Junk Food Pairings and New Supergirl

Tonight in your city, someone is walking their dog Someone is crossing the street to their car Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit Speeding accounts for nearly thirty percent of traffic fatalities, and most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live sllow down It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember Speeding catches up with you Kow the road and respect its limits. presresented by Nita. Now back to your podcast. You know when the bad guy hands the good guy the champagne flute and says, you know, we're not so different, you and I. That's WeA Movies and junk food cinema. Brian's very graciously allowed me to tell you about our upcoming Las Vegas shows. Yes, WeA Movies is playing three shows in Las Vegas at the Rio during the Star Trek convention STLV, the sixtieth anniversary. You do not need convention passes to attend But if you'd like to, you can head to wW. Whmpodcast d. com slash tour for all ticketing information. Yeahes, so Thursday august sixth will be doing a live podcast on Star Trek two, the Wrath of Kan. Friday, august seventh will be doing a live podcast on Star Trek Generations and Saturday Star Trek first contact Live podcast, W aid movies coming out. I'd love to see my junk food cinema people there ' eating junk and watching rubbish. You better come out and stop me Hi, this is Dick Miller. If you're listening to Junk Food cinema, who are these guys From out of another galaxy and into your hearts comes junk food cinema brought to you by popeychicken dot comot jamot comot you'll believe a girl can fly This is, of course, the weekly cult and exploitation film cast so good. It just has to be fattening. I'm your host Brian Salisbury. And this week, Cargl is on a quest trying to acquire the Omegahedron, which I think he thinks is a dice for playing warhammer. So in his place, we have a super guest. He's a super actor, a super comedian, an aqua cartoonist Green lantern friend. From the M findind F M findinds Tape, blood relatives and fuck my son. It's John Glson, everybody Hi, you will believe a chicken can fry Yes, I am here talk about the world's most expensive A andW root beer commercial. I gotta say, John, listing the titles in your catalog there, that's a really evocative movie title. I mean, where does the man find tape Where does he find tape? Yeah That's clearly the one I'm talking about in the Ivak at your local homeome Depot different Different tape dispensers, that sounds weird U yeah, just, you know, men finding tape as they do in the wild Hunter gatherer type shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, in Austin is like the home of three M. so it's really easy. That's why it was filmed here I did not realize that. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. Also, I'm angry at myself That Junk Food cinema has never released a Superman parody shirt that says you will believe a chicken can fry Bea that's so up our alley. it's ridiculous. Yeah It' it's one of the few strong memories I had of the movie we're going to talk about today If you also have strong memories of movies and fried chicken, I recommend the twelve. twelve fucking years of this horssehit that is available on your favorite podcas. You can follow us on social media. And if you really like the show, I mean, you really like the show. If you like it as much as I love learning random tape facts about the city in which I live, you can go to patreon d. com slash junk Food Cinema F financially support show. We greatly appreciate it. Golson, you are here because I, you know, when I sent out the beacon, the bat signal, I know that's not canonically correct right now, but when I sent out the bat signal, so what movie would you like to talk about? You did not hesitate You were like, let's talk about Supergirl. Yes, let's talk about her. Let's talk about her. So in honor of DC Supergirl hitting Theaters this week, mister Glson wanted to take the opportunity to discuss her first great adventure. It's Supergirl nineteen eighty four. From the producers of Superman, Alexander Slkin presents super Su Like Superman. He's my cousin. Wha. Supergirl on a secret mission to save her world. You've had your fun, Selena, The game is finished. Starring Faye Dunaway, Peter O'toul, and Hllen Slater as Supergirl, rated BG, now playing at a theater near you It was really a matter of convenience because I knew I would be revisiting this movie before I saw the new one. So I was like, o, why can't I kill two delicious chickens with one stone? One kryptonide stone Yeah. yeah, it was just a case. it was a good timing. and I was shocked that you hadn't covered it before. I think that was the biggest U, surprise to me was like, oh you surely've done Supergirl because that's the thing is like, I this is my long this show is like my long road trip show. Like if I am going on a road trip that's over a couple hours, I will load the iPod. iPod, the iPhone, it's not an iPod anymore. I will load my iPhone with a few with a few episodes to keep me company on the long road trips. But I don't know every single film that's been covered and I thought for sure Supergirl had been covered. If it makes you feel better, I don't know every film that's been covered on this show. I've lost the threat of that a long time ago. There have literally been times when Cargill and I have sat down to record and we realized at that moment, o, we've already done this movie. So it's happened. or we're like, oh, we didn't do that as part of this theme because we definitely covered it earlier didn't Okay, cool., But have you done a show twice U we have like certain movies I have done like revisited episodes. If there's more I wanted to say. like I think we have two Sace Jam episodes, which for this show and our brand is absolutely on brand. Uhm But yeah, like it's not often that we cover the same movie multiple times. And I'm going to shock even further. Not only had we not covered this movie before I realized in prepping for the episode, I had not seen this movie start to finish ever. I had seen bits and pieces, I had seen the opening like thirty times. I'd never actually seen the movie start to finish Yeah, it was weird. I I don't know if I have started this and and turned it off more times than I've actually completed it because I there was a there's like the first big action scene I thought was the final action scene. And I and I don't know why. So it was like it was a little like seeing it with New Eyes because I had abbsolutely totally memory hold the finale of this film I think there's a little bit of a forgotten element to this because of the way that the rights Danced back and forth and how it affected the home video release for many years. I feel like it's not wild to postulate that there are a lot of people listening to this who have never seen this movie and even smaller seick maybe that are like I didn't even know they had made a supergirl movie prior to the one that's coming out literally this week. Yeah, it's it does feel a little forgotten by time. even for a property that had a long running TV show not just a few years ago this movie still feels sort of forgotten. And I think it's because it's one of the more infamous expensive duds of the nineteen eighties. Maybe second only to the next Superman property that would come out immediately after the Superman for the Qu for Peace. Superman was in a bad place Sulkyines didn't have a great nineteen eighties. You know, the same director of Supergirl went on to do Santa Claus The Motion Picture, which I don't know if you've You've seen that slog. Oh yeah. Oh yeah I'm very weirdly familiar with the catalogue of JunutZwark because he also directed Jaws too which I think we've covered on this show and I'm a big fan of So you and I have watched it. I think I think I may have been over at your place the first time you watched Jraws two. That is entirely possible. And we both kind of walked away going like, you know, as far as just As far as sequels that are like, hey, remember the first one, we're going to give you more of that As far as those kind of sequels are, Jaw T' okay. it does the job. L it accomplishes here's more Jaws. It does, and it doest in a way that doesn't feel like a rehash. Like I like the fact that it feels more at home in the slasher sub genenre than it does in the, you know, when nature attacks, like the first one is The shark is kind of Jason Vorh's in that movie and I'm here for that We've also covered somewhere in time on this show. So we we're big Junetzs warkheads on jungk food cinema Mh which is something a lot of people can't say Who's the Jason Vorhes of suupercirled B doneaway. but only off screen, onlyn on set Because girl, she's killing it. She is killing it and she is terrorizing all of her co stars according to all of her co stars. But more on that to come. But but first, John, I want to kind of let people know, like you are the person in my life who, if I need to understand the origin, the powers, the secret identities any comic book character, you are the person I reach out to because you know more about comic books than anyone else in my life. And it's kind of staggering the information that just lives in your head. So I wasn't totally surprised that you wanted to do an episode on Supergirl because it does feel up your alley, but what is your What is your kind of relationship with DC as a whole I am a bipartisan comic book fan. I walk the aisle. I am I So probablyroably one of the first comics I ever had was like an early issue of Braving the Bld. where it was Batman and the creeper and they fought like a monster made out of paper and it was like one of the most terrifying things that I had in my bedroom as a child. I found the creeper it was an incredibly off putting DC character who's sort of like a newscaster who turns into a character not unlike the Joker, but instead of white skin he has like kiss yellow skin and Gigantic billowing green fur coming out of his shoulders? fuck or red fur it's red fur excuse me. Yeah, it's u he's a weird he's a weird cat and comic I found so off putting Growing up, like Super friendriends was like the cartoons. So even though Um, even though they're you know I had more like Fantastic four comics and things like that as a little tyike Super Friends was the was like the number one superhero TV show and And then when superpowers became a toy line, I was sort of like all about the superpower toys. L I thought that I still think that's one of the best toy lines ever. My camera is off right now. what Brian can't see is that the wall behind me is plastered in modern modern versions of the superpowers toy line Um So yeah, I always like DC stuff in equal measure to the Marvel stuff. I never really felt like one or the other was better. And as an adult comic fan, because the comic pool of talent only contains so many people always seems to me like either DC is good or Marvel is good and they're rarely good at the same time. L Because you know, one will have all the good writers and artists and then the other one will have all the good writers and artists. and they were sort of ping pong back and forth like that for a while. So I'm not discriminatory when it comes to it and I will say though that Supergirl I don't think I don't think I really had any particular affection for the character until the CW show. And I found U Melissa Binoist, so winsome as Supergirl that it really kind of started to change the way that I thought about the character. And then the comic that this new movie is based on, which is Superman Supergirl, the Woman of Tmorrow That Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow comic I thought was just terrific. I mean, story art, everything. And it kind of has I've kind of slowly been one over as an adult into being a Supergirl fan. I gotcha. Yeah. No and that's superpowers toyline, by the way, I have A chunk of them still in my collection. My grandmother got my brother and I a whole set of them at a garage sale W I want to go back in time and like punch myself in the face for thinking that that was just okay to play with. like not having any concept of like how completely valuable and awesome they were and I still have most of them and I think they're they're still in really good condition. So you know, when my kids are old enough to go to college, I think that's probably how I'm going to help pay for that. But I do think it is one of the better action figure toy lines, but that is literally how I knew about There are characters in that toyline that that's my only like there's a fiery tornado character who I still don't fully know who he is tornado. Red tornad. He's He's a robot. He's like the he's like Marvel's vision, right? He's like a red skinned. He's a red skinned android. U And now here's the weird like DC part is like he has the he has tornado powers. likeike why why does the why does the Android? Wh can he turn his body into a tornado? That's just how they built him. I don't I don't know why they gave the Android tornado powers, but they did ure. Yeah, because robots control the weather. We all know this. We all listed to prison Planet We know about the conspiracies for sure. Yes. Red tornado. Red Trnado is is a crisis actor. He's actually a lizard person. U that fat piece of shit is also from Austin. So yeay, we're just covering all all the local heroes today on Juck W. Yes. But yeah, you touched up on it briefly the Slkins and I want to talk about them for just a moment because They are lovable cinema crooks They're sort of the goolen and globus of the free city of Danzig where they're where they're from. or at least where Alexander's from. I'm not sure sure where his son Elia was born. The they're so they are a very international father and son because technically the son is a Mexican citizen The father is like like Polish Russian, but grew up in France So they they are world traveled. Yeah. he grew up in literally, it's called the Free City of Danzig and it existed because of a treaty. Like it's like this he basically was born in the Phantom zone. Okay if you take just a moment I'd to sing their national anthem. Y mother, don't you let your children walk my way Glenn Danzig once hit on my wife at a concert. That is Oh wow. That is a claim to fame that I have, I guess The Sulkines had this history with double production. where they they basically would Film one long epic, split it into two movies and then just pay the actors for one film's worth of work And it literally led to the Screen Actors's Guild issuing what became known as the Slk cllause. So that actors would be guaranteed that their acting contract for one film cannot be extended into two without their consent. And they kind of pulled the same shenanigans or the same nature of shenanigans when they did Superman and Superman two hintence the existence of the Donner Lester Cuts and how much of those movies, how much of the Donner Cut was done before the Lester Cut comes in is because again, we're trying to stretch one movie into two and it's the reason why, you know, certain actors refuse to come back and do any ADR And you know, there's there's just a lot to that. I just feel like They u They didn't always have the most standing of principles when it came to filmmaking and paying the actors equable ra equitable wages, But this movie in particular because they bought the rights to Superman in the seventies and at the same time the rights to Supergirls. So it kind of feels like it was always part of their plan to eventually spin off and do a separate Supergirl movie Yeah, they uh and then later the, you know, they did the super super boy TV series So they were very, very vested in and getting every dime that they could out of out of the Superman License. Fucking sidebar, John I I had always heard about this TV show The Super Boy TV show, I'd never seen it. so I went on and I found it And I watched exactly two episodes because that's all I could get through This was also produced by at least one of the Sl kinds and is one of the most Godd awful things the eighties has ever produced. And I'm putting new Coke in that category as well. You got the best episodes are the ones with I think Gilbert Gottfried plays a villain named Nicknack Yes, Those are pretty amusing. And then Michael am I wrong? Is it am I am I is is this a Mandela thing? Did Michael J. Pollard play Mitzlepidic I didn't even get nuts. I didn't even get that far because I tell you, the acting in this show I can only describe as A local car lot ad where the owner puts his kid in it as characters and gives them way too many lines That's the caliber, especially the guy that plays Lex Luther. he is Garbage like absolute hot garbage. Like the kind of thing where he'll be like, you don't talk to me that way and and his arm will like crook in to point like he's an actual fucking android And I thought maybe that was going to be the reveal is that he had been taken over by brainiac or something Yeah I did get confirmed. Yes, Michael J. Pollard, character actor Michael J. Pollard did play Mr. Mitzel Pidelick on on the Super Boy series. I watched that show while it aired in the what late eighties? It used to come on syndication and it was in a weird time on the Houston affiliates, it came on at like four o'clock on like Saturday or Sunday afternoons, like sort of like that dead time when you're a kid and it's like Oh, there's golf for nothing. L like you better love you some golf because you ain't getting shit. it's like so you end up watching things like Super Boy because hey, there's something there's there's something with a superhero in it. I think that was the slogan for the golf network, wasn't it? Hey, it's golf for nothing. Like it was a challenge. like go fuck yourself if you think you're watching anything but golf here. Yes you hit that low, like kids today they don't understand. Like you hit that spot where it's like you get the treat of Saturday morning cartoons and then you get nothing at all on television all day, Saturday across three Free networks until the nighttime It's it's wild. We lived in a completely different era from from the kids today. It's It's really, really bizarre. I've lamented so many times like an old man about how like my kids don't have toys or us anymore. My kids don't have prizes in their cereal. they don't have Saturday morning cartoons. likeike all the things that were just The basic foundational building blocks of childhood for us that we thought would exist forever are all just gone. They're all just distant memories. Brian, can I blow your mind? Please There is a toyser us in San Marccus. There's still a brick and mortar Tys R U in San Marcus. There is a Tys R us in San Marcus. Holy shit. I'm going this weekend and I'm not even guessing H crap It at the outletall. But that Super Boy TV show also did the thing where they aired the pilot as the fifth episode So characters who have had multiple adventures with Super Boy are suddenly meeting him for the first time in the fifth episode. and it's like, Wa what the fuck is going on? What's happening right? It makes absolutely no sense. And it just it smells of the sl kindind grift. Like we're just we're just going to squeeze every penny out of this character we can before the rights inevitably go back to somebody else. But yeah, I did I did try and watch it for this episode and I will You know what? you're giving me a reason to maybe go back and at least watch the Michael J. Pollard as mrter Mixle Plick. But other than that, I cannot in good conscience recommend that show Oh I didn't say it was good. I just said those were the best episodes Do doesnn't mean they're great episodes. It just means they're the best S super Boy episodes. They do exist, as it turns out. Yes. After these messages We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Super Boy. Join me and my friends as we fight for truth justice in the American W. The Adventures of Super Boy. He's flying into action on Universal Nut. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's Super Boy. The Adventures of Super Boy. Today it's five on Universal Nut Tonight in your city, someone is walking their dog Someone is crossing the street to their car Someone's kid is riding a bike home. They're counting on you to drive the speed limit Speeding accounts for nearly thirty percent of traffic fatalities, and most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live Slow down It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember Beating catches up with you Kow the road and respect its limits. presresented by Nita. Now back to your podcast So Supergirl follows Karaarel, who is the cousin of Calels is basically Jorell's niece. and she lives in Argo City, which is an isolated community that survived the planet Krypton's destruction by being transported into a pocket of transdimensional space called Innnerpace. So of course, you know, Dennis Quid is running around like, What the fuck's happening? I'm very confused It's a real it's a real hippy bullshit place. Oh my Godd dude. it's it's fucking Eore's birthday. If you're if you lived in Austin, this is a planet of Eor's birthday It kind of had it kind of when I was watching it, I actually was thinking of you because I was like this kind of it's got a little bit of like the apple vibes Oh yeah, did. And I was like, I wonder if Brian is like digging this sort of like Even though this film was not made in the seventies, the sort of like seventies, the Ale sort of like disco hippies v Disco hippies. Yeah, it's exactly where God takes them at the end of the apple is just to Argo City, which by the way, like a real fucking raw deal for most of the citizens of Krypton that they just get to be incinerated and this one isolated community, the fucking like I don't know Lake Travis of fucking Krypton just decides, Ohh, we're just going to put a bubble up and be fine. All you had to do was create a dome And you survive the son's destruction Or go fuck yourself just a bunch of fucking space hippies, space disco hippies living in this community. Nakara is played by the incredible Helen Slater. Helen Slater who is legendary to junk food cinema. There's a lot of things about this movie you can criticize, but Fair is fair. It's impossible not to fall in love with Helenslay. She looks the part. You know, there's a couple actors in here, Slater, one of them. I think I think we'll get to him, but Hart Bachner as well, who you have seen in other work and they have proven themselves to be absolutely capable actors And they are hung out to dry here. I think I don't I don't know how Slater was directed. I would assume it's like be as much like a deer as possible. like just wide ey stare at everything with your mouth slightly agape. Like u she sure looks apart. like physically she's great a supergirl , But yeah, I I don't blame her. I think I think I'm blaming Janot on this one Yeah, well, when you you know, you should know because I watched a bunch of behind the scenes footage of him directing her and he was literally like, donon't be afraid on this one to have a little more fun with it. And she's just like, okay, L I'm not sure what that means, but sure. Yeah, she's fresh out of high school. Like she's like eighteen years old in the Lipps movie. She was still in high school when she got the role. Yeah, yeah. I mean she If she doesn't look like she knows what she's doing, she doesn't know what she's doing yet. So it's like, I have an idea. I'm putting the Supergirl movie together. I've cast a relative unknown who's done basically nothing before this right out of high school. So in her first scene, I definitely need to put her up against Peter Oh goddamn tool It's like really like you're not even giving her a chance But luckily, Peter O'Tool who is Zaltar, which I think means he's granting Tom Hanks' wishes as well, if I remember correctly. He is just I love Peter O'tl and I might this might be me projecting based on the stories of him that I know He seems like he's drunk through this whole movie, right yeah, maybe. He seems like he is absolutely wasted on Jin as Zaltar and still manages to turn in this excellent like space wizard performance. Like I really I desperately wished at this moment that they could have put him in episode one. Be I'm like, if you give me a Jedi master Peter O'toul who's drunk as a fucking skunk I I'm changing my entire opinion, my entire rating of the Phantom Menace. I'm just saying Okay, I'm with you you You's managed to steal the Omegahedron, the McGuffin orb. and it's just this powerful thing Like they don't really explain why it gives people the powers it gives them and how it it's it's exactly it's concentrated root of why I didn't like Superman for so many years, which is just his powers are innumerable and unquantifiable and at times completely inscrutable. Like by the time you get to Part four and he's reassembling the Great Wall of China with his eye lasers because apparently he has Mason revision. I don't know. Like that's the thing is his powers are so ridiculously broad that he can just do anything and it's all concentrated in this omegahedron. Yes a little ball that spins around in your hand and can do anything the riders need it to do at any given time. It can clean your kitchen, it can descale all of your pots and pans, it can get the it can it can change the spark plugs in your car. It's really A wonderful household gadget at the Omegahedron. But he met Of course, the first thing he does with it, he steals it away from like the high leadership of what's left of Krypton. And of course, the first thing he's going to do with it is give it to Kya who then manages to have it sucked out of the airlock and she decides that it's in order to save him from the Phantom zone, she's going to go after it and recover the Omegahedron, which at this point, you also learn that they have spaceships and escape pods. And again, I know in the original Superman movie, Superman seventy eight They had some form of escape pods because that's how Calal got off of the fucking planet in the first place. But it's like if you have ready access to these like interstellar vehicles Why are we even waiting around to whyy are we doing wait and see with the exploding suun Like we should just be getting out it's like it's like on the East Coast when they know a hurricane is coming. They evacuate before the hurricane gets there. Why are we just hanging out on Krypton to see what's going to happen with his dying son? Because nobody believed Jorll. He tried to warn them all And no one believed him. He's the algore of Krypton just like, you know it's like it's very, it's very like Siegel and Schuster Very Old Testament. You know, it's very Old Testament profit to go like Hey, this thing is going to happen and the people of the land say, no it won't. And then the prophet is proven true And I think Jrelle is just, you know I think that's the deal is like Hey, we're all gonna die and everybody's like, oh, you scientific heretic And then everybody dies Science, science has no place here And it doesn't even get to say I told you so He just collects his check and goes home U so she ends up in this in this ship. She's trying to catch the Omegahedron. transforms into Supergirl in the process of arriving on Earth. because we didn't want to, I guess spend any time in the movie actually like deeveloping that. So she just shows up on earth as as supergirl And u The Omegahedron is recovered on the planet Earth by a power hungry would be witch, a tarot card reading. I feel like maybe the precursor to Miss Cleo. likeike she definitely if not for the Omegahedron landing in her lap, she would have been a television psychic. This is Selena. by Faye Dunaway Yes who I discovered was from Florida When she gets the Omegahedron and delivers the line, The world is my oyster. when I was like, I was like, who says oyster And then I was like, where's she from? And I started looking up The word oyster versus oyster and found out it is specifically A Florida dialect thing The Floridians say oyster And then I looked up where Fy Dunaay was born and guess what? Fay Dunaway is Floridian That's what the entirety of the Florida project was about was her learning to say oyster and stop saying oyster. A Yes. She is maybe the most sinister villain in the Rogues gallery. if we're only talking about onset behavior, she's famous for her onset diva behavior. Great stories abound from this one about her basically telling her co stars they weren't allowed to look at her while they delivered lines to her off screen Okay. I don't want to see your face. turnurn your back and deliver the line. It's like But why though? likeike why like why why? I don't understand. I don't know. Did you know Dolly Partin was offered seven million dollars to play this role, but she turned it down because she didn't want to play a witch differentere would this movie be with Dolly Parton in that role? Very L it would have been weird to have the villain be more liable than anyone else in the film. So I kind of I kind of appreciate her position on that because she's not the right person to play an evil witch. But Jane Fnda and Goldihan also turned down the role. So this was I feel like after Superman three There was a lot of speaking to Krypton, a lot of wait and see. on superhero movies. likeike I'm not sure I want to dive into that after what happened with Richard Pyor and that weird robot lady. So we're just going to kind of take a back seat on this. Dunaway goes like all out in this like camp mode though. Oh yeah, almost like Almost like a sort of Proto drag queen sort of thing going on Yeah, it's very, it's a very, very camp performance and not not as like winking as you think it might be. It's sort of just it's sort of just like Mommy dearest turned up It's whichit dearest. one hundred percent And that's the frustrating thing, John is like, yeah, she turns in an amazing performance. and I've said this so many times about how the worst moovies of the eighties and nineties. if they have a solid villain, it can save everything And I put, you know, Frankl Angelus Skeletor in this category for Masters of the universe. I put Raal Julia is in bison in this category for street fighter. It's like if you have an actor especially one who's like highly respected, just fucking laying it all out there and committing to something so ridiculous as if they're doing Shakespeare, it's gonna to elevate the movie. And I feel like for all of her complete nastiness behind the camera, like she turnurns it. I mean, she's fayed done awayay Like there's a reason she has legendary status for God's sake and she brings it here as well Yeah, I think the only thing that like The problem with the Sl kindind villains because Lex Luther has this problem too It's sort of like their ultimate plans are all kind of crappy. See like you have Gene Hackman Gene Hackman does a great job as Lex Luthher, but then the overall plan is like, I want to buy a bunch of real estate and flip it And then hers is like sort of this half ass like She's like, I want to be a more powerful witch, but she kind of wanted that anyways before the Omegahedron and a supergirl. And then it ends up being like a weird Like she gets a crush on Hart Bachner and wants to impress him and it's it's so lame. like that's That's such lame villain motivation. It is, but it reminds me like it reminds me of the few early Spider Man comics I read where they leaned into the high school of it so much. That like it almost played like archy comics with superpowers. Do you know what I mean Oh, okay, okay, I can see that. So I kind of and I'm not even saying that's what they're going for because if you watch the like the promotional materials for this movie, they talk about how the Sl kinds have gone back to the comics again to get this character right. And then it's like, hey, hey John, is Selena a character from the comics No, she is not. There's so much of this movie that has nothing to do with the comics whatsoever. they're patting themselves on the back for it. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you that was the intention. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that one of the five scripts that happened before production included a nod to the very sort of high school drama elements of the early DC comics. But I mean, I guess it kind of works on that level. What I don't fully understand though is at one point, Selena refers to herself as the ultimate siren of indor She lived there for a while. Okay, so she's just bossing around the Uwks. she moved because of allergies. There's all the pine. It's like she had yeah A lot of people, you know, they have to move to like a drier climate And so she moved to the back lotot where they shot Thor instead. So from pine trees to pine wood. I got you. Yeah. I got it So the other thing to get to steer us back to the plot, the other thing is that I don't know if you let's say you travel, you live in another dimension and you travel Uh, to our dimension to get the super powerful powerful artifact I find it odd that inexplicably with no explanation U she just enrolls in a in like a boarding school. Oh like just That's what she does. She shows up and is like, I'm going to school now Well, and the other thing I don't understand is no one on this planet has even really seen her do anything Except the two would be rapist truckers One of whom is Maxs Headroom. likeike really unfortunate early roll for Matt Frewer. And one of the better pieces of ANW product placement is all the ANW shit that the rapist is wearing. Oh my God, you're so. He looks like the bear mascot from the ANW restaurant. Oh my God. Oh my go You're making me realize how much he looks exactly like that cartoon bear. That's the mascot of AN W. Like maybe the show BJ and the Bear was actually about truck driving version of the mascot from AW Rootbeer. Holy shit. Oh my Godd. Yeah, but like so no one's seen her, right? Nobodybody knows who she is And yet she still thinks she has to change her hair color to disguise herself to enroll in this boarding school. And I'm like Who are you hiding from? No one here knows you. Like why couldn't she have just stayed a blond? I'm just I'm very it was that like the the Clark Kent glasses where it's like, if I'm a brunette, but Supergirls a blonde, no one will ever notice that we're the same person I don't remember in the comics if Supergirl's secret identity had brown hair or not I honestly do not know. and that is a great question that I'm going to look up right now. The only thing I know from my limited research on this is that the supergirl herself was definitely a blonde because Helen Slater is a brunette and when she went blonde for this movie, she decided to keep the blonde through most of her career But she herself is not a natural blonde. She went B blonde for this movie to be more accurate to the character, the suirl the supergirl identity, at least, and just kind of stuck with Blonde for most of her career. Yes, she did do the brunette to blonde thing instead of the glasses on and glasses off thing She did do U, brown hair to blonde hair Okay. So so my beef with that is not the movie, it's the character. I don' I don't really understand why that's necessary if you're hiding out in Midvale, Illinois at this boarding school. like who's going to be like, wait a minute, your' supergirl. Hang on a minute. Yeah. and then mostly dropped because I think like, you know, the CW show, it's a glasses thing Yeah. it's it's much more like the u Christopher Reeve Clark Kent stuff where it's like, oh surely surely this nerd can't also be this hero Christopher Reef who was supposed to have a cameo in this movie but was either unable to or read the script. I'm not sure Um But he bowed out early on which is why randomly One point in the movie, they have to do a like an ADR broadcast on the radio like Superman is on a peace seeking mission to a distant galaxy and I'm like One of two things is happening. I either want a movie about that Or this is a universe where we're ignoring three and four And he left right after two and doesn't come back toill Superman returns as Brandon Ralph K kind of like I kind of like that continuity better personally Yeah. somebody needs to make one of them charts like they do for the Halloween movies. Yes exactly. Somebody needs to commit time and effort to one of those charts like they did for the Halloween movies, which honestly, I kind of prefer the same thing with the Halloween movies where you just skip from the first Halloween to twenty eighteen, even though I am a massive fan of a lot of the sequels in between. so I don't know I'm trying to have my cake and stab it too. I don't know what to tell you. That's so funny. Don't laugh at me, Zaltar I'm only laughing at myself for you She enrolls in this this private school. And her roommate is the girl from Greece too Goddamn it. Maureen Tifi plays Lucy Lane, the little sister of Lois Lane. And this is one thing I think I can defefinitely say just based on, you know this and reading some comics and watching smallmallville. The Superman universe's obsession with double L alliteration Absolute nightmare. likeike I don't know what's going on here But like between Supergirl being Linday, there're being a Lucy Lane, O of course, there's Al Lana Lang, there's Aleex Luther, Aiona Luther. Like what are we doing with these double Ls so Lauri Lauri Lamoris is like the the mermaid that Superman's in love with also is a double Alec. I think her name's Lauria Laoris, something like that They would literally give her the name Laorie Laorris just to keep the double L thing going. like you're really wriding yourself into a corner One corner of the alphabet to be specific, but That's just I always just found that weird. and I actually I found it really weird while watching Smallville back in the day which incidentally, before I'm going to say this before everyone on Twitter gets pissed at me for not mentioning this Helen Slater plays Supergirl in this movie and would play Superman's mother on Smallville years later. She would come back to this universe Yes. And you know why they all have double L names. I don't. please tell me Because Superman exists in the house of L Goddamn, there you go. Goddamn J. Oh my God. his name is Jor L. Yes, it's the house of he's the last son of the house of L. whichich is Kryptonian for L names. It's Kryptonian for two fucking Ls Uh so Damnit God damn it, you've solved the whole mystery. Like a thing I thought was just really stupid. and now I'm like, it's still stupid, but at least now I understand it. I think that's an accident. Like just I think it's a happy accident. And I was just sitting here thinking about it and I was like, oh yeah, he's from the house of L. so maybe that's why everybody has L. That's not like a canonical reason. That's just a John Glsen imagination I'll take it, man. I will take it. All right. One of my favorite things about this prep school, by the way, is that it's this weird Bizarro spepeaking of Superman villains, Bizarro universe where the bullies at the school are like the heavy set girl and the nerd and they're picking on all the pretty girls Like when they're playing field hockey, she literally goes after her own teammates J just I guess to be an asshole. I don't know. but it's like Th then they're trying to pull this prank in the shower and it's literally the heavyset girl and the little nerdy girl with big glasses who are like, we're going to get these or whatever it's like, you'reicking all the pretty girl. L like it is completely backwards from every other high school movie I've ever seen Yeah, I because Is it because they want to set Is Supergirls supposed to be like an underdog? Is this like supppposed to underline that that like the pretty people in this universe are like They need our support. they need they need to be cheered on. I don't know. They're at a distinct disadvantage. It's kind of like again, just going back to my problem with Superman. The person with all the powers cannot be the underdog and I include underdog in that conversation. He's not an underdog either if he's got that many powers, godamn it Tennessee Tuxedo, That's an underdog. Underdog is not an underdog Ask your grandparents, sorry, I just had to go on an undertog t there for a second. When criminals in this world appear and bring themation be and T f. Have you done that movie? No, I have not.. I would rather do like fifty episodes of the cartoon before I would talk. I never saw that one. I've seen a lot of superhero movies and I've never seen their early two thousands under Dog film. If we're calling that a superhero movie, I think Airbud must be part of the Dog Justice League All right. don I don't know where we can encourage listeners to have this fight with us, but underog underdog is a superhero. Airbud is an athlete. They are very different things. All I'm saying is there's no rule that says a dog can't join the Justice League. Well, that's true I really just you know, like I got in a spaceship myself, I just zoomed right past the fact Kara's parents are played by Simon Ward And uh Mia Farro. Mia Farro getting her Marlin Brando check and walking out the door. That really wasted. like really, really wasted. That's that's that's just a name you put on the poster. like that's It's It's not even a roll. It's just like a lightine or two. See, and I'm wondering, I am really wondering if this is a product of the big trim down because this, you know, we talk about a lot of movies that have troubled productions because a lot of times out of the ashes of a completely decimated production story. you know, we get something really great And this this may be the most insane Like the number of hands that this passed through, like so again, the Salkines bought the rights in the seventies Warner Brothers because they they it it's a fucking Warner Bothers character, you know? they had slated it for release in the summer. But Alexander and Elia Solkine were like, no, we want a Christmas release. Why Reasons But they their position on that was so firm and they had so much conflict that Warner Brothers decided not to release the movie. Warner Brothers decided not to release a movie in the Superman universe That's how hard it is to work with the Sl kinds. So instead, Tistar, which at the time was this brand new venture between Coca Cola, HBO and CBS pick it up, but then they cut it down from one hundred and twenty six minutes to one hundred and five So I'm wondering if there's more to like parents if there's more to like the motivations of Selena. L I feel like we're losing a lot in that cutdown. I do know that in the trimmed stuff, there is more Argo City stuff Okay. All right, I do know that That tracks for sure But then the foreign theatrical release, the international cut, as they called it, that was the full one hundred and twenty six minute cut And Warner didn't even regain full rights to the film until two thousand six So it's like this this movie again, just fell through so many weird cracks because of all of the conflict. Like one of the things that I found really fascinating is that the original producer on the film, apart from the Slks Um was Alyssa Cartagenia And she was the she was the original producer, but during pre production There was so much tension between her and Alexander Sulkine over the script and over the film's publicity campaign, that the Salultanss end up firing her and replacing her with Timothy Barll But what's crazy is Cardini was the one who was who had secured most of the film's financing, Its thirty five million dollars budget in nineteen eighty three for God's sake and was responsible for bringing Faye Dunaway on board. So this person that the Sul Kins had worked with forever who was responsible for, you know Dredging up thirty five million dollars for the movie and getting Faye Dunaway suddenly is cast aside because she didn't like the script, she didn't like the publicity. It's just like there there's so much turmoil before this movie ever sees the light of day that you start to understand why even after it was released, it disappeared for a while. The version that exists now is really the international cut It's actually pretty hard to find the theatrical released version of this, like the US theatrical cut. Oh, interesting. Yeah, mostost of the streaming versions and things online are the that international cut that runs right over two hours instead of right under And I mean, I don't want to be Mr. Doomsday over here, but it's a bad sign for your movie DC Comics just unexpectedly cancels its superhero comic book series two months before this movie's release So it's like, we're basing this on the comics and people going, yeah, we don't have those anymore You know what I mean? It's kind of like Saturday night fever coming out after Dco had kind of died. Yeah But we're still going we're still going to put this movie out and we're not going to promote it right. We're going We're going to devote more time, I feel to Helen Slater doing seatbelt PSAs than we are to actually promoting the movie And just yeah, it's not hard to understand why there are people listening to this episode going, there's another supergirl movie. I just remember this showing up in video stores. like I don't even remember the theatrical release of it. I sort of just remember it being like, oh That's on the shelf at the local video store. Unlike Santa Claus, the other Sulk movie we talked about where it's like Oh, McDonald's was like all in and it was everywhere that Christmas. Supergirl, I don't remember the promotion of. I just I just remember its sudden existence on VHS. After these messages, We'll be right back. sixixteen thousand people die each year in car crashes that don't have to. Safety belts could save their lives. Safety belts could also prevent thousands from being horribly disfigured or crippled for life. So buckle up. Your life is in your hands. Tonight in your city, someone is walking their dog Someone is crossing the street to their car Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit Speeding accounts for nearly thirty percent of traffic fatalities, and most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live sllow down It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember Speeding catches up with you Kow the road and respect its limits. Presented by Nita, now back to your podcast How in God's name whether or not tooys for this movie at Popeyees Chicken Popey' chicken is so weirdly all over this movie, it's crazy. Yeah There's there's a pretty famous image of her standing in front of the Popeyes U we didn't really talk about the fact that like the other people she meets at the school Um U Lois Lane's sister what's her name? Lucy? Lucy's dating Jimmy Olson. Yeah who that's the one character we get to repraise from the other Superman franchise, you get Mark McCLar back is Jimmy Olsen. He's the glue of this franchise. He's the one that appeared in every single Superman film. Yeah. And then groundskeeper, Ethan played by Die hardard sccumbag, Hartbachner Um kind of just doesn't have a character to play. He just kind of to walk around and look stupid. he sleeps walked. He like Has various scenes where he's like sleepwalking or like knocked out a lot of the time. He has like no No character to play. He does he does will'll get we'll get there, but he does threaten Supergirl with physical violence at one point. And the Popeyes thing. Yeahah, that That was like That was the thing that I remembered being the finale. It' like there's this whole thing where U Selena uses magic to make like a backackho go berserk and like Lucy Lane is asleep inside or well not asleep inside of it. She gets knocked out in the in one of the screens worst knockout sequences. She kind of just like moves her head slightly to the left and then this' suddenly like completely ched As Kevin Coster keeps showing the video over and over again. backack to the left, back to the left As this piece of construction equipment runs amuck and people run in and out of the Popeyees chicken U and in and around and u and the supergirl changes in a supergirl in a Popeye' bathroom like like you do Sure. ye. Yeah, love that chicken from Popeyes. Not the worst thing that's ever happened in a Popeyes bathroom. but Harth Bachner John Booby is nobody's white knnight in this film. He is literally just a handsome character who is like all the other female characters in this movie are just fighting over him because he's handsome and they're like using mind control. She sends the bulldozer, the backhoe out to collect him with the omegahedron, like, couldn't you just Use a beam and like snatch him up or a giant bird. Is a bulldozer I can't remember what kind of equipment it was. It definitely has a monster mouth on the front because you get that great camera angle from inside the actual. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. you're right. Yeah. So it looks like it looks like a monster is trying to eat him, which is crazy. because I think the cinematographer on this also also shot Dragon Slayer So just like we're just we're just pulling a little bit of that in here. I'm okay with that. abbsolutely. But yeah, that's that's a really weird sequence of like and also J just going to throw this out here Selena wants world domination, right? And she wants to break away from her. I mean, there is a little bit of of a Jedi Sith kind of relationship here because she has a warlock who was teaching her named Nigel, played by Peter Cook, who is probably best known as the impmpressive Vicar from the Princess Bride And he like tried to keep her under his thumb and she wants to break away and be a more powerful You know, sorcerer than he is et ccetera, et cetera And then we have who I think is the real star of this movie, Brenda Vicaro as Bianca Yes. I honestly think it's her chemistry with Fay Dunaway and how the two of them feel like Every quote unquote spiritual mom of the nineteen eighties And she is just Brenda Ricaro just fucking chain smoking through this whole movie. J like, Yeahah, whatever. Yeah, snatch up the pretty boy. That sounds like fun. whatever. L she's so fucking great in this. And she I think she takes a little bit of the edge off of they Dunaway. like the harshness, not necessarily of the character, but of sort of the presence of Fade Dunaway. Like it's good that she has a comedic foil to work against Yeah, I think what helps with that is that she never acts like There's there's a casualness to their relationship that kind of makes it where You assume that she's not afraid of Selena? Right. So while some of the stuff is like really wacky, Vicaro treats it as if it's like just another day hanging with Selina. Like exactly. this is just the way it is every every day. And like this is just this just happens to be that couple of weeks where they they they found an artifact from another world and fought a girl in a Superman costume. And you know, their story their story existed before this and Um, And even though what happens to Selena happens to Selena, you have to assume their story continues after this as well. There's there's such a casual matter of fact because it's not like the u It's not like the Lutor Otis relationship, where Otis is like an idiot and can be threatened by Luthor. It's not even that. it's just that oh Her friend is just along for the ride Like her her sassy friend is just there Vakara is just that friend that enables the friend that's a monster. You know what I mean? Like I know she's a monster, but we've been friends for years. I can't I can't just abandon her. like it's more of that relationship U which I think really it works very well. I also love o my like legitimately with everything in me. I love this abandoned carnival set where they set up shop Oh my God. Yeah, it's pretty cool the creepest haaunted House ride, which isn't creepy for anything in the haunted House Ride, but for these weird Faces Big just visages that are painted on the entrance to the haunted house Like I don't know whose faces they're supposed to be, but they're very Edvard Munk looking like they're super, super freaky I also love the bumper cars with NFL players carved in the front. I've never seen that before. Yeah Oh my Godd, it was amazing Yeah, those are those are kind of cool. They're like front and back. There's like two there's what three there's like three players in the front and three players facing the opposite direction And people ride around in these like bumper cars. And I think the one what the one that the one that really gets spotlighted has the old Patriots logo was like an actual Patriot. And what was on the other side was like the the RAM chargers? It was the Ram Yeah The Rams on the other side. Yeah. whoo would have I say still been in LA at this point before they left and came back to LA. So they were the Los Angeles Rams of Los Angeles Uh and yeah, just watching those bumper cars like go around and every time it hit another bumper card, it was like an offensive a defensive line going at it. It was just it was like ak eighty shit that I'm just like, I can't believe I've never seen this in another movie. I can't tell you how many movies I've seen that have a seene at a carnival. and I've never laid witness to these particular types of bumper cars. and it makes me wish so desperately that I had been able to go to this carnival Yeah Yeah, I was surprised it wasn't a thing I don't know if it's like a li. I don't know if like you have to assume NFL came in and was like, Hey, guess what? you can't make unlicensed bumper cars with the loowos of our sports tes. I would assume that's what put the Kabos on on the NFL bumper cars, but they are pretty cool I mean, and the thing is As much as Selina wants world domination, and this is a thing I feel like happens in a lot of sort of low tier superhero movies She seems completely content with just ruling Midvale, Illinois Like there's always this weird thing where someone says that they want world domination and with the course of the movie, they'll get control of one town or one little village and they're like,, I've done it. And I'm like, I don't think you know how big the world is That's true I can and it's funny you say that. I don't know that I can think of a Is there other than Thanos, is there a superhero movie where the villain has affected the entire world with an act of planning or violence versus just like a specific place The only one think of any. The only one I can think of and this is crazy is u Oh God, I'm something something gentlemen. fucking League of extxtraordinary gentlemen. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the one the oh my Godd, the Taron Egerton one where he's like a street kid, but his dad was a spy Oh, the Kingsman movie. Kingsman Oh my Godd, whyy can I not remember that? The The first Kingsman movie, I feel like for a little while, that signal does actually infect everybody on the planet. Like they shut it off. but I think that's one of the few times apart from yes, like you said, Infinity War where the consequences of a supervillain's actions have actually ly affected everyone on the planet Yeah, I'm trying to think you know what comes to mind for some reason. it's not superhero, but it's like superhero adjacent It's like in the movie GI Joe, rise of Cobra And they like have this like techno organic virus that will like can like, They can drop it like a bomb and it'll just eat a whole city. And all Cobra manages to do with it is knock down the Eiffel Tower. L life would just continue as normal if the Eiffel Tower disintegrated as it does in the GI Joe movie. It would have no make no difference to anyone anywhere. I feel like something you and I share, John is a abbsolute delight. for the way certain movies get around having a low budget. and what's insane in this movie is they didn't have a low budget But at a certain point in Supergirl, Supergirl fights an invisible dragon The most like the biggest cheat I've ever seen for a movie that should have been able to afford a rubber monster. It's like no, she's literally fighting a dragon that no one can see. We just see it stepping on things and like roaring and that's it Well, you're a horror fan. So you know like the thing that people say about Texas Chainsaw Masker is how like, oh, your imagination fills in the gaps and what you imagine is way way worse than what they show on screen, you know, and then you walk away with this memory that you watch something really violent. So maybe that was the plan here is that oh my gosh, that what my what I pictured she was fighting could have just been so horrifying that all right, I'm done, I'm done making excuses for the fact that she fights an invisible dragon. I thought you were gonna to say, you remember how in Texas Chainsaw Leatherfac is a big invisible dragon and I was gonna be like, you and I remember that movie very differently? No, you don't remember the actual invisible dragon in Texas Chainsaw Masser? I don't He's right there. His name was Steele with an HL ate end Right? Yeah, abol Yes He flying circles all around. His name was Huska Varna You know what? I'm having a memory once of didn't we watch Texas chainsaw together and it was like a bunch of us it was our first time seeing it. and one of our friends just couldn't stop talking about the beautiful banisters in the Sawyer house Yes. Oh my gosh, an injrooke amongst friends to this very day. The banisters in the Sawyer House are gorgeous The invisible Dragon is sort of the beautiful banisters of Supergirl, right Why would you ever jump screaming out of the second story window in a house that has bannisters that beautiful? I'm just saying, man. the market being what it is and now is somebody who's trying to move into a new house and appreciates things like that I'm just saying I might have put up with a cannibalism if they could sell me that house, you know, under market value And all the freezer space. So much freezer space, man, I'm hooked. I am hooked on that house But yeah, she fights an invisible dragon. At one point, we kind of see like I don't know what it was supposed to be, like an armpit or something, which she zaps it with lightning And I'm just like I can't even fully make out what it was supposed to look like in Silhouette Do you think they were gonna like forbidden planet it and like animate something in there, That would have been preferable to what I actually happen is Which is just we see her like kind of shock a turd with lightning for a second and then it disappears screaming. So powerower of your imagination. Again, they had thirty five million dollars Did all of that just go to fate Dunaay and Peter O'ool? because I don't I don't understand how we have no money for an actual dragon Well just There's also there's also, you know, they got it they had that flying coconut effect. Yeah 's there? she saves Har Bachner and like carries him off in that super awesome NFL bumper car. And there's this long sequence of her flying with it setting it down gently. and he's like, Oh my God, you gott to get me out of here. and then a coconut just comes flying in from offs screen and clocks him in the head and I laughed so loudly because I'm like, well, that would have killed him right there For all of the heroism that she just exhibited He's dead from a coconut. What the hell is happening? Yeah, Selena makes a coconut fly. I guess because she she flies him like has to be hundreds of miles away. Right. Supergirl flies Ethan to this like beach And then yeah, sets them down. It's basically like It's kind of trying to be the u What's the what's the poem that Louis Lane says in the Donner Superman Um Oh man 'cause it's also the name of John Williams track and I can't think of what the I can't think of what that poem is called. Can you read my mind? Yeah, Can you read my mind? It's basically the Can you Read My Mind sequence of Supergirl is her flying with Ethan while he sits in a comically large NFL themed buuffer car to a deserted beach Setss him down gently kind of like nouzzles him because he's notock you know, because he he wakes up, they have a little bit of an argument and then Selena has conjured with her witch powers a coconut to travel hundreds of miles to where he is and hit him on the head. Now why couldn't she make herself? Why couldn't she have made a net or like Why Wh why? didid she make a coconut fly that far? But it hits him on the head and Supergirl dips her fingers in the coconut milk and sticks her fingers in his mouth while while he's knocked out and it kind of like nurses him this like one like slurp of coconut milk off of Supergirl's fingers awakens him and then his thing is like whereere's Where's Kara? Where's no, whereere's um Linda Where's Cara, Linda. Yeah Linda. The guysy was trying to think of what's her the name she adopts. Yeah. Where's Linda? and Supergirls like, Oh, she's not here. She's fine. She's not here. And he's like, you better tell me or I'm going to get rough, which is like the love interest of the Supergirl movie, this this bowhunk Basically threatening to beat the shit out of supergirl it wass like, what is this? And then almost immediately after that, she kisses him Yeah, it's a strange relationship for sure. Also, we all know that the cure for CTE is coconut milk. So she's really just acting upon years and years of medical research. Uh and I think Selena wrote a poem killed Can I bruise your mind, right before she threw that coconut across this fucking state line at H Pachner If he had been drinking a Coca Cola while it happened, it would have been perfect symmetry with Diehard. It would have been amazing Oh my gosh, but my favorite scene in this movie legitimately is Selena basically tricks suupergirl. likeike she does this cool thing where when she takes over the town, she makes this giant mountain appear with a castle on top of it. like she's a character from fucking Fantasia. She just lives at the top of this mountain and a castle And and so Supergo goes up there to try and free Hart Bachner or whatever. and and Selena traps her in the Pantom zone And it's cool because If I recall correctly outside of, you know, once Ternt stamp And and the two other Kryptonian generals are freed. We don't really see the Phantom zone again in in those in that original run of Superman movies. So it's it's really cool to see her like dealing with and then somehow being in the Phantom zone takes her to like this garbage dimension. where she runs into Peter O'tool again A this point, if Peter Rool was not drunk for the openping scene in Argo City. he is out of his mind blitzed in this scene and it's perfect because he's like wallowing in self pity. but like it's just a amazing Peter O'tll drunk performance. of Peter O'Tool at the end of his rope, like You know, Lawrence when he's looking at his own bloody reflection in that dagger kind of moment. you know, the Joseph Campbell belly of the whale, except you're in the belly of a garbage dimension. you get sent to from the Pantom zone He's carrying around this like weird caraf slash teapot that's filled with basically garbage juice and he's constantly asking Supergirl if she wants a squirt God guess Oh Peter, we're gonna to do it. We're going to do another take on that one. Can we use any other word? I mean literally any other word. It's very strange because like it's the it's the part of the movie that really opens up visually and sort of like it becomes a little more sci fi and a little more comic booky because you're like, oh, wow, she's in this other dimension and they have this, you know, visually they are like showing the interior of the Phantom zone and It's It's like It's like sort of emblematic of the problems of this movie is like you're like, oh, okay, this might be interesting. And then it's drunk Peter O'toul being like, do you want to squat It's a lot of that in this where you're sort of just like, sometimes it's visually arresting and then it continually sort of like lets you down Uh from a story standpoint or like the scenes don't make any sense. They're like Not very cohesive. He looks bad also and I don't know if these were like later shoots Or if it was just a case of oh, he was supposed to look bad because he was in there. It might have been a combination of both. Um, because he looks He looks unhealthy and not a makeup way. Like I was sort of like, man, what was going on with Peter O'tul at this specific time that he's doing this Phantom Zone stuff? I think we have to forgive the squirt thing because as we all know, Zaltar in the comics use that word all the time because Zaltar is definitely a character from the comics, right, John? He loved That's the one thing that we know that he loved was squirt. It was not a slice guy. You get that slice right the fuck out of here. He's all about that squirt Yeah, I don't know what that whole deal was and he keeps asking Supergirl for it. She doesn't want it. I think that she smells it and is like, this is the this is what this is we used to call the stuff at the bottom of the cinemark dumpsters garbage juice, which is like pickle juice and Dctor Pepper and tobacco spit. like all sort of like cout coconut oil from the popcorn butter all sort of collected. Oh go But she finds an ally there, right? So she finds like this like, oh, great, like I don't have to be trapped here. We will help each other will'll get out of this place together. Uh yeah, it's it's it's she has a little uh A little like third act u when the chips are down sort of moment Have a squirt out of this teaapot. I call it Eessence of Oliver Reed Oh God, damn it. donon't drink that. Do not drink that Ellen Slater. Don't you drink that Okay, Brian. Yeah, you are you are tasked to create a cocktail called Essence of Oliver Reed. What is it Uh, well, it's three ounces of misogyny U and then like another probably two to three ounces of a bottle of gin that's been in a dank cellar for twenty seven years With the splash of the water that every talk show guest has poured into his lap. Exactly. Yeah. And then you just you just mix that all up in an old shoe and chug it down ence of Oliver Reid folks, for the man who wants to die at a bar while filming Gladiator because that's actually what happened to Oliver Reid Drank himself to death while filming the movie Gladiator. Look it up. That's a true story. Why are the good guy young By the way, you mentioned seeing this movie on the shelves at the video store One of the craziest bits of trivia I found out about this movie is apparently by the time it got an American release, it was already on video in Japan. So the so basically Tristar managed to stop. They had to file an injunction against Los Angeles video stores that were selling imported copies of the film before it had had a U.S. release. Wow. So I mean, again, I think Cartania was right about the about the way this movie was going to be promoted. likeike they really didn't Do this movie any favors Yeah, that's u Wh knows what who knows how that may have affected the overall box office takeake of super Girl? You know what, fair point. After these messages. We'll be right back. Pad it up to here with the same old scene. Break the routine with Popeyees Worlds Fair flame. Buy any chicken dinner and any soft drink at Popeyes and get a coupon good for three dollars off in its oldld admission to the eighty four Worlds Fair. Three dollars off. That's almost like getting a dinner free from Popeyes, offfficial chicken and biscuits of the nineteen eighty four Worlds Fair. There'll never be another chance to see the eighty four World Fair Come on! Tonight in your city, someone is walking their dog Someone is crossing the street to their car omeone's kid is riding a bike home They're counting on you to drive the speed limit Speeding accounts for nearly thirty percent of traffic fatalities, and most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you So remember Beating catches up with you Know the road and respect its limits Presented by Nita. Now back to your podcast One of the things I feel like is not super comic booky but is so very much I feel like I understand who Selena is Like this character that's just like a desperate lonely like spiritual housewife and just like wants to be a little bit more respected than she is. Like she talks about world domination. She really just wants people to stop making fun of her at happy hours this final fight between her and Supergirl is just so goddamn funny Because you if you judge it from the perspective of a superhero movie, it's dogshit. If you judge it from the perspective of this completely insane character that Fe Dunaway has actually done a really good job of developing, it's spot on because Between Fay Dunaway firing energy blasts out of a stuffed crow and these cheap gargoy statues falling near Supergirl, it's like the battle is taking place at a hobby lobby right after Halloween Mm Yeah. which is exactly where I would expect to find a character like this. And there's even an animatronic There's even an animatronic a demon skeleton? Yeah, that just kind of like grabs like it's really uncomfortable the way Helen Slater is just having to wriggle against his grasp That feels It was very crl. Yeah, yes, very crel. She totally got crawllled up there She curled up into his arms. That's what happened. Absolutely. Yes Oh man. That was terrible. That's not the worst joke I've ever made. But yeah, it's justs that's the final battle of this movie. and then she manages to trap her inside of a mirror, which This all feels way more like A sword and sandal movie from the eighties than it does a superhero film I kind of dug that. I kind of I don't know. So this is I kind of hinted at this at the beginning of the of the show I didn't remember any of this magic stuff. and I've seen this movie multiple times and I literally had All that Popeyes bullshit that's like halfway through the film as the ending of this film. Right. Gun to my head, I could not have told you that they have a big magic battle and fight a monster and there's like like a magic wand that they use alongside the Omega Hedron to like try to defeat Supergirl. All of that stuff was like, this is all new to me. I feel like it's You ever you watch something and you're like, man, there might be a great movie in here if it wasn't so If if if the parts that didn't work not work so hard. I don't know how to say. I don't say fail, but like for instance, that beach scene with the coconut heart Botner, it's like for everything that you get that's like kind of cool and might be going somewhere, there's this other stuff, just this junk. Um Ending I was kind of like, even for the time, when we're coming off of these Superman movies where it's like, oh, I'm a bad guy who saves a penny from every transaction Oh, I'm a bad guy who flips real estate. The idea of this like, oh, I'm straight up a witch and there's a warlock and we have magical artifacts and we can use them to make invisible dragons and demons and we can make castles appear out of nowhere. It's like there's a lot of this that is testing the waters with stuff that's way more comic booky then studios we were comfortable getting for like a really long time because even down to the year two thousand and stuff when like the X Men movies are coming out, there's still people saying, o, we want to keep it grounded, we want to keep it grounded. So to that, like there is an element of Supergirl It as sort of like one of the first superhero movies to really just go all out on the fantasy side of things you're so right. and and do think that's a big boost to this movie is these big swings in the villain department and you know, giving her a villain who's imbued with a lot of the same powers that she has as she's discovering what those powers are So I mean, there's a little bit of a parallel in the like Zod versus Christopher Reeve Superman and Superman too of like I'm finally going up against somebody who has similar powers and presents that that formidable threat. But at the same time, That element of magic makes this movie distinct And while it doesn't always work and while it yields some silly results, even the silliest parts of this movie are defeinitely in that category if you have to see this to believe it. And that is always something that's going to delight me. when a movie has these elements or these set pieces where it's like, I cannot believe that anyone would put this in a film. I cannot believe that this was sold to the public. It entices me so much. I get so excited about scenes like that. and I think that's why This movie did delight me is it just has all these scenes where I'm like Jesus Christ, they're really throwing coconuts at heart. But by the way, coconut heart Bachner is my favorite flavor of Kine bar. So you happen to see that one on the shelves. That's definitely the one I would go after Button Yeah, I enjoyed I enjed this movie quite a bit. I will say It could have been so much better if the Slkins had not continued to do things to get in their own way. And I think the biggest problem here is they went out and this is this is going to sound insane to say that the biggest problem that I had with the movie is that they got Jerry Goldmith to do the score in no other circumstance would I say those words. But if you have all of the preree existing John Williams music Why aren't we hearing the them? I know it's like maybe it's not fair to like paint her with the same theme because it's not, she's not superman. She's super girl Damn like it it we it feels You feel the lacking of not having the Superman theme by John Williams in this movie? I do like the Jerry Goldsmith score though. like I like the music. don I don't think you're necessarily wrong and I think that you know, if If a Supergirl movie was coming out today, I guess it kind of is. But if a super if the Supergirl movie was coming out today, I think that like the movie would hint at it. you know, you would hear echoes like you would hear echoes of that John Williams theme throughout and who knows maybe when we go see Supergirl we'll discover that that's the case. I'd be I would be more surprised if I went to see Supergirl this weekend, the new one And I heard bits of the Jerry Goldsmith score. That would shock me way more than if I heard bits of the John Williams score. Yeah Absolutely. And I will say that I think that's one of the best things that Superman returns the decision that they made of like we're going to use all of the John Williams music. L it really does just infuseed that movie with so much timelessness and really makes you feel like you're watching a classic suuperhero movie again. so I feel like while it may not be fair to just you know force Supergirl to have the exact same theme as her cousin and I get that There is something about not having that and you're right. the Jerry Goldsmith score. It's jerry fucking Goldsmith. Like literally, I think one of I can't remember who it was, but another incredibly famous composer said that Goldsmith is the guy that scares all of us. He's so good. Like you're not going to get a bad score from Jerry Goldsmith. I get that But when you've already established through at least two movies three really of this incredible fucking John Williams just absolutely indelible Superman music. It feels weird to not have it, even though this is super girl, not superan Sperman, I don't know But yeah, this is it's a wild movie that, you know, I just read here that it got they wanted to push it to the the holiday season because they were worried about competition from the summer Olympics the Sulkines were. So that's why the movie got released internationally first And then you know, you had Thorn EMI and Tar like in this like bidding war over the home video rights for many years, which is why it took so long for it to get any kind of home video release. And again, why I think a lot of people listening to this Proably never seen nineteen eighty four Supergirl Probably not Did you think it held up or was it just kind of was it fun on it on like an oddity level for you? I think that the problems, the things in my memory that I did remember is how lame all of the stuff with her and her civilian identity is. And I did remember that I wasn't fan of the performance. I'm a fan of the casting. I think she looks the part, but I don't know that I'm a fan of the performance itself. But again, I don't lay that on her feet at all. So the negative things I remembered remember the positive things and that's the thing that I'll probably walk away from this most recent viewing is like, oh There is more fantasy elements. Fade Dunaway was better than I remembered. U its shot really well and the score is really good. you know, I think ultimately like it kind of splits itself right down the middle where it's like there's enough bad elements and enough good elements that it sort of just like falls neutralizes its own self U but I don't think that I Like I would watch this again and I if you were to ask me You know before I even knew there was going to be like a brand new suupergirl movie in theaters and that I might want to watch the old one before the new one. I don't know that I would have been that interested and again, I don't know why I thought that the Popeye stuff was the end. That' That's the weirdest part to me is like how your brain You know, you just you just glom onto something and for some reason, I thought that was the finale of the movie and I don't know why. How there might be a chemical in the chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly. I don't know. Maybe I'll forget all over again and the ending will be a discovery. May Mbe there's maybe Selena has cast a magical spell over Supergirl. Power of Shadow Fake Look like a vicious dark star Seek out that wretched young creature destroy her wherever she Oh God, that's awful. Well, speaking of fried chicken, it's time for the junk food pairing. You know what, Glon, I'm gonna let you go first on this one, sir. Okay, so it might be obvious you might think oysters. You might think I think the obvious choices are like ANW and Popeyes because they're right there. I wanted to go for something a little different. I know that dirty sodas are all the craze nowadays that there's actually these places you can drive up and like get a dirty soda So My pairing is a tall Heid glass full of crushed ice squirt add coconut cream The Hart Buckner special. is is the it is the dirty squirt Oh God It's that time Hard Bachner met Holiiver Reid, Yes Oh my gosh. I hate how much I love that junk food pairing Uh and honestly for me, I'm going to go a little bit like because we're doing this in honor of a new movie coming out And because I am such a big fan of weird movie tie ins at fast food restaurants I'm going to go with the supergirl ultimate meal at Pop Wait no, not Popy' KFC. Wait a minute, hold on Wait, Does't it feel like they're like this ancient This ain't your Daddy supergirl movie. Like this chicken change feels like it's specifically like to rebrand it I mean, I don't know, the oppressive amount of Popeyes product placement in this film. It is wild to me that the new suupergirl has hited her wagon instead to Colonel Sanders. It just feels Bizarre. I found out this meal existed and in the interest of not waiting to read Matt Singer's review, which he will definitely at some point do I actually ordered this meal and had it sent to work. I ordered the Supergirl ultimate meal from KFC, which comes with you can you can you do your choice of three original recipe strips or eight nuggets. It comes with a biscuit, a side of choice and a twenty one ounce Kryptonian cooler which is a u It's a mix of starry lemon lime soda, blue raspberry syrup and clear strawberry boba. They went with starry instead of squirt, John. I'm sry about that. What do they know? The idea of having actual Boba in a Fast food movie tie in soda was very different for me. I was like, I've never heard of this before. Yeah They're like little doed deahedrons or whatever the fuck that thing's called. What's that thing? Dosi Deahedron, I believe is what it's called. whate Yeahah, that thing. It's like little ones of those. But it also comes with a blind bag like mini figure from the superl the new suupergirl movie And three exclusive themed sauces, which were Supergirl Solar honey mustustard, which is just a spicier honey mustard Ruthie's sweet Chili Revenge, which is described as a sticky sweet and spicy chili garlic sauce that starts smooth and sweet and then builds to a savory garlic kick in gentle heat because revenge is best served sweet. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I'm not sure what we're referring to But I think my favorite n sauce was the Lobo Wild Ranch For two reasons. One, it was just ranch. Like there was nothing different about it. And I think I've asked you this five times, John, and you've answered this five times. I still don't know who the fuck loobo is or what he's about. I don't know you don't know loobo That's cool That's kind of cool. So loobo' like, u, a big shithead. He's like a he's like He's a big bi He's like he's like this alien space biker bounty hunter dude who does not give a crap about anyone or anything. When Momoa thought he was meeting for Aquaman back in the day because DC was like, hey, we want to take a meeting. He was abbsolutely positive they were they were taking the meeting for a Lobo movie And he was so jazzed because he was like, oh man Yeah, they're going to ask me to play Lobo and he was like so excited and went down there and it was like, here's a character we got for you. Aquaman And he had to completely reframe his own expectations. So they're kind of making good on their promise of like this idea that they, you know, that he wants to be Lobo and now he gets to be Lobo. Yeah, he's great. He's like a u He started off in a comic called Legion which was about a bunch of space faring rebels U And then over the years, he's had his own series Um backack in the nineties, he was like, what if what if we could do Wolverine comics where Wolverine was like funny and super violent and gory um sort of this like antihero Um And then he's been used as like a Superman foil. on and off where he hasn't really been a bad guy, but he's so so much the opposite of who Superman is as a character that he was used in like the animated series and stuff like that to just provides somebody for Superman to bounce off of. He's a lot of fun, just a gleeful Asole shit head antihero character, biker from oututer space who loves dolphins, the only the only thing he respects dolphins. Big Douglas Adams f Douglas Adams fan loobo. So you're saying Momoa getting to play Lobo in this is kind of like channing Tatum getting to play gambet and deeadpool and Wolverine It's like when it's like when the Wizard magazine used to always say Patrick Stewart should play Professor X and then Patrick Stewart play Professor X. It's like everyone has wanted him as Lobo and now he gets to be Lobo and we'll see how he is Lobo. I know Austin had the press screening tonight. As we record this, there are many of our friends are watching it right now. But I'll find out later, but yeah You said that I opened my phone to see if I gotten a text from anybody and instead I got your Picture you texted to me of Michael J. Pollard as Mr. Mixel play. He looks the part He really does just just to kind of give my quick review of this meal. I think it's way overpriced. I don't think there's anything particularly special about it. I think the best thing in this meal weirdly is the Kryptonian cooler. And why that's weird for me is I don't like Bobote at all, but I really enjoyed this drink more than anything else in this meal. So Did you get a toy I did. I think it's Ru Ruthy. I don't know. like I haven't seen the movie yet. So unless you give me Supergirl or Lobo who I only recognize the look of or crypto. I don't know who this person is. You're just giving me a character I don't know and that's fine U my kids will enjoy that Yeah, and the comic is the comic is so good. I know I can tell from the trailers that it's changed somewhat, but usually Comics Lake The movies will adopt the title and then kind of not follow it at all. Age of Ultron is like a great example of like In the Age of Ultron comic, it's about Wolverine an invisible girl traveling back in time to the time of the dinosaurs. It's like that's not what the movie, Age of Ultron is about at all. So often you see the title and the movie something completely different. In this case, it's like The woman ofupergirl, the womoman of Tomorrow comic is about Supergirl going into deep space for her twenty first birthday because she's away from the sun so she can get drunk. So she's not she's losing her Kryptonian powerow so she can actually get get blasted And she takes a spaceship out there because she knows she's not going to be able to fly back she won't have her powers, right So There's a little girl whose family is killed by these like alien marauders and the little girl is se suupergirl hanging out on this planet and is like, Hey, I need you to go get revenge and kill the the person who killed my family. And Supergirls like, I don't operate like that. I don't just go around and kill people. And she's like, Well, that's not what I've heard. I've heard're this great hero. And if you were a great hero, you would go do this thing for me. And Supergirl's like, I don't want to do this thing. And she's like, In fact, I'm going to leave goes to where her rocket ship is and discovers that the Her rocket ship was stolen. as an escape vehicle by the guy who killed the little girl's family So then Supergirl is like, Well, crap. I gott to get my ship back Um and We're basically chasing this guy down anyways because he has my ship. and then it becomes like sort of a space faring where Supergirls like hopping from planet to planet to try to find this guy all the while contemplating how the more she does it, the angrier she gets. So does she actually want to go ahead and take this guy out for causing her all this? pain on her twenty first birthday. And I can tell that the movie carries over a lot of similarities, likeike the basics of the plot are still there, it looks like It looks like supergirls in space. It looks like super girls getting drunk on twenty first. L looks like suupergirls being asked to go stop this guy. you know, it's like there's other stuff in it. I see crypto in it. I see loobo in it things like that. But it looks like they're keeping sort of the basic outline of the comic. And I like that. They don't do it often enough. They really do take a lot of liberties. so it's nice to see it's nice to see the outline sort of being respected as as like this is a good enough jumping off point that we want to keep that. Yeah. I'm super stoked to see it. Hopefully it will do fairly better at the box office than Supergirl eighty four did. Binging in only a domestic gross to fourteen million against a thirty five million dollars budget. And actually finishing the worst of any movie in the original Superman run only by one million dollars because Quest for Peace only made fifteen So it holds the title of making the least amount of money of the original Superman films by one million dollars because yeah, Superman four was and even bigger Based on the budget of Superman four, I think was even a bigger bomb But yeah, I'm really glad I got a chance to revisit this and actually finish it and just so much about it to enjoy, so much about it that it tickles me in all the right places and is right at my wheelhouse. I really think that it's a great sort of a mz booche for the new supergirl coming out if you can find it. And yeah, John, thank you so much for for being my guide through this particular version of Argo City. Thank you so much and someday we'll share a Eessence of Oliver Reed together I'm already I feel like it tastes like Milort. Like I feel like in my mind's my mind's eye, it tastes like Melort for sure. Melort, extra bitters. Oh God. Oh it's all hoops all bitters John, please tell people what you got going on, where they can find you online, what they should be following looking for etcera, et cceta Oh Man finds tape is on all VOD platforms and Blue Ray. Fuck my son is still sort of in theaters, although I think it's on pause right now, but it will never The cup that exists will never be on home video. So if it is playing in a theater in your area, that's the only way to see it. And then next for me,, I am in a right now airing because of the World Cup, you can see me in an ad for reliant energy It's kind of interesting because on the set It was like an airport and I'm supposed to be watching my phone and like They ran me through a lot of different emotions