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Speaker 2: It's very difficult to keep the line between the past
Speaker 2: and the press.
Speaker 3: You believe that someone out of the past can enter
Speaker 3: and take possession of a living be We may be
Speaker 3: through with the past, but the past is not through
Speaker 3: with us.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the next Picture Show A movie the
Speaker 4: Week podcasted to a classic film and the way it
Speaker 4: shaped our thoughts on a recent release.
Speaker 5: I'm Keith Phipps here.
Speaker 6: With Tasha Robinson and Scott Tobias.
Speaker 5: Our radio co host Genevieukoski. We're sorry.
Speaker 4: Report is currently suffering from a kryptonite related illness. We're
Speaker 4: hoping for a speedy recovery. In our last episode, we
Speaker 4: discussed True Grit, Joel Nathan Cohen's adaptation of Charles Porters's
Speaker 4: novel about a girl seeking vengeance or justice, and the
Speaker 4: drunken law man who reluctantly.
Speaker 5: Helps her in her search.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of true grit DNA and Supergirl, Woman
Speaker 4: of Vengeance and comics mini series written by Tom King
Speaker 4: with art by a book with Evily that's the primary
Speaker 4: aspiration for the new film Supergirl. In both Superman's cousin
Speaker 4: carz Orrel, best known as Supergirl and played in the
Speaker 4: film by Millie Alcock, is roped into aiding a girl
Speaker 4: named Ruthie played by Eve Ridley after a barbaric outlaw
Speaker 4: named Krim played by Matthia Shannart kills Ruthie's family tried
Speaker 4: to make Craig Gillespie. For a script by Anna Nogurerira,
Speaker 4: the Supergirl turns outer space into a cosmic version of
Speaker 4: the American West to tell a familiar story in a
Speaker 4: new way.
Speaker 5: Does it work? We'll talk it over after the break.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. My cousin and I have very different
Speaker 2: ideas what it means to be a hero. He sees
Speaker 2: the good, Nevermoe, and I see the truth.
Speaker 6: The bricks.
Speaker 2: Brought destruction.
Speaker 6: To every corner of the universe. The galaxy must be defended.
Speaker 5: You cannot give up on me, all right, So I'll
Speaker 5: last again, does it work are a super Girl? I
Speaker 5: don't think it does that well. I think it's fine.
Speaker 5: I think it's okay.
Speaker 4: Actually, I think my my daughter kind of nailed this
Speaker 4: better than I did. Was like it's it's like an
Speaker 4: okay later MCU film right where it's like it's fine,
Speaker 4: you know, but it's almost like, but it's disappointing in
Speaker 4: relation to how fresh Superman felt and how much like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's a whole different take on this genre, whereas this
Speaker 4: try some interesting new things or some new things or
Speaker 4: newish things, but it doesn't feel in any way like
Speaker 4: it has like a fresh take on the superhero film.
Speaker 4: It's sort of my main thing. There's things I like
Speaker 4: about the film. Ultimately, I gave it like three stars
Speaker 4: out of five. But all the films we're like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's pretty good, and then you spend the next few
Speaker 4: days thinking about all things didn't work about it.
Speaker 5: That's my experience anyway. What about what about you guys?
Speaker 6: I mean that pretty much nails it as far as
Speaker 6: it does it work. I think it works fine as
Speaker 6: kind of shaggy dog story about a couple of gals
Speaker 6: in the galaxy, you know, punching some guys and being
Speaker 6: punched by some guys. As anything else, like maybe as
Speaker 6: a sort of an origin story for the new DCU
Speaker 6: version of Supergirl. It works fine as a story about
Speaker 6: vengeance or justice or superheroism or hero ordinary heroism, or
Speaker 6: you know, helping people through difficult times or grief, you know,
Speaker 6: all of these things that specifically King and Everly's version
Speaker 6: we're doing the movie does the broader, dumber, and often
Speaker 6: in very self contradictory fashion. So you know, in the end,
Speaker 6: I the word that I hear people describe it using
Speaker 6: to describe this movie more than any other is okay,
Speaker 6: isn't Yeah it was okay? And that was kind of
Speaker 6: my take too, was yeah it was okay. And then
Speaker 6: as you say, you start thinking about it and you're like, well, okay,
Speaker 6: except for this part that doesn't make much sense, or
Speaker 6: this part that doesn't really land, or this part that
Speaker 6: kind of comes out of nowhere, or wow, this part
Speaker 6: that's actually really pretty damn ugly when you think about it.
Speaker 5: Scott, I think you are on the less than okay
Speaker 5: side of yes.
Speaker 3: I I think I mean, I would say maybe on
Speaker 3: the fence leaning backwards kind of it would be where
Speaker 3: I go it's fine, it's fine, And I think I
Speaker 3: think you know, Keith, your daughter great insight there. I
Speaker 3: think I think kind of in that later you feel
Speaker 3: but also but I also think more damningly, specifically in
Speaker 3: the late mode in that and that you worry that
Speaker 3: James Gunn, who is hired to kind of take DC
Speaker 3: into a new direction, is kind of injecting that formula
Speaker 3: into DC rather than kind of take it to somewhere new.
Speaker 3: This feels very rote to me, this film, this adventure,
Speaker 3: and nothing just it doesn't, you know. I think one,
Speaker 3: I think Ruthie does nothing for me as a character.
Speaker 3: I think that character needs in the performance too, frankly,
Speaker 3: a lot more juice than it has. I think I
Speaker 3: think it's a very passive character. And I think that
Speaker 3: hurts the film because because you need somebody who's going
Speaker 3: to be for super Girl really ping off, and that
Speaker 3: doesn't really happen, like really to billi alos Cox credit.
Speaker 3: She certainly has plenty of charisma and gravitational force, but
Speaker 3: but I think that the film doesn't have the balance
Speaker 3: that it needs in that in that regard, and I
Speaker 3: think there's there's just kind of a missed opportunity there,
Speaker 3: and I think Manila Darter's review kind of hits on
Speaker 3: this too is like the Supergirl kind of hits us
Speaker 3: at a good time tonally, because yeah, we feel superhero fatigue,
Speaker 3: and that is the defining characteristic of this character, who
Speaker 3: is just like do I have to do? Do I
Speaker 3: have to do any of this? Can I just drink
Speaker 3: and just not just ignore all of this all of
Speaker 3: this burdensome stuff. And I think I think that there's
Speaker 3: almost a meta connection that we have with that character,
Speaker 3: but it's just not exploited as effectively as you as
Speaker 3: you would want, like all across the board, like they
Speaker 3: think there's I think her brief appearance in Superman carried
Speaker 3: more punch than I think is delivered in this movie.
Speaker 3: I was disappointed that Crypto, who was who was absolutely
Speaker 3: one of the highlights, if not the highlight of Superman
Speaker 3: is is uh, you know, gets gets injured, you know,
Speaker 3: and it is not in the movie for a long
Speaker 3: stretch of the film.
Speaker 6: We're not gonna agree on that one. Scott, Sorry you
Speaker 6: don't like the dog.
Speaker 5: I love the dog.
Speaker 6: There was so much Crypto in Superman that I think
Speaker 6: if he had been nearly as front and center here
Speaker 6: it would have stopped being the DCU and started being
Speaker 6: the case. Yeah, exactly, oh case.
Speaker 5: I thought she said maybe K nine Cinematic Universe.
Speaker 6: I don't know, it does not start with the K.
Speaker 4: I think the one thing we're all kind of agreen
Speaker 4: on those is million Alcock's really good in this.
Speaker 6: Oh, she's great.
Speaker 4: She has a better sense of who the character is
Speaker 4: than the script does, and what consistency there is to
Speaker 4: that character from seeing the scene comes entirely from that performance.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I think she's terrific on this, and just you.
Speaker 6: Know, all of the all of the draw towards the character.
Speaker 6: You know, there's a kind of like there's a party
Speaker 6: girl energy and also a weary exhaustion and like layers
Speaker 6: of of grief and frustration and anger. That kind of
Speaker 6: getting ahead of myself here a little bit. But one
Speaker 6: of the things I was talking about with true Grit,
Speaker 6: with the Cohen's True Grit is a sense that you
Speaker 6: don't need to know too much about any of the
Speaker 6: three main characters to know a lot about the history
Speaker 6: of the three main characters. You know, you can see
Speaker 6: their histories in the way they interact with the world.
Speaker 6: And I think she brings in a lot of that
Speaker 6: as well. So maybe it's a little bit of a
Speaker 6: shame that we spend quite as much time as we
Speaker 6: do detailing all of that backstory, But she's the only
Speaker 6: one that comes with that weight. Like literally everybody else,
Speaker 6: including the other character whose backstory we see play out,
Speaker 6: it's just kind of a one note, one element thing,
Speaker 6: you know, a prop for her to interact with, and
Speaker 6: watching this three dimensional character interact with a two dimensional
Speaker 6: world just isn't always very interesting. As Scott says, she
Speaker 6: needed a better world to ping off of and she
Speaker 6: doesn't get it here, and.
Speaker 3: Ultimately too this is again important when you're when you're
Speaker 3: really trying to assert yourself as a brand, as a
Speaker 3: personality or something. It's just is to get a director
Speaker 3: who can give you that. I mean, what is it,
Speaker 3: Craig Gillespie, film folks, what is it?
Speaker 5: What are we looking at?
Speaker 3: I mean, you look at this guy's filmography. You know,
Speaker 3: it's kind of he's kind of pretty good at doing
Speaker 3: you know, he does kind of this real life to
Speaker 3: screen thing with like Ititanyan with Pam and Tommy, which
Speaker 3: it was was the TV show that our friend Rob
Speaker 3: wrote that he was directing. Uh so he's going back
Speaker 3: between the two mediums he did Cruella, you know, mister
Speaker 3: Woodcock or whatever. He's giving what was he giving you Stylistically,
Speaker 3: He's giving you a lot of attitude. He's not giving
Speaker 3: you a whole lot of distinctive style. And again I
Speaker 3: will say it's fine. I mean, I think it's Corolla
Speaker 3: is okay. It's all the wall music though, if I recall, But.
Speaker 4: Krella is part of why I was kind of looking
Speaker 4: forward to this movie though, because it's far better than
Speaker 4: I don't think it's a great film, but it's far
Speaker 4: better than a sort of a what was the word
Speaker 4: brand a deposit.
Speaker 5: You know, live action version of a character that.
Speaker 4: Didn't seem to need her own movie was like, it
Speaker 4: actually has like a fair amount of depth to that character.
Speaker 4: I think the biggest flaw is, like I like that Corilla.
Speaker 4: It's enough that I don't want her to turn into
Speaker 4: the Karrella from her one telemage. Yeah, but it's kind
Speaker 4: of interesting to take on on on, you know, trying
Speaker 4: to how to work with a character like that, and
Speaker 4: I don't really get that from Supergirl at all.
Speaker 6: This is also the director of Lars and the Real Girl,
Speaker 6: and I think it Tanya actually is like a movie
Speaker 6: with a stylistic point of view. I kind of feel
Speaker 6: like he got sucked into the Hollywood machine and you
Speaker 6: know this, this movie to me is just ersatz James Gunn.
Speaker 6: He uses a lot of same visual tricks, camera tricks,
Speaker 6: especially the three sixty spin camera during a battle scene
Speaker 6: which we get a bunch here, which is a big
Speaker 6: gun signature. So I feel like he's evolved from a
Speaker 6: much more distinctive filmmaker into you know, somebody who's producing
Speaker 6: stuff for the machine that the machine wants.
Speaker 3: It reminds me a little bit of you can't help
Speaker 3: but think of the Mandalorian and Grogo from earlier this
Speaker 3: summer in the sense that you have yeah, with James
Speaker 3: gun does come out.
Speaker 5: It sure did.
Speaker 6: I definitely can stop myself from thinking of it. I
Speaker 6: had already forgotten about that movie Computed.
Speaker 3: But I mean, I think the idea though, is like
Speaker 3: both scenarios, you know, with with James Gunn and and
Speaker 3: kind of these new DC movies coming out, and then
Speaker 3: and then Dave Filonian and that that gang taking over
Speaker 3: Star Wars. It's just it's just like we're gonna clean
Speaker 3: things up. Things have gone astray with these you know,
Speaker 3: beloved important franchises. We're gonna we're gonna put in a
Speaker 3: new direction. And it's like you feel no extra life
Speaker 3: at all with something like the Mandalorian Grogu and here
Speaker 3: you know that that initial bit of juice she got
Speaker 3: from James Gunn has just settled into something that feels
Speaker 3: so familiar and so mediocre and so risk averse, and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that was that's kind of just
Speaker 3: ends up being disappointed because it was super goal is
Speaker 3: what it could have been, because you have this character
Speaker 3: at at center, and you have an actress who are
Speaker 3: irreverent and powerful and kind of cool and have an
Speaker 3: attitude that I think you might be able to kind
Speaker 3: of engage with that fatigue that of course we're feeling
Speaker 3: watching these movies. But then the reality is that you're
Speaker 3: given kind of a mediocre adventure in both this case
Speaker 3: and in the Mandalorian and gro Goup, and.
Speaker 6: It's a mediocre adventure with just a lot of the
Speaker 6: you know it is handa put it with. This mediocre
Speaker 6: adventure has all the problems of like the mediocre late
Speaker 6: stage MCU movies, one of which is a really unmemorable
Speaker 6: villain who just does not have a lot going on
Speaker 6: except gra gra I, eat babies and rape children.
Speaker 5: I think that's performance too.
Speaker 6: I I don't know what he could have done with
Speaker 6: that little material that would have stood out. Like he's
Speaker 6: basically an extra for Mad Max and that's that's all
Speaker 6: the script gives him. You know, he has no philosophy,
Speaker 6: he has no point of view, he has no there's
Speaker 6: nothing about him that's interesting. And that's one of the
Speaker 6: biggest disappointments from adapting King Evily's mini series is just
Speaker 6: that character was so defined and so different and interesting.
Speaker 6: His motives were interesting. I truly don't know what KREM's
Speaker 6: motivations are in this movie beyond burn it all down.
Speaker 6: He kicks off the action, yeah, exactly. He kicks off
Speaker 6: the action by showing up at Ruthie's father's place to
Speaker 6: steal all of his like Universe class super swords, and
Speaker 6: then they don't even use any of them. They just
Speaker 6: kind of hang them up. And maybe that's meant to,
Speaker 6: you know, indicate a certain amount of like, you know,
Speaker 6: Potlatchian attitude towards towards things like he didn't do this
Speaker 6: so he could be the best swordsman in the galaxy.
Speaker 6: He did this because somebody had something he wanted. And
Speaker 6: then you know, he killed everybody in sight. But that's
Speaker 6: not interesting, and the Cram of the comics mini series
Speaker 6: has a point of view and has a reason for
Speaker 6: what he did and only killed Ruthie's father as opposed
Speaker 6: to mask herring her entire family and burning down their farm,
Speaker 6: and it had nothing to do with swords. It's just
Speaker 6: it's a much more interesting and nuanced take on the
Speaker 6: story and the character. Here everything is flattened out up
Speaker 6: to an including Lobo, who is just a character I
Speaker 6: have never found particularly interesting, and here really only seems
Speaker 6: to be inserted awkwardly into the middle of this story
Speaker 6: so we can say, hey, here's this guy. Later, when
Speaker 6: we have a movie that's just him, you'll know who
Speaker 6: he is. He's that guy that was in Supergirl.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Superman did that much more gracefully, like introduced
Speaker 4: like a bunch of actors that presumably we'll see in
Speaker 4: later DC movies. But it felt like it was doing
Speaker 4: it as part of the story it was being told,
Speaker 4: where it's like this, he feels so shoveled in and like, yeah,
Speaker 4: Lobo shows up in the comics for like one issue,
Speaker 4: is like, oh, that's kind of Lobo's kind of fun.
Speaker 4: But then you know, Lobo Alstaates is welcome, and that's
Speaker 4: that's that's that's no good. And basically Alstaates is welcome
Speaker 4: by being in this movie. I don't really love. I'm
Speaker 4: kind of a Jason momoas skeptic, I guess in some ways.
Speaker 4: And I just felt like this was way way too
Speaker 4: many like beefy dudes who are doing the same thing.
Speaker 4: We got to dial back back, Yeah, you got to
Speaker 4: dial back and like yeah, And I was really excited.
Speaker 4: I know Tom King's a divisive writer, both for what
Speaker 4: he writes and for his background. No ways, no way
Speaker 4: to get into that gracefully in this podcast, but I do.
Speaker 4: I really loved this mini series and part of that
Speaker 4: was part of why I was excited about this film.
Speaker 4: And then when you look at the changes made, particularly
Speaker 4: to the ending of the film, which is basically, hey,
Speaker 4: Supergirl and pals go off and have his space adventure
Speaker 4: versus a very interesting bit of moral reckoning and so
Speaker 4: a lot of ambiguity in the in the end of
Speaker 4: the Comics mini series. Yeah, it was. It's definitely felt
Speaker 4: like something that had been reduced. And also the late
Speaker 4: introduction of this whole like Fury Road, We're going to
Speaker 4: uh traffic in these women and they must be saved thing.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, that's that felt like just sort
Speaker 4: of like we got to RAISEI stake somehow.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know. Again, It's fine, but
Speaker 5: it's also frustrating.
Speaker 6: It feels like a nineties superhero movie. It feels like
Speaker 6: we've gone back like several generations of you know, iterations
Speaker 6: and developments on what superheroes can be. And I don't know,
Speaker 6: there's a kind of nineties like nihilism too. I mean,
Speaker 6: first of all, the Lobo, who was created earlier but
Speaker 6: kind of you know, became a to the degree that
Speaker 6: he's an iconic figure like that that all came out
Speaker 6: of his nineties reinvention to you know, Supergirl in the
Speaker 6: end of this movie consciously choosing murder, which is something
Speaker 6: that was hugely, hugely controversial when Superman did it in
Speaker 6: the Zack Snyder verse, to the degree that it took
Speaker 6: over a lot of the conversation about that movie. And
Speaker 6: here to me kind of is presented almost as proof
Speaker 6: that Supergirl is not Superman, which we get a lot
Speaker 6: of throughout this movie, you know, both in terms of
Speaker 6: her like partying and getting drunk and puking and seeking
Speaker 6: out places where she's not Super so she doesn't have
Speaker 6: to feel any responsibility for being super and also so
Speaker 6: she can knock herself blotto with alcohol, but also in
Speaker 6: periodic conversations with Superman, with David Corn Sweat showing up
Speaker 6: in these little cameos that initially I thought we're going
Speaker 6: to be just, hey, you liked this guy in this movie,
Speaker 6: hear some more of him, But I actually I ended
Speaker 6: up thinking we're One of the more interesting aspects of
Speaker 6: this movie is just him trying to reckon with this
Speaker 6: this new thing that's been thrust upon him, and him
Speaker 6: trying to, you know, extend his goodness and his boy
Speaker 6: scoutness to somebody who went through something so similar to
Speaker 6: what he's going through and reacted so differently and has
Speaker 6: come to the same place that he's come to and
Speaker 6: has reacted so differently to it. So, you know, I
Speaker 6: think maybe the conversations between the two of them and
Speaker 6: her way of seeing Earth versus the way he sees
Speaker 6: Earth are some of the most interesting things in the movie,
Speaker 6: and they're just backgrounded for most of the film, so
Speaker 6: we can have, you know, antic nonsense involving aliens, slimy
Speaker 6: cg aliens with weird anatomies, and see a whole bunch
Speaker 6: of very young girls who have been trafficked as sex slaves,
Speaker 6: running around being helpless and in many cases dying, all.
Speaker 5: Leading up to they're they're not just for kids anymore, leading.
Speaker 6: Up to a moment at the very end where one
Speaker 6: of them does somethings just so you can say girl power.
Speaker 3: Yes, hear you talk about the movie in detail, because
Speaker 3: I don't remember any of It's like, oh, that happened,
Speaker 3: that's interesting. I'm good recall on that. I just to
Speaker 3: kind of reflect. I do feel I agree with you, Tasha,
Speaker 3: that that what we do get here with Superman. Those
Speaker 3: interactions are some of my favorite moments in the movie
Speaker 3: because they do feel like they're talking about something important,
Speaker 3: and they do. They do come you know, have these
Speaker 3: as you say, similar experiences that they've that they've can
Speaker 3: come to different conclusions about and reshape the lives and
Speaker 3: different ways around. All that stuff is real dramas and
Speaker 3: real things that you can kind of chew on. But
Speaker 3: I think you know not to harp on Lobo here.
Speaker 3: But let's just talk about Lobo for a second. Like
Speaker 3: you all have experience with Lobo. I'm a comics idiot.
Speaker 3: I don't know who this guy is. So imagine imagine me.
Speaker 3: Imagine me, this naive fellow who's just going out to
Speaker 3: have a good time at Supergirl encountering this character.
Speaker 5: What am I supposed to make it? This guy?
Speaker 3: You know, you know, it does not matter to me.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter to me that he he doesn't have
Speaker 3: a significant, important role in this movie. It's not the
Speaker 3: movie could take him or leave him, and you kind
Speaker 3: of wish that they would leave him. But I have
Speaker 3: no investment or interest in how this character might you know,
Speaker 3: this character needing to be established to be in future movies.
Speaker 5: This is what are we doing here?
Speaker 3: I mean, I just think I'm so tired of these
Speaker 3: films throwing out, you know, some basic storytelling responsibility of
Speaker 3: these in order to extend the franchise, in order to
Speaker 3: link together one film to the next. It's so exhausting
Speaker 3: and it's so damaging to the films individually.
Speaker 5: To make movies that way.
Speaker 6: When you say he doesn't have a significant role to play, Scott,
Speaker 6: I think you're forgetting the very important thing at the
Speaker 6: end where even though he's a bounty hunter and his
Speaker 6: only job is to get this guy's head and get
Speaker 6: the bounty, and he does that, and in spite of
Speaker 6: repeatedly telling us that he doesn't care about anything else,
Speaker 6: he still comes back to like witness the end of
Speaker 6: the confrontation and you know, give these girls an approving
Speaker 6: nod to make sure that it's clear to everybody that
Speaker 6: he likes the way they he likes the cut of
Speaker 6: their jibs.
Speaker 5: You know, you almost feel like you can almost read
Speaker 5: the contract.
Speaker 4: It was like, mister Momoa must be on the in
Speaker 4: the film for no less than X number of minutes.
Speaker 5: Like, oh crap, how are going to do that?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, an approving nod, that'll solve it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he has a nutritionist to by the way, there
Speaker 3: was that that was in the credits as well. He
Speaker 3: had a nutritionist on set for Jason Cawell.
Speaker 6: That's not surprising. You do not maintain a Jason Momoa
Speaker 6: body without a team of people helping along the way. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I that that little like that'll do pig nod at
Speaker 6: the end. It just kind of chaps me a little bit,
Speaker 6: I think, because this is the kind of movie that
Speaker 6: a certain kind of publication is going to call feminist
Speaker 6: because there were women in it, their characters and they
Speaker 6: do stuff for themselves, and him showing up at the
Speaker 6: end rud for that'll do pig to me is a
Speaker 6: bunch of like boy executives saying, well, like the end
Speaker 6: is kind of a bunch of girls shoot and kill
Speaker 6: a bunch of men, Like we we got to make
Speaker 6: sure that everybody knows that, like this isn't an anti
Speaker 6: men movie, Like where where are the men at the
Speaker 6: end of the movie? Can we bring that back? That
Speaker 6: one guy that's who everybody's going to be interested in.
Speaker 5: What's that one viral tweet?
Speaker 4: I am not comfortable unless this is about me, but
Speaker 4: it's written like bird Speaker.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the bird Bird Spokesman is a longtime favorite of mine.
Speaker 6: But I am not comfortable unless we are about me.
Speaker 6: Is Yes, the Chef's kiss the perfection of the form.
Speaker 4: Well, we should probably move on. We're not done with
Speaker 4: super Girl yet. We're gonna Yeah, she can take it, Superpowers.
Speaker 4: We're gonna beat up on Supergirl. Well, the film, not
Speaker 4: the actual character who I like, but when we compare
Speaker 4: it to a true grit. We'll be back after the
Speaker 4: break with Connections.
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Speaker 2: Do you have any information on the break in?
Speaker 5: That's so the information's gonna cost you.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you when.
Speaker 6: I'll arm rescue for her.
Speaker 2: Seriously, you win and you can have us both. I win,
Speaker 2: and you can tell us where the brigands are.
Speaker 5: Deal.
Speaker 2: Deal.
Speaker 4: Now it's time for connections, where we bring these two
Speaker 4: films together talk about all the things they have in common,
Speaker 4: which is quite a lot, you know. I when I
Speaker 4: first read this comics MAK series like, oh, we gotta
Speaker 4: do true grit when Supergirl comes out, and I stand
Speaker 4: by that, obviously stand by it.
Speaker 5: We're doing it.
Speaker 4: But it seems like some of the connections have been
Speaker 4: severed between the source material.
Speaker 5: And True Grit.
Speaker 4: But there's still plenty to talk about here, starting with
Speaker 4: children who task themselves with adult responsibilities. I guess it's
Speaker 4: sort of Ruthie versus Maddie. I mean, you're right, Ruth's
Speaker 4: pretty passive. She's pretty passive, but she does at least
Speaker 4: she does have the true grit.
Speaker 5: One might say.
Speaker 3: She hangs in there she wants to be. I mean,
Speaker 3: she she has to do a tremendous amount of hounding
Speaker 3: to get Supergirl to to uh, you know, do what
Speaker 3: she wants her to do. So in that sense, there's
Speaker 3: definitely a maddiness to it. Uh, But I think that
Speaker 3: there's this a lack of commitment there. I mean, we
Speaker 3: talked about in True Grit how Maddie is asserted through
Speaker 3: the narration and elsewhere as being you know, at this
Speaker 3: you know, our hero, the person through which the story
Speaker 3: is told. That is definitely not the case with Supergirl.
Speaker 3: You know, Ruthie feels you know, yeah, And it doesn't help,
Speaker 3: but it makes it does contribute to that impression of
Speaker 3: Ruthie as being a more passive character or less engaged
Speaker 3: or in engaging character as she she might have been
Speaker 3: because Ultimately, our focus is on Supergirl and whether or
Speaker 3: not she's gonna, you know, be roused into action, and
Speaker 3: how difficult it is for her to kind of get
Speaker 3: there and and in order for to get there, it
Speaker 3: you know, it makes you know, Ruthi look kind of
Speaker 3: like a you know, a little pest rather than somebody,
Speaker 3: rather than a pest that we really enjoy, like Maddie.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, there's a again that that's that's
Speaker 3: one kind of comparing In contrast, uh, that really doesn't
Speaker 3: work in Supergirl's favorite and almost kind of underlines some
Speaker 3: of the foundational problems with Supergirl that really aren't present
Speaker 3: and true grit in terms of just having that strong
Speaker 3: through line, having that strong presence really pushing the action forward,
Speaker 3: because you know, she has truly lost something important, people
Speaker 3: important to her, and we don't we don't feel it
Speaker 3: in a way in the way that I think.
Speaker 5: We need to.
Speaker 6: I think an interesting contrast here, Specifically, the way Keith
Speaker 6: has framed this point as children who task themselves with
Speaker 6: adult responsibilities is that Ruthi doesn't have a choice because
Speaker 6: she doesn't have a family. Her her entire family has
Speaker 6: been killed and she's the last survivor looking for justice,
Speaker 6: whereas Mattie makes it very clear that you know, her
Speaker 6: mother and siblings are at home, she just doesn't trust
Speaker 6: her mother to pursue anything. She describes her mother in
Speaker 6: probably like loving but contemptuous terms, I guess as a
Speaker 6: teenager might as kind of like ineffectual and indecisive, and
Speaker 6: her other siblings is you know, too young for vengeance.
Speaker 6: So this is something she's consciously taken on herself, but
Speaker 6: there are other people that could have done it, including
Speaker 6: the lawyer that she keeps citing. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 6: occur to her or she doesn't trust her lawyer to
Speaker 6: handle the hiring of a ranger to go out and
Speaker 6: do these things, like she wants to be there herself
Speaker 6: for it, whereas Ruthie kind of has to go do
Speaker 6: it herself if it's going to get done at all,
Speaker 6: and there's you know, and she unlike unlike Mattie, she
Speaker 6: doesn't really have much to offer for you know, she
Speaker 6: has the last of her father's swords, but that doesn't
Speaker 6: really make a difference to Supergirl, who you know, can
Speaker 6: punch holes in the sides of battleships and doesn't use
Speaker 6: or need a Sword, So in terms of the amount
Speaker 6: of choice going on here and the amount of distrust
Speaker 6: of adult authority, I think they're kind of kind of
Speaker 6: notably different characters. But then in execution, I just I
Speaker 6: just feel like the filmmakers didn't trust us to realize
Speaker 6: that Supergirl was the hero of this movie if Ruthie
Speaker 6: was capable at all, you know, because Maddie is pretty
Speaker 6: capable and does a handful of things to prove it.
Speaker 6: Ruthie until the cage sequence towards the end, you know,
Speaker 6: she doesn't have a swimming in the river moment, she
Speaker 6: doesn't have a pulling down on Tom Cheney with a
Speaker 6: gun mid film moment. She just keeps getting rescued over
Speaker 6: and over and over. And she's just as bullheaded, you know.
Speaker 6: So she keeps charging into danger, which means super Girl
Speaker 6: has to rescue her more. And one of the things
Speaker 6: that I found just like a sort of ongoing background
Speaker 6: to irritant in this movie was just the really repetitive
Speaker 6: loop of you know, Ruthy's attitude gets her into trouble,
Speaker 6: super Girl rescuers or repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, which is,
Speaker 6: we have Maddie's attitude to contend with in true grit,
Speaker 6: but it takes all sorts of different forms, and she
Speaker 6: isn't in constant need of rescue. She's maybe in biggest
Speaker 6: picture in need of rescue emotionally, but in terms of Okay,
Speaker 6: the bad guys are going to kill her again right now.
Speaker 6: If I don't do something, we don't have to deal
Speaker 6: with that loop a thousand times in true grint.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's only really towards the very end that she's in,
Speaker 4: like you're pronounced peril, and part of that has to
Speaker 4: do with the snake, not the actual bad guys.
Speaker 6: That's true. And you made a point about the emotion
Speaker 6: impact of that sequence, and just like how hard Cogburn
Speaker 6: like works to keep her alive, it's also just it's
Speaker 6: emotionally impactful because we haven't already seen it twelve times
Speaker 6: in the movie so far.
Speaker 3: Yeap, is there something to be said too about the
Speaker 3: fact that Ruthie actually witnesses the loss of all of
Speaker 3: her family members, whereas Mattie is at least disconnected from
Speaker 3: that incident. And you know, because it seems to kind
Speaker 3: of affect the tone of these movies a little differently,
Speaker 3: there's like, I guess a little you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: you would feel more trauma, grief, et cetera if you
Speaker 3: were to have actually been there in a way that
Speaker 3: Ruthie is and where you know, as opposed to Mattie,
Speaker 3: who is responding to a situation that she wasn't actually
Speaker 3: you know, there to I don't know see on her own?
Speaker 5: Did it?
Speaker 3: Did it make a difference to you?
Speaker 5: All those two things before.
Speaker 4: We get into that, you know you're saying that makes
Speaker 4: me think about saying about true grit because we see
Speaker 4: her father's body and the opening scene, right, but is
Speaker 4: that the only moment in the film that's really removed
Speaker 4: from Mattie's point of view, like that memory.
Speaker 3: Too, that, Yeah, that shot of that of the body.
Speaker 5: Because I don't think we leave her side for the
Speaker 5: rest of the movie, do we.
Speaker 6: I'd have to rewatch it with that specifically in mind.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't want to say that we definitively don't and
Speaker 6: then and then be proved wrong.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well not much anyway.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but that's a really good point. It is it
Speaker 6: is stylized. It's a story that she's telling us, and
Speaker 6: it's very clearly a story that lives in her imagination.
Speaker 6: But it has to it has to be part of
Speaker 6: her imagination because she wasn't there. And you know, given
Speaker 6: how capable and headstrong Mattie is and how determined she
Speaker 6: is that the world will it has not yet been
Speaker 6: proven to her definitively that the world does not work
Speaker 6: the way she says it's going to. I have to
Speaker 6: imagine that somewhere in the back of her is the
Speaker 6: feeling that if she'd been there, she could have fixed things,
Speaker 6: she could have made sure that that didn't happen somehow,
Speaker 6: you know, whereas Ruthie was there and was completely helpless,
Speaker 6: and so you know, she's acting out against that helplessness.
Speaker 6: There is also a sense of which, you know, it's
Speaker 6: clear that Ruthie, Ruthie got to see Cram and see
Speaker 6: like how fearsome he is and went on to fight
Speaker 6: him anyway, like, went on to chase him across the galaxy.
Speaker 6: Maddie clearly had met Cheney, but thinks of him as
Speaker 6: kind of adult and says so till the beef and
Speaker 6: one of their their better fencing matches. She clearly does
Speaker 6: not have anywhere near this sort of She's not haunted
Speaker 6: by him, She just you know, needs to see him
Speaker 6: brought in whereas Ruthie is kind of haunted by Cram
Speaker 6: and the Raiders, she knows what they're capable of, so
Speaker 6: in a way, it's it's braver what she's doing, whereas
Speaker 6: Mattie is coming from a place of like ignorance and youth,
Speaker 6: you know, lack of experience with the world covered over
Speaker 6: by a teen arrogance. So I think I think that's
Speaker 6: where it makes a difference for me Scott in terms
Speaker 6: of kind of those two perspectives.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one other thing, like the heart of both of
Speaker 4: these movies is a journey, and in Drew get a
Speaker 4: journey through the American West, who has some very untamed
Speaker 4: corners of the American West. Supergirl's equivalent is I actually
Speaker 4: thought one of the better parts of the film was
Speaker 4: kind of this tour of like bus stations and convenience
Speaker 4: stores and backwaters. We only get like a really proper
Speaker 4: Western style setting once they arrive at the planet where
Speaker 4: the Brigands are are hanging out. What did you think
Speaker 4: of that sort of alternative to the.
Speaker 5: Old West that we get in Supergirl.
Speaker 6: I will say we do get a small snippet of
Speaker 6: it earlier in the scene where Ruthy meets Souper Girl.
Speaker 6: When Supergirl goes after the guy who the alien who
Speaker 6: has just stolen Ruthy's sword and tossed her aside. She
Speaker 6: comes out and there's just it's just a straight up,
Speaker 6: you know, confrontation on main Street at noon, you know,
Speaker 6: gunslinger face off, complete with like the shot of the
Speaker 6: two of them facing each other. Of course it's happening
Speaker 6: at night in the dark, and one of the combatants
Speaker 6: is drunk off of her ass, but there there is
Speaker 6: very much a high noon kind of feeling to the
Speaker 6: way that scene is framed and shot.
Speaker 3: At least I feel like with Supergirl there's kind of
Speaker 3: it's a little guilty of sort of the mosies lefication
Speaker 3: of these types.
Speaker 5: Of movies where we got there Scott.
Speaker 3: Where you get these kind of bar scenes all the time,
Speaker 3: where you're just thrown into these onto these planets, into
Speaker 3: these settings where where there are a bunch of where
Speaker 3: the creature effects go wild, and there's all kinds of
Speaker 3: it's a chance for our reluctant hero to get get
Speaker 3: in a little bit of a bar berall with some
Speaker 3: strange beings. There's a little bit of sameness there, But
Speaker 3: I dost think the kind of sameness of this film
Speaker 3: is sort of the point. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 3: think when you've been drinking as much as Superherol drinks
Speaker 3: in this movie, that that has a way of flattening locations,
Speaker 3: that has a way of making different planets look like
Speaker 3: the same planet, different bars look like the same bar.
Speaker 3: This this kind of habit that she's gotten into, and
Speaker 3: the film kind of reflects that it is not It
Speaker 3: does not have I'm afraid to say the richness of
Speaker 3: the Collin's portrait of the post war American West. I'm
Speaker 3: sorry to say point point True Grit on that one too.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't you know. I just think
Speaker 3: there's a lot more to kind of dig into in
Speaker 3: terms of the relationship between the world of the film
Speaker 3: and in True Grit, and the way the character is
Speaker 3: kind of interact with that world morally, you know, the
Speaker 3: way they kind of you know, the question of justice
Speaker 3: and vengeance, and and how that that that is kind
Speaker 3: of seeking justice becomes a much different sort of thing
Speaker 3: in this in this particular environment in a way that's
Speaker 3: so thematically compelling. I'm trying to grasp onto what it
Speaker 3: is about, you know, the backdrops, I suppose in super
Speaker 3: Girl that that feel as textured.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'm missing something very Star Wars. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think you're right with the moss ilification of space. In
Speaker 4: a way, there's parts of me that made me think
Speaker 4: this has kind of had a little bit more Star
Speaker 4: Wars iness to it than the Mandalorian and Grogu. But
Speaker 4: maybe I've just been you know, you know, a little
Speaker 4: a little too short, a little too sharp there.
Speaker 6: I think of it as maybe a little less Star
Speaker 6: Wars afying and a little more Guardians of the Galaxy afying. Sure,
Speaker 6: because I feel like Guns kind of drawn a portrait
Speaker 6: of DC in the space that's this messy, like overlapping
Speaker 6: lots of different aliens with you know, kind of low motivations,
Speaker 6: kind of kind of place something that does feel battered
Speaker 6: and used the way Star Wars settings you know, quote
Speaker 6: unquote current era Star Wars settings as opposed to like
Speaker 6: high Republic era settings. So yeah, I mean, maybe that
Speaker 6: all came out of Star Wars as well, Who knows.
Speaker 6: To some degree it comes from trying to turn the galaxy,
Speaker 6: the DC Galaxy of the comics into something that can
Speaker 6: be like reduced down to a backdrop for single films.
Speaker 6: But here, Keith, to go back to your original question,
Speaker 6: I don't know that I really feel the Old West
Speaker 6: of that final confrontation, you know, the sequence where Supergirl
Speaker 6: is on the planet with the Green Sun, which I
Speaker 6: don't know. This is another part that the comics did,
Speaker 6: and the comics did it better in that there's an
Speaker 6: explanation for the Green Sun, which is an artificial It's
Speaker 6: an artificial planet that was created to trap Superman in
Speaker 6: a previous story arc, which makes a lot more sense
Speaker 6: to me than a Kryptonite Sun somehow. Sure, I don't
Speaker 6: know what that even means. That world though, and the
Speaker 6: kind of like sun blasted barrenness of it does feel
Speaker 6: like a Western setting. But once they catch up with
Speaker 6: the Raiders and start fighting them, you know, we're we're
Speaker 6: much more for me in mad Max Land than we
Speaker 6: are in classic Western land. You see, I prove me wrong, Like.
Speaker 4: Well, actually kind of kind of referra more to the
Speaker 4: town before that. But I do think like the whole
Speaker 4: a Kryptonite Sun thing is, it's very much the man
Speaker 4: with no Name gets beat up and has to like
Speaker 4: you know, himself back to health.
Speaker 5: An inner Barn kind of moment too.
Speaker 4: You know, but yeah, the final fight is definitely We're
Speaker 4: in Mad Max's science fiction territory and we're in slow
Speaker 4: motion and we got a prominent needle drop of a
Speaker 4: not great cover of a great song.
Speaker 6: But oh, that's when we were talking about Craig Gillespie's
Speaker 6: style and I was chaffing him for copycatting James gunn.
Speaker 6: I completely forgot about the needle drops, which are another
Speaker 6: you know, big, big, big James gun signature.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean they're a glossy thing too, but
Speaker 4: with Golspie's it tends to be more like a zomcasy.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: These are familiar songs that you know, and this is
Speaker 4: a familiar song, but it's covered by artist named Kilty
Speaker 4: Gray and Kid Motel, which I'm not familiar with. But
Speaker 4: I'm old, so I don't. I don't necessarily know all
Speaker 4: the all the hip new bands. I didn't really care
Speaker 4: for this cover of the Jimmy World song.
Speaker 3: Though it probably is like some sort of like a
Speaker 3: billion views on TikTok or something. It was something we
Speaker 3: was like screaming at us right now.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Maybe I'm not sure that the kids are listening to
Speaker 6: this podcast. I think not being on YouTube might hurt
Speaker 6: us with the kids.
Speaker 5: They're they're cool.
Speaker 3: Middle aged parents are listening and they're screaming in the
Speaker 3: in the back seat to make it stop. Other connections here, Keith,
Speaker 3: you have written down is uh the bad guys are
Speaker 3: kind of worth speaking about, really really really bad bad guys,
Speaker 3: as you.
Speaker 5: Put it both in both films. For sure, Yes, so
Speaker 5: I would.
Speaker 3: I will kind of still give the edge to super
Speaker 3: to Krim. I guess it's Supergirl as being I mean,
Speaker 3: they're there, they are they're raiders who who in pirates
Speaker 3: who and thieves and scoundrels who who will kind of
Speaker 3: take advantage of any situation and have no you know,
Speaker 3: no compunction to restrain themselves at all and getting whatever
Speaker 3: it is that they want. I think again, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't really keep harping on quality here,
Speaker 3: but there's something so specific about James Brolin's depiction of
Speaker 3: Tom Cheney that stands out. I mean, I think you've
Speaker 3: I think you've seen this type of character before. There's
Speaker 3: something there's a fundamental weakness to him. You know, he's
Speaker 3: not he's not imposing in a way that really upsets
Speaker 3: or rattles Maddie. I mean, Maddie has put in a
Speaker 3: spot at a spot where she she has to take action,
Speaker 3: and that's scary for her. But she's not really scared
Speaker 3: of him, and she doesn't really have reason to be
Speaker 3: in the same way that everyone has good reason to
Speaker 3: be afraid of Krim, given given his power and his
Speaker 3: ability and his hench people and his ability to create
Speaker 3: mass chaos. But I think there's something kind of but
Speaker 3: I mean, but still in both cases, you know, you
Speaker 3: have to, you know, grapple with a villain that is
Speaker 3: really truly capable of doing anything, because there's just nothing,
Speaker 3: there's no moral sense, nothing but holding them back from
Speaker 3: getting what they.
Speaker 6: Want, not to not to throw another rock on the
Speaker 6: on the scales on the true grit side. But Tom
Speaker 6: Cheney's another character that we don't really learn a whole
Speaker 6: lot about. And yet the little speech that he gives
Speaker 6: that's basically just a self pitying like everybody's against me.
Speaker 6: To Maddie. His whole backstory seems to ahimount to I
Speaker 6: just don't got the luck like people, I get no respect.
Speaker 6: People are constantly demanding that I, you know, surrender the
Speaker 6: money that I lose at gambling and not kill them
Speaker 6: and take their stuff, and you know, it's the world
Speaker 6: is against me. It's just it's tough on me that
Speaker 6: my luck is so bad now this kid has come
Speaker 6: along and shot me. Oh no, it is the inevitable
Speaker 6: consequences of my actions. Yeah, it's just that it makes
Speaker 6: him a really interesting character. I mean, it means that
Speaker 6: we need Barry Pepper as Ned Pepper to kind of
Speaker 6: like back him up as a scarier villain. Because Tom,
Speaker 6: even after all of this pursuit of him and obsession
Speaker 6: with him, is a pretty pathetic villain. You know, he's
Speaker 6: amoral and monstrous, but he's just not scary to an
Speaker 6: adult viewer's eye. He's pathetic. Cram, on the other hand,
Speaker 6: seems like, I don't know, like somebody was writing what
Speaker 6: they thought would be scary, and it's like, oh, he's
Speaker 6: got red eyes, and he doesn't talk much, and he's
Speaker 6: got scary facial piercings, and he wears battered leather and
Speaker 6: he again cannot say it too many times, kidnaps and
Speaker 6: sexually assaults children in order to maintain his all male
Speaker 6: group of raiders, which I guess they throw away the
Speaker 6: girl babies as well. I mean there's just sort of
Speaker 6: an inherent monstrousness there being throw not a very casual
Speaker 6: way and not actually becoming part of the story in
Speaker 6: any like thoughtful way. Apart from and now we've got
Speaker 6: a bunch of victims running around. It's he's not scary,
Speaker 6: he's he's boring. I mean, you might as well introduce
Speaker 6: him by saying he bites the heads off kittens. He's
Speaker 6: a kitten head bitter. We're not gonna we don't need
Speaker 6: anything more about him or who he is or what
Speaker 6: who believes because kitten biten. Also, it's like a German word,
Speaker 6: now that I say it out loud.
Speaker 3: Kitten biten.
Speaker 4: If you're gonna borrow from Mad Max, you know you
Speaker 4: have to like face up to the fact that Mad
Speaker 4: Max says some of this from film to film. It's
Speaker 4: some of the best villains ever in science fiction movies.
Speaker 4: So you know, you really should put a little more
Speaker 4: investment into.
Speaker 3: This is an important context too that you can really
Speaker 3: grasp onto thematically in those villains too. I mean, you
Speaker 3: think about it more. I think about Morton Joe all
Speaker 3: the time when the Trump administration. I'm sorry, just like
Speaker 3: that that just like right, exactly exactly. I mean, how
Speaker 3: can you not connect to that level of vility because
Speaker 3: that you know, denying and then occasionally parsing out something
Speaker 3: that is so precious and essential for human human life
Speaker 3: and that you need that he needs something other than oh,
Speaker 3: this is just a guy who who is just awful
Speaker 3: and can you know, destroy a whole room full of
Speaker 3: people without giving any thought Like that's not enough. There
Speaker 3: needs to be.
Speaker 5: There needs to be I think a.
Speaker 3: Little bit more thematic purpose to it, and I think
Speaker 3: I think and I think really you can look at
Speaker 3: Cheney as being a product of his time, as being
Speaker 3: the type of person who can you know, like again,
Speaker 3: if we're talking about if I made the Third Band comparison,
Speaker 3: like a like a less elegant Harry Lyme who's kind
Speaker 3: of can operate in this world, in the shadows of
Speaker 3: this world because no one is going to stop him.
Speaker 3: He can kind of he can be a scoundrel because
Speaker 3: this is the world that is created him and in
Speaker 3: his world that sustains him. And you know that's different
Speaker 3: than what I think we get in Supergirl.
Speaker 6: In True Great we've got ned Pepper as a backup
Speaker 6: villain and he's somebody else we don't learn a ton about,
Speaker 6: but when he's very clearly got an ethos. You know,
Speaker 6: he leads this gang of criminals who are devoted to him,
Speaker 6: even though there are a bunch of weirdos, one of
Speaker 6: whom his presence consists entirely of a series of amusing
Speaker 6: animal impressions. But his like the way that he treats Maddie,
Speaker 6: you know, courteously and almost kindly. He does not hesitate
Speaker 6: to literally step on her face and threaten her life
Speaker 6: to get what he wants. But he's a man of
Speaker 6: his word in terms of keeping her safe. When he
Speaker 6: leaves her behind with Tom Cheney, there is sort of
Speaker 6: a question of what exactly his intent is. It seems
Speaker 6: to me like his intent is to like ditch this
Speaker 6: wild card who is with trouble more than necessarily to
Speaker 6: harm either of the two of them, But like leaving
Speaker 6: the two troublesome elements alone with each other and not
Speaker 6: necessarily caring how that falls out. Is certainly a choice.
Speaker 6: But you know, up until then, he has a courtesy
Speaker 6: about him, and again he clearly has an ethos. And
Speaker 6: again what's missing from Krem is any sense of an ethos,
Speaker 6: a purpose, a belief system, something he falls back on
Speaker 6: that isn't just raw raw rare, kill kill.
Speaker 4: We should probably start to wind down, but I think
Speaker 4: we probably should talk about what you know, thematically connects
Speaker 4: these films, which is they're both stories about revenge, justice
Speaker 4: and vengeance. I mean, again, I feel like we're just
Speaker 4: piling on, but I feel like True Grit has a
Speaker 4: sense of that and something to say.
Speaker 5: Or Supergirl. We get a lot of talk of super.
Speaker 4: Girl protecting Ruthie from Committee, an act of a vengeance
Speaker 4: that she'll regret, but it's all talk and and you know,
Speaker 4: ultimately we never get like sort of the counterweight to that,
Speaker 4: which is like Supergirl's own past and her own regrets
Speaker 4: and the way they weigh on her. I guess we're
Speaker 4: kind of supposed to maybe in two of them, by
Speaker 4: the fact that she does this for Ruthie and does
Speaker 4: kill Krem and perhaps not the first time she's done
Speaker 4: such a thing. But I feel like there's a scene
Speaker 4: missing or something that that would really kind of make
Speaker 4: that land. I don't know what was you know, what
Speaker 4: was your experience.
Speaker 6: Watching it exactly that I saw the movie before reading
Speaker 6: the comics, Mini series and the comics mini series. A
Speaker 6: spoiler for this kind of edges right up to that ending,
Speaker 6: and then has Ruthie stop Supergirl from killing him and
Speaker 6: basically say, like, everything, everything you just preached to me about,
Speaker 6: you know, murder leaving a scar on your heart is
Speaker 6: true and I learned it from you, so I don't
Speaker 6: want you to kill him for me, and end up
Speaker 6: sticking him in the phantom zone for hundreds of years
Speaker 6: and then pulling him out once he is repentant as
Speaker 6: a new man. And then there's a weird, weird little
Speaker 6: coda that has been much debated and that I find interesting,
Speaker 6: though it doesn't land perfectly for me, but it's again
Speaker 6: just so much more nuanced then Supergirl in the movie
Speaker 6: kills Krem again to establish that she is not Superman,
Speaker 6: that she is a different character with a different moral code,
Speaker 6: and almost the rest of the story doesn't matter in
Speaker 6: terms of how it leads up to that. I think
Speaker 6: you could make an argument that part of what the
Speaker 6: film is saying is that she thinks she is so damaged,
Speaker 6: so jaded, that it doesn't really matter what happens to
Speaker 6: her heart anymore. It doesn't matter what she does morally,
Speaker 6: she is already so damaged that if she damages herself
Speaker 6: a little bit more, it doesn't matter. Well, that is
Speaker 6: a very sad and cynical thing to say, and it's
Speaker 6: something that the film doesn't really contend with her address
Speaker 6: in any way, and it's something that really doesn't go
Speaker 6: well with her willingness to protect Ruthie or her you know,
Speaker 6: devotion to Crypto as this like last little scrap of home,
Speaker 6: you know, this very sentimental like affection that she has
Speaker 6: for him, which is again the basis of a really
Speaker 6: cool twist in the comics. So it truly just felt
Speaker 6: to me like they took the comics, took every single
Speaker 6: twist in it and untwisted it, ironed it out and
Speaker 6: made it a completely straight line. And they couldn't have
Speaker 6: fit comic the super horse like I'm not even to
Speaker 6: me comic. The super horse in the Woman of Tomorrow
Speaker 6: comic is what Lobo is in the Supergirl movie, just
Speaker 6: like he's he's a I was gonna say a ride
Speaker 6: in a drive in, but I guess a gallop in.
Speaker 6: And the way his story wraps up on unravels requires
Speaker 6: like a knowledge of Supergirl background that this comic is
Speaker 6: not in any way providing, So that whole element was
Speaker 6: weird for me, and I'm glad they didn't try to
Speaker 6: which comet this, you know, the whole like time there
Speaker 6: we go trot on. The whole obsession with with Crypto
Speaker 6: as a symbol of like her remaining humanity or cryptonianity
Speaker 6: or whatever it is, would kind of fall apart if
Speaker 6: there was another super pet that she had also brought
Speaker 6: with her who was also like just run around the
Speaker 6: galaxy with her.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: My fear is that Crypto is being so prominent in
Speaker 4: these films that we may never get Streaky the super Cat.
Speaker 4: And you know that may be the ultimate, the real
Speaker 4: tragedy of this version of super Girl.
Speaker 6: Be the super Monkey.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, or there's there's more. But and I know
Speaker 4: their names. I don't, I can't, I can't. I can't
Speaker 4: reveal it.
Speaker 6: That we we could just sit here like opposite each
Speaker 6: other and throw these things back and forth, like over
Speaker 6: Scott's head, since he's already said he's hopeless and extras.
Speaker 3: You should only just make up. You can just make
Speaker 3: up names and make up Streaky the super Cat.
Speaker 5: Okay, that exists.
Speaker 3: I'll take your word for it, but maybe maybe a
Speaker 3: super Hamster.
Speaker 6: When are we gonna It's like everybody's.
Speaker 3: Some kind of like dissolve quiz type of thing where
Speaker 3: it's like which which of these super pets is real
Speaker 3: and which one we made up.
Speaker 4: Mayer's hope is that Avengers Doomsday provides a window for
Speaker 4: us to talk about and baffle Scott with our discussion
Speaker 4: of frog Thor. This seems like a really good place
Speaker 4: to end when you start talking about frog Thor.
Speaker 6: Did we reach any conclusions about you know, vengeance and
Speaker 6: justice in either one of these movies?
Speaker 4: Not greats available on DVD and Blu Ray, and it's
Speaker 4: also overvent Front on the usual services. You can also
Speaker 4: find it on Paramount plus Canopy, and if you don't
Speaker 4: mind some ads, Pluto Supergirl is currently in theaters. We'll
Speaker 4: be right back with your Next Picture Show. Finally, it's
Speaker 4: kind to recommend a film or film related item that
Speaker 4: compliments this set of episodes. We call it your Next
Speaker 4: Picture Show in the hopes that it'll put some interesting
Speaker 4: choices on your radar. Scott, I believe you have a
Speaker 4: film for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we were talking about Hailey Steinfeld and
Speaker 3: how great she is in Triggrit and how great she
Speaker 3: is generally. And I cannot possibly let this episode go
Speaker 3: by without giving a shout out to the Edge of Seventeen,
Speaker 3: which is an absolutely fantastic underseen but still quite appreciated
Speaker 3: by critics film from two thousand sixteen that was written
Speaker 3: and directed by Kelly Freeman Craig, who's sort of a
Speaker 3: James L.
Speaker 5: Brooks.
Speaker 3: I don't know discovery is the word, but they've worked
Speaker 3: together on this. And then also she did a wonderful
Speaker 3: adaptation of Are You there, God, It's Me Margaret that
Speaker 3: again didn't get seen as much as it should have,
Speaker 3: but in both both films are extremely insightful about the
Speaker 3: interior lives of girls of different ages. Here you have
Speaker 3: Hailey Steinfeld play someone who is the title suggests. On
Speaker 3: the Edge of Seventeen is a little bit later in
Speaker 3: high school. She doesn't have any friends. She has one
Speaker 3: friend basically, and she in Her main confidant in school
Speaker 3: is this teacher played by Woody Harrelson, who she likes
Speaker 3: to grouse to. But the problem with this one friend,
Speaker 3: she seems perfectly happy to have that one friend, who's
Speaker 3: played by the always amazing Hailey Lou Richardson is that
Speaker 3: is that her friend starts to have feelings for her
Speaker 3: brother and tries to get involved with her brother, and
Speaker 3: that kind of throws her world up in the air
Speaker 3: and makes her even more sort of alienated from her
Speaker 3: school and her you know, feel that much more isolated
Speaker 3: as a teenager.
Speaker 5: And it's just such.
Speaker 3: A warm, funny, insightful movie. Haley Steinfeld is terrific in it.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just basically, like I think I said
Speaker 3: at the time, it's like one of those movies that
Speaker 3: that you can you see it and you know that
Speaker 3: it didn't perform as well as it did, but then
Speaker 3: twenty years from now, it's going to be the type
Speaker 3: of movie that there's gonna be oral histories about. People
Speaker 3: are gonna remember it as being like this incredibly important
Speaker 3: movie of its time. I just think it's a wonderful film.
Speaker 3: So if you haven't seen it, highly recommend the Edges.
Speaker 3: So do you highly recommend to the director's follow up
Speaker 3: if you are you their God, it's me, Margaret, because
Speaker 3: I think that's really on the show Show So so
Speaker 3: we had a chance to recommend it.
Speaker 5: Back then.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of praise for that film.
Speaker 5: If I recall we're Freeman craigheads, we are.
Speaker 4: Well, that's it for this edition of the Next Picture Show, Scott,
Speaker 4: Can you tell us about our next pairing?
Speaker 3: Obviously we like the Coen Brothers around here. Back in May,
Speaker 3: we paired the bloody Minnesota set thriller Normal with the
Speaker 3: Cohen snowy neo noir Fargo, and just this week we
Speaker 3: paired Supergirl with the Cohen's adaptation of True Grit because
Speaker 3: their stories mapped onto each other so perfectly. Now, with
Speaker 3: the new Christopher Nolan adaptation of the Odyssey looking like
Speaker 3: the movie going event of the summer, please forgive us
Speaker 3: for dipping into the Cohen well a third time with
Speaker 3: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, a low brow Depression era
Speaker 3: comedy that's loosely based on Homer's epic poem with references
Speaker 3: to the Blind Sear, the Sirens, and the Cyclops. We
Speaker 3: cannot guarantee that we'll never do a Coen Brothers movie again,
Speaker 3: but we can assure you that after The Odyssey and
Speaker 3: O Brother Where At Thou, we will go back to
Speaker 3: acknowledging the fact that other filmmakers have also made classic films.
Speaker 4: For now, we welcome your feedback on true Grit, Supergirl,
Speaker 4: and anything else. So I'm related you'd like to talk
Speaker 4: about email us at comments at next pictureshow dot net,
Speaker 4: or leave us a voicemail at seven to seven three
Speaker 4: two three four nine seven three zero before we close
Speaker 4: out this week's podcast work. We find everyone these days, Tasha.
Speaker 6: You'll find me in a hailstorm right now if you
Speaker 6: can hear the noise in the background if the mic
Speaker 6: is picking it up. I am still on Blue Sky
Speaker 6: at Tasha Robinson. I am still generally at loose ends.
Speaker 6: I'm over at Vulture recapping dropouts flagship game show Game Changer,
Speaker 6: and enjoying that a lot. I reviewed Supergirl for polyon
Speaker 6: dot com, But for the most part, I'm kind of
Speaker 6: taking a little break from culture writing. I'm pretty burned out.
Speaker 6: So yeah, you know, just maybe I don't have to
Speaker 6: have an opinion about everything all of the time. It's
Speaker 6: it's it's kind of a release, sir.
Speaker 5: I don't like that.
Speaker 6: What well, I'll find things to argue with you about Scott,
Speaker 6: don't you.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 4: We just each hit up Tasha independently for opinion on everything.
Speaker 5: Tasha, what do you think about this?
Speaker 6: Dang it. I thought, I thought that I had gotten out,
Speaker 6: and then they pulled me back in for one last opinion. Scott,
Speaker 6: where can we find you writing about things that I
Speaker 6: can disagree with you about?
Speaker 3: Well? Mostly had the Reveal the newsletter write for Keith.
Speaker 3: That's the Reveal dot Film. And you can also find
Speaker 3: my work at The New York Times, Vulture, Guardian, and
Speaker 3: other fine publications. You can also find me on Blue
Speaker 3: Sky at Scott Tobias, Keith Phipps.
Speaker 5: Well, I am a freelance writer.
Speaker 4: You can find me on Blue Sky at KFIPS three
Speaker 4: thousand and other various social media there. I occasionally write
Speaker 4: for places like TV Guide and Vulture but right now,
Speaker 4: but mostly you can find me at the Reveal dot Film,
Speaker 4: where I write about movies with my pal Scott Tobias.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's the Reveal dot dot film. And our
Speaker 4: regular co host, Ajaukowski is the TV editor at Vulture,
Speaker 4: and she is on social media in theory at genevie
Speaker 4: Kowsky on Blue Sky and but not mostly just kind
Speaker 4: of lurking.
Speaker 5: We're still worried about her whole Christmas place.
Speaker 3: Some good stuff about her gardens, usually parts of Instagram,
Speaker 3: like you get that's in dog stuff.
Speaker 4: Gardens and dogs two great things you can say up
Speaker 4: there on Next Picture Show, at Next Picture Show dot
Speaker 4: net and on blue Sky at the Next Picture Show.
Speaker 4: You can get bonus content and open discussion at Patreon
Speaker 4: dot com slash Next Picture Show and as always, really
Speaker 4: appreciate your rating and reviews on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to the show. Thanks to Dan
Speaker 4: That Makes Jakes for the assistant producing this podcast, The
Speaker 4: Next Picture Show is proud to be part of the
Speaker 4: Film Spotting family of podcasts.
Speaker 5: Please tune in next time.
Speaker 6: It was a good movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah, seen here before once