You know, a wise man once said, I think it was Attila the Hun. It is now enough that I succeed, everyone else must fail. Seems fair.

Wow. Paul, that was a quote from Superman III, is the movie we watched. Yes.

What a startling and alarming worldview.

Yes. Well, I mean, it is coming from the villain, but he's a shockingly inept villain. So, I think the only way he could win is if everybody fails.

Yeah. The construction of the villain in this film fascinates me.

That is more than I can say for the effect it had on me, but I'm glad to hear it. You're being fascinated is a state of mind. I'm very excited to know what.

I mean, there's so many choices in this film that fascinates me.

So many choices, Paul. Absolutely. Well, you know what? In that case, let's go ahead and introduce ourselves and start this, because I think Superman, you know, I think that's going to be a hot-button topic for you and I. Let's get into this. Ready? I'm Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

And I'm Paul Alvarado-Dykstra.

And this is...

Multiplex Overthruster Summer of 83.

Paul, Superman III is, can I just give you my hot take on this movie?

Please, I've been dying to hear it.

You know, so I've actually seen this movie twice in the last six months, both for here and then earlier. I found myself in a situation where that's just the thing we did, because we were curious, and the other person had not seen it, and I told them it was terrible, and then they insisted on seeing it, and quickly came to regret that decision. Paul, we're going to do a little something different in today's show, because we're just going to talk about each of it. Well, we just don't want to go through the scene, through the movie beat by beat, so we each pick three scenes we want to talk about, and we'll just go through the plot of the movie as we do that. Paul, what shocked me about this movie is how just unremarkable it is. It is a bad movie, and it's full of bad choices, but it is so flat. It is shot flat, it is designed flat. Everything in this movie seems so flat to me, and as I was thinking about remarkable, remarkable scenes in this, I couldn't come up with any, except for the one that you're going to bring up. But it's like the one sequence you're going to bring up. But it just, everything seemed so just phoned in and unremarkable to me. That's sort of my hot take on the movie.

It is so not super. And again, coming in the wake of the pinnacle of still one of the greatest, if not the greatest, the prototype of superhero movies, Richard Donner's Superman, which is a masterpiece.

And Superman II, which Superman is a masterpiece. Superman II, even though Donner famously was replaced by Richard Lester, who then directed this film, Superman II, I remember when that movie came out, it was humongous. And the idea that Superman was going to lose his powers and they were super villains, I mean, we didn't have Marvel back, there was no Thanos in the movies. It was huge. And I remember thinking that movie was just insanely good.

It took a big swing. It is an interesting hybrid of Donner's and Lester's colliding visions.

Colliding, at what point do they collide?

The Donner director's cut is worth seeking out. I have never fully embraced Superman II because I'm wearing a Superman t-shirt in honor of the proceedings today.

Is it the one that says, There's very similitude on it with the Richard? No.

Although that would be a good choice. This is a comic book graphic tee. For many people, let me just preface this.

Should we go to the bell?

We should probably go there. Let's go to the bell.

Let's hit the bell. Let's hit the bell. Ready? Okay, here we go.

Ding, ding.

All right, Paul. We're going to mix up our format a little bit and in part to clear a little room to speak more broadly about Superman and Superman and cinema.

It'll do go on. Do go on.

This will afford us. And as a, let's just say a bit of a disclaimer off the top, I would say most men of our generation, you know, long-lived Gen X are for the most part formative cinematic childhood experience with Star Wars in a movie. Yes. That was not mine. My formative and partially because of I was very young when Star Wars came out. But the most vivid, impactful childhood memory I have of going to see a movie in a theater, it looms toweringly large.

The damascene conversion experience for me becoming a writer, literally where I fell off my horse and saw a flaming cross in the sky was Star Wars, right? But here's what's interesting. Superman came out what, a year later? Yep. And at no point in Star Wars did I drop my popcorn, stand up, cheer and clap. When Superman picks up Lois Lane in the helicopter crash and he and she's and just from the moment that he's running down the street with this with a shirt open. Yeah. And I'm eight years old. I was on my feet clapping. I dropped my popcorn. It was ecstatic. You know, I mean, that moment was so that the sequence is so well, so beautifully rendered. And that moment is so just and you waited an hour to see Superman. And it's so great.

I cannot agree with you more. To this day, there is no scene in a film that will turn me back into a seven-year-old and put me right back in the seat, in the theater where I was as a kid. Then that sequence, the helicopter sequence, I will go to my grave arguing maybe the single most exhilarating, thrilling sequence in cinematic history.

I'm not going to argue that with you because you know what? My experience of it was exactly that. And yes, I was seven at the time or eight or nine or whatever the hell I was. But I got to tell you, I'm in agreement. Like, I experienced a true cinematic ecstasy watching that and I don't have a lot of moments in my life where I can say that happened. So I'm right there with you.

Yeah. And it still holds up. So I just feel like that we have to set the table of context in terms of as we're descending into the barren hellscape of Superman III. But then Superman II, like, you know, I personally am like, Superman would never give up his powers, not even for Lois. So it lost me on that fundamental choice. But I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. People can disagree.

Dude, she was in the room. He wasn't going to say no with her in the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Jor-El had taken him aside and said, hey, buddy.

And the villains are awesome, yeah, and all that. But also, there's some silliness, the Lester stuff. And like, it just, anyway.

Well, I think Superman III is where we see what Superman II would have been like if Richard Lester had directed more than 50% of it.

Exactly.

And what's interesting about that is, you know, so famously, and I just said this in your T-shirt, Richard Donner, and even though Superman is a screwball comedy, it is written like a 1930s, and even the costumes are like a 1930s screwball comedy, right? Richard Donner had a sign on the production department that said, on the production and art department that said, verisimilitude, right? And here's the thing, Superman, in that sequence where he jumps up, you know, when he first time you see him, take the shirt off, see the ass, you know, runs into, you know. So the hotel that he runs by, right, is called the Hotel Vandalier. And I've remembered that name since I was eight, because the thing about that movie, and it actually segues really well into the first scene I want to discuss in Superman III.

Okay, great.

So he runs past the Hotel Vandalier, he takes his shirt, you know, he rips his shirt open, he goes into the, and he flies up and he gets Lois Lane, right? And of course, there's like a pimp there, literally. He goes, hey, Jim, that's a bad outfit, you know? And yes, it's a problematic question of a woman.

Unfortunately dated, yeah, choice.

But the thing is, in Donner's Superman, those streets, those sets are full of interesting shit, like the Hotel Vandalier, like the background players in the Daily Planet. That movie feels directed to me.

Yes.

Now you look at the opening of Superman III, and to give you context in it, it starts, it's not, so most of the time when we start, Superman does something heroic or whatever. In this one, it literally starts with just Metropolis, it's out on the street, and it's Gus Gorman has been told he can't get any further unemployment. And as he's leaving the unemployment office, you're kind of out in the streets of Metropolis, and there's like a blind guy with a dog, but then he winds up holding onto like a machine, because his dog runs away, so he ends up hanging onto a machine that paints stripes on the ground on the road, and then he winds up kind of misleading a car into hitting another car, and then somebody bumps a bunch of mechanical penguins, one of them is on fire because of a little fire pod that is like keeping people from falling into a pit that's been dug into the street. And of course the blind guy winds up falling, some guy winds up falling, not the blind guy. And literally it ends, and as this is going on, this sort of rubricled Berghian mayhem is going on, and we don't have a quote because it's a silent movie basically. The credits are rolling in a blur, in kind of a blurred lower third. And I remember seeing this movie in the theater going, this is wrong. I don't know what I'm looking at here, but this is wrong. And the thing that's so wrong about it to me is like also, that looks like it was shot at LA Center Studios or in like the back lot of Warner Brothers without any set decoration. There are no interesting extras in this. There's no life in this. It's literally just a sort of shtick that's going on that's supposed to be so clever and, you know, that the penguin is actually set on fire, and you think the penguin is going to blow something up, but then Clark Kent grabs it and uses super breath to like... And then, you know, a car crashes into another car and the car goes on top of a hydrant and the guy's going to drown in his car and Superman finally shows up. And, you know, but not before going to a photo booth to change. And then there's photos of him as Clark Kent. It's inane.

It is. Every moment of it is so extremely, extremely inane. I did not want to go in that depth of detail, but if that is one of the scenes you wanted to discuss, I'm not going to deny you of the, of the catharsis. But it occurs to me as producer Brad cackles in glee at our, at our early onset madness in this episode.

A dissented details, would I call it.

So, so there's this double whammy right out of the gate where we open and the film, it's like, wait a minute. I came to see Superman III film, not a Richard Pryor comedy.

On unemployment, right?

A depressing scene of him failing to get any more unemployment checks. That's how you open a Superman movie?

Cold Opens with Richard Pryor in the most boring unemployment office ever.

It's just charmless and it's, oh, and then, yeah, the sequence you describe over the title sequence. And again, in stark contrast to the majesty of one of the greatest title sequences of all time.

Just around the movie. Starting with the old timey movie theater and the music and the girl narrating and then we're going up to our Krypton and the letters are flying toward you. And then we start living in an unemployment office and then this, but here's the thing. Richard Lester directed A Hard Day's Night, okay?

Yes.

I understand that Richard Lester is a slapstick guy. I understand that that's what he brings to the party, but I do not understand who thought opening a Superman movie with a Rube Goldberg conflagration of poorly staged urban shenanigans was the way to go, you know?

I will answer that question.

Go on.

With two words. Yes. The Salkinds.

The villains of the piece, aren't they?

Here's the thing. Sure, without them, there would have been no Superman.

Yeah, whatever.

But the origin of Superman, the movie fundamentally pivots on the fulcrum, that is Tom Mankiewicz and Richard Donner forging an alliance to save the film from what they were going to turn it into, which was this. And that led to Donner's whole proclaiming, we are going to be committing to verisimilitude and not make this a cartoony, send up, campy.

I can speak to this very clearly. So Mario Puzo wrote the first draft for Superman the Movie, and it was subsequently taken from him and saved by Tom Mankiewicz and Richard Donner in their urge for verisimilitude, right?

Yeah.

In the first draft of Superman the Movie written by Mario Puzo, Superman swoops down on a bald guy on the street thinking he's Lex Luthor, and it turns out to be Telly Savalas. And he has a funny scene with Telly Savalas, and Telly Savalas goes, who loves you, baby? And Superman flies away. That was the movie the Salkinds wanted to make, because they were just these cheesy European producers who were like looking for a buck, right?

It was going to be a gag a minute. It did not take the character seriously at all, whereas Donner said, let's set this in the real world or as close to it.

Yes.

And for better or worse, he does not make any attempt to make Metropolis anything other than New York City.

Even Rex Green shows up, for God's sake, like totally. Yeah.

And that's fine. But as you said, it has this sensory tactility of feeling like we are in a real place, in the real world. And Kansas, even though it's Calgary, feels like, or Alberta feels beautiful and real. And Norman Rockwell asks, anyway, we're talking about the wrong movie. But it's the contrast to this movie that is inescapable.

Inescapable.

And here, Superman III is giving us the answer to the question, what happens if you do a Superman III without Richard Donner, with Richard Lester in the Salkans, left to their own devices, and also with a very tightly squeezed budget?

It had a larger budget than Return of the Jedi.

Wow. And it doesn't excuse just how poorly designed this movie is. It is a movie that looks brown and unremarkable. It has no really big set piece. There's no crypt on the bullpen of the Daily Planet. It looks flat. It's just such a flat, horrible movie. It's so, like... And the thing is, Paul, so, you know, let's just talk about the first third of it. Let's just give... So, guys, because we don't want to go beat by beat on this movie, just to give you, like, we each pick three scenes. We're just going to tell you what happened to the first third of the movie. Gus Gorman is an unemployed near-do-well played by Richard Pryor. And, you know, that reminds me of... Do you remember when Star Trek IV came out and there was, like, a whole rumor that it had originally been written for Eddie Murphy?

Yes, they were trying to get him to be the marine biologist.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what? I think somebody watched this and said, let's not do that.

Yes.

So...

Well, well, and they... Again, the film is, like, torn between trying to be a Richard Pryor movie and trying to be a Superman movie. And clearly, Richard Pryor is a Superman fan. Like, you can tell he is excited to be in this movie. He must be more excited than anyone else involved.

He's more excited than I was in the theater.

Yes. But there's a fundamental, just, collision here that just is, like, trying to mix these in a way that does not... Anyway...

In a very typical 1980s understanding of computers, Gus Gorman is horribly unemployed. He gets turned down for benefits, and he picks up a matchbook on the street, and the matchbook says, Unemployed, learn about computers. He goes to a computer class, where, by the way, the teacher in the computer class is one of the assassins from For Your Eyes Only.

Oh, yeah.

He's the guy in For Your Eyes Only who goes, License to kill or be killed. Take him away. So anyway, that guy's teaching the computer class. Gus Gorman realizes that he's a natural computing genius.

Yes, he's miraculously a latent computer programming prodigy.

Like, he literally makes something happen in the computer, and the teacher's like, you shouldn't be able to do that. How would you do that? And he's like, I don't know. I just did it. Like, he literally understands computer on a fundamental level. He gets a job at WebSco, which is the company owned by whoever the fuck they were.

Ross Webster.

Ross Webster, the villain. And he promptly starts a scheme, which by the way famously parodied in the film Office Space, where he channels all of the half pennies in the system into his paycheck, which does lead to one kind of funny scene where Robert Vaughn is told of the robbery, and he goes, no, the person who did this is smart, they know computers, they did this, they're probably hiding, hiding the money, they're probably going to lay low for a while, unless it's a complete idiot. Cut to music blaring from outside, and Richard Pryor drives up in a Ferrari.

Yes. Which is kind of a funny gilligan cut. There's a, and I will say, Robert Vaughn, who plays Ross Webster, is kind of delightful, given what he had to work with.

You know, Robert Vaughn was delightful in Battle Beyond the Stars as a space samurai. That guy made a lot of hay out of a lot of shit that he was given in his career, yeah.

But here's one of the interesting things about this film, is they could not, they sidelined Lois Lane, who appears only in the beginning and the end.

Because the Salkinds didn't want to pay Margot Kidder's quote.

Right, exactly, exactly. Because they have to pay Richard Pryor.

Every decision in this movie is based on something stupid like that.

Yes, they could not bring back Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. So what they essentially do is they bifurcate Luthor's character into two. So they take the sort of mastermind genius and they put that in the brain of Gus Gorman, of being this computer prodigy. And then they have this other villain in the form of Ross Webster, Robert Vaughn, who lacks any kind of skills in that area. So he needs Gus to be able to hatch his plan, which, just skipping ahead.

Oh shit, the plan. Is there a scene between the plan?

There are scenes. Well, we'll save it, because it is astonishing. And also the racism in it is astonishing.

Oh, the racism, the racism, yes.

But yeah, so the film is sort of on two narrative tracks. We are following Gus Gorman, Richard Pryor, getting into WebSco, getting this job, and then getting recruited or caught, whatever. That's going to happen in a bit. He set the plan of the seeds of his own doom. Meanwhile, Clark at the Daily Planet has pitched a story about going back home to Smallville for his high school reunion. What's happening in small town America right now? This is basically just to get him out of Metropolis and the Daily Planet, get Lois Lane off on a vacation to Bermuda.

Bermuda, yeah, Bermuda.

Yeah, so good for her. But he takes Jimmy along to take pictures. There's product placement from Trailways buses. As he and Jimmy go, there is a stop at an accident, a fire, some chemical plant.

There's a guy watching the acid, because if the acid gets over a certain temperature, it'll destroy the Western Hemisphere. Superman fixes it by freezing the top of a lake and dropping the ice on top of the fire, which, had it been rendered with any panache, could have been a good set piece.

Yeah, but it's sort of mediocre.

The acid was krypton green. It was colored krypton green.

The what? The acid, really? Yeah. Okay, well, there you go.

But it's not great. And, of course, Jimmy gets in trouble and then has to be saved and then blah, blah, blah. But it's really a setup for something that'll pay off later.

It's a setup for, just remember, there's a krypton green acid. Producer Brad, I'm shocked you don't call it reanimator green, but that's another story.

Well, we're in 1983. We haven't seen reanimator yet.

Oh, that's right, we haven't seen reanimator yet. Sorry, producer Brad.

So our goal here is that each of us have picked three scenes that we will actually discuss in depth. And we're gonna kinda go by acts. So in the first act, the first scene that I actually was charmed by, because I am suffering.

You were charmed by something? Oh my God, wow, do go on.

So we get the Class of 65 reunion, this really bad prom reunion scene that is just not great. But there we meet Brad Wilson, played by Gavin O'Hurley.

Son of Dan O'Hurley, one of the greatest character actors in sci-fi history.

Yeah, and he was portrayed as the former prom king, alcoholic, jock, whatever. Yes, producer Brad.

Do you know what else O'Hurley was in?

Willow. Well, he was General Kale's second in Willow.

First, he was Chuck Cunningham in Happy Days. That's the older brother who disappears from the show.

Really? Oh my God, well, okay, there you go.

But I know him from his eyes. He played Jack Pitachi in Never Say Never Again, which also came out in 1983. He played the pilot who had facial surgery that allowed him to steal the jet with nuclear bombs.

Domino's brother who gets, yeah. As you can see, we were so charmed by this movie that we want to talk about anything but this movie.

Paul, he had a good 1983.

He did, yes. Paul, I think the entire Smallville subplot is saved by one thing and one thing alone, and that is the presence of the beautiful, charming, underappreciated Annette O'Toole.

Absolutely.

Who once, I think she was on, I think they actually had her on Smallville, right? Wasn't she?

Yeah, she's reappeared, and also, yeah, she's reappeared in other inclinations.

Wasn't she Mark Kent in Smallville, actually?

Yeah, I believe so.

All I know is I was working on a show called Jake 2.0. I was on that plane that goes from LA to Vancouver three times a day that takes all the famous actors back and forth, because Jake shot in Vancouver. Annette O'Toole sat across the way from me, and I handed her her purse, and it was the best moment of my life. That's all I have to say.

That sounds positively magical.

It was the best.

You will be pleased by the first scene I chose that I want to discuss.

Do go on. Let's see the clip.

I love this. It is after the reunion dance, two people have stayed behind or come back in the morning, because it seems to be day, to clean up or to help clean up, and they are none other than Clark and Lana.

There must be a gallon of potato salad left over. Well, you know what the problem is?

Um, I don't know. Too much mayonnaise?

Mayonnaise? Donald loved mayonnaise. Why would you think that was the problem? No, the problem is, why do I stay in Smallville? Believe me, I've asked myself the same question. Do you know how lucky you are to live in Metropolis, the Big Gay Pricot?

But I hear the Big Gay Pricot the way she says it.

Don't believe that's how she says it. So, I kind of love this scene. And again, I am bringing my own baggage from being raised on Superman lore in the comics. Right. There are two glaring problems the film has just with the Clark-Lois-Lana Triangle.

And it is. Well, there's no Lois.

First of all, first of all, in Superman lore, the whole point of Lana is that this was his childhood sweetheart.

Yes, she was in Superman I. Absolutely.

Who, well, we get a glimpse of her in Superman I. We don't really get a sense that they had much of a connection or relationship. But we do know, we do get a sense of wistfulness of Clark towards her. But Lana is supposed to know that Clark is Superman. That's kind of the point that has powers in the lore. Okay, fine, it's a movie, it's not the comics. Set that aside. But there are two other problems. We have just left Superman II with the whole romance of Lois and Clark.

But she has amnesia. He gives her the big amnesia. Paul, I believe if I were describing that scene in an hour, I would say he put the whammy on her.

He put the super whammy on her.

The super whammy.

But we know that in his heart of hearts, at this point, Clark Superman loves Lois Lane. Yes, yes. Like that's what the audience has been told. So now this movie is injecting to what the audience is gonna feel like a betrayal because they do not have an attachment to Lana.

Yeah, yeah.

If they don't have all that context and back story. Because this incarnation of Lana says that basically she hardly knew Clark in high school.

Right.

And that now she's having second thoughts about like, you know, oh, sometimes there's another quote where she says, wistfully at the end of the scene, you know, sometimes years later you can look at someone and say, well, I guess that's the one that got away. And she's looking wistfully at a high school photo of Clark Kent there at the reunion. But it is young Christopher Reeve. It is not Jeff East.

Not the kid who played young Clark Kent in the movie.

Who played high school age Clark Kent in Superman. It is ignoring that and it's also showing young Christopher Reeve in high school in Smallville without glasses who looks just like freaking Superman.

Yep.

So like this, so there are all these problems in this scene that the cans of worms that this opens up, which drive me crazy. And yet the interplay, the chemistry between Clark and Lana, Christopher Reeve and Annette O'Toole is kind of magical.

Well, I'm going to, you know, it's funny because I have another scene between them later on that I want to talk about. And I think the one thing that this movie shows to me in a really interesting way is that, you know, I don't think Christopher Reeve was ever particularly well lauded as being as being a good actor. You know, I think he was Superman. People love him as Superman. And he did, he did a lot of work in between, but nobody ever went, oh my God, that guy's a great actor. But I think what you see in this movie, especially in these scenes with Lana Lang, is this is a Juilliard trained guy. He knows what he's doing. He makes choices, he follows them through. And look, Superman I and II, it's the contrast between Clark and Superman, the way that he switches, all of that. And I feel like the only thing that redeems that whole subplot for me is that Christopher Reeve's actually acting. And he's actually giving these scenes his all. You know, when Christopher Reeve, there's a great clip on YouTube of him bagging on Marlon Brando. And he's saying that Marlon Brando was one of his idols, and he just sort of showed up, phoned it in, cashed his money and left, and that it really upset him because even if it's a bad job, you don't do that, you never phone it in, you need to lead, you need to lead your generation of actors. It's kind of his point. And by the way, in this movie, and then in the even more atrociously putrid Superman IV, The Quest for Peace, Christopher Reeve gives this character his all. Every single scene, every line. And that is, if this movie has any redeeming virtue for me, and it's gonna be the scene you talk about later, it is because Christopher Reeve is a professional and he's doing his job and he's doing it really, really well. And I feel like he was never recognized for being as good as he was. I don't think the material was ever as good as he is, you know?

No, he is so earnestly committed with every breath on camera. And it is a wonder to watch. Yes. Because also there are two things that occur to me, and I love everything that you just said. One is that you definitely feel and tell, and I have been watching interviews with our new Superman, David Gordon-Sweat, who is also a Juilliard-trained actor. And it has been very interesting. But before they filmed the new Superman film, apparently the last thing they did for prep was to watch the Christopher Reeve documentary, Superman, which is on HBO Max, whatever it is called. And it could get to you.

That documentary could get tears out of a doorknob. It is amazing.

Yeah, yeah. It is essential. But one thing that occurs to me is that you always have the sense that Christopher Reeve very consciously carried the mantle of responsibility of what it meant to play this character, especially for kids, and to portray him. The other thing that is coming up in Act II is what got him excited or interested about coming back for this film is that it gave him new colors to paint with that he hadn't gotten to paint with and really create and portray a third character that we have not seen.

Those colors strangely resemble the colors of Henry Cavill's Superman costume, but we'll get into that in a second.

Yes. But before we leave this scene, a couple interesting things. Lana reveals she is a single mom in Smallville as a son named Ricky.

And the price of oil is getting really bad. It's hard making ends meet.

Yeah, hard making ends meet as a secretary. She had to pawn her diamond ring. Again, set up for later. She asks Clark as he's fiddling with a piano, which is a little choice that I find very charming. Asks if he never got married. And so she's starting to see him in a way she's never seen him or looked at him before, which is a choice. But again, there's all this other stuff going on. But yeah, I love that he starts this scene kind of still wearing the mask of this Clark Kent persona he is assumed. But it starts to loosen as his heart melts for Lana, who we get in again, this timeline clearly was someone he carried a torch for in high school and long ago kind of thought maybe he'd moved on and gave up on it, but now it's rekindling.

I think these scenes are also the only ones, and look, nothing with the producer Brad. I'm sorry that the bad guy is named Brad in this movie. It is a blemish upon the good name Bradley.

He is a bad guy, not the bad guy.

Yes, the alcoholic ex-football player, which is how I see producer Brad when I look at him. Oh, well, producer Brad is in Maine. He's three hours ahead of us, and he just downed a bourbon, even though for us in California and Texas, that'd be day drinking for producer Brad. That is cocktail hour.

That it is.

But what I was saying is that, again, this is the only part in this movie where you get the kind of little screwball comedy, but it's a respectful idea of screwball comedy that doesn't goofify the superhero antics and lower the stakes, which is, you know, in the first movie, the second movie, all the hijinks in The Daily Planet, they didn't undermine the stakes. They were just funny because the characters were funny. I think, so here's what happens. Gus Gorman, it turns out that there's a satellite that reports on the weather. However, Ross Webster's sister Vera has realized that the satellite, if you program it, if you use the magic computer enough on it, and you put the magic computer whammy on it, it doesn't just report the weather, it can create the weather. Ross Webster wants to control the coffee crop. So he basically gets, oh my God, this is so lame, it's so fucking lame. So he gets Gus to go to Smallville where he gets Brad drunk because he needs to use a small computer in a terminal that can't be tracked. So they use the Smallville terminal because that's how computers work. So he actually shows up at Wheat Co.

or something, it's stupid. This makes no sense.

And by the way, and this also leads to one of the most asinine cost-cutting things in this movie, which is that Gus Gorman successfully, even though he's drunk, gets the satellite to cause a hurricane that is about to destroy the coffee crop in Colombia, which by the way-

And tell us, Javi, how he does this?

He's doing his yo-yo, there's a thing with a key where he's got- No, no, I don't know, well, how does he do it?

Okay, okay. Bear with me.

I've seen this movie twice in the last six months and I'm having difficulty remembering this shit.

So, first of all, as we alluded to, there is a racist plot that the villain has, Robert Vaughn, to destroy Colombia that he says very disparaging things about, even though he apparently controls the rest of the world's coffee crop and Gus is like, isn't that enough? And then there's the Attila the Hun quote.

Yes, everyone else knows that.

That we open with, it's just this world view. So we're seeing kind of Gus lured to the dark side, basically through extortion, because Robert Vaughn is telling him, unless you help me, I'm going to report your embezzlement. And so he's kind of got Gus where he wants him. But then apparently, their plan is, there is a US Weather Observatory satellite, a weather monitoring satellite.

Yes, yes, that's what I'm saying. The satellite can make the weather.

That can somehow be hacked to control the weather.

Did you miss the part two minutes ago where I described this in detail? That makes no sense. But I just- Is it because it makes no sense that I said it, and then you have to say it again because it just literally left your mind?

But there is no such thing.

It's asinine. It's asinine.

It makes no sense. And they basically say, oh yeah, we take control of this weather monitoring satellite. We can hack it to control the weather.

I just said, Paul, I just said this.

I know, but it's insane. You are not appreciating the depth of stupidity and insanity that the plot of this movie hinges on.

It is literally-

And no one comments it on it. Not even, not even the stand-in for Ms. Teschmacher, who is, we are told, our villain's psychic nutritionist.

Lorelai Ambrosia, played by Pamela Stevenson's Cleavage. And the thing about Lorelai is that secretly she's smarter than everybody. She's reading, she's reading Emanuel Kent, I think, or Kierkegaard in one scene. And then she, she, she closes the book really quickly and says something stupid so that everybody thinks she's stupid because she's basically playing everybody. It literally gets hand-waved. It's like Vera literally just says, but if the satellite is programmed right, it can make weather. And I'm like, ah, I don't know, weather satellites, bunch of cameras looking at the weather, sending information back. Anyway, this leads to one of the most insanely awful things in this movie, which is, do they show you Superman saving the crop? No. No, they literally, literally Richard Pryor comes into Websco's like private penthouse ski resort because literally the penthouse is like a ski run in it. Yeah.

And he gives the roof of a skyscraper into like a Swiss Chalet with big snow. Yeah.

And Richard Pryor shows up and says, hey, didn't you see the news? This really weird thing happened in Colombia. The satellite did the weather, but it wasn't my fault that Superman showed up with a super breath and dried the crop. And literally Richard Pryor is acting this out. And everyone said, oh, they cut to like, like a little pop of Superman behind a blue screen, like using his heat vision and drying a plant or something.

We get nothing. And it's basically get nothing.

And then Richard Pryor, you know, he literally grabs a tablecloth as his cape. And somehow he wants up wearing skis. And then at the end of the scene, he falls off the building in skis, but he survives because he's got skis on.

That, oh my.

It's insane.

He should be dead. But yeah, he literally skis. Off of the skyscraper.

And down the mezzanine or something.

To his death, but then he hits a patio covering or sloped something that, again, would just further propel him to his death, but he lands fine and survives.

And it's literally, it makes no goddamn sense. And it's literally, we have no money to show you this, so hey, we've got Richard Pryor. Let's have him do, let's have him do some shtick.

And it's like, it's, it's infuriating. Javi, yes, you're going to hate me, but you got to go back. You got to go back over one of my two scenes. And I felt, let's talk about it.

Go on.

This, I felt an existential obligation to discuss this scene, because as faithful listeners will recall, last summer, yes, in Greece, too.

Are we going back to a movie from like, sorry.

I suffered through, yes. The arguably most egregious scene ever set in a bowling alley.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

This summer, we get the sequel. We get a scene in a smallville bowling alley. Yes, yes. Where Lana and Clark have taken little Ricky to bowl with his friends and little Ricky is useless. He is the most pathetically unskilled child, uncoordinated in any way, shape or form. He seems to be relatively coherent and fine as a young child, but I don't know if he's got some spatial awareness problems or some hand-eye coordination, but it is sad. But then we get, of course, Evil Brad, muscling in with his toxic masculinity. And then we get this wonderful exchange, really this first superhero scene of Clark stepping in as a model of positive masculinity. I believe we have a clip.

Excuse me.

Say, Brad, I think maybe he'll be better off doing it his way. Well, for a guy who was lucky to be waterboy in the high school team, you sure got a big mouth, Kent.

Well, I just think maybe Ricky doesn't need a bowling lesson in front of all the other kids.

He needs a man to show him.

I think he's doing just fine on his own.

But then Clark uses his atomic breath. Oh, sorry, that's Godzilla.

Clark uses his- He stumbles into the chalk, into the little bowl of chalk for the bowling hands.

Yeah, and he sneezes.

To prompt a sneeze, and he does a super sneeze in the bowling alley, perfectly timed, as the bowling ball leaves Ricky's hands in it. What we know is a vain attempt to pick up a spare, because he gutter balled it from like the foot of the lane, his first attempt. And he propels Ricky's bowling ball with supersonic speed, shattering all the bowling pins but one into smithereens.

Paul, can I ask you a question?

Yes, please, please.

This is not an assault. This is a genuine question. What is it about the scene that made you, because we only picked three scenes per person. So what is it about the scene that made you want to like dwell on it? Because two of your scenes, I know what the third one is, two of your scenes are smallville scenes. And I'm curious about kind of why, I mean, obviously, why this photo, because the rest of the movie sucks.

But I've burned through two movies in the first act, and I know I'm going to probably regret it, but I believe they're important. And also they're the, again, it's this dichotomy of, on the one hand, the film, like, handing you a gift in one hand, of like, here are some really nice moments for Clark.

Very nicely played moments of Clark being Clark.

And very nicely played. And then, with the other hand, I am going to just fuck you up with implausible insanity and stupidity that makes no sense and that undermines the logic and takes you out of the film. And it's insane, and that's this movie. That is this movie to me. But so no one comments, no one comments on the on the breaking the laws of physics that that Ricky with his little with his little seven year old arm has literally destroyed the sonic act and performed this act of of let's just say vandalism at an explosive degree that you would want to call the police and to investigate and it also is not like that thinly veiled that Clarks did just do the super steez and you know Lana says bless you but like everybody just goes with it and does a comment out and we cut away and I'm just like what are you doing? This is insane. This makes no sense.

You know what modern movie, this movie reminds me of? It's Thor, Love and Thunder, you know, which is like in Thor Ragnarok, Taika Waititi was, you know, there was still enough control from Marvel that whatever the guard rails were on Taika's goofy sense of humor, like at least held him to make a good movie but this is like unbound, like when you watch Thor, Love and Thunder, you're like, oh, nobody gave him notes on the goofy humor and it's all goofy, you know, and when you watch this movie, it's the same shit, it's like nobody told Richard Lester, hey, make a Superman movie. He's making like a hard day Superman or something and it's like, you know, it's an insult to a hard day.

Yes, I was going to say that's unfair. That's unfair to them. But but that says that says so much about it and about us.

One of the things I'm loving about having this conversation with you, Paul, and you know, I love all of my conversations with you. But now we both hate this film, right? I mean, no, no, no, let's let's call it. We both.

But I love how much I hate a lot of this film.

I love how much more personally you take it than I do.

I do take it personally.

I know. I should take it personally, but I don't. I hate it so much that it's just hard for me to, you know, Superman is sacred to me. Yes.

But they do, too. And just to think that we haven't even gotten to the most defensive.

Oh, no. Let's get to it.

This film, this film, this film just, so many choices in this thing.

So here's what happens. Superman goes back to Metropolis for about a second and a half, but then Lana calls him and says, Ricky bragged to everybody that Superman was coming because, you know me, is there any chance you can get him to come to Smallville and do like a flyby? Clark agrees. And when he shows up in Smallville, two things happen. One of them is that Ross Webster has basically concocted a scheme now to control all the petroleum in the world by using Gus's computer power to make all of the oil tankers in the world to sort of...

But also, he realized that the one thing standing in his way...

But in order to make the plan work, he wants... So Lorelei and Brochure remembers that there's this thing called kryptonite. But they said, kryptonite? Oh, krypton, krypton this, krypton that, kryptonheimer? I don't know. I read about it somewhere. And they realized if we can synthesize kryptonite, then we can get Superman to not thwart our next plot to control the oil in the world. So, Gus analyzes something, analyzes, uses the weather satellite to analyze pieces of debris from krypton that are still in space in a feat of science that Carl Sagan couldn't duplicate.

It's close enough. But yeah, it's some observatory satellite thing that he hacked into.

No, no, no. It's Vulcan. It's the same satellite that does the weather.

Okay, okay, okay.

But the thing is, so he gets a spectral analysis of kryptonite, but there is one element that is unknown. And because this is 1983 and everybody smokes, Gus looks at his cigarette pack and goes, TAR, why not? So he puts TAR in the kryptonite. Webb scopes, synthesizes the kryptonite. Clark, as Superman, shows up in Smallville to accept what is now the key to the city, because Ricky couldn't keep his mouth shut and like the mayor got involved, right?

Yeah.

And Superman is presented the kryptonite by Gus Gorman, dressed up as General Patton. Like literally, there's a Key to the City ceremony. He shows up in a military jeep.

He crashes it.

He crashes it.

Yeah, in a jeep. Yeah.

And well, you know, let's listen to Clip Number. Let's just give you a smidgen of the awfulness that is thinking. That is, by the way, but this is such a sin in so many modern movies, too. Like, you know, you watch these, a lot of Melissa McCarthy movies, you watch them and you can tell that basically somebody said, well, let's just put the camera on sticks and let it run until Melissa does something funny. It's the same thing here. It's like, I don't think anybody wrote this scene. I think they literally just said, Richard, you're a comedy genius. Make this work. So he gives the following speech dressed up as General Patton.

We all know that last week, half of this great nation of ours almost bit the bullet if it wasn't for this man here. And all I can say is, thank the Lord for Superman. Superman, you saved our bacon, and I'd like to show our gratitude.

So after this, Paul, what the fuck?

Okay, so the precursor to this, the prologue of this scene, of his speech, which goes on.

It's a long, it goes on for like two, three, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Interminably.

Is this, he is lecturing the audience. Yes. About how we don't sufficiently appreciate the gift of chemicals.

Yes.

And plastics.

And plastics. And because Superman saved the chemical plant, and that's what the Richard Pryor characters said, because you saved the chemical plant, we have this gift for you, and it is the kryptonite, which, what the fuck, right? But it's also like, I mean, it's like, the whole thing is about the plant explosion, and it's like, what do you sit on when you watch the football game molded plastic chairs?

It's so stupid, and it makes no sense, and no one comments on it. No one reacts or does anything that any actual human being would.

No.

And then on top of it, yes, he comes out, just shows, presents what looks like kryptonite.

And Superman doesn't-

People should be like, he doesn't react or anything at all, because I guess he's like, oh, it apparently is a mock-up, or it's a replica.

It's harmless or something.

I don't know. Because it is not having any immediate, registering any immediate effect or harm on him.

Kinda, I guess? Sure, why not?

But still, it is such a...

But he picks it up, he looks at it and goes, oh, it's very nice.

It is a tasteless gift. Yeah. Like, it is the most, like, why would you... It makes no sense at all.

It's like, hey, Mrs. Socrates, here's some hemlock for your grief. I mean, what?

It just, it makes no sense. But it is, yeah, it's this twist. Yes. Because we're led to believe that, oh, they've manufactured this fake kryptonite and, and I'm tempted to read the chemical analysis of kryptonite.

What is it?

So the chemical analysis that the movie provides is kryptonite. It's plutonium, 15.08 percent. Tantalum, 18.06 percent. Xenon, which is a gas, 27.71 percent. Promethium, 24.02 percent. Dialium, 10.62 percent. Mercury, 3.94 percent. And then unknown, a mere smidgen at 0.57 percent.

But here's the thing. This is like when you get athlete's foot, right? And you go to the drug store and you buy Lotremin or whatever, right? And it's like the active ingredient, right? Is Turbinifin or whatever the, you're finding out a little bit too much about my feet in this podcast. The point being, but then you look at the inactive ingredient and there's like 500 things. There's like, you know, a vanishing cream, petrolatum, glycol, water, you know, artificial color.

That drives me crazy.

So clearly the unknown ingredient is the thing that hurts Superman.

No.

It has to be.

But I mean, first of all, this is absurd. The kryptonite is kryptonite. It is not all these things. It's kryptonite. OK? All right.

Fine.

This is insane.

Fine.

Here's the other thing. Here's the other thing.

Yeah.

And there are so many moments in the film where it's like, you know, they're really cool, like that opening title sequence of all this inane, unmotivated, absurdly implausible slapstick mayhem that happens. What if that had been motivated by Mr. Mitzel Plitolik? Like, oh, that would have made sense. You would have done this here. It's like, oh, we got to turn Superman bad for the plot. What if we actually had red kryptonite? Because that's the thing that exists that makes Superman bad. But no, they can't be bothered. They make tobacco-laden tar-laden fake kryptonite.

Oh, I don't think anyone involved with this film actually read a Superman comic. I think just watched the previous movies. Look, so, Ross Webster spits off because the kryptonite didn't kill Superman, but something is rotten in the state of Smallville. Superman goes back to Lana Lang's after the ceremony.

Well, and also, this is important, I'm sorry, but it's important. Part of what they are celebrating and thanking Superman for is not just that he saved the chemical plant, he saved little Ricky from being sliced and diced by a harvester.

Yes, that just happened to be a Webster harvester, didn't it?

A Webster harvester in a picnic scene with him and Lana and their dog Buster. Buster runs off, and there is a nice one of that where Clark mistakes the dog food for pate and then keeps eating it even after he's told.

I find that demeaning, but slightly charming. But there's something rotten in the state of Smallville, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, because the Kryptonite doesn't kill him, but Superman goes back to Lana's apartment and— No, no, her opulent Victorian house. Whatever, it's an apartment, it's a house, I don't fucking know.

It's a beautiful, extravagant looking house.

Well, that's why the heating oil for it costs so much. Maybe she's downsized.

Yeah, and she's talking about how she's struggling, whatever, and then you see her house, you're like, Jesus Christ.

Yeah, it's kind of like the apartment in Friends, there's no way up anyway. And Lana gets a phone call that, literally Lana is that joke about Lassie going, oh, Timmy fell in the well. There's only, the water is filling up to the top. He only has 30 seconds to live. She gets a phone call and she is on the phone for about two seconds, and then she comes on and says, like a four minute story about how there's a truck stuck on a bridge that's collapsed, the truck is literally teeter-tottering on the bridge, it's about to fall, they need Superman, and Superman, well, the following thing happens.

There's been an accident on the old river bridge, a trailer truck crashed to the barrier rail. It's hanging off the side of the bridge and the driver's still in a cab. Oh, I'm sorry. I hate to make you rush off.

Well, there's no rush.

But the bridge... Oh, it's okay.

I always get there on time.

Come on, let's relax a little.

You know, it's unusual finding a good-looking girl like you alone like this.

Listen, are you sure you shouldn't do something about the bridge?

What bridge?

You're right.

I have to get going.

Because something is starting to take a hold of him.

This scene, Paul, this scene, wait, wait, hang on. Yeah, something's taking a hold of him. This scene is so fucking creepy. And it's not creepy in the right way. I know we're supposed to be feeling like, oh, Superman, the kryptonite's talking something to him, but it's just masher scumbag, lech Superman, isn't it? Like, is it? Right? I hate it. I hate it so much. It's so creepy. And that's why I want to talk about the scene because it's so tone-deaf. It's so creepy. It's like if you want to turn Superman evil, that's fine. But you have to make him like a fucking like Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters where he wouldn't leave Sigourney Weaver's apartment. Like, what the fuck was this? What happened? Who? Oh, and by the way, Christopher Reeve, again, a very good actor, when he gives that line where he goes, you know, I'm wondering what a beautiful woman like you is doing all alone. I mean, he sells it and he's creepy as fuck. But the problem is he's creepy as fuck.

Yes. And Annette O'Toole, as Lana, does not know what to make of it and is trying to process this.

Because she doesn't know he's Clark. This is Superman. There's a living God in her house putting the moves on her.

Yes. And who is her son's hero.

Yes.

Who saved him, who's upstairs conveniently taking a nap. Yeah. But yet also is like, what is like he's trying to put the moves on her in the creepiest way.

Creepiest way possible. Yeah. She's like, but what about it?

It is skin crawl.

It is just so sick and wrong. But thankfully, no, there's no but it's horrible. So Superman's turning evil.

And of course, Ross West, how do we demonstrate that he will hang on?

Well, because first of all, he puts first of all, he tries to put the whammy in Lana Lang.

Superman does come to his senses. He does go to the accident scene, but he is too late. And he is sort of chastised by a firefighter. But like, you know, because he's like, how can I help? And he's like, well, would it have helped if you got here? You know, yeah, I remember that. Because the truck has already fallen out. Like, no one died apparently, but still, like a truck fell. So it also undercuts it because there were not state, but it still alarms him.

I gotta tell you, though, I'm a little fussy on what happened. So this is the part where he like goes around the world and does bad shit. Is this the... Oh yeah, oh yeah. Okay, so can you just talk about what he does? Because he's turning evil. His costume turns like sort of, his costume turns the color of Henry Cavill's Superman costume, by the way.

It starts getting darker and desaturated. And he starts getting a five o'clock shadow, and it will be brighter later.

And his little spit curl is looking kind of like a...

Overdub, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of greasy, yeah.

And this starts progressing, but immediately, and this is actually one interesting thing. I will give poor Ken Thorne, having to follow in the shadow of John Williams after the first movie, because they couldn't afford John Williams either.

I don't think they couldn't. I think they wouldn't.

They wouldn't. But Ken Thorne was enlisted to recycle his themes and score Superman II and III with a smaller scale orchestra. He does something very interesting. He deploys the kind of evil, like the Kryptonian villain, and starts applying that to...

That drum roll, the... The sad drum, the...

Yes, and when the Kryptonians are on trial in the beginning of Superman the Movie, and he reworks that and starts applying this to Superman as he's turning to be a villain, which I'm like, okay, I'll give you credit for doing that. That's kind of cool. The two most notable examples of Superman's now burgeoning villainy are... Is that he flies to the city of, very specifically, it seems, the city of Pisa.

Yes, the city of Pisa. Like, is this a living god? I gotta do something to show I'm evil. What am I gonna do? What will I do?

And this is maybe the single most brilliant thing the film does. And he... We get the scene first of these two Italians, these merchants, one running a souvenir stand with all these ceramic miniature replica, phallic replicas of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the foreground, whereas in the background there is this composite of the...

A very bad composite, by the way.

And we get all this dialogue in Italian that is not subtitled. And it just seems like a jovial whatever blah blah.

It's just like two sort of comically stereotypical Italians waving their hands a lot and shooting Italian air.

Then Superman flies in with this kind of ominous Kryptonian villain theme, and he pushes the Leaning Tower of Pisa...

He fixes the Leaning Tower of Pisa, yeah.

To a perfect vertical angle.

Yeah.

To the horror and dejected wounded pain.

Yes.

Of this poor Italian souvenir salesman. And then flies off.

You know, this might be the most emotional scene in the movie, actually. No, because the Italian, the guy takes us, he sees the tower is now straight. And he tragically, and this actually reminds me of the rancor keeper in Jedi.

Yeah.

You know, he takes up room and he destroys all of his inventory.

Well, no, no, he doesn't destroy all of them yet. In this...

No, no, no, he doesn't, he doesn't twice in the movie.

He takes one and he throws it down.

That's right, that's right.

He smashes the one in his hand down emphatically. And he's so angry.

Yes.

And how... What are you doing, he's yelling in Italian.

Superman is so evil, he has disrupted an Italian ceramicist's business model.

Yes. Yes. Just horribly. Then there's some other stuff. We get him going to the Olympics that are not the Olympics because they could not pay the license fee.

That's right.

Or get the clearance or permission of the Olympics. And so Superman is lying in wait on the... Up on the lights or something.

Yeah.

Overlooking...

And the guy's running up with a torch, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. We get the guy, the running of the torch. Again, clearly it's a rip off of the Olympics that they did not pay for. And just as the final runner in the marathon relay from presumably Athens to wherever we are in this Olympic Games is about to light the cauldron. Yes.

It blows out the torch.

Like, what an asshole. He's just waiting to do this one thing, he blows the torch out.

And then everybody's just kind of looking at the... The guy's looking inside the torch like, what the fuck, yeah.

And then Zura had like, ah...

And then he disassembles the Chinese wall, doesn't he? Was that this movie? Or was that Superman III?

I can't remember.

That's Superman IV, right?

I believe so.

So, what's the other thing? It doesn't even...

Then there is the... I think he does the tanker. I think he goes and he starts the oil spill.

So, there's two things going on right now. So, Gus has gotten all the oil tankers in the world, evil supermans flying around, and he sees Lorelai, with his supervision, I guess, he sees Lorelai and Brosha on one of the spikes of the crown of the Statue of Liberty.

Yes, she poses as a suicidal jumper.

Yes, as a... Kind of as a suicidal sex worker, really. And he goes up and he says, ma'am, if you're waiting for me to save you, I don't do that anymore. And she basically seduces him into... There's one oil tanker that isn't obeying because the captain is an old school sea dog and he doesn't obey computers, right? And he says that's wrong. So she seduces Superman. There's a strong indication that they fuck, right?

Okay, let me just take a moment here. First...

Yes, do go on, Paul.

She gets his attention on the top of Statue of Liberty. He then descends to just tell her he's no longer saves people.

I don't save people anymore. I don't do that anymore.

But then she's like, she kind of puts the whammy on him. And, yeah, so he goes and he, again, cue the evil music. And he goes and he just punches a hole in the side of this tanker, causing an oil leak. Then he rendezvous somehow.

Yeah.

She has gotten back to... I don't think he takes her there. I don't know.

No, she's gotten back to like the Webster's office, right?

To Webster's rooftop Swiss chalet penthouse. Yes. Where then he, Superman arrives, having now done what she's asked, there is no question.

That she prostituted herself to get him to stop the one-oil tanker, right?

The words I have typed in my notes in all caps are, they get it on.

They get it on.

Like, there's no ambiguity in how the film presents this. Right.

Basically, Lorelai Ambrosia uses sex to get Superman to cause an oil spill, yes.

But that's what happens.

Now, Paul, let me just say what's happening in the other subplot for now so that we can get to the part we all like, okay? Yes. So, meanwhile, Gus, the computer genius, has on a series of cigarette packages that he's torn open, sketched out. He goes to Ross Webster and says, look, you're making a lot of money with the oil thing and whatever, I'm not getting paid here. And Ross Webster says, Gus, if there's one thing I hate, it's greed, which is hilarious. Again, Robert Vaughn, like, just doing the best he can with really shitty material.

He's actually funny. I kind of enjoy, I had not seen, we haven't talked about this, but I had not seen this film since the 80s. I've avoided it like the plague.

Right, then you should, yeah, yeah.

And it loomed just alarmingly in my memory as being even worse than it is.

Yes.

And so any little glimmers of enjoyment or amusement that I could glean, I was delighted by. And I think Robert Vaughn is kind of delightful.

Paul, we just, we are Stroker Ace survivors, okay?

Well, that too.

And we managed to find at least one thing that we thought was amusing in that film. So obviously, any movie we watch, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to find something that we love cinema, you know?

Exactly.

Yeah, not quite as much as producer Brad, but you know. So Gus goes to Ross Webster and says, here's what I want from you for doing this oil thing. And he lays out all these cigarette packages and he's sketched out the napkins and like all sorts of crap. But just, but just really like, I mean, again, they never lose an opportunity to make Richard Pryor look low class, to make him look kind of like, like disreputable. It's, there's a, the way that the movie treats the Richard Pryor character is also deeply racist. Yes. And he's always coded as just being like, like just a really not, it's not that he's a bad, he's got as a bad guy, but he's just sort of like an idiot. He, he, there's, he has no class. He, he smokes. He's just, anyway, so, anyway, so he's designed the ultimate computer on these cigarette packages, and the computer is like an AI. It will learn, it will defend itself. I don't know why Richard Pryor's character wants this, why Gus Gorman wants this computer, why he wants a computer that has a sophisticated weapon system to defend itself and artificial intelligence to defend itself. I don't know what this is happening, but this is what he wants. And they build it, not just anywhere, in the Grand, inside a cave in the Grand Canyon.

Yeah, yeah.

So while Superman is having sex with Pamela Stevenson and straightening up the Tower of Pisa and all this other stuff, a Gus Gorman supercomputer is being built by the crack Websco engineers who can read these cigarette packages and get it done in about a week.

Yeah, there is this interesting kind of tag team escalation of ambition that Gus and Ross inspire in each other.

Yes.

And so again, at the outset, Ross's ambition is to corner the coffee market. And then once he discovers, oh, he can do that, then he's like, let's think bigger, you know, with Vera and Lorelai's influence. Let's go after oil. And now he's kind of extolling the power of computers. Computers run everything. And if you can control computers, You control the world. You control the world. That's like a line he has. And he's still keeping Gus under this thumb of potentially blackmailing him with turning him over the feds. But Gus, at this point, is like, Well, dude, you've kind of done way worse stuff than me at this point. And we're kind of in this together and attempts to negotiate this deal. But it's really strange because you get the sense that Gus is motivated by curiosity and a newfound passion for a latent talent that he has only recently discovered after being told most of his life that he is useless, that he does not have anything to contribute. But he is a prodigy when it comes to computer programming and computer science and engineering.

Paul, I appreciate that you're reading this in terms of character. Because it...

I'm trying.

I don't know. I mean, again, the Nobel Prize for Generosity will be mailed to your house. And Paul, I want to pull a Paul plot here just for a second. I want to go back to the early second act of the movie.

Oh, dear Lord.

Just to explain how asinine this movie is about computers. When Gus Gorman is hacking into the weather satellite, he has gotten Brad from Smallville drunk to get into the office of Wheat Co. They're both drunk, so he's hacking drunk. And he starts causing mayhem, you know, like, and one of the things he does is he fucks up all of the crossings in... street crossings in metropolis. So people are crossing at the wrong time.

He apparently keeps hacking into the wrong servers.

Yes, exactly. And Paul, just to tell how asinine this movie is, the little green man, the walkman and the red man, right? At one point, don't the red man and the walkman and the green become animated and start fighting each other in the streetlight? This movie sucks. Anyway.

It is insane. I'm so sorry. The other thing too that sucks in that, since you opened that door, because I was going to skip past this, but dear Lord, it's fucking wheat coat. It's like some like tiny little agriculture or whatever. He gets into the, Brad, of course, is the night guard or whatever, that he has to get drunk to like get in and con his way in. He code switches to talk his way in, Richard Pryor, Gus. And then, but then he gets to the computer and it's got like war games level of security protocols. You have to insert, like you would literally.

This is the part where he literally has to turn two keys and he uses the yo-yo to turn the both keys simultaneously.

It's exactly, it's like, it's a computer, you know, in a wheat like harvesting company. But then, and then, yeah, and it's like, but he's got to turn two keys at the same time that you can't reach, like, oh my, it's so stupid.

It's so asinine. Anyway, so Gus's computer is being built. Now, now we get to the part, the only part of this movie that actually captivated the imagination of people. And not because it's good, although Paul might make that argument. But so now we catch up with Superman, and he's literally sitting in a seedy dive bar in Metropolis, flicking peanuts at the mirror using his super flicker finger.

He's target shooting all the bottles of expensive liquor first, and then he uses his heat vision to melt the mirror that he does not want to see his now full-on...

He's got a five o'clock shadow.

Dark Superman hideousness.

The costume is now... He's not wearing the Zack Snyder Superman costume. It's not good. But as he's coming out...

He's super misanthrope.

So Lana and Ricky mysteriously have wound up in Metropolis.

They've just coincidentally...

To come visit Clark or something.

Yeah, in the cab, because she has finally decided, I believe...

That she's going to go after Clark?

That she's going to move to Metropolis.

Oh, and become like a...

Yeah, and why is she living her life stuck in Smallville? There's nothing left for her. And Clark, good Clark, has inspired her to start living life for herself and a better life for Ricky. And that that may...

And they literally get off the cab in front of the dive bar where evil Superman is flicking penises at bottles and using a seed vision to warp the mirror so that he can't see his twisted evil visage. And here's the scene. Oh my god.

What are you looking at? Excuse me, Superman? It's me, Ricky, Ricky from Smallville. Superman, tell him he won't hurt anybody. Ricky, he's changed. No, maybe he's just sick. Superman, please get better. He's not listening to you, Ricky.

Yes, he is. He can hear me.

He's got super hearing. Superman, you're just in a slump. You'll be great again.

And I love, I love how it echoes in the Ricky going, you'll be great again.

It echoes in the distance. Because little Ricky knows that even after Superman has flown off, he can still hear.

Oh my God.

So he keeps calling to him, trying to reach the inner good heart that he knows is still beating somewhere inside this tragically poisoned, sickened, dark Superman.

Zack Snyder Superman. And then Zack Snyder, so Zack Snyder, Superman is having trouble flying much like Zack Snyder, Superman. And he winds up crashing into a junkyard. And then Superman has this moment of like, of like a Pentecostal internal rippage. And he splits into both good Clark Kent in his gray suit and evil Superman.

He, in my notes I have, he screams in existential agony.

Yes.

Which all of these workers at the junkyard are freak out and they flee for their lives. Here is my first question to you in this scene. This scene is extraordinary on so many levels.

It's nuts. Yeah.

It is insane. It becomes this sort of experimental existential art film. Yeah. My first question, and maybe it's not fair to ask it at this point, as opposed to the end of the scene. Is this real or is this in his head?

Well, here's the thing.

What we're watching. And does it matter?

I don't know if the Tar Kryptonite caused the good Superman and the bad Superman to literally rip apart from each other and have a fight. It could be.

Which is what happens. Everyone knows. This is the signature scene of Superman III. The only reason to watch Superman III.

This junkyard is only a slightly uglier set than the big computer where we have the set piece in the Grand Canyon. Both of them really unimaginably shot, lit and really poorly designed.

I don't think this junkyard is to side. I think this is a practical location they could get for cheap and that it was a, yeah, it was a choice of opportunity and budget.

If there is something, if, look, on a conceptual level, aside from anything else, the idea that Superman has an episode of multiple personality fracture and Clark Kent fights an evil version of Superman, that's pretty compelling. I actually think that's a great idea. And it could be really well done. And by the way, they did it in when the Arrowverse did Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Yeah.

They did the best homage to that, which is Tyler Heklin's Superman winds up fighting Brandon Routh's Superman. Tyler Heklin goes crazy and Brandon Routh, who basically is Christopher Reeve in that universe now, is wearing the Kingdom Come costume. They have a big fight.

Yes.

And when everything-

Because Lois was killed and they couldn't save her.

And when everything is put back to normal, Tyler Heklin's Superman looks at Brandon Routh's Superman, aka Christopher Reeve Superman says, hey man, I'm really sorry about turning what I did. And Brandon Routh, his best line goes, it's all right, man. It's not the first time I've turned evil and had to fight myself. This is the only good thing to come out of this scene.

I'm so glad that you watched that and are aware of that, because I have deep affection for all that they did.

Brandon Routh is, much like Ben Affleck as Batman, a potentially great version of that character with a really good casting choice that with a good script could have totally worked. The tragedy of Backlix, they didn't even give him a good script three movies in. He literally got a good script for two minutes of the horrible Flash movie. Then with Routh, it's like, he did such a great job. He channeled Christopher Reeve so beautifully, and he didn't have a movie to be in. It's sad because a universe where these good actors could have been given something to play would have been really good.

I had the joy of meeting Mr. Routh last year at Fantastic Fest.

I've heard he's a lovely man.

He was here with a film called Ick, which I encourage you if you have any 80s nostalgia. It's a good companion piece for this film. Actually, it may be 90s nostalgia, but still it's close enough. It's about kind of... He plays this former high school star, Jock, who now his daughter is in high school.

Is his name Brad?

Yeah, there's a reunion, but then monsters attack. And it is a delightfully fun gore splatter film. It's so much fun and he is so great in it.

And because Brad Routh is great, he has distracted us from talking about this shittiest film called Superman III.

Yes, but anything can get us to stop talking about Superman III. I'm glad you brought up because Brad and Routh, the universe owes him so much. He was robbed.

There are two truisms, I believe. One of them is Brandon Routh was robbed and two, we as a popular culture owe Alden Ehrenreich an apology because he was great and solo. Done. Sorry. Oh, Paul's face. Oh, my God.

I'm a big fan of Alden Ehrenreich.

Inhale Caesar.

Inhale Caesar. I am not a fan of solo. I'm sorry.

The man who's getting the Nobel Prize for Generosity, really? Okay, never mind. Okay, Paul.

Not a fan. But yes, Brandon Routh is amazing.

Now, here's the thing. This fight goes on forever. Evil Superman feeds Clark Kent not into one shredding auto-shredding machine, but two.

Well, well, no, there's a subtle but important distinction.

Oh, for shit's sake.

First, evil Superman just starts wailing on Clark, just starts beating the crap out of Clark, who is unprepared.

Yes.

And yet is not immortal. He also has Superman powers too, because he survives this.

Well, he gets thrown into a vat of acid.

Well, he starts fighting back. He then throws evil Superman into acid, that conveniently seems to be a big vat pool.

Well, you got to melt cars in your vat of acid, right?

I guess. I don't know. And then evil Superman is like, stomach a little bit, whatever, but he flings Clark first into a trash compactor. This is horrifying. Like, it plays as weird.

It goes on forever and it plays like it's a horror movie.

Yes. It plays like we are literally witnessing Clark being crushed to death in a, deliberate or not, very disturbing echo of Lois Lane's death.

In the first movie, yeah.

Crushed to death in her car at the end of Superman, the movie, which is then, you know, undone. But that is like, holy crap, this is heavy. Clark then breaks out, because he has his powers that he's fighting for. Evil Superman, sorry, you know, stumbling a little bit, like whatever, blah, blah. Then we get, again, it's gotta be a callback to the prisoner rings that the Kryptonian criminals are in, because Clark throw ring tosses.

A bunch of tires.

A bunch of tires.

At Evil Superman.

At Evil Superman that like trap him in the whatever. But of course that's stupid and he just breaks free of them. Then Evil Superman drops this like giant massive electromagnet.

On top of, yeah.

That Clark just conveniently happens to be standing underneath. Like, you know, it's like Roadrunner Coyote bullshit.

Like at this point, it just is absurd.

It's silly for this stretch. But then this like pile drives Clark into the ground and Clark finally emerges. Superman knocks him out, then carries him to the aforementioned car crusher, which is like this spinning wheels of like doom that are going to crush and rip up. And he throws Clark onto this conveyor belt. He takes his glass.

That's right. The ultimate act of evil. He takes Superman's glasses. Yeah.

And crushes it. And we get this. And throughout, we're getting like this evil, the evil Kryptonian villain theme, like playing. And then we hear inside this car crusher that is just ripping him apart, presumably, screams of Clark from inside. But then, of course, Clark busts free, tackles him, strangles him, and then starts strangling evil Superman.

By the way, chokes the life out of evil Superman with his bare hands. I mean, it's nuts.

It is.

It's violent. It's like, and it's also very primal.

Yeah, the stretch of it, this home stretch of this fight, is disturbing.

Yeah.

And yeah, he basically is strangling the life out of evil Superman, who's on his knees.

Just like Christoph Walt's killing Diane Krueger in A Glorious Bastards. It's bad.

It is bad to reclaim his identity, and then evil Superman just vanishes. Vanishes. Which again, begs the question.

Was it real?

Was this real? Or was this all an internal psychological struggle?

Right. Meanwhile.

Then we get the one great moment of the film.

Which is where Clark, now without glasses, looks up, the theme plays.

Yes.

He rips open his shirt, and there is the not Zack Snyder Superman colors.

And Superman returns. And I will tell you, I'm such a sucker, this gives me chills.

Paul, Paul, here's the thing. You're not alone.

This moment gives me chills.

You're not alone. And this is the thing that's so horrifying about this movie to me. Look, by the time Superman IV came out, this movie had already poisoned the well, right?

Yeah.

But Superman III and IV are both horrible in their own very special individual ways.

Yeah.

But the thing is, I love Superman. I love Superman the Movie. I love Superman II. And I wanted this movie to be good. And I spent years of my life rewriting this movie in my head for this moment to work, because this moment is such a good moment. The archetypal Christopher Reeve, a Superman ripping the shirt open to show you the S, is so powerful that you want the movie retroactively to have been good, you know?

You want the movie to earn it and deserve it. And again, I can't help but imagine, what if this movie started with an opening sequence where Superman has to take on Mr. Mitzel Pidlick, who has turned the city into a metropolis into his puppets? And then that's just like our opening Bond adventure for Superman. And then we get a Lex Luthor and Brainiac team up and then really get a whole big scale Brainiac supercomputer, like whatever, blah, blah, blah. Like, there's an epic version of this movie.

That's a movie.

That is a Superman movie. I don't know that we're ever going to get it.

I don't know that I can join with your Mr. Pilek pitch, but you know, whatever.

Just a little opening, like little, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're going to do it, just fun. But then now, but now Superman has got to clean up a lot of mess. So he goes to undo some stuff. Yeah, but what happens is he does the oil tanker. He fixes the oil tanker, the oil spill. That's the main thing he fixes. Because then he's lured to our final showdown, to the Grand Canyon.

Now, Paul, this is all just bullshit. I mean, it's literally Superman versus the supercomputer, and it's horrible.

And it's an Atari.

No, no, no. Wait a second. Superman's flying across the Grand Canyon to get to the supercomputer, and it turns out that Ross Webster doesn't just have a flight of Tomahawk missiles. He also has an MX missile. In 83, the MX missile was the big nuclear bomb that Ronald Reagan commissioned for a billion dollars that was going to destroy Russia. So it's a huge deal that Ross Webster had one. Superman, when he's fighting the missiles, you literally go to a display on the supercomputer that has Atari music playing and 8-bit graphics of Superman, like flying as the missiles. And I guess Webster is controlling the missiles to try to hit them?

It is. And again, another example of covering up the fact that we don't actually get to see a great effect.

Because they didn't have the money for it, yeah.

Because they didn't have the money. So we want to get a few handful of shots, but most of what we get are literal Atari video game graphics. Atari is credited at the end of the film, and it's so offensively dumb and cheap.

Yes.

For the big climax of the film.

And by the way, I want to bring that to both the climax of the movie and also the emotional climax with the Superman-Clark Kent fight, right? Yeah. This guy's a superhero. We have seen Superman II. We've seen what it looks like when two Kryptonians with Kryptonian powers fight in a big city. Are the effects today's CGI effects? Is it Man of Steel where you literally have like people throwing buildings around in CGI and all that shit? No. But it's epic. It's huge. You buy the stakes and all that. All the action and the powers and everything in this is so fucking small. You literally have Superman throwing, the Clark Kent throwing tires at Superman.

You've got, I mean, it's just, it's like ring tossing freaking tires. Yeah, the missed opportunity of an epic, big, large scale.

Superman versus an BMX missile, the ultimate supercomputer, all of it. Now.

None of it. We don't get any of it. We don't get any of it.

This all leads us to Superman defeats all the defenses and he's coming in, but the computer is taking on a life of its own. Because the computer has been built to defend itself. And this is where Pamela Stevenson's character, Lorelai Ambrosia realizes what's happened or what's happening. And she says the following line, because Superman is apparently defeated by the computer. The computer has literally created a kryptonite ray without tar. And it's not until Gus Gorman basically takes an axe, because he doesn't want to be the man who killed Superman.

Yes. And Gus is having a crisis of conscience. And we get little hints of this. Not a lot, but peppered throughout the film. Because again, Richard Pryor does not want to play a villain.

And he's not a villain. He's just a shamp.

He's not.

So Superman leaves. Superman leaves apparently in an act of cowardice. And Pamela Stevenson is... By the way, when Superman first walks into the cave, Lorelai goes, hi. And Superman looks at her and goes, I don't know you. And I'm like, dude, you're ghosting her? Motherfucker.

This is...

OK.

I know I've done my three scenes. I saw from the clips that you were choosing this scene. So I cheated. I have to talk about this one bit.

Go on.

All right, Webster, the game's over. Hi, honey. I don't know you, lady.

But the other night...

I'm sorry, but that wasn't me. That guy's gone. And you're next, Webster.

OK, first of all...

It's honestly, honestly, that is pretty cool. And it's a good way to get out of the corner that Superman did the most unsuperman thing with Lorelai, because that was not Superman. For what the film had to deal with in this moment, I have to say that was done kind of well.

All right, I don't know. I think he's being an asshole.

Or has this movie just beaten me down?

No, I think he's being an asshole. I think this is a fucking run. He's like pretending he doesn't know her. I think this is a super ghosting, and I'm not happy about it. I don't have, you know... Anyway... Paul.

Yes?

Pamela Stevenson...

And then they trapped Superman in a plastic bubble.

In a weird plastic bubble. But then the computer develops sentience and uses the kryptonite ray.

Yes, yes.

Webster yells at Richard Pryor, You're about to go down in history as the man who killed Superman.

Yeah, like that's a good thing.

And Richard Pryor grabs his yo-yo and repels down the computer, takes an axe, destroys the kryptonite ray emitter.

Yeah, there's this whole thing where he's got this yo-yo and it's just dumb.

Superman leaves and as he's leaving, Lorelai Ambrosius shouts the following quote. Quote number five. No!

Don't leave us alone in here!

Superman! I get it, the coaxial energy shaft is engaging the grid source factor. Right, we're through, fraud case, I'm splitting.

So that was the last time you hear Pamela Stephenson's character being smarter than everybody by covering it up. She's leaving, because the computer has sentience and the computer's gonna defeat them all. But their escape is not only thwarted, it is thwarted when the computer, it uses some sort of a gravity field to trap Lorelai and Brochette with some sort of a gravity disco ball against the rock wall.

It has, again, inexplicable telekinesis beams, or tractor beams.

But Paul, Vera falls into the guts of the computer, which, by the way, when I was looking at the computer gaining sentience, I think it's stock footage from Krypton exploding in Superman I when Superman finally destroys the computer. I think the guts of the computer are actually pieces of the Krypton set from B-Roll from the first movie.

There's some that does look similar.

Yeah.

I had a similar thought.

OK. So Vera falls into the computer. The computer not only has telekinesis, apparently every component in the computer is capable of sentience and motion. It traps her within the wires. Somehow her skin turns silver, her eyes turn red, her hair goes all bright of Frankenstein, and she becomes the computer's sort of living Frankenstein avatar, and she starts shooting.

It turns her into the freaking Borg!

She starts firing beams of rays out of her fingers, right?

And this is a full on horror movie at this point.

Oh, by the way, this is Nightmare Fuel. This is as close as the movie gets to anything effective. It's the only shit. It's kind of scary.

This gave me nightmares as a kid.

Yes, me too.

Like, it is so insanely out of nowhere and freaky and just like, oh, it's horrible.

But that's why this is the scene I wanted to talk about, because it's like, this is horrible. And it just shows you how little control of tone Richard Lester has.

He can't all over the place.

He can't stage a good action sequence, but he also can't stage a great comedy sequence, even though that's what he's supposed to be good at. And the movie then veers into body horror. It's just bizarre. And this movie has no fucking clue what it is, you know? Anyway, Superman comes back holding the acid canister.

And also now the supercomputer is sucking all the power from the grid.

Sucking power from the grid.

So there's this spreading power outage across the whole...

And then he cuts to Lana Lang and Ricky in their apartment in Smallville, and the lights go out, and it's terrifying. Anyway, Superman comes back and he is holding a canister of acid from the first act, from that chemical plant.

Yeah, we don't know that yet. We don't know that.

Well, we don't...

He very conspicuously has one arm behind his back carrying something.

He takes...

And that the supercomputer scans and detects and says, oh, this is not a grid. Because it's a canister.

Because Superman later explains to Richard Pryor when he's explaining what happened, because we the fuck don't know. He says, your computer was designed to defend itself if it thought it was in danger. But when it scanned me, it just thought it was coming in with a harmless canister of acid.

Like a thermos.

What canister of acid is harmless? Excuse me. Maybe acetic acid, vinegar. But beyond that, hydrochloric is pretty bad. You know, like muriatic, which are used to clean walls. That's pretty bad, too. I don't know. The computer should have seen that as a threat. Anyway, he throws the acid into the guts of the computer, which weirdly are heating up to the exact temperature needed to make the acid go bad. The acid winds up melting the supercomputer. Releasing the villains, un-borgifying Vera all of a sudden, right? Yeah. And then we cut away from the computer exploding. We don't see what happens to Webster or Lorelei or Vera, other than that she gets un-computerized. And then we cut to Superman carrying Richard Pryor over the Rockies, explaining that the cops are coming to get them, and that the computer misunderstood. He thought the acid was, you know, vinegar or citric acid. And, but...

We get an unnecessary monologue... It's like reverse exposition... .of exposition, of everything that just happened.

It's kind of like that time in this podcast when you explain something and then you explained it again, Paul.

Yes, that was foreshadowing for this moment. And here's the thing, it only exists, as far as I can tell, for one purpose only, which is to give a springboard...

For the poster artist...

.for Superman to deploy the line, referencing the now destroyed supercomputer, I guess it died of acid indigestion. It goes a long way around...

You know, Paul, the tenor of this podcast, in the wake of you saying that, has become funereal.

Anyway, oh, oh, I can line it up.

We got to...

There are two quick things. Two quick things. One is after Superman emerges from wreckage, then he also rescues Gus from the wreckage, who of course then they shake hands.

They're weirdly chummy. They're weirdly chummy.

As Gus says, thank you, brother.

Oh God.

Then we get this weird insert. Before they're flying off, there's this cutaway of petroleum propaganda. Because I think BP is also credited in the film. Where this guy shows up to the gas tank, and he's asked, regular premium, and this random driver in Metropolis says, oh, what the hell? She hasn't had a drink in so long. Give her a tank of the good stuff. I'm like, what is this petroleum propaganda injected into the tank?

Yeah, because the tankers are so bad. But Superman stops at a coal mine, and he comes down and he tells Richard Pryor, he tells the coal miners, if you've got a computer here, you do worse than hiring this guy. I don't know why Superman's being so friendly to Gus all of a sudden. I guess it's because he's Richard Pryor and the poster is literally this scene of Superman carrying Richard Pryor. I don't understand.

Anyway. But why does he stop at the coal mine?

Because he grabs a piece of coal.

He asks if he can have one.

Can you spare a piece of this coal? And with his hands, he turns it into a diamond to replace Lana's diamond that she had to hawk in order to pay for the heating oil for her palatial small-villa estate.

Yes. Real quick. This scene ends. Superman flies off. Gus is then talking up about like how he's friends with Superman, whatever. And then he pulls a shirt opening. Like he rips his shirt open.

To explain that he was Superman.

This makes no sense.

None of it makes any sense.

Because that would imply that he knows that Superman is Clark Kent and that that's what Clark Kent does to turn into Superman, which nobody knows.

Which nobody knows.

Like why would he do that?

It doesn't make sense. Makes no sense. Paul, Paul, we got it, we got it, we got it. Yes, yes. We're back at the Daily Planet. Lana Lang has a job as Perry White's assistant, even though she has a diamond the size of the Hope Diamond and could literally retire.

Right. And this is after Clark Jiu Jitsu's Brad in Lana and Ricky's hotel room.

Oh, yeah, because he comes into.

Clark delivers the diamond ring on behalf of Superman, who felt bad that she had to pawn hers, and then Brad bursts in thinking that Clark is proposing, attacks him, and then Clark Jiu Jitsu's him into an elevator on a-

Oh, God, I've forgotten all of that.

Kind of like-

In Superman II, where he-

Or the stroke race food cart.

Oh, yeah.

Stroke race. A bit. And yeah, then we're at the Daily Planet. Lois is back from Bermuda. There's this whole bit about these lotto winners we skipped over. And Lana is Perry's new secretary, and Lois apparently just has to live with this. But then we get the coda of all codas, the payoff to the best setup.

Do go on. Oh, yes, yes, of course.

The one joke that lands-

The only good joke in this movie. We go back to the Italian, to the Italian ceramicist.

Superman still has bad, evil Superman messes to clean up.

The Italian ceramicist has remade all of his souvenirs as the Great Tower of Pisa.

He's restocked, he's restocked meticulously with a brand new collection of vertical, perfectly now accurate Towers of Pisa that no longer lean, just as Superman arrives to restore the lean to the tower. And then he just loses it.

The ceramicist turns to his friend and goes, Per favore! And the guy hands him the broom, and he uses the broom to destroy all of the ceramics.

Wails on all of them.

And then we cut to the classic shot of Superman.

We recycle the closing footage from the first movie Superman, and then that's it. Dear Lord.

What a fucking nightmare. What a just, you know, like way to just besmirch an entire franchise, like I mean, if they tried to fuck up Superman, they couldn't have done a better job, could they?

I mean, they kind of do later.

That's right. Well, Quest for Peace, well, the thing is, if this killed the franchise, Quest for Peace, like put the reanimator serum in it, and then killed it again, you know.

Yes, because I mean, this did kill it in a way, and then it was sort of reanimated by Canon Films.

Golden Globus, yeah.

For Superman IV, and then, you know, lured Christopher Reeve by letting him co-write the script and do this whole message of nuclear disarmament, you know, which is a laudatory goal.

Producer Brad, how did this movie do? Did this movie make any money? It shouldn't have, but what did it do?

Well, first, Javi, for your high school prom, you wore a white dinner jacket. Was it in honor of the high school reunion scene from this film, or Roger Moore in Octopussy?

It was in honor of Bruce Willis in Moonlighting. Oh.

I was wrong.

It was not in honor of any of this crap. No, I love a dinner jacket, and the first chance I got to wear a dinner jacket was our prom, but it was because of Bruce Willis in Moonlighting. Yeah. So, yeah. So, producer Brad, how did this movie do at the box office?

Superman III was released on June 17th, 1983, but on that weekend, we saw Blue Thunder. For the weekend of July 8th, 1983, it was number three at the box office behind Return of the Jedi and Trading Places. For the year, Superman III was the 11th highest grossing film with $60 million against a $39 million budget, and Return of the Jedi had a $33 million budget.

It's like $6 million more than Return of the Jedi, okay.

Where did all that money go?

I will tell you where the money went.

Up the Salchis gnosis, yeah. Yes.

Yeah. Well, I was going to say the pockets, yes.

Producer Brad, what's on the Multiplex next week? What are our choices?

We're still in the Multiplex that we have to choose from. Yes.

Next week is July 15th, 1983, and three movies opened. Here's the poster for the first option.

Puberty Blues. Well, I was living that movie. Why would I want to watch that? I was living that. I don't want to see that.

Well, directed by Bruce Beresford.

Yeah.

Is that a horror movie?

I'm fine. I love Bruce Beresford, Breaker Brand, one of my favorite movies. No fucking way.

Don't love him then.

Nope.

Next option, Zeleg.

Puberty Blues. And they wonder why it failed, Zeleg.

Woody Allen.

You know, Woody Allen is so problematic, but this movie is a respectful, one of the easily respectable movies of this weird period of his life, yeah. But I mean, I don't want to watch anything with Woody Allen. Go on, next. Oh my god, Becky. We are seeing...

Staying alive.

Hmm. The Frank factor. Okay, first of all, first of all, this movie was directed by Sylvester Stallone.

Oh God.

We have to see this movie.

Oh God, do we?

Yes, yes we do, Paul, yes we do. All right.

Oh God. But we could see, we could see, we could go back and see. No, we are.

What am I thinking of?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Flashdance, or. No, no, no, no, no. What's the other one, what's the other one?

No, Paul, everything's been leading to this moment.

What's the other one, what's the other one? There's no, no, no.

Sorry, Paul.

Yeah, we can see that one.

Hey, America, America, democracy, we vote.

Not anymore.

Oh yeah, never mind. You're right. Sorry. Well, folks, this is the Magnum Opus of the 1980s. I don't think the 1980s could exist in any better way than a Travolta sequel to Saturday Night Fever, directed by Sylvester Stallone in which John Travolta auditions for a show called Satan's Alley, which is, ladies and gentlemen, staying alive.

The question is, will that apply to us?

Folks, we will see you next week in line at the Multiplex.

In a headband.

Catch you later.