't remember. Like somehow it was going to hit like a satellite or something. And I love the idea that that baseball would like, uh,

break a Martian's window. Like you see like a Martian mom, like if it was made by Spielberg, it would. Yeah. The baseball breaks through a window. She's like Superman. Then you see Superman run and hide in his house and be like, I didn't do it. I got to pee really quick. Okay. Okay. I'll keep chatting with the lights. Superman for the quest for peace. Moving money used to be slow. But now, you can move money fast with Visa Direct.

Meet the need for speed, even across more than 11 billion cards, accounts and wallets. Move money your way. Learn more at Visa.com slash Visa Direct. Hey, I'm Kevin. And I'm PJ. And together we host the podcast. I'm Grandman. And our podcast is currently sponsored by Compare the Market. Where you can now get personalised car and home insurance deals delivered by Otto Sergei.

One absolute faff that I've come across is home insurance. Well, I've found a shortcut to make things simpler, right? Tell me more. You need to meet Otto Sergei, right? He's one of the meerkats who does the hard work for us by scurrying around to find great home insurance deals. It's simple and easy.

easy to use and after I used it this year, AutoSorge will sort out next year and in the future. Just make it simple with personalized deals delivered by AutoSorge from Compare the Market. Prices are generated from information you've provided. Review before purchasing. Simple. That was good. And we're back.

Matt, I just want to make a correction when I went to the live screen during the break. It wasn't Jeff who made the observation about looking forward to the imminent heaps of praise on Superman 4. It was Tony. Okay. Okay, just wanted to clarify. Jeff, you really missed an opportunity there. Yeah. Hey, whose glory are you seeking? Hey, he's seeking Tony's. He's not seeking Jeff's. It is awesome, though, to see...

Gene Hackman back as Lex Luthor. That's one of the perks of this movie. Yeah. Even like I said, even... He's phoning it in, but Hackman's phoning in is still better than a lot of people's really trying. Yeah. He's so effortless. I noticed a part where he says like... with my brains and your brawn, which he must know is like such a cliched line. Yeah. He tries to like save it by going like with my brains and well, frankly, your brawn. Yeah. I was like.

You tried, buddy. You tried to make this not a cliché. But it would be the first time, as Brantley Palmer said in the notes, This is like the first time Gene Hackman has played Lex Luthor in like 10 years. Yeah, that's right. Because if he shot the first one, all of his scenes in parts one and two in 77, comes back in 87 to shoot this. He's...

been away from it for a while i completely forgot that he does the voice of nuclear man too which they apparently recorded first which instead of doing adr over the actor the actor had to mouth to the words On set. And this guy, Michael Pillow, never did another movie. Yeah, he's only nuclear man, huh? Yeah. Maybe he knew, like, I'm never going to be able to top this. Yeah, nuclear man. Are you kidding?

He says that it's his voice. It doesn't sound like Gene Hackman, though. Because he's doing a kind of evil voice, and maybe they pitch it down or something, too. Yeah, it'd be so much cooler if he was just talking in a Lex Luthor voice.

I like that. I wish they had done it. What if it was just speaking, though, in lines from other Gene Hackman movies? I was like... we got to stop this French connection. Oh, I know. I remember another movie around this time. It was a little earlier. Yeah. Uncommon Valor. Have you ever seen that? No. Where he's. I've heard of it. I know he's a POW in Vietnam. And so he gets a ragtag bunch of.

guys together to go into Vietnam to rescue them. I used to love that movie when I was a kid. So sort of like his own like missing in action? Yeah, kind of, yeah. But a little bit more... A little bit more serious, a little bit more men on a mission, but it's got Randall Tex Cobb, Reb Brown, all these like that guys in the movie. Oh man, I might have to check that out again soon. You could do that and a Southern Comfort.

Double feature. They're different tonally, but... They go hand in hand? Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I noticed when Luthor meets his nephew...

They want to get it across that he's his uncle and John Cryer's his nephew, so he calls him nephew. Which, in the history of uncles and nephews, I don't think an uncle has ever gone... Come on, nephew. I'm going to try that next time I see my nephew. Yeah, it is pretty cool. Hello, nephew. And then just like literally less than a minute later, like 30 seconds later, he goes, trust your Uncle Lex here. It's like, well, that's how you do it.

You just have the guy say, like, refer to himself as Uncle Lexi or whatever. And it was just a moment away. Don't sweat the nephew talk. Or just say, hi, Uncle Lex, because you do often call your uncle. Yes, right.

Nephew. Nephew. I like that Lois Lane is back. I like that... we're back to Superman saving Lois Lane when she's in the train, like some old school Superman saving Lois Lane stuff. But the execution of that is bungled that like, you don't get a satisfying. Superman and Lois Lane interactions. No, let's break this down. Okay, she's in the train.

Studying French. She's always got a hobby or a trend she's on in these later movies that it's kind of funny. Yeah, and I like how... She's like, orange juice or... Right. And in the beginning of this, she says, like, when she finds out that she... Her trip is canceled. She goes, well, there goes my trip to Paris. They combine... Lois' parts two and threes, the trip to the Eiffel Tower, and then when she goes to Bermuda or whatever. Oh, that's right. And she goes to Paris for the...

The Eiffel Tower thing, too. That's what I mean. Yeah. So they combine them together with her saying, like, in this, like, oh, there goes my trip to Paris. So then the... The driver of the train has the most adorable heart attack ever where he just goes, ooh, ooh, ooh. You never see his face. He gets the vapors, basically. Not again. Yeah. And then Superman flies off.

behind the train. And then the next thing we see, he's in front of the train having no idea how he got there. Yeah. How do you do that in a tunnel? Right. And then. Does he short-circuit the track and that's why the train stops? Yeah, you get a new...

flavor of effect now in a Superman movie. The Emperor Lightning. Yeah, we didn't have Emperor Lightning in any of the others that animated electric stuff, which I, like, love. Those are, like... Yeah. In my mind, an 80s special effect isn't, like...

a spaceship or anything. It's like those little electric. And it's never as good as return of the Jedi because the sound effects in that are so good too. Yes. Yeah, you're right. But yeah, I don't know. It would just make sense in Superman logic that he's so strong. He just. stops it but it does seem like he steps on it short circuits it to slow it down and then to stop it with his hand yeah I guess maybe that was a budget

thing too they couldn't do the stopping of the train but why would you not see him do that also the thought experiment that is like he cuts off a mountaintop and carries it right but he has to he can't stop a subway train which actually looked pretty good oh that's what Yes. The high points of Superman four is that, um,

stopping the volcano attack. For all reasons, like the large scale effects look pretty decent and the miniatures are really cool. The miniatures look great. It's a cool idea of him. Like that mag, the lava running on the street looks awesome. And the nuclear man shooting out. of the volcano with the clouds bursting out in the lava looked really good. That's a cool idea. And then like using a ice breath to like...

cool it from hot lava to kind of this like charcoal looking stuff. That's all awesome. Um, but yeah, when he stops the train, um, the thought experiment I'll go on is like, so if.

Superman never existed. In these movies, Lois Lane would be dead like four times now. Yeah, just circumstantially. Yeah. She's the most unlucky. She's John McClane. In the first movie, in that news chopper. When it like falls off the top of the building, if not for Superman, they would have died in this like horrific helicopter accident. Yeah. If he wasn't there for that.

She would have died. She would have died in the crack of an earthquake. Right. Her car, like she would have been buried in earth. She would have died at the Eiffel Tower. She would have died because she would have accused someone else at Niagara Falls of being Superman. And jumping in some kid. Whoever was there. She would have said, I think you're Superman or I'm going to test it.

And then, yeah, with the subway train. But I wanted some sort of just like, she's still on the train and she goes Superman. I know. It's really weird. Just have a moment where he's taking everybody out of the train and he's like, Lois? You're like...

Okay, now they're fully, they're back. They're not quote-unquote back. I did love his reaffirming that subway travel is still... statistically one of the safer ways to go. That is a very nice throwback-y Superman as a cornball guy that I do like. Did you... I said on IMDb that Wes Craven...

Was going to direct this at one point. Yeah. Is that true? Uh, but he was, um, uh, you know, it was creative differences because he wanted, um, Superman to be Freddy. What year would have this... What part of the franchise would... This is the same year. This would have been in between...

Parts three and four. Okay. So high point for the franchise. Yeah. And I think Wes Craven would have been working on like Deadly Friend maybe around this time. Well, it does explain Nuclear Man's Silver Claws a little bit. He also kind of has like shocker type of quality. Yeah, he does. I liked, you know, in the category of...

good stuff in this movie. The initial scene between Muriel Hemingway's character and Lois Lane when they're like talking, it's like one of the few artful parts of the movie where it's like the cameras behind them. As they like walk through the office and talk. It's something, man. I know. I appreciate that. And that's why I can't condemn Sidney Fury. I think like he was doing what he could. And if he had no say in that.

at it even maybe, you know. Yeah. And where's Annette O'Toole during this, do you think? Right. Do you think Clark and her just had a, they broke up? Good question. Because she was like, it seemed like she was moving to Metropolis at the end of... Well, he was done and he just hypno-kissed her and just moved on to the next man. He's a serial hypno-kisser. Hypno-kisser. Yeah. Yeah, like he kissed her and then she came to and he was like...

And you were going back to Smallville, right? How did I even get here? Yeah, I think you were just visiting Metropolis, and now you're going back to Smallville. And she's like, right, going back to Smallville. And for some reason, you said you wanted to just... Write me a check for $1,000. That's weird. Do you ever hear those rumors about Derek Jeter? How if he had a one-night stand? I think this is all.

made up but that when the woman would wake up he would have left like a kind of like a care package of like an autographed baseball and stuff so i'd like to imagine i don't know if that's the worst thing i've ever heard or kind of Awesome. If they're having consensual one night stands, the fact that he would leave a little gift bag of his own memory. Yeah. Wouldn't that be great if Superman leaves a little Superman shield sticker? Or a little badge that says, I banged Superman. So like...

Red and blue, yellow, like jelly beans. Yeah. Do you think Tom Cruise leaves the coconut cruise cake when, oh, he never has one night stands. What am I talking about? I can't. Even fathom Tom Cruise having a one-night stand. I know. I imagine on the first day he proposes every time. Yeah, and it's his lawyer proposes, and he just shows up at a...

Cloaked wedding. I've had that cake. Have you ever had that cake? Tom Cruise sent it to the Conan offices. A Tom Cruise cake? One of those, the special cakes. Have you ever heard about these? No. He sends. this special Tom Cruise coconut cake from this bakery to hundreds of people. I think every Christmas, I think. Whoa. And if you've ever like worked with him or.

been his friend, you're on a list. And I think, I don't know if you ever get taken off it, but hundreds, if not into the thousand, I don't know. There's just a lot of reports of people, pretty much anybody that's worked with him at some point gets this cake. And it's legendary. And it's okay. That was a time where I was trying to eat healthy, but I'm like, I'm not going to not taste the mythical Tom Cruise cake, you know? Because I don't like the flavor of coconut.

I do in the right context with my steak. You eat. No, I'm kidding. The only time I'm going to eat a coconut is if I'm on a deserted island. Okay. Yeah. And it's because I'm sick of hearing Wilson talk. Wait, he was a volleyball. Nevermind. Two Toms though. Yeah. Um, did you know, um, I,

sure I've said this before on the podcast, that Castaway was actually a really difficult movie to shoot because every time Tom Hanks yelled out, Wilson! His wife would pop her head in the frame and go, yes, honey. It's like, no, no, no. It's the volleyball. Honey, I love you, but I'm talking to the volleyball here. And they finally get her to stop doing it. Then both Owen and Luke. Come in. You rang. Somehow they're on that island. You're not alone.

You got two of the Wilson brothers here. We could hang out. Who's your friend? A little love. Just a side little Owen Wilson thing here. He's in that movie Shanghai Noon. Oh, right. Which is a clever... Twist on High Noon. Yeah. Shanghai Noon. And the title's a pretty good title, too. Shanghai Nights. Yeah, but... Which has a double meaning. But... But they're Western. There's not a movie called High Nights. Yeah.

And adding Shang onto the... But they're going noon to night, like day to night. I know. But then they're not knights. They're cowboys, right? Yeah, they go. I take it all back. They go to Britain. Oh, okay. So I guess they're kind of like nice. But then you got to drop the Shanghai. Exactly. Right. That's what's weird about it. It's like Shanghai nude. Okay, there was a movie High Noon. It's not like there's High Nights. It's got to be Hyde Park Nights. Yes, yes, yes. It's got to be.

I mean, it is clever to make it noon into nights and then putting a K in front of the nights so it's like nights at the round table. I get that. I've never seen any of these movies. I saw them. They're good. I believe it. There's a really great, it's like why you cast Owen Wilson. Like they're filled with those moments, right? Like he probably came up with this or it's something that's. Only him. There's a part where he's trying to him and Jackie Chan have a falling out in the movie.

Not the characters. The characters do. And he comes up to Jackie Chan and he uses his hands to put a little triangle over his head. And he goes, you know what this is? Jackie Chan's like, what? He's like, I'm in the doghouse, buddy. He also is excited to go to England in that movie because with those British chicks, he hears it's ass soup. It's ass soup. I heard it's ass soup. Now, in that classroom scene, the...

teacher just has the TV on and they're watching news. And then like, he mentioned like, Hey, we're going to still keep firing missiles. And then she like turns it off. Like, don't see that kids. Now were they watching, I guess the news conference. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have Channel One in your classrooms? No. It's where Lisa Ling got her start. I was just talking about it with a group of people.

before I went and saw the Mission Impossible movie. And I was like, hey, who had Channel One in their schools? And it would be... they would give you free TVs to put up in your classroom and you would get news of current events. Oh, this must've been after, but there were commercials. Oh, and so that's why you got free TVs and stuff was because. they knew they had the eyeballs of like every...

Teenager watching and they could show a Snickers commercial. That's pretty deplorable. I know, I know. And that the schools allowed that. Yeah, so maybe he was watching Channel 1 in that classroom, but that teacher...

It was so pretty. I know. If she was my teacher. I know. I had crushes on all my... I would say 80% of my teachers I would end up... And I compare it to like... I just always had marms. I never really had any. Until college. They would have hair in the back and a bud. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Like Whistler's mother. Let's think. I had a crush on my kindergarten teacher. My first grade teacher wasn't there because of maternity leave.

For a long stretch. Oh, so you know she goes for it. But the substitute teacher, the teacher who filled in for her, had a crush on her. Second grade had a crush on my teacher. Not third. Good people. I'm not saying. Yeah. Nothing. It wasn't them. It was me. It was me. It was me. I was in a different place. Yeah. I just wasn't ready to commit. And then after that, yeah, third, it wasn't until then, like high school that I could get back on board with.

having a crush on a teacher or something get back on board i don't know what i mean but like but i think it's like a version of like stockholm syndrome where you're like trapped in a room And you're like, I think I'm falling in love with my captor here. It's true. And you know what else that happens? On the show Survivor, where you pick the most attractive one, and then suddenly they become really attractive.

That's funny. This stopped once I found the love of my life and stuff. But when I was dating, I would imagine if I was in a line at a bank. I'd be like, what if a boulder dropped outside the door? And we were all, this collection of 40 people were all trapped in here for a month. I've done this, yeah. I mean, I've literally done this. Who would hook up with, like, who's matching on attractiveness levels?

It's a three pronged thing of like, who would I most want to be with? Who would I realistically be able to be with? And who maybe, maybe it's a two pronged thing. Well, and what people would be able to. would be at the top of the heap and be able to kind of like pick their suitor. Yeah. Um, it's not fun and thought experiment. Let's do that in the room right now.

Well, I guess I'd hook up with this package of balloonies. You could do worse. You come in and you see me like... Blowing really hard to make a balloony. But then you make a beautiful woman out of it, and it's like... I was thinking it was like an oral sex thing. You see my head bobbing up, and you're like, Paul, what's going on? I was like, get me in my balloonies!

Oh, wow. A little chime. A little timer going off being like, careful with the balloony jokes, Rusty. Here he goes again. But you make this beautiful blow-up doll out of balloonies, and then I realized I was talking about some creepo has a balloony. YouTube channel, but it was you all along. I don't know if that was on the scuttled take that we did or on the original thing.

That Jeremy character, too, could be way more compelling. And his voice is weird. A bit of a little shit, yeah. Do you think he's like ADR? Maybe. With Gene Hackman. Yeah, with Gene Hackman's voice. But he was like, what do you mean? I think we can ask Superman. Yeah, it was weird. And then his letter is really funny when they read it later. And he's like, I know some people think I might be a space cadet.

Also, Lois doesn't know Clark is Superman, right? But when she brings him that letter, she has the gravitas. It is Superman. She's like, Clark, I think you'll want to read this letter to Superman. Established, at least with Lana Lang, that Kent knows Superman. Yes. Somehow he's a connection, which also makes it more...

believable. Yeah. More suspicious. Yeah. You know, what's also crazy about this movie is that it's so short, but they take so long to get to the meat of the matter of Lex Luthor creating. Nuclear man. There's just a lot of business up front. Yeah, and if they hadn't cut out those scenes, you would have had even more screen time waiting until...

what the movie seems to be about. Yeah. And like Superman and nuclear man don't start having a fight until like the last 15 minutes of the movie. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the, um,

Yeah, who built up... When he goes back to the Fortress of Solitude, apparently rebuilt or something, I like the notion that... The parallel they come up with, which is like Superman doesn't like the idea of nuclear weapons blowing up the earth because Krypton blew up. And he sees that similar thing. I thought that was good. But that little quick...

brief little scene with the council where he goes up to the fortress of solitude and then he's like, can I do this? And I'm like, no, okay, bye. But what's going on? So they could get Susanna York's voice.

Why not use her? And they don't even get the actors from the original counselor. I guess that doesn't matter that much. And how many heads are talking to him? I don't know, but just the regression or degression. from Brando to Susanna York to the council, but different actors. What's next? It's going to be like, uh, non from the evil trio or.

It's just going to be Lana Lang. It'll be Shane Rimmer. Who's the J.R. Ewing actor? Larry Hagman? Yeah, Larry Hagman from the first Superman movie. That character coming up and giving him advice.

John Cryer. We got Hookins and Broadbent. The law firm of Porkins. Yeah, Porkins is back, baby. And Eckhart from Batman, yeah. Yeah, and then a young Jim Broadbent. Yeah, I didn't know he was in this.

With Superman, it's more Jim Barr bend. Oh, yeah. I believe. I don't quote me on that. And that's a cool idea, too, that Lex Luthor, this is how he would be evil in this. in this era is that he realizes, Hey, there's a, um, a market now for missiles. I mean, you brought this up earlier, sort of like, uh, how does this quite.

people would be upset with Superman if you're like, wait, you're getting rid of all of our, you're ridding the world of our, or our country of our nuclear capabilities. Cause like,

The thing this movie doesn't really... I like what it's attempting to wrestle with, which is like, what if Superman wasn't a nationalist? He's a... Humanist. Humanist. And so he's looking out for the entire globe. He's not working just for America, and he's not just working for Russia. He's... He has a heart. He wants to help everyone. That's like a cool idea. And then how would Superman wrestle with this problem is a cool idea. But the idea that you could just...

If you announced getting rid of all missiles that every country would be like, great. And then shoot their missiles up in the air for Superman to go and like throw away.

Does it make sense? And also, he's not solving the human problem of people want to fight each other. And he realizes that at the end. And he quotes Eisenhower with that. He's like, you can't... The leaders can't make peace. The people have to demand it. That's what he's quoting. It's not until people demand peace that the leaders will finally listen and do it. But Superman really only works in a...

pre-eisenhower world like with fascism and nazi stuff because think about if superman was trying to mitigate the arms proliferation where do you draw the line does he get involved in vietnam and then what do you do there you know The U.S. was kind of the aggressor there. I mean, obviously communism was an oppressive regime, but... try picking the side in that war. Yeah. And then at some point, let's say he does, instead of picking the side of like the North Vietnamese regulars, he...

he takes the side of the kind of victimized Viet Cong. Then you've got America as an enemy to Superman. Yes. And then they're going to want their newts. Yes. I'd kind of like to see that. Yeah. I mean, the Superman stories could be really interesting.

interesting if the classic thing is that there's a good guy and a bad guy but if he was in a situation where it's either both people have their reasons and see themselves as good guys. And who does Superman choose to think is the better good? Yeah. Or there's two people fighting and neither of them are right. And so helping one person is actually helping a bad person do a bad thing to it. But those are sort of...

moral questions that would be kind of cool to actually try to figure out. I wonder if the comics ever got into anything like that. I know that dark night returns, there's this conflict going on in Corto Maltese. I think this,

fictional place. I mean, if Superman is like, represents, I know in this movie, he does in this, but if he represents like America, which is like, he's, it's the ultimate. immigrant story and American dream, you know, like being put in a position that America faces where it's like, wait, are we supposed to be using our for our own safety or for the good of the world? And then when you get involved in something like Vietnam, are you being really a good guy? Yeah. Or what if Superman got drafted?

But then like he doesn't want to, he dodges the draft. He goes to Canada and he becomes Canadian Superman or he's just in a red and white suit with a maple leaf on his chest. He has to hide out, though, so people are like, hey, you kind of look like, yeah, I know, I get that all the time. Hey, pass the bear claw, you know? Hey, pass the A.

I also like that kid that Jeremy does have this kind of Canadian, but that's why we got it. He sounds like Mike Myers. Yeah, he does. He does. He sounds like Wade.

I do love how everybody at the UN loves Superman. I know. That's really charming. That's an odd sequence, but I liked it. I just love... the aesthetics of the UN building. Yes. Excuse me. Just the mid-century look of it all and even this cheap recreation of it. But that... For this to work, he will need a sponsor. And everybody raises their hand. That's pretty great. I loved it. That is the real charms of the original movie shining through. I wonder if Christopher Reeve wrote that speech.

oh that he goes yeah yeah and the last one too when he's like collecting all the missiles though and throwing them into the sun Superman is like the litter bug of the galaxy. Yeah, man, he really is. And like, you think that's a good idea? Superman throwing a bunch of nuclear warheads into the sun? I think it's okay because that's what it's doing anyway.

It's nuclear fusion. So it wouldn't necessarily cause a big explosion that shoots off the sun and fries the earth? I don't think so. It's just like... Because that's what it's doing. It's like throwing a marble into a big bucket of marbles. It's like throwing a firecracker into an unbelievably giant... cloud of exploding firecrackers. I see, I see. So that's good. So it's good that he tosses it and not just into space. No, the science in this film is sound.

I will say in comparing why, you know, part one to part four and where it fails is the paltry... returned. Can you read my mind? Oh yeah. It's like in daylight. It's not like a romantic set. And then he's flying her from metropolis to San Francisco to like the tundra. Like. That seems like a long air travel time. Well, it would have to be because he could probably go fast, but she couldn't. Again, in the science, this is hard sci-fi. Yes. She couldn't survive.

Well, she couldn't survive a certain altitude or a certain speed, just temperature-wise, oxygen-wise, like wind resistance-wise. I think he's going slower than a plane, probably. He would have to be, because she couldn't survive it. Her skin would like...

It would take hours to get up there. Yeah, so what I'm doing, like... If not days. That would be, like, boring. Just kind of, like, Superman holding your head on a long cross-continental, like, journey with no food or movies. Yeah, I hope they have something to talk about. I know food or movies. Do you think he has a little flight attendant sort of stuff? He has like a collection of magazines. Here, look at this, Lois. In the meantime, I know it's got to be a long flight here. Yes.

Okay, when Nuclear Man is created, I do like that little animation of him going from fetus to grown man. Yeah, that kind of 2001. Nod to. Yeah, yeah. Nod to. It goes from 2001 to like spirit Halloween store. costume i wish 2001 had ended with the little baby like turning into nuclear man at the end made a little bit more sense yeah it would have made a better movie uh then the This might be the most 80s part of this franchise is when Clark is doing aerobics. Yeah. Now, I don't get on...

too much on this high horse of like, what is Superman doing with the Clark persona? But this one seems like the most egregious in this movie, which is like... when he gets the comeuppance on the bully at the gym. So Clark is pretending he's not good at aerobics or at the gym because he doesn't want to blow his cover that he's Superman, right? Well...

Just be an ordinary guy. Yeah. You don't have to like sell it so hard. The lady does protest too much. Yeah. And then, okay, you're lying here, Superman. That's a lie that you're doing. A guy comes along, he believes your lie that you don't have to tell, and he bullies you about it, and then Superman does something fucking crazy, which is then...

after Muriel Hemingway leaves, he goes and he throws a weight at the bully to be like, ha ha. I know. It's like, well, he was teasing you because of your lie, you psycho. Also, when he's Clark and he's going in the elevator with her later and he gets caught by the luggage rack, she doesn't even see it. He's just... That I love where he's just kind of like... So in character or kind of doing it to entertain himself. Yeah. That's like right up against when he's like burning.

Lois is like roast yeah as a way to get out so it's like yeah you're doing things that Mario Heavyweight doesn't see and burning somebody's dinner he's just a few degrees away from like uh incel trolling Superman from Superman 3 yeah well like he doesn't I mean my favorite sequence in the movie might be that like Double date sequence. When I was a kid, that was my favorite part. It's pretty sick, Hami, I know. But like, it's fun. I like it. But like...

Superman could have used his wiles to just get out of a double date. Yeah. Yeah. Could have just like called up and been like, I can't do it. Something came up. There's a major tragedy. I got it. Yes. Yeah. Which would happen literally every time he tries to do something. The guy could, if he wants to save a human, could never do anything. other than that right there's other things going out in the world that you could just be like hey uh

A kid is about to fall out of a tree. He literally can't even be pulling kittens out of trees. So instead he sticks to this double date thing. And then the fact that it involves somehow... Lois fawning over Superman and Mariel Hemingway fawning over Clark. It seems like Superman's weird version of a three-way. Yeah, he's in the thruple and he's swinging. He loves the idea that he can't...

and bounce back and forth and both of them will like think he's the shit. He's got his apartment in the city, his pied de terre. He's got his family at home. He wants his Madonna and his whore. Well, this is the first time, speaking of his apartment, that we see Clark's apartment in these movies. Yeah.

And it's kind of like, it seems like it's maybe a not so good part of it. It's like above like this. Cause it's in England. Cause it's next to like a neon sign. It seems like he's kind of maybe in a, yeah. less reputable but because superman is who he is and like he just kind of it it seemed like a pretty drab apartment like i think he has like a small bill pennant up on his wall and stuff but he doesn't like live large it's almost like

The priests I know who lived in the rectory. Yeah. But it would be as if a rectory is next to a liquor store or something. If they had it their way. The way doubt presents priests in a rectory is how I experienced it, which it is kind of like a fire station. Yeah, that's mid-century bricks.

Like a dorm, yeah. That you can just like, it's a way to play poker all night with the fellas and stuff and smoke cigars and stuff. All the priests I knew were also smokers. Oh, wow. They smoked all the time. Wow. I like Lex Luthor's Art Deco penthouse apartment. Yeah. That's some old school Superman movie stuff of like a cool Ken Adams style design. What's he doing with that Marie Antoinette?

character though i don't know what's that about for a second and i came back up and i was like i'll never know i know because i don't know that i'll ever watch this movie again what's he trying to achieve there i don't know i don't know Was that like the victim of edit or something? I don't know. Yeah. Like other scenes. He's like, well, there is a deleted scene where he's getting like his nails done and stuff. So maybe it's like part of a runner of like, he's bringing up.

various prestigious women to maybe like a Cleopatra and then of course, Betsy Ross or Martha Washington. Then Mother Teresa. Yeah, Lex Luthor somehow uses his sci-fi know-how to be able to go and bring historical women back to the earth. And he's like... Doing them. Yeah. He wants to mix his seed. With Cleopatra. I like the...

One of the few cool things about this movie is that little transformation shot where he goes through a revolving door and in the same shot he goes in the back of a car and comes out Superman. those are good yeah that's good I also like speaking of things when he gets beat by nuclear man and the image of the cape flying down over Statue of Liberty. Perfect. Yeah. What's funny about that is the next scene is the Daily Planet and...

Lois is outraged about the is Superman dead headline the picture that they show is just of the Statue of Liberty it's like guys you have an iconic like Front page picture of Superman's cape hanging on Statue of Liberty's torch. Yeah. But instead, they just have a picture of the statue. It has to be because that was an optical effect and they literally didn't have a picture of the same...

two things like, like too much to do another optical. So, but they could have had someone draw it in or like literally copy and paste. Like you used to hard copy and paste. Yes. Yeah. There's also a pretty big followup in the. front page where it says, Your new publisher of your favorite newspaper. So wait that. And favorite is spelled the British F-A-V-O-U-R-I-T-E. That's crazy. Sloppy. Sloppy. Oh boy. Sloppy fourths.

I like Lex being able to have his own Superman frequency and can communicate with him on the Times Square TV. That's cool. He's done that before. He did that in the... Yeah, but he kind of whispers it. Seeing him on the screen is pretty cool. And, I mean, it takes a while, but to finally see Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman in a scene together talking with each other, that's cool. And they look...

pretty good. Like for 10 years out, it's not this kind of like icky, like, Oh, they're too old to be doing this still. I expected Reeve to be a lot more sort of not as together. Roger Maury. A little bit, yeah. But he's only 34 in this. Yeah, and he said he imagines Superman as... uh, eternally 30. Yeah. That's, that sounds good. But Brantley said in the notes that he does have a little hairpiece. Yeah. He's, I think if not a hairpiece, a full wig.

Oh, wow. Something to get that Superman curl. Yeah. I'm pretty sure the whole thing. Yeah. I don't know. Cause he's bald. No, but I think by then his hair was thinning a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And also you see it. Like they didn't do a full dark dye job on him in part three. And he had, I know it's like when he's the bad guy, you see it a little bit more, but there was kind of like a steely gray.

I liked it. Yes. But no, this one is, he looks younger almost than part three. And then you see him get old when he gets... Nuclear man's cat scratch fever on his neck there. Oh, yeah. And he's like, it looks like he has cancer or something, right? I know, it must be. But in terms of, like, seeing...

Superman get his ass kicked at the diner and then get beat up in the junkyard and then be sickly. Those are some... I like seeing Superman. It makes me feel weird, but when you see him down in the dumps... I know, but it is weird where... Ethan Hunt, James Bond, even Han Solo, Indiana Jones. You can do them as they age. You can make sense of it, but...

You can't have, I guess you can in the dark night, Superman's older, but he's not like Bruce Wayne where Bruce Wayne is all gray, but he has like gray temples. But Superman, you can't even do it on the sense that like, He should always be... I don't know, does he age just as fast? I guess he does. There's no reason to think he wouldn't, but Christopher Reeve didn't quite age the way you imagine Superman.

aging, you know. Yeah, I wonder. I mean, I'm sure in the comic books they wrestle with this. They do in The Dark Knight Returns. But is that Batman? It is, but Superman's in it. Oh, I see why you said that. And he's older in it? Yeah, he is. Interesting. Bruce Wayne is fully gray and heavier. Superman's just kind of got gray temples. Huh. I mean, that he's not a Superman in mortality is interesting. And that he's not a Superman. You know, they make a big thing out of like...

Lex can outsmart Superman. Yeah. And when Superman... It's so funny that Nuclear Man can be defeated by just sticking him in an elevator. It's like a really funny, but then that Superman is kind of like the ultimate, maybe like dumb jock where he like, doesn't know that putting nuclear man on the surface of the moon, that the sun. might touch the surface of the moon, might shine on it and bring nuclear man back to life. Like the fact that Superman doesn't have in these movies.

have super intelligence. I know. It's like, that's not part of being a Superman is like being really bright. He's just kind of like... And it's funny that when they're on the moon, there's like moon gravity on there for them in a way there was not for Zod, Ursa, and Nan. Oh, yes. You're right. And then that fight on the moon is like WWF style. I know. He's doing like, he looks like Macho Man Randy Smith. He does because...

Am I remembering quickly? His armpits are shaved and he's like a professional wrestler. He's kind of oiled up. Yeah, Nuclear Man looks like a wrestler character. I'm also just thinking of something really funny that we're taking all these great pains to make sure we... And still know what you did last summer thing. So we can see the one in theaters, but Superman, we don't give a shit about going to that one.

Well, I don't think it's going to have him doing wrestling moves on the moon, so I'm not going to see. No, I'm very pumped, though, to see the new Superman movie. I saw the trailer. You didn't like it? I just didn't feel like the acting looked very good. I don't know. And, yeah. i don't know acting in these movies go a long way huh yeah it's all you if you can't sell this there's no amount of special effects that will sell the earnestness of superman if you don't have

the Superman, you don't have the movie. This guy looks great, but that scene with Lois Lane in the trailer where they're kind of like bickering a little bit, I felt for him a little bit. It didn't catch me. It felt... I felt he was nervous kind of or something. Yeah. I mean, it's with Superman four, it's like, okay, I understand you, the budget got cut in half. And so the special effects aren't going to be very good.

but you should be able to have a touching scene between Superman and this kid that like is its own special effect that you can pull off if you try. Yeah. Um, So I'm curious, yeah, how that'll go in this next one. Nathan Fillion just kind of looks like Shemp from the Three Stooges. Do you think he's playing Shemp? Yes, I do. But none of the other stooges are in it. James Gunn was like, Shemp was always the best. He was always the best stooge. No one liked Curly, if they're being honest.

This fight between Nuclear Man and Superman, with him going around destroying things and Superman doing cleanup, I think is kind of... inarguably like the low point of the franchise because you have that it's been pointed out online that like the effect of when they're falling down the building like Nuclear Man and Superman, and it looks shitty. But then, like, Superman does this, like, weird, like...

darting to the left corner of the screen. That like looks awful. I'm always reticent to mention this because it's my job to watch these movies and report on it for this podcast. But there are a handful of times in this run of all these films we do where I...

just tune out. And I can't help it. I'm not even like consciously going, Oh, I got to stop this. It just, so I almost don't already even remember this because it just lost me. The Chucky movies at the end did this where I just could, it, physically and mentally could not hold my attention to it yes you know i mean so yeah that part like by that point should be like

totally enthralling somebody like oh my god nuclear man and superman are fighting all over the globe and people are checking out uh because then like when he destroys the great wall of china um I know that they had to like, this particular effect was like rushed, but it's so weird how Superman fixes the Great Wall of China. It's not that he's picking up individual rocks and replacing them. It's like David Copperfield magic. Yeah, Superman can now materialize.

Like, can make matter? Yeah. That's never been one of his. No, and he can get rid of matter by squatting, too, in the barn, you know? Yeah. And it looks... Bad. It looks like a kid's stop motion effect. It was, I think. Yeah. Abysmal. Yeah. Just a real low point. I know that when... Nuclear man comes down and he starts blowing up the cars on the street. I haven't read Christopher Reeve's memoir, but I read this passage where he talks about that was when he realized that this movie was garbage.

It was originally planned. It was going to be this giant street with all these cars. And if you look at it, it is so dinky. It's like five cars on like one street. Yeah. When they're flying, though, through New York, I don't know if you know this, but like during the Statue of Liberty thing where he picks up...

Statue of Liberty and drops it in Superman. And if that was filmed by Richard Donner, that could be like a really thrilling sequence. But when they're flying through the buildings, that footage... the footage that they didn't use was used for the opening credits of Gremlins 2. Oh. And so when you watch it, it looks like the way the sun hits the buildings, it's exactly like Gremlins 2 opening credits.

That actual footage? Yeah. So how did that work? Because Warner Brothers had distribution or more than that, even though this was a Canon film. Canon was about to go bankrupt. Oh, that's right. They subsidized them. Yeah. And, and the money that Warner brothers gave them was supposed to go just to pay for Superman four, but then they used it to like, start paying out like other.

Among all their films. Yeah. And they could just do that? Did you read the thing in Brantley's notes about the feud now at this point between Alexander and Ilya Salkind? That Ilya, the son, the only child, his... who was the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, had a bunch of money that she loaned to his father, Alex, who blew it all and didn't pay her back. And you're borrowing money from your daughter-in-law.

And they had a lawsuit and then the son and the father never spoke again and Alexander died. And then sold off the rights, sold the rights to Superman to... To Canon, right? Yeah. For $5 million. And then Warner Brothers bought it from Canon. And I guess, yeah, with buying that, they bought the footage of those buildings. Joe Dante could use it for gremlins too. Um, wow. So Warner brothers probably got the Superman property at a steel having a man of steel. Yeah.

I've been owned by the Salkins to Canon as a disposable property that is no longer any worth. And then it goes to Warner Brothers and goes through development hell with... Tim Burton's Nicolas Cage version. Yeah. There's been multiple. The Kevin Smith version. I learned about a Christopher McQuarrie version. How many people develop Superman? And then finally, Bryan Singer.

Yeah, and the last time that, like, Superman was in a movie that's, like, not just a... Like, that Man of Steel or Superman versus Batman. I know those are movies that, like... earn their money back. Yeah. But like the last time a Superman movie was like a phenomenon was like either Superman one or two in 1978 or 81. Like, and it's not a property that like makes. This is a license for printing money like Batman is. It's not guaranteed, no. Yeah. And they often end in kind of like...

pathetic desperation of Superman four. And then the way justice league ended with the whole mustache gate, you know about that or Superman returns, like ended poorly where it was supposed to launch a new set of. Bryan Singer directed Superman movies, but there was only that one. You're right. They don't soar, so to speak. I guess the TV shows have had their own limited success, but those are...

you know, Lois and Clark was kind of big in Smallville, and then there's been another one, right? Yeah, right, right. There was a new kind of Lois and Clark kind of show that... yeah came out for a bit like superman and lois maybe yeah that's what yeah yeah yeah um i don't you know like i don't know if superman is just i i think he's like i i love the guy but I think audiences do think it's like corny or something. Yeah. Right. I'm very curious to see if, you know, James.

Gunn seems to be touting that he understands the tone of these movies and the missteps of the last two reboots of the franchise. Because right, when they try not to be corny, they're not good. Doesn't work. Yeah.

You have to be earnest, but being earnest is tough to pull off because you have to make the audience want to be earnest as well. You can't just... be melodramatic like that was my kind of problem with the latest mission impossible it had very little humor it was all sentiment and earnestness but in a way that felt like these people cared more about this stuff than the audience does so that they're like force feeding you emotion and sentiment instead of allowing us to kind of like pre-mourn.

the loss of this franchise, which probably isn't even going to happen anyway. Now that there's going to be a stunt category, Tom Cruise is definitely going to want to win. Oh my goodness. Yes. And you know, a franchise is getting wobbly when they put final. in the title. Have we not learned?

I mean, we've pretty much covered every final movie. If the next one is called Mission Impossible Resurrection, it's like fully dead. At least they took eight films to get to it because it's normally a part four thing. That's true. Um, yeah. Uh, and well, and then getting to the end of this movie, we, I'll wait for my last note. Cause it's the same last note I always have on these four films, but, um, well, my, um,

Last notes here that we haven't mentioned. Oh, I like that nuclear man. He's like blowing up stuff and like causing real destruction. But in that mayhem, he takes the time to turn a guy's gun into rubber. The law rocket, the light anti-tank weapon. The what? The law rocket. What? Bazooka? Oh, is that the one that like... Disposable. Also, it's such a goofy part of the movie where when a group... My balloonie keeps going. Your balloonie is going balloonie.

Balloustic. When that part where Nuclear Man raises up a group of people up into the air, they're like, whoa, whoa. And then Superman just... Brings them back out. It's like the opposite of... Peril. Action. The... Fighting on the moon stuff, you know, it looks cool. But the only thing I really like is when... Superman gets pushed down into the moon surface. I love it for the reason that you just get to see the soft foam of the moon there, and I just like that seeing the seams kind of thing.

The stuff with Warfield, the new publisher, that gets wrapped up pretty easily. And that's Sam Wanamaker, right? Who is responsible for the Globe Theater in England. That's the guy who plays Warfield? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. So he's the real deal. Yeah. His daughter Zoe Wanamaker, you've probably seen in things too. No, I mean, I'm sure I have. Actually, she's the main head councilwoman alien in Lilo and Stitch, the original. Oh, that voice. Yeah.

Oh, I like that voice. We were just talking about that before recording. That's right. We both saw Lilo and Stitch solo. Yeah, you and me didn't go with our families. I specifically said Glenn. This one, daddy's got to do alone. But we each dressed as Stitch. It was very bizarre of us. Yeah, and then I liked when he brings Lex Luthor back to the... prison yard where they're breaking rocks. And they go, hey, Mozart's back. That was pretty good. I got my Liberace records. And dropping a...

Lenny at the Boys Town. I know. Boys Town. Did Boys Town even exist? Does it still exist? So when we watched Superman 4, for the first time, when we... I watched it on the HBO thing, and then we rented it. And I watched it on HBO Free Preview, and then we rented it, and my family had it on. And when he got dropped off at the Boys Town... My dad was like, oh, the only Boys Town is in Omaha. The only one? Or the original. Oh, really? Yeah. So...

There was a hope that like, wow, did they film this in Omaha? And then when I look at it, it's like the Elstry Gate. Yeah, Maynard, where is it? I don't know.

So, yeah, what was your last... Well, my final note is just the assessment of using the final shot in all four movies, which at this point, I can't begrudge them because it really... didn't sit well with me on part two for that some strange reason and then part three you're just like oh you fuckers and then this one it's like well shame on me you know fool me once

I know what I'm, I'm not surprised. Yeah. I, um, it does, uh, um, it hurts the 89 minutes of movie that you've seen before it because. your eye realizes like, Oh, they haven't done effects like this. Yes. You definitely like, he does this kind of cool, like tilt. Yeah. while the rear projection stuff is happening and looks so awesome, it makes you go like, oh yeah, I haven't seen any of that in this movie. No. Also, what's...

thrilling anytime they've used it is, with the exception of when Superman goes out and spins the world around, he doesn't go out into space very often. But in this movie, he's going out into space like every five minutes. So to end it with him going up into space one last time, you're like, yeah, I know. I've seen him up in space this whole movie. In a shittier version. Right. If you hear weird noises, I'm really trying to get another balloony going. I like it. It's not working.

Hey! A second balloony! Look at that! And you got a green one and a blue one now. It's got a hole. Uh-oh. If I was Jimmy Olsen and I had my camera on me, I'd be... snapping up pictures and make it the front page of the oh that smell oh my god look at that that's awesome I did take a picture That's good. Look at that pic. That's a good pic of you with the two bubbles. Oh, yeah. You look so happy. We'll put it up for this episode. That's good. Well, that's Superman done and dusted. Yep.

Let's read a couple of baby xenomorph names, shall we? Sure. Fun. Let me dig them up here. Dig them up much like Superman had to dig himself up out of the moon. How are you guys doing on the live screen? Good? We got two names here. Frank Howard would like, oh, I'm Crips Ben Glover, and I just want to say... Frank Howard is the dead fuck. Uber had a good joke on the live stream, Krypton Glover. That's it, actually. That's the only one we have to read.

Okay, so here's what we'll do. We'll end this episode, and you and I, and maybe we'll discuss it with the streamers as another perk for them. You know subscribing at that level they can weigh in on this As opposed to, as, as to what we will do with the remaining schedule. And we'll, we'll post that up on Patreon shortly. Fun. Okay. Sounds good. All right. Well, we got to rate it.

Got to give this movie a 13 here. So what do we give the first and second and third? Well, the first is a 13 for both of us. Superman 2 is a 10.5 for me. It's an 11 for you. Superman 3 is a 7 for me. A nine for you. What are you giving Superman for the quest for peace? QFP. I'm going to give it a six and a half. I'm going to give it a... A five and a half. It was not good. No. And, yeah, for a movie that...

Yeah, do you think Jaws is the closest comparison of a drop between? But you like Jaws 4. I do like Jaws 4. What's interesting, is this the... Only time a franchise has just fallen off in quality sequentially. You know, like it's pretty easy for me to drop off. Yeah. I would say actually, yeah, that the biggest drop for me is probably between.

I don't know. They're pretty, the least drop is between one and two, but then the drop to three and then the drop to four is pretty, a little bigger for me. Yeah. Halloween might be each one drops lower than the next one for me. Really? Because I'd go one, four, probably three, two. Yeah. And with Nightmare, part two is like really not good. Yeah. And so, yeah, you kind of go up and down. You're right. Yeah. Halloween four is better than Halloween.

Three. And two for my money. Yeah. I like two. I like how the security guard at the hospital gets scared by a cat. I can't take that away from you. Well, buddy, many soups to you. Yes, in Souson we trust with Groupon and Rust concludes. We never talked about this. you spell that soup's on but I was imagining like when somebody's like soup's on yes I know that but I think then we had maybe in that conversation extrapolated one

One further. I'm glad we figured that out in the last minute. You can't even find your way back if you want to. How did they get from Superman to Groupon? There's a path. Yeah. And thank you, listeners, as always, for joining us. We appreciate it. And thank you, the live streamers and our trustees, everybody. This is a hoot to do. Maybe we'll be back with Hero at Large. and or supergirl as a commentary or we'll be back with in i

In summer, we trust with Gummer and Russ. Gummer! Hey, it's me, Gummer, from the Morning Drive crew. All right, bye, everybody. Bye-bye. More soon. Bye. For more Gourley and Rust content, head over to patreon.com slash with Gourley and Rust to get episodes ad-free and a whole week early. Plus, monthly mailbag episodes and feature-length watch-along film commentaries of your favorite horror classics. That's Patreon. And your questions might be featured on a future mailbag episode.

with Boily and Russ theme song by me, Mac Boily, and performed by Townland. You can find us on Instagram as Townland Band, as well as Paul's fantastic band at Don't Stop Or We'll Die. And why not rate and review with Gorley and Rust on Apple Podcasts? It'll help us grow the show and keep us trucking through the Jasons and the Michaels, the Leatherfaces and the Chuckies, the Aliens and the Candymans.

Imagine a world without borders, where money moves between countries fast and securely, all without having to build or manage a complex infrastructure. Introducing Visa Direct. With Visa Direct, you can move money securely to and from 195 countries in 160 currencies. Move money your way. Learn more at Visa.com.

Hey, I'm Kevin. And I'm PJ. And together we host the podcast. I'm Grandman. And our podcast is currently sponsored by Compare the Market. Where you can now get personalised car and home insurance deals delivered by Otto Sergei.

One absolute faff that I've come across is home insurance. Well, I've found a shortcut to make things simpler, right? Tell me more. You need to meet Otto Sergei, right? He's one of the meerkats who does the hard work for us by scurrying around to find great home insurance deals. It's simple and...

easy to use and after I use it this year, AutoSorge will sort out next year and in the future. Just make it simple with personalized deals delivered by AutoSorge from Compare the Market. Prices are generated from information you've provided. Review before purchasing. Simple. That was good.