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- [00:00]
Sean Fennessey
This episode of the Big Picture is presented by Starbucks.
- [00:03]
Amanda Dobbins
The unofficial drink of summer is here, and it's just as good as I remembered.
- [00:07]
Sean Fennessey
Starbucks Summer Berry Refresher is everything you'd want from a summer beverage.
- [00:11]
Amanda Dobbins
A blend of berry notes shaken with ice and poured over a layer of new raspberry flavored pearls. And personally, my favorite refresher is the Summer Berry Lemonade. It just tastes like summer in a cup and adds a whole other level of fresh flavors.
- [00:25]
Sean Fennessey
We are on the brink of a major heat wave here in Los Angeles, and nothing would be more refreshing than than a Starbucks Summer Berry Lemonade Refresher. Available for a limited time only. Your Summer Berry Refresher is ready at Starbucks. I'm Sean Fennesee. I'm Amanda Dobbins and this is the Big Picture. A conversation show about Superman. There is a new Superman movie in the world directed by James Gunn. We will talk about it on this episode. Before we get into our conversation about the movie, which we've just seen last night, there was a small bit of movie news, which is that Dune Part 3 is real. It is happening. It is not called Dune Messiah. It is called Part 3. Timothee Chalamet is in the movie. It's starting production and it has been dated officially for December 16, 2026.
- [01:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [01:18]
Sean Fennessey
This is notable because it is the same day as Avengers Doomsday.
- [01:23]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure.
- [01:23]
Sean Fennessey
Which is after Fantastic Four, the first steps, the next Marvel movie. There will be an 18 month gap between Marvel movies and these two movies, which are both huge in their own way, are going toe to toe.
- [01:34]
Amanda Dobbins
For now.
- [01:35]
Sean Fennessey
For now.
- [01:35]
Amanda Dobbins
This is like. This is a real. Like, you can't. This is corporate spreadsheets. And that's fine. And it's our job, I guess, to, like, pay attention to their press releases. But yeah, this is 18 months away. I would imagine that there will be some synergies or, you know, best opportunities.
- [01:52]
Sean Fennessey
If you had to guess, one of the movies moves, which one moves?
- [01:54]
Amanda Dobbins
Avengers.
- [01:55]
Sean Fennessey
I agree.
- [01:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [01:56]
Sean Fennessey
Because can it afford to move? Can they go two years without a movie?
- [02:01]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, and you don't think it'll be done in time? Well, they could move it up to, like, November.
- [02:05]
Sean Fennessey
Oh. Oh, well, there's. There was a report this week that there is no third act in the movie right now. Well, which is in production.
- [02:12]
Amanda Dobbins
What's different is what I would say to you.
- [02:14]
Sean Fennessey
That is a problem. That is a problem.
- [02:15]
Amanda Dobbins
Of course.
- [02:16]
Sean Fennessey
And I would say it hasn't stopped.
- [02:17]
Amanda Dobbins
Ever releasing every other movie.
- [02:19]
Sean Fennessey
That is. That is our elegant segue to Superman because James Gunn made some news in a Rolling Stone interview a couple of weeks ago in which he said that the problem with most comic book movies these days is that they go into production without a finished script and that that's not something he wants to do with what he's doing at DC Movies. He wants to have a completed script that he wants to shoot or that he'll have another filmmaker shoot twice a day.
- [02:45]
Amanda Dobbins
I am the stop clock that agrees with James Gunn. I guess maybe once, but if we're doing military time, sure, yeah, I think it's a good idea to go to make a movie with a finished script just writ large.
- [02:57]
Sean Fennessey
It does seem like a good idea. I actually don't know enough about the Marvel process at this point. I have to assume someone submits something that is completed but that everyone agrees they're not happy with, but is good enough to begin filming. Now you can watch the hottest movies and series with Hulu on Disney. With Hulu, say yes Chef to a new season of FX is the Bear. And don't miss Marvel Television's action packed new series Ironheart on Disney. All of these and more now streaming with Hulu on Disney with a bundle. Subscription terms apply. Visit disneyplus.comhulu for details. So let's just talk about Superman. Okay, Superman has been described as the most important movie of the summer, maybe the most important movie of the year, certainly the most important movie, at least for now, for the comic book movie industrial complex. We've been doing this for nigh 25 years since Spider man in 2000. 2000, 2002. And this has been in some ways the lifeblood of American movies and in other ways the bane of American movies. It's been a fairly dark five to ten years. Yes, Superman is written and directed by Gunn. It's his seventh feature film, clearly very inspired by All Star Superman, which is a Grant Morrison run of the comic book from about 20 years ago. It is the first film in the DCU now that they have shuttered the DCEU, which is the extended universe that Zack Snyder was somewhat responsible for. It stars David Corenswet as Superman, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Eddie Gathege, Anthony Kerrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabel Merced. The logline of the movie is this. When Superman gets drawn into conflicts at home and abroad, his actions are questioned, giving tech billionaire Lex Luthor the opportunity to get the man of Steel out of the way for good will. Intrepid reporter Lois Lane and Superman's four legged Companion, Krypto, be able to help him before it's too late. What did you think of Superman?
- [04:57]
Amanda Dobbins
It works. It works. And honestly, half of the movie, I was pleasantly surprised by the other half. I am famously and committedly allergic to James Gunn's brand of filmmaking and certainly most of his sensibilities. And I think some of that was my allergic. Some of what doesn't work is my allergic reaction, and some of what doesn't work is choices that I don't think pan out that perhaps mean I'm right, but that's fine. But I think he is great. She is great. Nicholas Hoult is wonderful, despite whatever's going on with that character. And so if you get the three main leads and you get the chemistry, I think for me, at least, the rest falls into place around it.
- [05:52]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I think this is a great movie. I don't know if it's a perfect movie. It's not a perfect movie. I do think it is a really great Superman movie. And those are really hard to do, which we've seen. I think you could make the case that there has not been a great Superman movie since Richard Donner's Superman. I'm very fond of Superman 2, particularly Donner's cut of Superman 2 and the 1980 movie, which you and I both watched this week, or 78 movie, I should say, casts a very long shadow over Superman at the movies. And I give Gunn a lot of credit for finding ways to echo and parallel the success of that movie and replicating really none of it that this is has the feel because of the John Williams score and the typical iconography of the suit and the hopefulness of the character. But the way that the story is told, the way that it looks, the performance style, the writing, and the desire to, I think, reflect the real world for better or worse, makes this a completely different kind of comic book movie. And there are a lot of things that he attempts to do that I feel comfortable saying do not work. But I'm really fascinated and interested and in many ways rooting for the fact that he did do them and how we unpack that will be probably a big part of this conversation. But I came away just really impressed with his willingness to try a lot of things inside of what is typically considered a very boring container of Superman.
- [07:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes, I think what he does with Superman, the character, and how he pays homage to the 1978 and more broadly to the idea of Superman in our minds, but also updates him for 2025, like that is a good, smart decision. And he does something with the sincerity and almost like the dullness of the character or that's, that's the danger. Right. If you don't figure out how to make Superman compelling, he, he solves it. And it is, I mean, it's sentimental in the right way. Like it, I think, I think the way he positions him against both Lex Luthor and the various villains, but also just the world. And Superman himself is smart, and I completely acknowledge that's a really hard thing to do. So I agree with you in that sense. Like, he, he makes the most important decisions. The right, Most important decisions.
- [08:16]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I think. Let's talk about the very specific decisions. You know, I, I, I've made a list of all the things I think this movie does. Right. Yeah. And all the things this movie I don't think does very well.
- [08:24]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [08:25]
Sean Fennessey
Um, I'd like to talk through most of them with you.
- [08:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [08:28]
Sean Fennessey
In general, I think this is pretty thrilling, a good setup for the future of these movies. I want to enjoy it.
- [08:37]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [08:37]
Sean Fennessey
As a standalone experience.
- [08:39]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, yes. And I would argue that some of the, the, the you in DCU creeping in throughout this movie in, like, all the various ways that that takes shape is what is frustrating about it to me. Or not even frustrating, but less successful. When I checked out, when I was like, oh, you're doing this now. Okay. And also notably when the movie gets away from Superman and from Lois and from Lex Luthor, who I thought were great. So.
- [09:07]
Sean Fennessey
All part of my notes. Yeah, go ahead. The first thing that it does well. And we will be spoiling this movie. This is one of the biggest movies of the year. If you like a movie podcast, I presume you're at least somewhat interested in Superman.
- [09:17]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [09:18]
Sean Fennessey
Maybe you'll see it if you don't. That's okay. You can listen to this conversation. Anyway, the movie jumps in. Meteorous. There is no real backstory in this movie. There's no origin. There is a title card.
- [09:28]
Amanda Dobbins
And I got so stressed out. There's so much text. And I, I am not, I am a visual learner. Except for the title cards explaining, like, baroque setups of superhero and sci fi movies. And I, like, said to you, oh, no, but I did my best. I sat there and I was like, I'm gonna absorb every word. I felt. So it's styled in a like three centuries. Three.
- [09:55]
Sean Fennessey
Three centuries ago this happened.
- [09:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [09:56]
Sean Fennessey
Three decades ago this happened.
- [09:58]
Amanda Dobbins
Right. So. But, you know, I liked the repetitive, the structure. It was, there was almost like it was something for me to hold onto, framework, wise to remember what was going on. But I was nervous about the amount of information. Information that was being conveyed to me via type in a short amount of time.
- [10:16]
Sean Fennessey
So to me, I was relieved by that because it was a fake out. It was this suggestion that you were going to get a Star wars esque scroll. But in fact, it operates in the same way. The same way that Star wars kind of just thrusts you into the world. And in the first Star wars film, you're just on a ship with Darth Vader and we're off in the middle of the story. This movie operates very similarly. There is a great amount of history around metahumans and a crypto Kryptonian who has arrived on this planet.
- [10:45]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [10:45]
Sean Fennessey
But the movie more or less assumes you know, all that. And so where we start is Superman has just lost a battle.
- [10:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [10:52]
Sean Fennessey
Which is unfathomable in general because he's Superman.
- [10:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Right. And by the time you get to the end of that title sequence, it's like three minutes ago.
- [11:01]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. It's three centuries, three decades, three years.
- [11:05]
Amanda Dobbins
As the title sequence goes on, you realize, like, okay, like, I. Maybe I'm not going to have to have every bit of this memorized, But I did feel that very familiar MCU comic book, like, homework panic of like, oh, God, like, I got to. I have to. And. And it does effectively communicate by the end of the sequence that, like, oh, no, you don't actually have to remember the names of both fake countries.
- [11:29]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. Gunn has talked very openly about not wanting to do this and that he doesn't feel that we need to see the pearl strewn across the street in the Batman origin story. We don't need to see, you know, all of these images that come with superhero origins. He wants to more or less dispense with them, which is good. Now, I would not say he's subverting them. He is still working in more or less canonical mode of Superman. Lex Luthor is an evil billionaire who wants to destroy Superman. Lois Lane is a Daily Planet reporter who, you know, is a fiercely independent woman who also can't help but fall in love with Clark slash Superman. Jimmy Olsen is the sidekick in the office. There's a fun dog, like, it is all still Superman.
- [12:08]
Amanda Dobbins
And also speaking, like, canonically, you do. Within five minutes after that, you know, Superman. After the title sequence, you see a very, like, a familiar image, like, recreated for this movie with a funny cameo that speaks to the lore and the origin story of the super. So it, like it. It still is using the Fortress of.
- [12:31]
Sean Fennessey
Solitude is in this movie, for example. So all that stuff is there. The way that it's framed is slightly different from the Donner version, for example, in that it's very pop, it's very colorful, it's silly at times. There are a lot of kind of winking asides and nudges and gags that feel somewhat reminiscent of the MCU storytelling. But I would argue maybe like a little bit less Internet meme and a little bit more goofball sense of humor, which is kind of Gunn's tone.
- [13:03]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes, it's definitely goofy.
- [13:05]
Sean Fennessey
And that comes, like, really, really quickly in the movie. You find right away with the introduction of Crypto the dog and the way that Superman interacts with his dog that this is. This has been said, and this is not an original thought, but this is a two hour Saturday morning cartoon. And if that is interesting to you as a framework and a tonal choice for this movie, I think you will love this movie. If you liked Saturday morning cartoons as a kid. In that it's like, it's dangerous but not violent. It's epic but not stuffy. It's colorful and not washed out or overly serious. And it kind of moves and it's episodic. There's a villain. The villain needs to be dispensed with. There will be another adventure tomorrow. Yeah. And it's just a good choice. It's just a good choice for Superman. It's a good choice if you like comic books. It's a good choice if you like cartoons. Not everybody does, but the MCU actually never really felt like a comic book. The way that it was serialized feels like comic book storytelling. But watching the movies, I didn't feel like I was reading a comic. This feels like reading a comic or watching a cartoon, and I give them credit for that. That's not easy to replicate. It's a unique experience watching that stuff and consuming that stuff.
- [14:18]
Amanda Dobbins
To me, a person who occasionally watched Saturday morning cartoons, doesn't really read comic books, has lived in the last 20 years of this pop culture moment. I guess I would. I wouldn't say it scanned to me as a Saturday morning cartoon, but it felt familiar and nostalgic in a way that was pleasing as opposed to, like, thirsty. If that makes any sense of, like, trying to restructure and recreate. It's definitely someone who's, like, lived in the muck of this stuff and has an idea of it and does think it's also, like, really fun. And then to your point about it being pop and being colorful, I do think Half of the visual choices that are made in creating this world are excellent. And I mean, it's obviously both stylistically and technologically very, very different from the Richard Donner 1978. But there's a sense that Superman is operating in a real place for most of the time, even if it's a made up town. And that kind of leaps off the screen. Pun intended or not intended. I guess it feels more real. Yeah. And sets up a contrast with the other half of the film.
- [15:44]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, we'll get there.
- [15:45]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [15:46]
Sean Fennessey
I think my single favorite choice in the movie is the characterization of Superman. This is a very contemporary way to frame this character who can be considered boring Superman, you know, his origins are from Jewish creators. It's a. It's an alien story. It's a story about being an outsider. It's about a failure to fit in. It's about an aspiration to goodness that is, in theory, inside all people.
- [16:12]
Amanda Dobbins
But.
- [16:12]
Sean Fennessey
But that he kind of represents. He kind of externalizes the potential of the human experience. This Superman is kind of like that, but also a Superman of the self. And this is emo Superman. And we never really had this kind of a Superman before. And you see it very early on in the film after that first series of exchanges in Antarctica when Clark comes back, he's been recharged and he conducts an interview with Lois Lane in her apartment.
- [16:44]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [16:45]
Sean Fennessey
And he conducts the interview as Superman and they're together and she knows he's Superman.
- [16:50]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [16:50]
Sean Fennessey
So we've kind of dispensed with the whole.
- [16:52]
Amanda Dobbins
All of that.
- [16:53]
Sean Fennessey
All of that is gone. Which I thought was a good choice so that we don't have to go through the like, will they, won't they, Will she, Won't she realize what's going on here stuff. But watching them talk, watching his kind of angst, his nervousness, his frustration with the way that he's perceived in the world. And then this is something you wouldn't know if you didn't do what I did. But last night I was looking for a song on the soundtrack and I found the official Spotify playlist. And this probably would annoy you to no end, but James Gunn made a specific playlist for every single character. And I looked at the songs that he chose as, like, Clark's songs.
- [17:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [17:29]
Sean Fennessey
And they're all like early 2000s emo and pop punk. And that kind of perfectly made the character make sense to me. It's like, this is a Superman who listens to All Time Low and, you know, who listens to this Is he's the dashboard confessional Superman.
- [17:45]
Amanda Dobbins
It's like. It's in the text. They're arguing about, like, you know, they're.
- [17:48]
Sean Fennessey
Having a punk rock conversation.
- [17:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Exactly. And Clark thinks that he's punk, and he's definitely not. And.
- [17:56]
Sean Fennessey
And Lois sees herself as someone who.
- [17:57]
Amanda Dobbins
Is actually punk, but Lois is actually, like, yelling about bands. Like, they play that on the radio, you know, and he's like, well, then. So lots of people like them. It's. That's one of the great scenes of the movie.
- [18:05]
Sean Fennessey
Very charming moment.
- [18:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Like, very funny.
- [18:07]
Sean Fennessey
And.
- [18:08]
Amanda Dobbins
And they have real chemistry. But. Yeah, I agree. Like, this struggle is. It, like, is internal as much as it is. It's mirrored both, like, who am I supposed to be to myself, but also to everybody else. Which in some ways is like, a very familiar superhero thing of like, oh, do people want me to do this? Do people not want me to do this? Like, how do we. You know, what are my superpower? Like, what. How should I use them? But it is handled. It's done deftly and with a lot of care in this. So you actually do believe that Superman is just trying to figure things out. You know, he's just like. He's early 30s. He's trying to get in touch with his feelings. He has two different dad figures who have taught him different ways of what to be like. It's. It's very smart and very well realized.
- [19:05]
Sean Fennessey
It's a great choice. As you know, I was genuinely concerned about this movie. I was really down on the first two trailers. I didn't really understand the David Corenswet thing. And now I understand it.
- [19:15]
Amanda Dobbins
I understand it. So powerful.
- [19:17]
Sean Fennessey
It was a very. He was a very good choice for this because he's not Henry Cavill. You know, he is not made of absolute iron and has, like, a lantern jaw. That's not. That's not what this Superman is. He's still the most powerful being on Earth and is going to save the.
- [19:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Day and is tall, dark, and handsome.
- [19:33]
Sean Fennessey
And very handsome and fits the mold, but there's something vulnerable about him. It is. They have humanized the inhuman. That's kind of the idea of this movie. And I think it works really well. And it is like, it's the modern condition. You know, everyone is just more sensitive now than they were 50 years ago, than they were 100 years ago when the character was created. We don't have as much of the stiff upper lip that we might imagine was like a character of the country or at least the American man. So I liked It. I really liked it.
- [20:00]
Amanda Dobbins
It also allows Lois to be less helpless and more. Just.
- [20:06]
Sean Fennessey
More the hero.
- [20:07]
Amanda Dobbins
More the hero. More Rachel Brosnahan. Just abs. If. If Superman is having a crisis of confidence, Lois, like, knows what's up.
- [20:15]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. She's like, get it together, bro.
- [20:17]
Amanda Dobbins
Lois is our girl boss for forever. But. But. And I normally mean that in a. In a rude way, and I think that she's. It's actually a great character and performance. I mean, obviously, the journalistic ethics. You know, we can.
- [20:29]
Sean Fennessey
We should go through that at some point. Amanda's journalism corner.
- [20:33]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, there's, like. There's a lot here to discuss. And I also wanted to talk about their copy editing process on the ship, but that's skipping ahead.
- [20:40]
Sean Fennessey
Anyway, at the end, journalism is done in this movie. I'll have you know.
- [20:44]
Amanda Dobbins
It is done. And she also, like, drives, you know, like an imac ship, so she gets to do all sorts of things.
- [20:53]
Sean Fennessey
Okay. This is something that you might not like, but I find to be a fascinating component of the movie that is related.
- [20:58]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, no, it's. It's down, definitely. Like, I see it. I know what you're saying. I. You know, it's.
- [21:06]
Sean Fennessey
Let me say it. And you quit. You can quibble.
- [21:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Not that I quibble with it. It is. It's. It. This movie helped me understand why I am so allergic to so much of James Gunn's output, including almost all of his promos.
- [21:20]
Sean Fennessey
This is the apotheosis, though, of that condition.
- [21:22]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [21:23]
Sean Fennessey
So in the movie, James Gunn is Superman.
- [21:26]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [21:26]
Sean Fennessey
It's. It's unmistakable. There is a. There is a plot in this movie where Superman comes under a piece of his past related to his parents is unearthed by a vicious enemy, who then uses the nefarious and boundless evils of Internet troll armies to repeatedly misinterpret to the public the reputation and standing of, quote, unquote, the last good man in society.
- [21:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [21:50]
Sean Fennessey
And this is exactly what happened, at least in his perception, I think, to James Gunn. In 2018, he was fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 by Disney because old tweets were unearthed, and he was roundly castigated and pushed out of comfortable society. Now, I think better judgment prevailed on Disney's part. He was rehired, obviously. The cast of that movie was furious because they love him, and he also helped make their careers in some ways with those movies. But this telling is simultaneously like a very personal exorcism of a publicly embarrassing moment for him and also just kind of like revenge porn against Disney and I think that's fascinating. Like that happening in the biggest movie of the summer is to me, if you want auteurism, if you want a personal vision, he did that.
- [22:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. I don't disagree. I think that there is just an undertone, or maybe not even under, of main character energy and great madness that is some self pitying and self pitying that is exasperating to me. And I do also, now that you've isolated this plot point, my, My issues with this act, this part of the plot, are the same issues that I had with the James Gunn issue in real life, which is like, how did no one take care of this tape? You know what I mean? And now we're just magically unearthing it again. Like, it strains like all belief and is also just such a fucking cell phone, you know, that I am kind of like, well, I, it's. I, you know, I. This is all stupid. This is really, really, really stupid.
- [23:49]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I mean, I can't disagree with you that it was not a good idea for James Gunn to tweet those tweets. It was not a good idea for him to not delete those tweets as he grew in stature in the industry. It was not a. You know, all of that is true, obviously. And I think him equating the naturally empathic goodness of Superman with that experience is a bit absurd. Now, here's where I'm gonna go for it. I'm really gonna go for it.
- [24:14]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [24:15]
Sean Fennessey
The movie that this reminded me of the most, and I thought of it about halfway through the movie, is the Brutalist. Oh.
- [24:20]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, I thought you were going one more. No, I mean, listen, I said great man, main character energy for a reason.
- [24:27]
Sean Fennessey
The Brutalist is essentially the same story right about, in that case, a great artist who is believed to be at the absolute top of his class, who is then exiled and used by powerful forces and then discarded. And obviously, Brady Courbet sees a lot of himself in the Adrien Brody character in that film and is applying some of his experiences as an artist and characterizing them and also using tremendously traumatic historical conflict as a backdrop for the story. And this movie, which we will get to, does very much the same thing. Now, are Superman and the Brutalist similar kinds of moviegoing experiences? They're not, but they're kind of similar filmmaking perspectives. And yes, obviously I love. I love the brutalist 100%, I think. Why make a movie? Why, why write and direct a movie if you're not going to pour yourself into it. If you're not going to pour your ideas about your experience as a living person into it. I think I have a natural empathy to that. I'm interested in what people have to say through this medium of storytelling. And so I liked that Gunn did it. Now, is it goofy? It's a little goofy, yeah. But it's better than just like, here's Captain America 4. You're an idiot. I hope you enjoy this. You know what I mean?
- [25:43]
Amanda Dobbins
No, I, I totally agree. I do think that baked into both the Brutalist and this I like, I agree with you. You're gonna write and direct something, you know, tell you. Write what you know, write, write yourself. Um, but implied in both of these takes in this filmmaking perspective and the, you know, the hero as the unimpeachable force who is misunderstood or blockaded by. By everyone else. And if you could, if, if this person could just get final cut on life, then, then everything would be right in the world. Like LOL A little bit. And do you know why? Lol. Because I saw all the parts of the same movie you made that don't work, you know, So I don't know if we can trust you with the final cut. And there is something in the text that they are making about their own kind of infallibility that show their fallibility at the thing they are doing that makes me laugh.
- [26:47]
Sean Fennessey
That's all the dividing aspect of those two movies though. I think I was a little bit more frustrated by hearing you say that about the Brutalist because I was like, this is a small movie. Like if that part of the movie doesn't work, for example, that's fine. This is something that was really important to him that he wanted to put on screen. You could call it pretentious, you could say it's unsuccessful, but it is from a very pure place. To try to do that inside of a Superman movie, which is literally potentially a stock price moving venture, is a wild act of self regard. And I don't mean that negatively. So I'm fascinated by that being in the movie and by being to me, so transparent. Now I'll suggest one other person that I thought of while watching the movie.
- [27:31]
Amanda Dobbins
This one's funny.
- [27:32]
Sean Fennessey
Maybe it's a troll and maybe it's not. But I thought of Taylor Swift, sure, because Taylor Swift, this is her iconography. The most successful artist of her generation, truly beloved in many ways seemingly infallible and invulnerable, but also someone no doubt stricken by a kind of main character. How could this happen to me? Energy Pretty much through a large. All the way up until like three years ago.
- [27:58]
Amanda Dobbins
I would say he's made a tremendous amount of money on that particular identity.
- [28:04]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. That ideology.
- [28:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [28:06]
Sean Fennessey
And that is the Superman we're getting.
- [28:09]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. What does it say about you that when a man does it, you think it's really bold and exciting. And when Taylor Swift does it, you're one of her greatest detractors for 15 years.
- [28:19]
Sean Fennessey
Says I have a lot to learn. No. You know, I think my challenge is specifically that I just don't ultimately like Taylor Swift's music that much. And I do like James Gunn movies.
- [28:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [28:32]
Sean Fennessey
And that's really all it boils down to.
- [28:33]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. I mean, like Sam, but in reverse.
- [28:36]
Sean Fennessey
You know, like, I enjoy Madonna. If Madonna positioned herself in the same way, I'd be more forgiving because I like her music more so. But to me, this kind of framework is very common. And it also applies to the real world. I mean, this is how a lot of our world leaders position themselves to us. They say, like, I'm all knowing and all powerful and I have everything. Why won't everybody stop attacking me?
- [29:00]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [29:01]
Sean Fennessey
And it's just a smart way to frame. Or at least it's a. It's representative.
- [29:05]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [29:06]
Sean Fennessey
Of a common psyche amongst the powerful. I think that's really what I'm trying to circle.
- [29:10]
Amanda Dobbins
That is true. And it is also. It. It is like the greatest weakness of otherwise deeply powerful people is being like, why don't you like me? Why don't you like me? Yes. So I guess there is some self knowledge in that, though. Not. I don't know. I don't know whether I think it's actually self knowledge or just.
- [29:29]
Sean Fennessey
I don't know either. I don't know either. It feels unmistakable to me. But I could be wrong. James Gunn could say I wasn't thinking of that at all.
- [29:35]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [29:36]
Sean Fennessey
Seems unlikely. Okay. Now this might be where we diverge a little bit.
- [29:39]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [29:39]
Sean Fennessey
So to me, the Metropolis World Building and the pacing of this movie is very good. This is a movie that I think looks good. It is not in New York, but it feels close enough.
- [29:49]
Amanda Dobbins
It's Cleveland.
- [29:50]
Sean Fennessey
It's Cleveland. Okay.
- [29:51]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Or many of the locations are in Cleveland. And I think it's based on Cleveland because apparently Superman also has some historic origins in Cleveland.
- [30:01]
Sean Fennessey
Maybe the founders are from Cleveland. The creators are from. I can't recall if the creators are from Cleveland. That makes sense. That's great. Not so far from Kansas. That would be logical. I think Metropolis looks pretty good. And I think the Pacing of this movie is very good. This movie's under two hours.
- [30:15]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [30:16]
Sean Fennessey
We are living in the era of the 2 hour and 48 minute comic book movie. And we've kind of whinged about it quite a bit in the last five years. And this movie's pretty brisk.
- [30:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Why would you think I disagree with this?
- [30:30]
Sean Fennessey
Well, it's because I don't. Was unbothered by the loading of the movie. I'll say that there are a lot of characters in this movie that they are kind of like very. One of the only times I heard you sigh during the film was the introduction of the quote, Justice Gang, which is Hawkgirl, Mr. Terrific, and the Guy Gardner version of Green Lantern. We can talk about Green Lanterns if you're interested at all. But they show up on the scene to battle a Kaiju with Superman and it just kind of turns into a comic book movie all of a sudden. What had been a more tightly focused character study of Superman and his battle with Lex Luthor became a lot of cgi, a lot of flying around and fighting a monster. I thought that was the stuff that wasn't gonna work when I was watching the trailers and I thought it worked really well. Now it does do one thing that I don't like, which we can talk about in terms of getting less Superman.
- [31:23]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [31:25]
Sean Fennessey
But I think that those characters and the way that they're framed in this world is pretty mild. It's not a lot of like over explication. There's a shocking lack of exposition in this movie.
- [31:37]
Amanda Dobbins
That's true. Except their. Their job and what they have to solve is the most mumbo jumbo exposition of the whole film.
- [31:50]
Sean Fennessey
Yes.
- [31:51]
Amanda Dobbins
So my problem with them, in addition to they show up and you're just like, oh great, it's another superhero movie. And to me, we can talk about whether this does feel like a Marvel movie or whether it feels like a departure. I think it can be both. But I'm trained at this point, like, oh great. Okay. So here's the spinoff for the next thing and here's what we're setting up. And I just. I sighed because I was tired of that. The other thing that those characters, well, they sort of represent the. The Engineer. Is that Mr. Terrific? What's. Who's. Who's Mr.
- [32:26]
Sean Fennessey
Terrific?
- [32:26]
Amanda Dobbins
Mr. Terrific.
- [32:27]
Sean Fennessey
Eddie Githigi's character.
- [32:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Ends up having to spend a lot of time in like another portal universe. And Sue. Just the James Gunn. The James Gunn. Sci fi stuff. Like, like goofy sci fi. And we all have to like build up a team and like jump some portals and make up some science and have like a lot of creatures who, you know, look a lot like humans that I know. But, you know, like, I, it's. It's not my flavor. I just like. I don't like it. I don't. I have no interest in it. I didn't like it in Guardians of the Galaxy. I don't think it's funny. I don't. I think that it looked like absolute shit, especially compared with Metropolis, which I think was like filmed so well. So. And those action sequences are like very exciting. So that was why I sighed. It's not because of the lack of, you know, exposition or the lack of. That I didn't understand. I like, understood plenty.
- [33:29]
Sean Fennessey
I think it is a fairly understandable movie. I think these movies tend to get pretty ornate in their plotting and in their MacGuffining. But I do agree with you. I think the biggest flaw of the movie is a big chunk in the second act where Superman effectively is extradited to a black site and tortured. And that's one of many real world events that he is very closely mirroring in the actions. His detainment itself is. Is clearly a nod to the practices of ice and illegal immigrants. And the idea of like taking people, you know, government sponsored, but sort of like Black Shadowed.
- [34:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Exactly. Disappearancing, licensed out. And. And the American government is represented in this movie as kind of. They have faces, but they're just in one room doing what Lex Luthor tells them to do or not do.
- [34:24]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Or they're. They're bureaucratic functions.
- [34:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:27]
Sean Fennessey
And they're. They're more or less being control by money. So we can talk about some of those aspects of the movie. I do want to talk about those aspects of the movie, but those aspects of the movie lead directly to this period where they enter a pocket universe which Lex has created in an effort to kind of disappear his enemies. And the pocket universe is a pocket universe. It's not the real world. It's on the verge of a black hole and it's just kind of a CGI mess. And it's like a drag in a movie that otherwise, I think, has a lot of invention around how it wants to look and how it wants to represent Superman existing in the pop real world of Metropolis. And that's the only time when Mr. Terrific's exposition machine is going at all times. He has to tell Lois everything that is happening.
- [35:11]
Amanda Dobbins
There are lots of gizmos and gadgets.
- [35:14]
Sean Fennessey
It was definitely the sequence of the movie that I Liked the least. I didn't like how it looked. I thought that the ideas. When he's being hauled off, I was like, oh, wow. This is pretty dramatically showing us what our life is like in a Superman movie.
- [35:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes. And that is still, like, actually, like, in Metropolis. And the people are like, the. The whatever. Like, the Black Mercenary is like. Is looks a lot like ice. And there is someone, like. It's Frank Grillo. Right. Who is explaining. You know, they've. They've contracted you out so they don't have to deal with it. Exactly. So. So you have no rights. Like, they don't apply to you because you're not a citizen.
- [35:53]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. And then obviously, it's a very. I think it is what you said. It is James Gunn's predilection for that kind of story stuff. It is the most Guardians aspect of the movie. We see the most characters. We see the most, like, creatures. We get introduced to Metamorpho, who's a Justice League character who has the power to transform any part of his body to, like, an element. And so that's how we get Kryptonite introduced to the movie.
- [36:19]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, he couldn't transform himself into something that could get him out of the black site and get everyone else. I mean, he does later.
- [36:26]
Sean Fennessey
It's a very good note from cinemasins. Amanda. Plot holes. Amanda. Before we get further into the things that maybe don't work as well, let's just circle the performances. Corn Sweat, Lights Out, Victory.
- [36:43]
Amanda Dobbins
It works so good. And he also just, like, has a thing there. Like, a few shots of him where I was just, like. I swooned a little, you know, which, like, you do need from Superman.
- [36:51]
Sean Fennessey
You do.
- [36:51]
Amanda Dobbins
Not that Henry Cavill didn't have that, but there is something like. Like, really endearing and still also. Yes. That. That man is. That's a cinema star.
- [37:03]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Cavill didn't play Superman with very much humor.
- [37:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [37:09]
Sean Fennessey
I thought he struck the absolute right kind of figure for Superman, but I just think the writing kind of failed him over and over and over again. I wanted to enjoy him in those movies. Corn Sweat. I'll be curious to see what they do with Superman in the future, because I feel like he can only work with James Gunn.
- [37:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. Yeah.
- [37:29]
Sean Fennessey
If you let someone else write him, will they be able to thread the needle of this very sensitive mega power?
- [37:40]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [37:41]
Sean Fennessey
I don't know. I don't know.
- [37:43]
Amanda Dobbins
There are a lot of emo boys out there in, like, James Gunn's age group.
- [37:47]
Sean Fennessey
It's true.
- [37:47]
Amanda Dobbins
And a lot of them are making movies now.
- [37:49]
Sean Fennessey
So you're not wrong about that. Rachel Brosnahan 1.
- [37:54]
Amanda Dobbins
Lights out. Once again.
- [37:55]
Sean Fennessey
I would like her to take me to dinner. She's very charming. She's very appealing. I think that the. Anything happening in the Daily Planet is very tv. I don't mean that as like an insult, but it's very like we're moving.
- [38:10]
Amanda Dobbins
To the next scene here. We're doing. And in a way, it is doing plot exposition. It's plot exposition about journalism.
- [38:18]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. That's at least a great part of the creation of those characters is like there is literally a character whose job it is to find out what's going on. And she gets to be the detective of the stories. So she gets to draw the conclusion that in the film, the civil conflict between Barovia and Jarnapur.
- [38:37]
Amanda Dobbins
That sounds right.
- [38:38]
Sean Fennessey
Is oriented around Lex Luthor's participation in terms of arms dealing. And that's the kind of story that a big city newspaper reporter would break.
- [38:47]
Amanda Dobbins
So once upon a time, when we had shots fired, one when he had big city newspapers.
- [38:52]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Well, now we just get it on substack.
- [38:54]
Amanda Dobbins
I was just going to say we just have one.
- [38:56]
Sean Fennessey
What if they made Lois Lane a substacker? I feel like that would actually have been an even more resonant choice in these times.
- [39:02]
Amanda Dobbins
I think that podcaster. I actually do think that the amount of real media that the movie works into this movie is. Is tone perfect. Like they got it right, which is tv. And the Fox, like the fake Fox News.
- [39:18]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. Michael Ian Black as a Fox, as the Tucker Carlson of this movie.
- [39:22]
Amanda Dobbins
It's very funny. And there are references to social media and also like Superman. Not really understanding it. And then a great joke. The only funny part of the sci fi world, what the pocket universe, is Lex Luthor's trolls who are all like. Who are actually like little monkeys typing all the mean things about. And that is when the. Oh, this is about you, like, comes on. But it was still very funny.
- [39:48]
Sean Fennessey
It was very funny. Yeah. Nicholas Hoult.
- [39:51]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [39:52]
Sean Fennessey
Now he's become a bit of a character on this show. He keeps taking these parts where he is getting beta cucked.
- [40:02]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, in this one he takes this part because he wasn't going to get Superman. He auditioned for Superman and he has.
- [40:09]
Sean Fennessey
Said he's auditioned for many superheroes and many big time action leads over the years and he basically never gets the role. And so instead what he gets is the part in Nosferatu, the part in Juror number two, you know, the part in Renfield, the Part in Warm Bodies. Like he's in the genre movie.
- [40:25]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [40:26]
Sean Fennessey
He is the star most of the time. And yet.
- [40:31]
Amanda Dobbins
And he's essential to selling all of the movies.
- [40:34]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. But he is reactive.
- [40:36]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [40:37]
Sean Fennessey
You know, he is like. He's the blood bag from Fury Road. He's not driving the action. Now, in this case, he does get to drive the action because everything he does dictates what happens. I was a little bit skeptical of this rendition of Lex all the way up until the end. And he gets a big speech at the end where they sort of. They're having a conversation via FaceTime bot. No. FaceTime drone.
- [41:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Is it FaceTime drone or is it when they're.
- [41:09]
Sean Fennessey
Oh, before they. Before they have a confrontation, when they're talking to each other. When they basically have a philosophical conversation about the character of Lex Luthor.
- [41:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [41:18]
Sean Fennessey
Which is. Why is Lex so mad at Superman?
- [41:22]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, that is my. That's my actual one big note about.
- [41:25]
Sean Fennessey
So you didn't think that explanation worked?
- [41:27]
Amanda Dobbins
No, the explanation did work, but it comes in at one hour and 45 minutes.
- [41:30]
Sean Fennessey
It does.
- [41:31]
Amanda Dobbins
And everything else that they jump right into, or the yada yada, as the case may be, I was fine with. But him just being like, so big mad at Superman for. And I was just like, like, what actually is your damage? What is what's going on here? You know, And I think. And. And I don't blame Holt's performance for that. I think that is just basically like. That is a piece of character development that is missing from the movie until the very end of the movie.
- [41:56]
Sean Fennessey
Clearly a choice that they made. It wasn't, to me, it wasn't like a. Like a mistake. They were just like, we're gonna hide the ball. On revealing any of Lex Luthor's intentions. And they're not just in the vein of Lex and Superman. The Donner Superman, like Lex and the Donner Superman is like, world domination is my goal. I'm going to set off a series of natural disasters in California so that I can take greater control of the land in this world. That. That is the coin of the realm. This is a different kind of a character.
- [42:25]
Amanda Dobbins
But the thing is they do like, do the. They established that plot and for a long time. And what Lois is investigating is that he is an arms dealer. He's funding this, like, this invasion of a another country so that he can be like the ruler over it and also get access to oil fields not related to anything in the world at all. And. And they sort of position that as like, that's his motivation for a while. And then you learn that the real motivation, though, is that he was doing all of that to try to trap Superman. Yes, but they do actually, he says a few times, no, I really hate Superman the most at the very beginning in a way that undermines that feint. And that's what I was confused about. If they'd stuck with just the basic, he's your average warlord and. Or not your average warlord, you know. He does also, by the way, resemble Stephen Miller in this movie.
- [43:23]
Sean Fennessey
No doubt about it.
- [43:24]
Amanda Dobbins
And, like, physically.
- [43:26]
Sean Fennessey
And this is a story about people. Yeah. James Gunn is like, literal. Literalized this in the press. Like one day before the movie came out, he was like, this is a movie about an immigrant.
- [43:33]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [43:34]
Sean Fennessey
And that's sounds like director bullshit, but it isn't. It's a rare case where, like, when the guy is like, this is about the. This is the Parallax view. But with superheroes.
- [43:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
- [43:43]
Sean Fennessey
Which again, we'll get there. Whether that's a good idea or not. Yeah. It's an interesting conversation.
- [43:47]
Amanda Dobbins
Whether they like. Whether they. Whether they handle it right.
- [43:51]
Sean Fennessey
Not what is it about. But how is it about it is the thing I'm asking.
- [43:54]
Amanda Dobbins
Exactly. Um. Anyway, they. They undermine the feint of, like, he's just doing this for power and land and money.
- [44:02]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [44:02]
Amanda Dobbins
Too early on.
- [44:03]
Sean Fennessey
I just really, really liked the way that. To me, this was really good gun story storytelling. And I don't know if he found this in Morrison or Tom King or one of the other writers, but Lex saying, it is envy that drives me crazy. It is envy that drives me to want to destroy you. Because the envy that I feel locates the fact that we're all weak and that that weakness is what drives us mad. And I can't live like that. I can't. And that is. That's a very modern thing.
- [44:33]
Amanda Dobbins
That speech and that performance was great. It was just kind of where it was in the storytelling. That and the other choices they made, giving his motivations or not, that were sort of confusing to me. But, like. No, I agree with you. Everything. They're yelling at each other in, like, the Sunny Ship. And I also really liked the sunny Ship. Like the tower bridge that takes us.
- [44:53]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
- [44:54]
Amanda Dobbins
But no. At some point it's flying was great writing. It worked for me.
- [45:00]
Sean Fennessey
I agree. That stuff is really good. That's somebody who gets those characters and has something to say, I think, through those characters. Eddie Gathege is like the third lead of this movie. He's in More than Nicholas Holt is as Mr. Terrific, a character that I'm just not all that familiar with. I'm not a huge DC person. I thought he was pretty good.
- [45:20]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. I felt bad for him. He had to, like, work with a portal for a while.
- [45:23]
Sean Fennessey
He's in a portal.
- [45:24]
Amanda Dobbins
A lot of paper mache.
- [45:25]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah.
- [45:25]
Amanda Dobbins
You know, I wonder, like, how many times they had to, like, redo that, you know, because the, like, crinkly stuff. I actually like the. I guess the production design and the actual, like the textures of everything.
- [45:38]
Sean Fennessey
It all feels very real.
- [45:39]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, until you actually get to the black hole stuff. And that's very bad. But I like. I will give them. And that was also. Even. That was true of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, a movie that I straight up hated. But he is saddled with a lot of silliness.
- [45:53]
Sean Fennessey
He is. He does get one badass fight sequence that lasts like one minute where he puts. They're about to get to the portal and he puts Lois in a force field bubble so she won't be injured by all these mercenaries. And he dispatches them in a kind of a classic James Gunn semi slo mo set to a pop song.
- [46:13]
Amanda Dobbins
Right. Here's. Yes. Cool design. All of the mercenaries have real, like, Broadway cast member energy to their moves. And like, I even noticed the choreography, like, everyone, like, landing their spot and they're just like, ah. You know, and you can really. And these are choreographed and I consider, like, them, you know, dance sequences in a lot of way. But we. You could see everyone knew exactly where their marks were. And Whereas, like, really going for.
- [46:44]
Sean Fennessey
That's the gun thing is like, he's kind of a hokey razzmatazz guy. I kind of like that about him. I mean, I. He's not Stanley Donen or anything, but he does like that. Let's slow this movie down for a moment feeling.
- [46:57]
Amanda Dobbins
You know, it's like I would have. I would have asked for another take from. From all of the.
- [47:02]
Sean Fennessey
You didn't like Jazz Hands mercenaries.
- [47:04]
Amanda Dobbins
I would have said let's land it a little more naturally, you know, like hit the mark. But also make it look like you've been here before.
- [47:14]
Sean Fennessey
In general, I think with the exception of the big Proton River Pocket universe save, which I really was not fond of at all, I thought most of the other big action set pieces were pretty effective. I think the big showdown near the end between Ultraman and the Engineer and Superman was pretty cool, which.
- [47:33]
Amanda Dobbins
Is that the one in the baseball?
- [47:34]
Sean Fennessey
In the baseball set?
- [47:35]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, that was. And I think that's the Cleveland Stadium.
- [47:37]
Sean Fennessey
As well, where the Guardians play. Yeah, okay.
- [47:39]
Amanda Dobbins
No, I thought that was great, though. What was. Is the engineer, the one with the whirring things, who like magically finds whatever.
- [47:45]
Sean Fennessey
She has, I guess. Nanotech.
- [47:47]
Amanda Dobbins
We'll get to it.
- [47:48]
Sean Fennessey
We'll get to it. I also thought the Kaiju sequence was pretty funny. The idea of just like letting loose a little monster that would grow overnight and then it becoming. The fact that it wasn't like that wasn't the big conclusion to the third act of this movie.
- [48:02]
Amanda Dobbins
No.
- [48:03]
Sean Fennessey
Eight minutes in the movie. Just to show, like, introduce new characters and to do the thing which is like, the movie is constantly trying to distract Superman from what's really going on in the world, which is itself a kind of load bearing metaphor about how things work right now.
- [48:16]
Amanda Dobbins
And it was funny in the right way. Like the. At one point they're attacking the Kaiju's eyeballs and then they cut to a woman who's like both videoing it on her phone and grossed out. Oh, okay.
- [48:30]
Sean Fennessey
And.
- [48:31]
Amanda Dobbins
And I think if that had been like the only, you know, creature based, funny James Gunn thing, I would have been really into it and just keeps going. I will say that's like. That also has one of like five different dog moments in the. In the. I'm getting to crypto, but I just wanted to identify that. That's. That's one of them. I don't even. Is that crypto or is that another one?
- [48:57]
Sean Fennessey
I think it was crypto.
- [48:58]
Amanda Dobbins
It does look like crypto. Okay. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Got a car to sell, but no time to waste. Hop onto Carvana.com to get a real offer for your car in seconds. All you have to do is enter your license plate, answer a few quick questions, and if you accept the offer, Carvana will pay you as soon as you hand the keys over. They even offer same day pickup in many cities. Save your time, score some cash and sell your car. The convenient way to Carvana.
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Sean Fennessey
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Amanda Dobbins
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Sean Fennessey
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- [50:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Been on hold to make a doctor's appointment for 23 minutes now. The automated voice has told me 47 times that my call is very important to them.
- [50:26]
Sean Fennessey
Hmm.
- [50:26]
Amanda Dobbins
I'm starting to think that they don't think my call is important at all.
- [50:31]
Sean Fennessey
With Amazon One Medical 24. 7 Virtual Care, you'll get help fast without having to remain on the line to make an appointment. Amazon One Medical Healthcare just got less painful. Here's what I wrote about what doesn't work.
- [50:44]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [50:47]
Sean Fennessey
There is undoubtedly, and if this is me contradicting what I've just said for the last 45 minutes, please tell.
- [50:53]
Amanda Dobbins
Me or I contradict myself.
- [50:56]
Sean Fennessey
Yes, I contain multitudes. There is an inherent tension between James Gunn's joke, a minute patter, the kind of tension deflating dialogue with Superman's strong silent iconography. That Superman is a representation of an ability to endure and that the movie wants to upset that expectation. But I think it's still ultimately at its best when it is just sincere and when it is just Lois and Clark looking at each other, being real and not making jokes and not being like, I was doing important stuff. You know, like the goofy lines that you. That Clark or Superman is constantly being fed throughout the movie. He's not Star Lord and 1000%. I don't know how to rationalize this in a James Gunn movie, because I'm like, I don't want James Gunn to not be James Gunn. But whenever Superman said something like that, I was like, that's just stupid. That's just lame. That didn't. That doesn't feel right.
- [51:59]
Amanda Dobbins
He had a couple comedic moments as Clark that I did think really worked.
- [52:05]
Sean Fennessey
I think Clark is a little different than or.
- [52:07]
Amanda Dobbins
But I guess even in the interview when he's Clark but he's Superman, he's dressed as Clark, but he's being Superman. And Lois is, like, going back and forth, and she's like, do you think this is going well? And he's like, I think I'm doing a good job.
- [52:19]
Sean Fennessey
That was funny.
- [52:20]
Amanda Dobbins
You know, that is funny. So there are moments to locate it. I didn't feel this tension as much with Superman himself just because there weren't that many instances of it as with the movie writ large. And I just. Some of it might be that I don't think that James Gunn's sense of humor is ultimately that funny. Or rather, I think the pacing of it is really off. And this movie really extends all of the jokes way past where they need to go. And part of me wondered whether that's a response to the kind of one off, quippy nature of Marvel things. I mean, these are quippy, but it's like quippy for a full minute. And we're not gonna do it once. We're gonna do it like four times. Yeah.
- [53:00]
Sean Fennessey
And yeah, there's a sequence where Lois goes to confront the justice gang to try to encourage them to help her find Superman. And Nathan Fillion, who I think is pretty funny and is like a part of the troops of James Gunn guys, is playing a very silly version of Guy Gardner. And everything he says is a gag is like. Is a kind of self attack on his own bluster.
- [53:23]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. But like, we.
- [53:24]
Sean Fennessey
And then it's a little tiring.
- [53:25]
Amanda Dobbins
He is also just like, once you have to diagram a joke, then you're in real trouble. But you could like diagram a lot of these jokes and they're like clauses and circling back and it like just keeps going on and on and on and honestly feels like a little condescending. I'm like, yeah, like, I get. I get it.
- [53:40]
Sean Fennessey
You know, it just is his tone, you know.
- [53:43]
Amanda Dobbins
Totally.
- [53:43]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. It's not untrue to what he's trying to accomplish. It just doesn't always work in this framework for them. There's a difference between the conception of the characters and then the execution of the dialogue. And that's the thing that I think I kind of struggle with candidly, the most in this movie. We did mention the kind of second act action sequence, which is, you know, not ideal. I do think the moment when Superman convinces Metamorpho to create a son to help break through is very exciting.
- [54:13]
Amanda Dobbins
I think, like, I mean, here's the sentence that I never thought I would say out loud. The design of the black site itself in the pocket universe is. I don't want to say cool, but effective. It's effective and it works. And that moment, and I did turn to you because there is like, there's an alien baby who is. I get pissed off when they create these little, like, cute, weird creatures to put in peril to make me feel bad, because I do feel bad every time. That alien does not look unlike my son.
- [54:51]
Sean Fennessey
Your younger son?
- [54:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, my baby. So there's. It's something in like, the size of the head Compared to everything else.
- [54:57]
Sean Fennessey
James Gunn touched your heart with his alien baby.
- [54:59]
Amanda Dobbins
So even that worked though. Like, then the baby was just fine, you know?
- [55:05]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Of course that baby was never gonna get.
- [55:07]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [55:07]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Never really imperiled. That's part of the reason why that sequence. I'm just like, there's no way James Gunn's gonna kill this baby in a Superman movie. Like, it's just not. That part doesn't really work. And the last thing, we might get some hate mail for this. But I just thought crypto was annoying. And I didn't really like the dog stuff.
- [55:23]
Amanda Dobbins
Use too much. This is. There are like five different moments. You only get one dog saves the day moment. See Anchorman.
- [55:30]
Sean Fennessey
The. The. The best one is like the last one. But by then you had it happen five times. I know.
- [55:36]
Amanda Dobbins
You can't do so many times.
- [55:37]
Sean Fennessey
They did have to set it up. So there had to be one that was like that. There could have been one that set it up. And then the final, like, retrieving the drones thing, the dog toy sequence, I thought that was really clever and worked well, but it was. They just gilded the lily.
- [55:50]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Just like too many, too much stuff.
- [55:54]
Sean Fennessey
Is Superman in this movie enough? No, but I wouldn't want this movie to be two and a half hours.
- [56:01]
Amanda Dobbins
I know exactly how to get more Superman and less junk, which is to get rid of all of your spin off characters. Respectfully. Goodbye.
- [56:10]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, you need them though.
- [56:11]
Amanda Dobbins
Or they come up for the Kaiju and then they can show up in the stinger.
- [56:19]
Sean Fennessey
You need them because you need characters to save the day on the other side of the planet. So you can't not have those characters. It's an essential part of the conclusion of the movie. Do you have less of them? I don't know.
- [56:31]
Amanda Dobbins
Do they spend less time with them?
- [56:33]
Sean Fennessey
Maybe. Maybe. I do think that it does feel like there are times when Superman just disappears. Now this happens in a lot of Superman movies where Superman is confronted by kryptonite and he kind of leaves the movie for 10 minutes because he can't move.
- [56:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [56:51]
Sean Fennessey
It's an old strategy.
- [56:52]
Amanda Dobbins
It's a Jesus, 40 days in the desert type situation.
- [56:56]
Sean Fennessey
And so sometimes you just got to endure it. It actually feels more explicit when you're in a comic book movie that is the right length, you know.
- [57:04]
Amanda Dobbins
Right. Yeah.
- [57:06]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, so here's like, here's some of the bigger stuff.
- [57:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [57:11]
Sean Fennessey
I don't actually know if I think this is something that doesn't work, but I would like to speak to you about it.
- [57:15]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [57:16]
Sean Fennessey
So the movie is legitimately interested, as we've said, in referencing real world events, historically significant disputes, fascism, the destructive power of the Internet.
- [57:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [57:28]
Sean Fennessey
Most of its conclusions about those things, I think are ultimately become a kind of bromide in the vein of try to be a good person.
- [57:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [57:43]
Sean Fennessey
If you're a good person, if you're decent, if you want others, if you want to be treated the way others. If you want to treat others the way you would want them to treat you. You know, sure, the golden rule of character design, that would solve some of these problems that we have in the world. Now, I'm not saying that's the only way it's looking at it, but Superman is still ultimately a very limited character. And so he can't get more. He can't get deeper. Which would be okay if the movie was not doing all the things I'm about to share with you. Okay, so this movie is an immigrant parable. Like, we've clearly identified that this is about a person coming from another place, joining our country and trying to live his life and even impose his values onto society. There are also significant parallels to Israel and Palestine. It's undeniable that in even just the visual representation of Baravia, which is a militarized nation that is an ally of the United States, and Jarnapur, which is a nation that is clearly less advanced technologically and is full of brown people.
- [59:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [59:09]
Sean Fennessey
So you can't help but think of what we watch on the news every day while watching this. It's clearly intentional. There's also very clearly an aspect of Russia and Ukraine and in terms of the sort of rights of a sovereign nation that have been impeded upon.
- [59:21]
Amanda Dobbins
Right. That is a part of this characterization of the Arabian leader, Prime minister, of his relationship to Lex Luthor, who is standing in for both Stephen Miller and Elon Musk.
- [59:35]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. The fact that he is sort of like funded, backed by a tech billionaire and a U.S. government official. That's the bald guy, by the way, from Triangle of Sadness, who is marooned, who plays the Baravian president.
- [59:47]
Amanda Dobbins
I'm trying to place him, but. Yeah, that makes sense now.
- [59:51]
Sean Fennessey
So there's a little bit of Putin in there for sure.
- [59:53]
Amanda Dobbins
Totally.
- [59:55]
Sean Fennessey
You know, there's not really an effort in the movie to explore the nature of the conflict. Like, is it tribal, is it religious, is it a border concern? How far back does it go? Like, it's not giving you anything.
- [60:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, there's the. This speech. Not the speech, but the interview between Lois and Superman as Clark Kent, which is, I think, A deaf piece of screenwriting in a lot of ways. But the fact that I can't locate. Is he Superman? Is he Clark? In that moment, he doesn't really know either. And that's an interesting. But Lois is being the quote, unquote journalist, but is also espousing the counter narrative towards. He's just like, I stopped a war and like, why wouldn't I stop a war?
- [60:42]
Sean Fennessey
Yes.
- [60:42]
Amanda Dobbins
And so she is. She is explaining the various, like, diplomatic and or, you know, geopolitical concerns that you would read about in a paper of record, but that do often seem mired in, you know, national structures as opposed to, like, basic humanity. So even there, a little bit of the. It is echoing our media discourse as much as it is in a very.
- [61:13]
Sean Fennessey
Smart way, because Lois is forced, maybe just out of concern for being sued, to represent that point of view, even though as a person, we know she doesn't believe that. But then, like one scene later, Lex Luthor leverages that concept. The idea of Superman breaking these treaties to do what he feels is right to then gain power from the US Government to do whatever he wants. Just pretty savvy stuff.
- [61:35]
Amanda Dobbins
I agree. Like, I honestly, I thought that part of it, at least between Lois and Superman and Lex was, you know, was handled well in that it worked in the movie. I definitely thought about real world stuff, but I wasn't like, oh, this doesn't work. I was just like, huh, you did that?
- [61:54]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, yeah.
- [61:55]
Amanda Dobbins
And I, And I see. And I see what you're doing.
- [61:57]
Sean Fennessey
I kept trying. So, you know, Black Panther is a movie that is very much about isolationism versus interventionism. Like, that's. To me, that's the, that's the thing that elevates that movie out of the mire of your work a day comic book movie is that it really has things on its mind about national identity, what a. What class represents to people living in America versus living overseas, all this other stuff. This movie has some of that on its mind too. There's not a lot of other movies that get that deep into the. Into the ideas of the nation state. I couldn't tell if this movie ultimately lands on Superman's kind of Pollyanna, every human life is valuable point of view is trying to represent an unrealistic Obama era fallacy, or what James Gunn actually believes, but maybe also recognizes is unsustainable given all of the structures, guardrails, restrictions that define global interaction. I, you know, it's like it's. He put it on the table. Yeah, I like how he put it on the table.
- [63:00]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, I, I don't think he really. He doesn't solve anything. He doesn't offer us a solution which, you know, I don't have a solution either.
- [63:07]
Sean Fennessey
Of course. No one does. That's the problem.
- [63:09]
Amanda Dobbins
I'm not holding that against him. I think. Yeah. The, the movie does ultimately conclude with like with Superman is right. And Superman is vindicated with the help of his friends who, you know, as you pointed out, they saved the conflict on the other end of the world so that he could. I don't know what he. I guess he's saving the universe. He's got to patch the universe together. I personally, I understand that the like, the, the. The world splitting is like sort of an homage to the original Superman as well, but I could have done without that. And then maybe Superman could have just.
- [63:44]
Sean Fennessey
Pretty heavy metaphor about the division amongst us.
- [63:47]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure.
- [63:47]
Sean Fennessey
You're on one side, I'm on the. Of the split planet.
- [63:51]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [63:51]
Sean Fennessey
This is a movie about borders. I mean it literally is.
- [63:53]
Amanda Dobbins
I know, I know. But anyway, they, the, the good, the people who believe in good and human life save human lives. And everybody. What happens to everybody else? Do we know?
- [64:08]
Sean Fennessey
What do you mean by everybody else?
- [64:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, to like to Lex Luthor to the.
- [64:13]
Sean Fennessey
Well, Lex is detained at the end of the film. Likely sent to a prison of some kind.
- [64:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [64:17]
Sean Fennessey
He's hauled off.
- [64:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Everyone else is released and they take people.
- [64:21]
Sean Fennessey
All of the prisoners from the pocket universe are discovered and released. Everything just kind of, they, yada yada. It's like we fixed it.
- [64:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [64:28]
Sean Fennessey
We put it all back together.
- [64:29]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [64:29]
Sean Fennessey
Which.
- [64:30]
Amanda Dobbins
So basically like what we learn is that like believing in humanity is good. You see all of the people like you see all the people of Dharanpur cheering and then that's it. And then like good luck to you, I guess.
- [64:45]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. It doesn't mean that like Baravia no longer exists. Like this is in theory, this is a centuries old conflict. And that's kind of my point is like, I think it is, if not brave, at least interesting to try to represent these things in a movie like this because most people who make movies like this, they got interested in this subject matter because they want to get away from the problems of the world.
- [65:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [65:11]
Sean Fennessey
They're not interested in the problems of the world. They want escape and they want to create art that is escapist.
- [65:15]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [65:16]
Sean Fennessey
And I understand that and I think it has value. I like escapist fantasies as well, if done well and uncynically.
- [65:24]
Amanda Dobbins
We didn't mention the street vendor. Sorry. Speaking of real World stuff. And the most horrifying part of the movie.
- [65:32]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I mean, there is a character who is seen as the empathic human stand in for everyone's relationship to Superman and the kind of like our desire to. Our innate desire to be good and to do good, which is what Superman is all about. And he goes to Superman to help him in a moment of need during a big battle in the first early part of the film. And then that character, who is not white and not born in America, presumably the streetcar vendor, is then ultimately dragged into the conflict with Lex Luthor and amidst a game of Russian roulette, is murdered. It's the only really, truly bracing violence in the movie.
- [66:19]
Amanda Dobbins
And done like in wide shot. And is also what incites metamorpho. Yeah. And it is so upsetting that. That rather than the peril of his cute alien baby son, is what gets him into the mix, which again, I had some metamorpho not developed as a character.
- [66:39]
Sean Fennessey
I really enjoy Anthony Kerrigan. He's one of two actors from the TV series Barry that are featured prominently in this film, in addition to the guy who's working with Frank Grillo in the government. I can't recall the actor's name. He's a really good actor. He played one of Barry's buddies from the military. I think that that's not a hard one to understand. And I think the point is taken, which is black site torture, like Abu Grave style torture and murder is horrible.
- [67:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [67:11]
Sean Fennessey
And creates like a global precedent that is terribly devastating for our ability to be a country that in theory represents profound values. I think that's a little different than saying, like, I'm gonna put a movie. I'm gonna make a movie that looks like Israel and Gaza.
- [67:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [67:28]
Sean Fennessey
And tell you that if everybody is a little bit more nice, then we can solve it. It's like, it's kind of right on the edge of representing that.
- [67:36]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, No, I mean, it is. I mean, I guess it's smaller and larger scale than the. The movie does not really get its arms around the, like the modern stuff. We should also say that, you know, this script was. We are drawing things to like, the present moment. And also the present moment has been happening in one way or another for our entire lives. But it's like the. The movie isn't like looking at today's newspaper, you know, or even last week just because of when it was made. So. But like, I. I agree. I also hesitated at the final shots just of like, of everyone cheering with no follow up. And then Just, you know, another white superhero flies off and it's like, yay, we did it. And now I'm gonna crack some jokes. I do admire. Do I admire, or am I at least impressed that he raises the questions?
- [68:40]
Sean Fennessey
And I frankly appreciate it. I just think it is.
- [68:43]
Amanda Dobbins
I do as well.
- [68:44]
Sean Fennessey
It is a Saturday morning cartoon, though. That's why it's. Because it is like, the good guys win and we will go forward and there will be another episode next Saturday. See you then.
- [68:52]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. And like I said, I don't have at least all the answers, so I don't expect the movie to have them either. But it does feel like if you're gonna go there, then I don't know. I guess you're right. It feels a bit reductive at the end. Yeah, not a bit.
- [69:11]
Sean Fennessey
Extremely reductive. Extremely reductive. It's not the jobs. It's not the movie's responsibility to represent those ideas in a sophisticated way. But once you introduce them, you do have a responsibility to have more nuance. And so I'm kind of not holding it against it didn't bother me.
- [69:30]
Amanda Dobbins
No.
- [69:30]
Sean Fennessey
I expected it to be that way. It's a comic book movie. But I've spent a lot of time thinking about this movie since we've seen it. And it is something that ultimately, I think holds me back from outright proclaiming this as like, my perfect vision of a comic book film. There could be a perfect vision of a comic book film that doesn't introduce any real world aspects, you know, like. Or at least not so overtly that we can just draw conclusions and, you know, what a huge swath of the audience and maybe even a large portion of the audience listening to the show right now is like, I didn't see any of that stuff in this movie, guys. And I accept that people do go to the movies to be distracted or to be taken away from these very challenging things, but James Gunn is thinking about it. He's thinking hard.
- [70:11]
Amanda Dobbins
Totally.
- [70:12]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. So. And he's worked, you know, he had to do a lot of structural work to make all these things fit inside of his movie. We haven't even gotten to the point that you've made in the doc, too, about this being about an evil tech lord billionaire. You know, like, we went to an Amazon sponsored screening a week after Jeff Bezos's did we wedding. Yeah, the screening went to last night was Regal and Amazon present.
- [70:36]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, I didn't. I missed. I missed Luthor's in this movie. Yeah.
- [70:40]
Sean Fennessey
You know, it's like, credit to James Gunn for just leaning directly into it. Now, I will say Zack Snyder did something very similar. His Lex Luthor was very similar. The Jesse Eisenberg one.
- [70:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Right? I mean, like at this point, a tech billionaire without much hair and with a lot of bad ideas and, you know, self confidence, ish problems is not. Is not novel.
- [71:04]
Sean Fennessey
It's probably the easiest villain you could sketch. It's.
- [71:08]
Amanda Dobbins
I thought the way that Lex Luthor, like his tech was like pointed and interesting. He is like, he is using drones and it says, you know, and by the way, like when you look at the screen, it says like drone three or something. Just so people are really aware that. Yes, we want you to understand that these are drones and these are people who are outsourcing and not thinking about the real or not dealing with the realities of their actions. There was also like a very video game quality to the way that he was operating all of his minions.
- [71:44]
Sean Fennessey
Well, I want to talk about that too. I think there's an interesting component of that, which is that Lex has studied all of Superman's actions. And then this is a heavy spoiler. But one of the big reveals at the end of the film is that not just that, but he has also cloned Superman as close as he can to create Ultraman, which is essentially a clone that can do battle with Superman. And Lex literally is determining the moves that he is making, the fight patterns that he is creating to beat Superman. One of the things that went to my mind when I was watching this was sort of like the old now settled debate about saber metrics versus the feel for the game in baseball, you know, where it was like, you can't math your way through being on the diamond, you know, and the movie kind of has a little bit of that. Like, just looking at the data doesn't solve problems for you. You have to be a person in the world and Superman is a person. And his problem solving was superior to the billionaire who wouldn't get close to the fight. I wouldn't say it's fully thought through, that part of it.
- [72:44]
Amanda Dobbins
And then also which culminates in a speech of Superman being like, I'm a human and that's what makes me special, which is so cheesy. But in the moment I was like, well, this is kind of working for me. And then he's appealing to Lex's humanity. And then in that heavily computerized drone context that they're all in. You're also definitely thinking about AI at some point. Even though I don't really think there is any stated Artificial intelligence in the fabric of Lex's arsenal. But it's, it's. It's all kind of implied.
- [73:23]
Sean Fennessey
I agree.
- [73:24]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. It's doing a lot, this movie.
- [73:28]
Sean Fennessey
There's a lot going on.
- [73:29]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. And frankly, that's why I'm just like, did I need a pocket universe? No.
- [73:35]
Sean Fennessey
Did there needed to be a second act struggle? There needed to be something in the. In the design of a comic book movie or an event movie like this?
- [73:43]
Amanda Dobbins
That's fine. Just make it in the real world.
- [73:44]
Sean Fennessey
I didn't love how they did it. It's really the only thing that I actively didn't like. When Superman is floating down a proton river holding a baby. I was like, this isn't the movie I want to be watching. We were in Metropolis. That was cool. I was having so much fun.
- [73:57]
Amanda Dobbins
Why can't that be in the real world? Why can't it be like a horrific actual sin? Somewhere in the world we know there are many of them.
- [74:06]
Sean Fennessey
It's a creative choice. I mean, Gunn's partner, Peter Safran is the producer of this movie. He's the co president of the DC brand of the company. I presume they had a lot of autonomy to make this movie. It certainly feels like it. It doesn't feel like a movie that's been noted to death. It doesn't feel like a movie that's been hacked to pieces. Which is very different from a lot of the superhero movies we've been seeing personally. It has a kind of consistent tone and it's taking a couple of chances. It's not reliant on mega star power. It's not trying to trick you into thinking something matters because it's like a famous person. Like Angelina Jolie is an eternal. So it matters somehow. Like it's not like that. So it is. It is kind of a unique product. Even though it is still a very corporate.
- [74:44]
Amanda Dobbins
Just remember that I had a dream last night that I had a book reading and Angelina Jolie was there and she performed a song.
- [74:49]
Sean Fennessey
Anyway, you were reading from your book or.
- [74:52]
Amanda Dobbins
I was like debuting it. I don't remember what the book was about.
- [74:55]
Sean Fennessey
Novel or nonfiction?
- [74:57]
Amanda Dobbins
I don't remember. I don't know. And it was like, maybe not written.
- [75:01]
Sean Fennessey
We gotta get you back to bed. Yeah.
- [75:03]
Amanda Dobbins
But then. But Angelina Julie sort of saved the book party. Anyway, thank you to her. Can we talk about the ending?
- [75:08]
Sean Fennessey
Yes.
- [75:08]
Amanda Dobbins
The two endings.
- [75:09]
Sean Fennessey
Sure.
- [75:10]
Amanda Dobbins
So the first, which should have been the ending, which is Lois and Superman making out and then flyin'.
- [75:17]
Sean Fennessey
Great moment.
- [75:18]
Amanda Dobbins
Wonderful. And I was like, oh, you did it. You nailed it. And then we had to go. We had to tack another thing on.
- [75:25]
Sean Fennessey
We went back to the Fortress of Solitude, where the robots who managed that space have been repaired. They were destroyed by the engineer in the film. And.
- [75:35]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, yeah, the engineer. I didn't get it. Thanks. That's my. That's my take.
- [75:38]
Sean Fennessey
I kind of liked it, but I.
- [75:40]
Amanda Dobbins
Also didn't think the CGI could have.
- [75:41]
Sean Fennessey
I thought that was the AI component of the movie.
- [75:43]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, yes.
- [75:44]
Sean Fennessey
That the person who is becoming subhuman and is essentially effectively being controlled.
- [75:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, one more thing. I also just, like, they kept being like, no, the tape is real. We know it's real. The army doesn't get it wrong. And I was like, come on.
- [75:57]
Sean Fennessey
The tape from his parents.
- [75:58]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. We live in, like, deep fake, you know, America.
- [76:02]
Sean Fennessey
I thought they were gonna pivot back to that. They never did.
- [76:04]
Amanda Dobbins
They never did. They were just like, we know.
- [76:06]
Sean Fennessey
The thing I liked about that part of it was that in my understanding and in Marlon Brando's representation of this character and many other, you know, Jor El, Superman's father, is just kind of like a patrician blowhard.
- [76:17]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [76:18]
Sean Fennessey
You know, and he's just like, Kryptonians. We're the best. And so the idea that he would be communicating to his son, like, you should dominate these weak soy boys in America.
- [76:26]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure.
- [76:27]
Sean Fennessey
That's kind of funny.
- [76:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Also, the Bradley Cooper stunt casting is fantastic and very funny.
- [76:32]
Sean Fennessey
Yes. And immediately as soon as I saw that, I was like, this is gonna be good. Whatever my concerns were, they've been. They've been alleviated. Second ending. Supergirl shows up.
- [76:43]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [76:44]
Sean Fennessey
Played by Millie Alcock, who is one of the stars of. Was one of the stars of the first season of House of the Dragon.
- [76:50]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [76:50]
Sean Fennessey
And the Supergirl movie, I think, is the third movie, maybe the second movie in the dcu. I can't recall if Clayface is coming before it.
- [76:57]
Amanda Dobbins
No. Supergirl is dated for June 26th.
- [77:00]
Sean Fennessey
So a year from now, we're getting a Supergirl movie. Regardless of the. The success of this movie, directed by Craig Gillespie, director of I, Tonya, Pam and Tommy, Cruella, Lars and the Real Girl. Let me see how many Craig Gillespie movies I can remember. Off the top of my head, I would say a talented but annoying director of movies has an incredible visual style, but I am often extremely enervated watching his movies.
- [77:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. I mean, me, but for James Gunn. So he might be my James Gunn. And. And we, like. We figured it out.
- [77:35]
Sean Fennessey
You know, I just. Every time I Watch a Craig Gillespie movie. I'm like, I know you've seen Goodfellas. Like, I get it. Like, you know, the editing style. The needle drops. Like, I get it.
- [77:44]
Amanda Dobbins
This is like.
- [77:45]
Sean Fennessey
He directed Dumb Money, the movie we saw recently. A couple years ago. The movie about the Gamestop.
- [77:51]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [77:51]
Sean Fennessey
Stock story.
- [77:53]
Amanda Dobbins
This. This is how I feel about the Supergirl thing, which in addition to, you know, being and whatever, Millie Ocock seemed funny. She and David Cornswett had, you know.
- [78:04]
Sean Fennessey
Comedic timing or whatever, cousin energy.
- [78:06]
Amanda Dobbins
But then we have to sit, and it's like he wants to watch the tape of his family, and then it's home videos from his Kansas parents. And I was like, yeah, you're James Gunn. You believe in family. Like, found family. We get it, we get it, we get it. So I was annoyed by that.
- [78:20]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. You know, one of the first things I googled when I got home and I knew the answer to this, but I just wanted to be sure was, does James Gunn have kids? And he doesn't have kids.
- [78:29]
Amanda Dobbins
He doesn't.
- [78:30]
Sean Fennessey
And I don't. I have no comment about him not having kids. But the fact that he consistently returns to stories about found families I find interesting, fascinating. And especially because he also, you know, his wife is one of the stars of the Peacemaker TV series. Peacemaker makes a very funny cameo in this movie. And that's the John Cena character who shows up talking shit. That's a really good show. So his wife appears in his work. His brother Sean Gunn appeared in all the Guardians movies, appears in most of his movies, and he also very briefly appears as Maxwell Lord in this movie. Who is the character that Pedro Pascal played in Wonder Woman 2? Maxwell Lord. I don't know if you clocked this. It's done very quickly, but he is the billionaire who funds the justice gang. So Hawkgirl and Mr. Terrific and Green Lantern are all kind of working for lordcor. So James Gunn does kind of work with his family.
- [79:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. I wanna be very clear that I think found families in real life are great. And I just thought this was like, sentimental gilding the lily at the very end. I understood that Superman, he has a lovely scene with his dad and then his mom, like, back in Kansas. And I was like, I get it. You know, you. You have found these people, and they taught you how to be a man. I didn't need the. The ice fortress. Like the. What's the. What's. Don Draper's. The speech.
- [80:02]
Sean Fennessey
Fortress of Solitude.
- [80:03]
Amanda Dobbins
No, Don Draper. At the end of Mad Men, he gives the pitch, and it's about the. The slideshow thing. And then he's like, nostalgia is the.
- [80:13]
Sean Fennessey
Greek word for whatever it's called the carousel.
- [80:16]
Amanda Dobbins
There we go. Yeah. I didn't need it. I got it.
- [80:20]
Sean Fennessey
I get you. I liked seeing Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell, who I'd never seen before, who played Ma Kent and Pruitt Taylor Vince from the James Mangold movie. Heavy. And a lot of stuff over the years. Great character actor and the choice even to make Ma and Pa not beautiful.
- [80:39]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [80:39]
Sean Fennessey
You know, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane were Ma and Pa in Man of Steel. And they look like they could have given birth to Henry Cavill.
- [80:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [80:49]
Sean Fennessey
This is a normal family, normal farmers in Kansas and I think elevates kind of like alien aspect of the story. So I like that, too. What else? Anything else? So much easier to do this when you've just seen the movie Stinger.
- [81:06]
Amanda Dobbins
So we sat there like assholes.
- [81:08]
Sean Fennessey
I know. And I really thought he wasn't going to do it. I really hoped he wasn't going to do it. I thought that would have been an interesting way to fully sever from the MCU era to say, you know what? We don't do stingers. We don't treat our audiences like clapping seals waiting to be fed another fish treat. We trust that you sat down to watch the movie and when it's over, it's over. But they did do a Stinger.
- [81:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [81:31]
Sean Fennessey
Which was mild.
- [81:32]
Amanda Dobbins
It was just for comedy. Was. Was it setting up something that I didn't understand?
- [81:36]
Sean Fennessey
Not that I know of, but it's possible. I would say Superman lore is not my speciality.
- [81:41]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. What is your specialty?
- [81:44]
Sean Fennessey
X Men.
- [81:44]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay, that's it. So we haven't. You mean we've been doing this for like 20 years now and I haven't really lived through your. Well, your lore special. Like.
- [81:54]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I think that's right.
- [81:55]
Amanda Dobbins
Area of interest.
- [81:55]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. I mean, we have been getting those movies, but they just haven't been very. I mean, yeah, I like, feel.
- [81:59]
Amanda Dobbins
Feel like Dark Phoenix. Sure.
- [82:00]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Dark Phoenix came out when the show was around. Chris and I had a very angry pot about that movie.
- [82:06]
Amanda Dobbins
So when are that.
- [82:06]
Sean Fennessey
Days of Future Past might have been coming and I would imagine 2028, 2029.
- [82:13]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [82:13]
Sean Fennessey
So I'll be dead by then. Not a big deal. I am very curious to see how this movie performs.
- [82:22]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [82:22]
Sean Fennessey
The reviews have been pretty good, pretty positive. I think Gunn, aside from the strong anti Snyder contingent, which obviously that's another aspect of this experience that the film is kind of Gently mirroring is the division between not my Superman. And I'm very excited about the future. I have been following some box office analysts who have been suggesting that this is one of those kinds of movies where good reviews help.
- [82:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [82:48]
Sean Fennessey
Like, good reviews. Push up, walk up business.
- [82:53]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Because then all you need is. I heard Superman's pretty good.
- [82:58]
Sean Fennessey
Yes, exactly.
- [82:59]
Amanda Dobbins
That's it.
- [82:59]
Sean Fennessey
That word of mouth.
- [83:00]
Amanda Dobbins
And it's. And again, it's named Superman, and then it's pretty good. So people are like, okay, I'll go see Superman.
- [83:05]
Sean Fennessey
You're not here. Mad today. Which I think is a big accomplishment for the movie Superman.
- [83:11]
Amanda Dobbins
Totally. I was even interested in half of it. Yeah.
- [83:15]
Sean Fennessey
Whether or not you ever are interested in another DCU movie is.
- [83:20]
Amanda Dobbins
We have the list here.
- [83:21]
Sean Fennessey
We do.
- [83:21]
Amanda Dobbins
So we've got Supergirl, we've got Clayface, which is coming out on September 11th. What's that about? The 25th anniversary. Geez.
- [83:30]
Sean Fennessey
Clayface is actually an interesting character that might be appealing to you. It's a movie about a. Or it's a story about. It's a Batman villain who was a Hollywood actor.
- [83:41]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, okay.
- [83:42]
Sean Fennessey
Who uses. Gosh, I don't want to get this wrong. Like, a special clay to transform into other people. So it's one part like Lon Chaney, man of a Thousand Faces, one part, like, trying to keep your age and your beauty with, you know, these kinds of influencer style products. And it's written by Mike Flanagan, who is best known for his horror work. And I think they're trying to make a standalone horror movie. James Watkins directed Speak no Evil.
- [84:12]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, interesting. Who's playing Clayface?
- [84:15]
Sean Fennessey
It's an actor that I have never heard of before but has done some television work. I was just talking with some friends about this. Let me see if I can get his name right. I found this to be a really weird choice for the third movie. This is not. Let's see.
- [84:30]
Amanda Dobbins
So this isn't gonna be on the box office level of Superman.
- [84:34]
Sean Fennessey
It's clearly a much smaller. It probably is like a $50 million movie. But in a way, I'm like, that's cool.
- [84:38]
Amanda Dobbins
That's cool.
- [84:39]
Sean Fennessey
That's cool that they're doing this. So Tom Reese Harries is the actor' name. Handsome fellow.
- [84:46]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [84:47]
Sean Fennessey
He most recently appeared in the Return, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. He was on Doctor who.
- [84:54]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay, cool. So let's talk about the Luca Guadagnino Sergeant Rock thing. So I have read the headlines, and I've never clicked through because I kind of don't want to acknowledge Daniel Craig exited.
- [85:07]
Sean Fennessey
Daniel Craig exited. It's unclear if this movie is happening now.
- [85:10]
Amanda Dobbins
Listen, I love Luca, love Kritzkis. I like it when they work together, you know? So what is. Who is Sergeant Rock?
- [85:19]
Sean Fennessey
Well, he's a military figure that was developed in, I want to say, the late 50s.
- [85:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [85:30]
Sean Fennessey
And a lot of it was, you know, so many of these characters are responses to one another. So this is not quite the DC's version of Captain America, but has some. Some strains of that. It's kind of a combination of Captain America and Nick Fury put into one guy. It doesn't seem like this movie's gonna happen.
- [85:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [85:50]
Sean Fennessey
So I don't want to spend too much time on it. James Mangold is writing and directing a Swamp Thing movie. I think that's happening.
- [85:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. What's up with Swamp Thing?
- [85:58]
Sean Fennessey
Swamp Thing is in the womb, is a scientist who, due to an explosion in a chemical lab, transformed at a lab that is located near the swamp, becomes a kind of half plant, half man figure. There was a Wes Craven version of the movie in, like, 1982, starring Adrienne Barbeau. It is very memorable to me as a child. Not a very good movie, but it's a movie. The Brave and the Bold would be a Batman movie. What's weird about that is that there.
- [86:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Are already Batman movies. And I heard that Matt Reeves handed in his Batman 2 script, and it's very good. People were really, really deadline shaming Matt Reeves.
- [86:39]
Sean Fennessey
How did you feel about that as an editor?
- [86:43]
Amanda Dobbins
I think that I felt bad for Matt Reeves, even though you do got to hit your deadlines. But, you know, and apparently it was a long time in development, but it seems hard to write a script. It just seems like the other people needed to not be involved.
- [86:59]
Sean Fennessey
Forgive the comic book dork aspect of this question, but Gunn in the Rolling Stone interview was like, this isn't going to happen. But I'm also not saying it's not going to happen. Robert Pattinson's Batman is not going into David Corenswet's Superman world, but maybe it is. He kind of played that game a little bit in the interview where he was like, I'll never say never. Now, the tone, obviously, of the Matt Reeves Batman movie and of James Gunn Superman are wildly different. The color palette, the energy, the music, the framework of the world doesn't. They don't make sense together. And yet, I would like to see it.
- [87:36]
Amanda Dobbins
I would, too. Team Robert Pattinson. And I would like to see Robert Pattinson and David Cornswett in a movie together.
- [87:44]
Sean Fennessey
That I'll bet you would.
- [87:45]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, yeah. In the suits and not the suits. Also, like, shouldn't there. Shouldn't the tone of Superman and Batman independently, like, be very different? Isn't that honoring their characters?
- [87:56]
Sean Fennessey
This is how you do it.
- [87:57]
Amanda Dobbins
And this is. Then you have to find someone who sees the whole board.
- [88:01]
Sean Fennessey
This is how you do it. Yeah, I think they should do that. Now, you know, these are a lot of these films feel.
- [88:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Why do you know that the Brave and the Bold would be a Batman movie?
- [88:09]
Sean Fennessey
That's the title of a Batman run.
- [88:11]
Amanda Dobbins
What happens in it?
- [88:12]
Sean Fennessey
I can't remember.
- [88:12]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [88:13]
Sean Fennessey
Andy Machete is attached to that movie. He directed the Flash. I don't think that's gonna happen.
- [88:17]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Okay.
- [88:18]
Sean Fennessey
There's a Teen Titans movie. There's a Bane and Deathstroke movie. There's a Wonder Woman. There will be a Wonder Woman movie for sure. I don't know. I'm not sure about the dcu. I'm glad we got this movie in the form that we did. I think this movie's gonna make $150 million at the box office this weekend. Yeah.
- [88:38]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [88:38]
Sean Fennessey
So that would be a lot. And here's why. Here's the Superman box office history. Batman versus Superman. Dawn of justice, which is your favorite Superman film, made $330 million.
- [88:49]
Amanda Dobbins
I wear a lot of vests.
- [88:50]
Sean Fennessey
They do, they do. Ben Affleck is in it. That came out in 2016. That $330 million is the most domestically for any Superman movie.
- [88:58]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [88:59]
Sean Fennessey
Behind it, man of steel, 290.
- [89:01]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [89:01]
Sean Fennessey
Then Superman Returns, starring Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey made $200.
- [89:06]
Amanda Dobbins
Don't remember that.
- [89:08]
Sean Fennessey
The Donner film made $134. Superman II made $108. Superman 359. And Superman IV, which is now, now fiasco, made 15.
- [89:15]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [89:17]
Sean Fennessey
You predicted 410 million domestic in our summer movie preview. I predicted two hundred and fifty seven. Now I obviously undershot.
- [89:23]
Amanda Dobbins
Uh huh.
- [89:24]
Sean Fennessey
I don't know how much I undershot. I'm super curious to see where this is.
- [89:27]
Amanda Dobbins
We'll see. I mean, the thing is, is that we still don't have. Last year, Wolverine and Deadpool. Wolverine. Deadpool did 600 something domestic.
- [89:38]
Sean Fennessey
Yep. And went away globally. Yeah. So meaning we haven't had a movie like that.
- [89:42]
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
- [89:43]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. If this movie goes over a billion, it will be the first. It'll be the first Superman movie to go over a billion. I think it'll. Will it be the first superhero movie not named Deadpool and Wolverine since no way home to go. Over a billion. It might be. That's very rare now. It used to be very common.
- [90:01]
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
- [90:01]
Sean Fennessey
Remember when Captain Marvel just made a billion dollars even though it was trash?
- [90:04]
Amanda Dobbins
I don't.
- [90:05]
Sean Fennessey
It did.
- [90:06]
Amanda Dobbins
It did.
- [90:06]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah. Deepman made a billion dollars.
- [90:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Well, that I remember.
- [90:09]
Sean Fennessey
But, you know, that's like, that movie's fun.
- [90:11]
Amanda Dobbins
That's at Christmas. And you guys just like. You go and you're underwater. Not Chris, though.
- [90:15]
Sean Fennessey
That's what happened.
- [90:16]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [90:16]
Sean Fennessey
Chris didn't go. He'll never go underwater. He'll never know the way of water, as we know. Unfortunately for him, someone suggested that we do a watch along Avatar, the way of water.
- [90:26]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, okay.
- [90:27]
Sean Fennessey
Would you do it?
- [90:27]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, sure.
- [90:28]
Sean Fennessey
Python. Remember the whale?
- [90:30]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. That was very beautiful. And then when we couldn't explain what was going on with Sigourney Weaver. But like, like, it's cool stuff that's going on.
- [90:37]
Sean Fennessey
I love it. I think it's interesting.
- [90:39]
Amanda Dobbins
I know, it's great. I mean, we gotta figure out the watch along logistics in a way where I can be comfortable.
- [90:47]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, we'll get you a couch. We'll get you a fainting couch.
- [90:50]
Amanda Dobbins
And we need snacks and stuff.
- [90:53]
Sean Fennessey
I took Superman in the auction this week.
- [90:56]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [90:57]
Sean Fennessey
Which I now feel pretty good about. I asked you yesterday, two days ago, Oscars, Superman. What about now?
- [91:05]
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, what is James Gunn's history?
- [91:08]
Sean Fennessey
I don't think he has a single Oscar nomination.
- [91:09]
Amanda Dobbins
This, like, I have to be honest. We talked about mostly what is good about this. And even the stuff where we're like, we're not really sure if he landed the plane on the real world. Geopolitical stuff. But even, even the things that don't work, we talked about them in mostly positive ways. There is a lot of space junk in this movie. There is just straight up at least 45 minutes of garbage looking space junk. And I don't know if you get that past people.
- [91:40]
Sean Fennessey
You know, he was nominated for best Adapted Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in 2015 for guardians. You remember when Guardians came out, it was like, holy shit, this is actually good.
- [91:49]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [91:51]
Sean Fennessey
And I think there is affection for him.
- [91:53]
Amanda Dobbins
That's cool. But they, you know, the Writers Guild and the Oscars don't always line up.
- [91:57]
Sean Fennessey
They definitely don't. Yeah, they definitely don't. I don't think this is being nominated for best Picture or anything like that. But I'm kind of curious. Even for below the line stuff. Yeah.
- [92:07]
Amanda Dobbins
Maybe some of it looks good and then some of it, like, really doesn't. And so you know, like, if you want visual effects or whatever, you still have to sit through the black hole.
- [92:18]
Sean Fennessey
You're right. You're right about that.
- [92:19]
Amanda Dobbins
It's tough.
- [92:22]
Sean Fennessey
Any concluding thoughts?
- [92:25]
Amanda Dobbins
I. You know, it seems good. It was good. I'm not mad. I'm not mad.
- [92:29]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, I could tell you were not mad last night. Even though we did the thing where we didn't. We don't speak after we've seen a movie. We're like, we'll see you tomorrow. See you in the pod room.
- [92:37]
Amanda Dobbins
Which is a bummer because we saw it in the sgv and then we could have just, like, gone to dinner.
- [92:43]
Sean Fennessey
We could have.
- [92:43]
Amanda Dobbins
And that would have been delicious.
- [92:44]
Sean Fennessey
That would have been really late to be eating spicy, spicy food.
- [92:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. No, it's true. We are too old for that. Yeah.
- [92:50]
Sean Fennessey
If I eat spicy food after 10pm I will die. Yeah, I will. I will cease to.
- [92:55]
Amanda Dobbins
You can't eat spicy food in general. That's like, anyone looking at you will not be surprised to learn that. But, yeah, I really like it.
- [93:00]
Sean Fennessey
I do really like it. And it really disappears.
- [93:03]
Amanda Dobbins
You turn away at this point. Yeah, I like, I can go in.
- [93:06]
Sean Fennessey
I know you have more of a tolerance for it.
- [93:08]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [93:08]
Sean Fennessey
What do you think? Because I'm a white man. Is that the issue?
- [93:11]
Amanda Dobbins
That's true. Someone once put that we look like we don't like any spices on our food, which I think is pretty rude.
- [93:16]
Sean Fennessey
That we both do. Yeah, I mean, I do love spices on my food. I just. My stomach can't handle them.
- [93:21]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, my stomach can.
- [93:23]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, well, shout out to you. Thank you, Superman.
- [93:27]
Amanda Dobbins
I don't know. Probably not a lot of spices.
- [93:30]
Sean Fennessey
Well, as we know, there's an attempt to disrupt his organs near the end of the film with the nanobites.
- [93:36]
Amanda Dobbins
Sure.
- [93:37]
Sean Fennessey
You know, they try to infest his soul.
- [93:39]
Amanda Dobbins
They hated that.
- [93:40]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, it was all right.
- [93:41]
Amanda Dobbins
And I, like, didn't really understand how he solved it, but whatever. He just, like, smashed it off.
- [93:46]
Sean Fennessey
I think the idea was that he was stronger than their science.
- [93:50]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay, well, I can't really endorse that.
- [93:53]
Sean Fennessey
Take, but, you know, maybe Superman makes America healthy again.
- [93:56]
Amanda Dobbins
I was gonna say there could be some raw milk in the picture. And I just. I don't endorse that, but believe science and doctors.
- [94:03]
Sean Fennessey
Okay, so next week you're not on on Monday.
- [94:09]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, that's right, Monday. Cause you didn't trust me to be nice about this or because you just want to do lore? I think that's fine.
- [94:16]
Sean Fennessey
I don't think that you want to have to watch Seven Superman movies. That was my thinking.
- [94:21]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Totally not.
- [94:22]
Sean Fennessey
So next Monday, me and Van Lathan and Rob Mahoney will talk about this Superman movie, talk about the box office, talk about the reception of the film in general. And we'll rank every Superman movie. Now for those listening at home, that includes Superman, Richard Donner, Superman II as directed by Richard Lester. Superman ii. The Donner cut. A recut version with Richard Donner's intended outcome. Superman iii, Superman iv, Superman Returns, Superman, man of Steel, Superman versus Dawn of Justice, Batman versus Superman. Dawn of Justice. Who got first billing there?
- [94:58]
Amanda Dobbins
I think Batman did, Batman did, Ben Affleck did.
- [95:00]
Sean Fennessey
And then Justice League.
- [95:02]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
- [95:03]
Sean Fennessey
And Justice League. The Snyder cut or Zack Snyder's Justice League is how I believe it's titled. Now, I don't know how many of those I'm going to revisit. Some of them I've already watched. Superman I and ii.
- [95:15]
Amanda Dobbins
So when was. What's up? Terry, Lois and Clark, the TV series was Terry Hatcher and then. Yes, that guy. So that's not in the.
- [95:25]
Sean Fennessey
That's not part of this. Nor is Smallville.
- [95:28]
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, yeah.
- [95:29]
Sean Fennessey
There has also been very recently another Lois and Clark series.
- [95:34]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [95:35]
Sean Fennessey
That people were quite fond of, but was recently canceled, I think by Max.
- [95:40]
Amanda Dobbins
Wasn't me.
- [95:43]
Sean Fennessey
Shift back to HBO Max. How do you feel about that?
- [95:46]
Amanda Dobbins
Fine. I never deleted the original app. So do I have to download a new app?
- [95:51]
Sean Fennessey
Yeah, you have to download the luthercore app. You have to get all his tech on your phone and you have to accept all the cookies. Something that they told us.
- [95:59]
Amanda Dobbins
All right.
- [95:59]
Sean Fennessey
And you have to use face id.
- [96:01]
Amanda Dobbins
No, I won't. We have to use face. People are using biometrics at Spotify now.
- [96:06]
Sean Fennessey
What do you mean?
- [96:07]
Amanda Dobbins
Apparently you can log in with biometrics.
- [96:09]
Sean Fennessey
Sure, that makes sense. Not my biometrics. You don't use a fingerprint on your laptop?
- [96:13]
Amanda Dobbins
No, that is a company owned device. Absolutely not.
- [96:17]
Sean Fennessey
Interesting.
- [96:19]
Amanda Dobbins
They have to pay me a lot more for my biometrics.
- [96:22]
Sean Fennessey
But what about when you were arrested on January 6th and you were fingerprinted?
- [96:26]
Amanda Dobbins
It's not there.
- [96:27]
Sean Fennessey
It's not fingerprinted. You weren't there.
- [96:28]
Amanda Dobbins
No, but I did.
- [96:29]
Sean Fennessey
I worked at.
- [96:31]
Amanda Dobbins
When I worked at Conde Nast. I did. It was at the World Trade center, so they had to fingerprint all of us.
- [96:36]
Sean Fennessey
So your info's out there.
- [96:38]
Amanda Dobbins
I'm in. But I don't.
- [96:39]
Sean Fennessey
You need to be like John Doe from seven and start cutting off your. Your fingerprints.
- [96:44]
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, I'm not doing that.
- [96:45]
Sean Fennessey
Don't you feel like the pod just started.
- [96:48]
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
- [96:50]
Sean Fennessey
Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. We will see you next week with Rob and Ben Sa.