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#3. America Divided … Between Marvel and DC
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Dudes Chatting — Marvel vs. DC: Framed as "the preeminent clash of our time," the guys dig into their comic-book roots and how those map onto (or invert in) the movie universes. JVL — a childhood DC loyalist who's since fallen for Marvel — argues the MCU's success isn't the quips but its "character and narrative first" philosophy, where the villains are almost beside the point; his top-four non-Nolan superhero movies are The Avengers, The Wolverine, Iron Man 3 (a Shane Black Kiss Kiss Bang Bang riff), and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Sonny, a Man of Steel / Batman v Superman (extended cut) defender, prizes DC's grounded "what if superheroes were real" aesthetic and floats his signature hot take that Guardians of the Galaxy is the same movie as Star Wars — but better. Vic steers a long detour into the Richard Donner vs. Richard Lester Superman saga (and the meddling Salkind producers), plus a survey of screen Lex Luthors (Hackman, Spacey, Eisenberg). Includes a potted history of the superhero blockbuster — Blade (1998), X-Men, and Spider-Man as the first post-9/11 blockbuster (with its excised Twin Towers web shot) — and a Vic/JVL G.I. Joe #21 "silent issue" nerd-out.
Reviews: Doctor Strange (Sonny) — a cookie-cutter Marvel origin story but the most visually unique of the bunch (Ditko-esque, Inception-like), and one of the rare films actually worth seeing in 3D, in IMAX.
Box Office: Doctor Strange opened huge — more proof, per Sonny, that "Marvel cannot turn out a failing product; it's just an assembly line over there."
Opens with an elaborate deadpan election-night parody (taped the Monday before Trump won — "it all comes down to turnout") and closes with the recurring Corrections segment.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00I'm Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. I thought Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would be the worst things that happened this year. I didn't know about this podcast. His sword is hundreds of years old. It was named Danzan by the first samurai who used it. Danzan means separator. The ideal weapon for separating head and limb from body. What have I to fear? The Avengers. That's what we call ourselves. Sort of like a team. Earth's Mightiest Heroes type thing. Yes. I've met them. When they come, and they will, they'll come for you. I have an army. We have a Hulk.
Vic00:00:54Third time's the charm. That's our motto here at The Weekly Substandard. Or maybe it's three strikes, you're out. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan Last and Sonny Bunch. We're going to be talking about a truly divisive subject today. Yes, I'm talking about Marvel vs. DC. Where do your allegiances lie? Plus, we've got a ton of corrections to go through. But first, about last night. Wow. I mean, just... Wow. I only had a couple of hours of sleep. I'm still recovering from it. I just can't believe it happened. Jonathan, what do you think?
JVL00:01:25When are we going to learn our lesson about the exit polls? You can't... Again, they fooled us. You can't ever pay attention. If 2016 taught us anything, it's that we're absolutely ignoring the exits next time around. I absolutely agree. Sonny, what did you think about North Carolina?
Sonny00:01:41Wow. North Carolina, man. You know, you just couldn't really see that one coming. They did so well. But then, you know, also, it all came down to turnout.
Vic00:01:52Oh, really? This election was all about turnout. This election was all about turnout.
Sonny00:01:55The whole thing, and we never... never stop forgetting this, is that it always comes down to turnout.
JVL00:02:03You know, the way the polls shifted in New Hampshire a couple weeks before the election, that, to me, made the Granite State a real surprise, despite the early votes in Dixie Notch.
Sonny00:02:13Wow. And can you guys really... I think it's Dixville. Dixville Notch.
JVL00:02:16Dixie whatever. Dixie's Notch is something else.
Sonny00:02:20I'm pretty sure that's from, like...
JVL00:02:22Designing Women?
Vic00:02:23Yes, exactly. I was going to say Dixie Normus, but that's from Austin Powers. Oh, my God. Sorry. It's already going blue.
JVL00:02:30It all came down to Cuyahoga County, didn't it, Vic?
Vic00:02:33It did. You know, Harris County in Texas, it's always about that.
Sonny00:02:38It didn't come down to the crucial Waukesha County, which, as we know, is, like, the most crucial county, because Wisconsin, unfortunately, was just, you know, they just blew it away there.
Vic00:02:47What did you think, Sonny, about the Electoral College results?
Sonny00:02:51Wow. I mean, you know, every four years we go through this, you know, why doesn't the Electoral College... You know, match up with the popular vote, necessarily. You know, who are we relying on here? Dead white men? But instead, you know, I think we were all pretty comfortable with the way things shook out last night. Or not, you know, depending on if you're on the other side of the aisle.
Vic00:03:15Yeah, because, you know, no matter how you look at it, you know, people are still very upset. Right. The losers, of course, the ones who didn't choose this person as our president-elect, you know. I mean, this is what happens.
JVL00:03:26We didn't choose Mars Wong.
Vic00:03:28Jonathan, what surprised you the most?
JVL00:03:32You know, this has been such an amazing and historic year, Victorino. And I, as my capacity as a political reporter, spent a lot of time on the ground following these people around Iowa and New Hampshire, watching both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump up close. And as we sort of should have come to expect, expect the unexpected, an amazing and historic result for an amazing and historic election.
Vic00:03:56Oh, that's just, I couldn't have said. I couldn't have said it any better than that. And really, as you know, even after this election, America will continue to remain to be divided. But that's not the only thing that's dividing Americans. Is it, Sonny? No. What else divides America?
Sonny00:04:14You know, I really think the preeminent clash of our time is between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC film universe, which we had another taste of this weekend when Doctor Strange grossed. A large sum of money to go ahead and prove that Marvel, once again, cannot turn out a failing product. It's just an assembly line over there.
Vic00:04:38Even if it looks like Inception?
Sonny00:04:39It looks a little bit like it. So Doctor Strange is about to— Explain what's happening.
Vic00:04:42Because I thought I had seen this movie, but that was Doctor Strange Love.
Sonny00:04:46Doctor Strange Love, also very good.
Vic00:04:49In a different way, though, wouldn't you say?
JVL00:04:51Yes.
Sonny00:04:51In a very—Doctor Strange Love, of course, which calls to mind the results of last night. Oh, yes. You know, the just brinksmanship. But the—no, but so Doctor Strange is about a neurosurgeon who gets in—who is a very haughty individual and he gets into a car crash and it destroys his hands and he wants to—he needs to fix them. So he—
JVL00:05:13Runs for president as a Republican.
Sonny00:05:15So he goes to all sorts of doctors and none of them are able to help him until finally he goes to the Mystic East and is able to receive instruction from the Ancient One, who is a Celtic— Tilda Swinton, who teaches him how to use the powers of the universe to do magic, kind of. It's—you don't want to think about it too hard, frankly.
Vic00:05:38So Tilda Swinton is a Celtic— A Celtic, a bald Celtic— Living in the Ancient One. In Catmandu. In Catmandu.
Sonny00:05:45Catmandu, yeah, right. It makes a lot of sense if you, you know, consider it. They—Doctor Strange has to—Doctor Stephen Strange has to overcome his many personal flaws to accept the blah, blah, blah, and save the world. It's rather— As always.
Vic00:06:00So his name is Doctor—his real name is Strange. That's not why— Doctor Stephen Strange, yes. That's not it.
Sonny00:06:04There's a joke early in the film about how, you know, they didn't want to name some life-saving new procedure, the Strange Procedure, because, you know, obviously that would be very—nobody would want to get the Strange Procedure.
Vic00:06:16But it reminds me of a podiatrist that lived on Connecticut Avenue, true story. His name was Dr. Korn. Yeah. You like that? I just sort of—I just ended that abruptly.
Sonny00:06:25So anyway, it is—in the spirit— In the spirit of the Marvel movie, it is kind of funny, and it's very kind of cookie-cutter. I will say that it is the most visually unique of these films. As you mentioned, it looks kind of like Inception with the folding buildings and the rearranged geography. But if you did, like, a big hit of LSD beforehand, right, if you were— And in this, it kind of resembles the old Steve Ditko drawings, the kind of trippy geometric designs with the curves. Anyway, it's interesting. It's an interesting-looking film. I would recommend seeing it in IMAX 3D, and I don't often do that because 3D is the worst. I know, right? I know. But it actually works. I would say it works about as well as any big-budget action movie I've seen in 3D. And I have to see them all in 3D because that's the—
JVL00:07:15Jonathan, you look stunned. What's the matter? I just know Sonny has been the foremost bulwark in America standing against the pestilence of three-dimensional film projection. And I just— It is—well, because, look— I can't believe it.
Sonny00:07:28Let's be honest. Let's be honest here. 3D is a cash grab, pure and simple, right? It is the studios adding an unnecessary special effect so they can charge people more money to wear glasses. Now, as a good capitalist, I have no problem with this, you know, objectively speaking. Aesthetically, I think it's quite disturbing because usually the 3D effect doesn't add very much to the film. And the glasses themselves are very—as a person who wears glasses and then has to wear the 3D glasses on top of the glasses, they give me a headache. I don't like them. They make the screen dark. There are just too many drawbacks.
Vic00:07:57I wish that— The people who made the 3D glasses made regular glasses for my head because those 3D glasses are the only kind that fit my head, assuming that you have glasses on top of it. But it fits me perfectly. I just have to take my glasses off and then I can't see anything.
Sonny00:08:10We should definitely have a headshot of you in the body of the text of this post that this goes up with. So people can actually— With, like, scale, you know, we could have, like, the sun next to it.
Vic00:08:22Who is the character from Marvel? Is it the thinker? Who is his name? The Watcher. No, you're thinking of the Watcher. Modok. Or the Watcher. Or both. Both. I actually didn't know. I just wanted to out you as comic nerds. Okay. So what is the situation then between the Marvel and DC, this battle between—do you find that it's just, you know, people are either one or the other? A little bit of both or—and where do you guys fall on this?
Sonny00:08:45JBL, do you want to take this one?
JVL00:08:47You know, so growing up as a comic book guy, which I was, and Sonny was kind of a little bit— I was.
Sonny00:08:54I collected comics, like, into college and then stopped.
JVL00:08:58Right. And you, Vic, you were a comic book guy basically until it stopped being acceptable, at which point, like, you found girls and did sports and were a normal human being.
Vic00:09:06Yes, that happened last year, so I just stopped collecting last year. I collected strictly, almost exclusively—I had a few others, but almost exclusively G.I. Joe comics.
JVL00:09:16Yes.
Vic00:09:16In the early 19—when they originally had come out in the 1980s.
JVL00:09:20G.I. Joe No. 21. I remember you have G.I. Joe No. 21. We sent it in to be graded by a comic book consortium. They totally screwed you.
Vic00:09:27That was all—
Sonny00:09:28Wait, what happened in G.I. Joe 21?
JVL00:09:30G.I. Joe 21 is the most worthwhile—of course, worthwhile—the most valuable of all the G.I. Joe comic books because it is the silent issue. Oh, yes. There's no dialogue on it. It features snake eyes on the cover, like, rappelling down a building, firing an Uzi, and it is the first appearance and origin of Storm Shadow. So it was a two ninja— Which one is Storm Shadow?
Vic00:09:48He's the ninja.
JVL00:09:48God, you're despicable.
Sonny00:09:50I am not a—I'm not a G.I. Joe guy. I don't—this was never a thing for me.
Vic00:09:53It was ninja versus ninja, essentially. I mean, Storm Shadow. Well, not nearly, but you know what? This is—it's funny because it kind of reminds me of that first Batman movie with Liam Neeson. Like, they had the special tattoos, and so what happens in—
Sonny00:10:05I'm sorry, the first Batman movie, the one with Liam Neeson?
Vic00:10:08Yeah, sorry about that. I mean— Yeah, that's what I'm coming—
JVL00:10:12What are we going to do with this guy? So let me just finish my comic book anecdote here. So I bet you even got to go to homecoming with a girl, huh?
Vic00:10:19What was that like? Well, let me—anyway, let me just get back to the story here. This is a family-rated show. They battle each other, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and Snake Eyes is with G.I. Joe and Storm Shadow works for Cobra. And it's all silent, as Jonathan says. And then in the end, there's a scene where you see their two arms are locked, and they both have the same, like, mysterious tattoo on their forearm. Then it's realized there's something deeper going on, and that's why it supposedly was worth a lot. What I spent a lot of money on was G.I. Joe No. 2 because it was a limited edition, and it was— I spent $20, like, in 1983, which was worth—that's a lot of money in 1983 for a kid. But it went up in value, and then they issued a second printing, and then it plummeted in value. So that's—but that's mostly— That's how they get you. That's how they get you.
JVL00:11:06They actually did a really short run on G.I. Joe No. 2, and I shouldn't know that. I'll stop. As I was saying, there is—as a kid growing up, there was a real divide between Marvel comic book readers and D.C. comic book readers. And I, as a kid, was a D.C. guy, almost exclusively, except for G.I. Joe, which was a Marvel title and I really liked. I didn't really get the— Marvel aesthetic.
Vic00:11:28I was exclusively Marvel.
JVL00:11:31Yeah. Well, then, you know what? This is the—in retrospect, I now look, and my best friend was a Marvel guy, almost exclusively, and that was the much more mature and sophisticated choice because the Marvel titles, they had range and depth and stories and interpersonal conflicts. And these—the stories in the Marvel universe actually progressed over time. They didn't progress in real time, but it was something—I think Stan Lee's rule of thumb was that seven years' worth of comic books should— constitute one year's worth of life within the characters' lives. And the DC was much more candy-colored. It was all just for fun. It was like, you know, sort of weird, bizarre superheroes and a lot of laughs. And what's funny is that, at least in the public perception, in the two cinematic universes, that perception has been flipped on its head. Where people who like Marvel movies say, oh, I like them because they're fun, and people who like the DC movies say, well, I really like them because they're more serious and they're— And I find that sort of interesting just because they come from such radically opposite source materials. And I have to say, as I've gotten older, I have fallen back in love with the Marvel comics that I missed as a kid. Like, I used to make my best friend, Chris, he was a big Daredevil guy. And I would be like, I'm sorry, he's blind and he's a superhero.
Sonny00:12:47Was this like the Frank Miller, Klaus Johnson Daredevil?
JVL00:12:50Before that, no. He was reading, like, the Chris Claremont, I think, Daredevils, Visionaries. He loved that stuff. And I would sit around and say, this is great. This is ridiculous. How could he be a superhero? I mean, I was a Batman guy and a Superman guy. And now I've gone back and I've read all the Frank Miller stuff. And I kind of love Daredevil because he does. He's such an odd power set.
Sonny00:13:10And also that Frank Miller run is very – I will be honest, the only Daredevil run I've read is that Frank Miller run and also a Kevin Smith one later on. But that Frank Miller one is very interesting because, again, he's dealing with, like, drug-addicted porn stars, you know? And evil, fat, you know? Kingpin criminal types.
JVL00:13:29But the key to the appeal of the Daredevil character is that Daredevil himself, Matt Murdock, is kind of a dick. Yes. He's the only superhero alter ego who – the alter ego guy is actually kind of a jerk. And when you read him, you're not always necessarily rooting for him. He does everything wrong, like, in his personal life.
Sonny00:13:50And not necessarily, like, a lovable jerk like a Wolverine Logan. No, totally. Like a gruff kind of – he's just kind of a dick.
JVL00:13:56Just a guy that you – Yeah. That you don't actually like very much. And that's interesting. Anyway, so in all that, I say I've come late in life to an appreciation of the Marvel comics. But I really love the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I think it's good. But not for the reasons that people say. When people say, oh, it's just because it's funny and it's humorous and it doesn't take itself too seriously, I think all that precisely misses the point. Which is that the governing philosophy of Marvel in this particular corporate regime has been – To put character and narrative first. And that's where all the success lies. And people used to say, if you think back to the 80s and 90s with the Superman and Batman movies, people would say, oh, well, you know, it all depends on what the villain is. You have to have a good villain. If you don't have a good villain, you don't have a good story. Think through the Marvel movies. The villains are almost beside the point. Everything is about the characters that are on display. It's about the dynamic. What are the character arcs of the Avengers, you know, in the original Avengers movies? What is every single one of those characters? There are six of them. The Joss Whedon juggles. That's the story. And every one of them has an arc with a beginning, middle and ending. That's amazing.
Vic00:15:02Sonny, are you more of a DC or a Marvel guy when you were growing up? And what about sort of in the movies now?
Sonny00:15:07I was never a strictly Marvel or DC person. I would say that I grew up mostly reading Marvel books. The Spider-Man books in particular are amazing, web of spectacular and then just regular straight-up Spider-Man. But then also when I got a little older, I was reading a lot of Batman. The more mature, you know, like really.
JVL00:15:27Were you a black suit Spider-Man guy?
Sonny00:15:29No, I was – by the time I started reading comic books, Venom was already a thing. So like I was post-black suit Spider-Man.
Vic00:15:39But when did the movie battle between Marvel and DC really happen in earnest? Because they did, as you were mentioning, Jonathan, there were the early, you know, the 70s and the 80s. There were attempts at mostly DC. DC only. Right? I don't remember a Marvel movie coming out.
Sonny00:15:55The first Marvel movie that was – The first Marvel movie that was successful was Blade in 1998, 1999.
JVL00:16:02Wow.
Sonny00:16:03With Wesley Snipes. With Wesley Snipes. It's 1998. This was the first Marvel movie that was a big success, both aesthetically and, you know, in terms of business.
Vic00:16:14And he had sequels too.
Sonny00:16:16There were two sequels. One was by Guillermo del Toro. It was pretty good. The third one was not good.
Vic00:16:20And you know the reason – one of the reasons why that series was actually successful before they even had all these special effects that we see now is because, well, Wesley Snipes himself is partly a superhero.
Sonny00:16:29Yes, he's – Most of those things he did were real, right? Exactly. There's no movie magic there. It's just Wesley Snipes magic. And then after Blade, you have X-Men, which was kind of the first big budget. I mean Blade was like kind of mid-budget. X-Men was an $80 or $90 million movie, which was, you know, at the time very big. And that preceded Spider-Man. That was a big deal. And then Spider-Man was like – Spider-Man was when like the era of the superhero blockbusters kicked off for good. And really we haven't looked back since then.
JVL00:16:57And Spider-Man was – one of the things I think is underappreciated about the success of that franchise is Spider-Man is the first post-9-11 blockbuster. And it came at a time when people – so 9-11 happens September of 2001. And you have the sort of winters before people did big releases in the winter. And then Spider-Man comes out that May and just – I think it made $400 million. And people just responded to that in a way that I think is actually very of the moment. If you remember the original Spider-Man trailer. It had a shot with the Twin Towers where he slings a web between the two, the catches. And they took that shot out. A helicopter. A helicopter, that's right. And they took that out for it. So that movie, you know, it's set in New York. It's a very fun-loving thing.
Vic00:17:39It's a shame too because I can imagine how much it costs to get a helicopter suspended between the Twin Towers.
JVL00:17:45Yeah, I'm sure they ate a lot of money on that one. The practical effects that he did on that were amazing. Chris Nolan had directed that. He would have done it with practical effects. Right.
Sonny00:17:52So then DC kind of responds with the Nolan Batman movie. Which I know we don't want to discuss too much here, but I think, you know, the DC Batman verse kind of created an aesthetic for the DC universe that continues to this day insofar as it was more realistic, a slightly more grounded, what would the world be like if there were superheroes type of approach? And this carried most kind of controversially into Zack Snyder's Batman – or Zack Snyder's superhero. Superman movies and also Batman for Superman. And then I guess next year in Justice League, we'll see how that goes. But, you know, the founding principle of Man of Steel is here is a literal Superman, like kind of a, you know, literal, terrifying, all-powerful figure doing battle with another terrifying, all-powerful figure in the skies of Metropolis, destroying large chunks of the city, blah, blah. And I think that – I actually really appreciate this kind of deconstruction of the character, this idea of what would it look like to real people if a Superman figure showed up. I know the movie takes a lot of – I know Man of Steel takes a lot of crap for, you know, the whole Kevin Costner sequence where, you know, he's like the people will fear you and they're not ready for you and that's why he lets himself die in that tornado. And I understand that this is not. I don't like the light, happy Christopher Reeve Superman, but I kind of appreciate the idea. I appreciate, like, actually thinking about what it means for Superman – for a Superman to exist. And this is one of the reasons why I actually like Batman v Superman, which the theatrical cut was kind of a disaster. The extended cut is much better. Readers, if you want to – listeners, if you want to check that out, I would recommend that. But again, this – it takes this idea of you have Batman who's basically like the best man on the world stage. He's a billionaire. He's a genius. He's, you know, super fit. He's the Olympic – he's got the beaker in one hand and the barbell in the other in, like, the 1960s, you know, kind of montage sequence. And he sees these two monsters flying around, destroying his city, tearing down his skyscrapers, killing people everywhere. And he's like, I have to stop this somehow. And I think that is a reasonable foundation for a Batman v Superman type film. Now, a lot of people disagreed, but – I have always been extremely fond of this kind of slightly darker, slightly more realistic idea.
JVL00:20:36But before we deconstruct Zack Snyder, could we rewind for a moment to talk about the Richard Donner Superman movies? Absolutely. Because, Vic, you love those things, and, man, I hate them. I can't even tell you. Well, there was a real –
Vic00:20:48So please, defend Richard Donner Superman. Oh, well, here's the thing. And, again, I wonder about the current battle between comic book movies. Now in Hollywood, and Hollywood is obsessed with these kind of movies now. It has to be a comic book. Everything has to be. That's where the money is in making a comic book movie. But before I get into Richard Donner versus Richard Lester Superman movies, was all of this just – they just had to wait for CGI to come into its own before this could happen? Is that why it was basically? Yeah, I think that's a big part of it.
JVL00:21:20CGI plus the global market. I would say that's the other thing. Once you move into a world, what – I mean you could do Superman, the Richard. Donald Superman in 1978 without CGI and it worked great. What you didn't have was a gigantic foreign market to double the domestic take. And for a – if you are a movie studio looking to maximize your foreign business on a picture, one of the ways to do it is to make a very accessible, visually stunning picture, which is what Superman – also with pre-sold things that people – if you are in India or in China, you have probably read Superman books, comic books, and you know who Superman is. And so that's one of the reasons I think. As much as the technology?
Vic00:21:58I was always wondering about that and why that was waiting to erupt when it did. And I think a lot of it was just because when CGI finally came onto its own. But with the original Superman, there was this battle between Richard Donner and in Superman II, he got replaced with Richard Lester. And the whole thing had to do with the producers. I believe their name was Alexander and Ilya Sokin were the producers of the Superman movies. And they just had a disagreement over the direction of the vision of what kind of movie. This should be Richard Donner wanted to be wanted this to be very serious, sort of, you know, what we would want, what we would expect today, kind of a movie. There are some beautiful shots in the first one. I mean, he really they got Marlon Brando, for goodness sakes. That costs a lot of money, especially in insurance, to get Marlon Brando. And he, of course, argued about his percent of the take for Superman II and things like that. And it was very difficult. But they wanted it very serious. Richard Donner wanted this very seriously. And if you look, there's a. Where Clark Kent was Superman is with his mother in Smallville in the midst of the cornfield. And there's a shot where it pans out and it's just gorgeous. And, you know, it's dramatic and it's sweeping. And that's what they wanted. And then when Superman II happened, part of Superman II was already being filmed by Donner. So, I mean, it was being done almost continuously. And a lot of the stuff was already in the can when the Salkins decided that they wanted to not go in that direction. They picked Richard. They picked Richard Lester because they wanted more comic, more hokey. And they said they wanted a flatter picture that you're looking at in terms of like you're looking at a comic book, you know, with the three villains. And so you're looking at these shots that are very sort of just very basic. There's nothing very sweeping about them. And a lot of the jokes were later on written in. They removed Marlon Brando from the second movie, again, because he wanted a percent that they weren't willing to pay him for that in gross points. But, you know, the Superman, the second one had to do with the three villains from Krypton, General Zod and his two cohorts. And in the original version, you know how they get put – there's that mirror.
JVL00:24:12The Phantom Zone.
Vic00:24:13The Phantom Zone. They get sent into the Phantom Zone. And in the Donner version, they break out of the Donner's – the Donner's Zone. The Phantom – the Donner's Zone is like where Lethal Weapon lives forever is the Donner's Zone. No. And they break out of the Phantom Zone because of the MX missile that Superman had turned away from New Jersey, from Hoboken, as you know. Oh, Weehawken. Remember it was supposed to – there were two MX missiles.
JVL00:24:40It would have been an improvement.
Vic00:24:41Yeah. Just made the way for the redevelopment as it stands now anyway. But – so one of those nuclear missiles is the ones that ends up shattering the Phantom Zone and that's what frees them. So all that was changed in Superman 2. In Superman 3, things really changed. They go downhill when they decided to bring Richard Pryor in and Robert Vaughn is the villain and that one is just all gags. And then Superman 4 is Quest for Peace. Go ahead.
JVL00:25:06Bring it in. The Quaker Superman, as I like to think of it.
Vic00:25:08That one is Quest for Peace, end of nuclear weapons. And I believe that one had a huge –
JVL00:25:12Superman 4, Superman versus George Fox.
Vic00:25:15Yes. No, he had Superman – I believe Superman 4 was – Christopher Reeve had a real hand in that, didn't he? I'm pretty sure. And, you know – Christopher Reeve was very much a liberal peacenik, so he, you know, wanted this to be an anti-nuclear weapons – Disgusting. Arms race movie. And the villain got his power from the sun and they brought back Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor.
JVL00:25:40Five writers credited on this movie, by the way. See, there you go.
Vic00:25:42That's how you could tell it was an easy one and done. And John Cryer was in that movie, too. I think as Lex Luthor's son or nephew, it was just terrible.
JVL00:25:53I love Gene Hackman. I will watch Gene. I love Gene Hackman in almost anything. I think he often makes a movie, like a movie that is a totally pedestrian movie. You put Gene Hackman in it and it becomes really kind of compelling. His choices, as he makes as an actor with Lex Luthor, I found to be absolutely baffling and among the worst acting choices I've ever seen anywhere.
Sonny00:26:20Have you ever liked a non-animated Lex Luthor, Jonathan?
JVL00:26:27A non-animated Lex Luthor? Kevin Spacey was almost as bad as Gene Hackman.
Sonny00:26:34I would say much worse, actually.
JVL00:26:36And I would say that Mark Zuckerberg's Lex Luthor, Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, I thought was a really interesting failure. Yeah. To my mind, it didn't work at all. And he plays in SuperMV Batman. The Jesse Eisenberg Luthor plays actually almost like Heath Ledger's Joker. He's not a recognizable Lex Luthor. He really is just the Joker as the head of a corporation. That said, it was an interesting bunch of choices, which I thought, like the whole movie, I actually came away from it thinking, boy, this is a total failure and kind of a car wreck, but an interesting one that I didn't mind having given two hours of my life to.
Vic00:27:23What I enjoyed was, I did like Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. In the first movie. And I liked his interaction, in fact, with Miss Tess Bakker and Otis, played by Ned Beattie. I thought that was great. And the living beneath Grand Central Station. I thought that's funny stuff, man. And the stuff, it just, I love those antics.
JVL00:27:41You always love broad, broad humor. Broadville. Just what Victorino Matus likes.
Sonny00:27:47We've spent a lot of time on old DC movies now. Well, that's all I know, Sonny. Let's just say, for the record, that the best, the best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie is Go JBL.
JVL00:28:04I could give you my top four very quickly. The Avengers, nobody needs me to defend The Avengers. As I said, it's an amazing contraption. My oldest kid has started watching The Avengers as of the last couple months. And so I've now seen this movie like 50 times.
Vic00:28:18Not Age of Ultron, the first one.
JVL00:28:20Yeah, the first one. The first one. And it's really great. Like, it's really great. Just as a piece of movie making. The other two I would put on my top four, I think, are largely overlooked, and it's a shame. The Wolverine, which is started out—
Sonny00:28:35Not Marvel Cinematic Universe. Well, no, it's going to be.
JVL00:28:39It's going to be. I mean, this is—so I would say that the divide—so there's this—people who follow this only halfway may not realize this. But Marvel, when it was facing bankruptcy in the 90s, sold off the rights to a bunch of its characters to try to keep itself out of bankruptcy. And so you wind up with Fox. Fox having the rights to The Mutants and The Fantastic Four, and Sonny having the rights—
Sonny00:29:02The X-Men movies and The Fantastic Four, just for people who don't know what mutants are. The X-Men movies and The Fantastic Four.
JVL00:29:07Anybody who's made it this deep into the podcast has signed up, because this is the least accessible show we're ever going to do.
Vic00:29:13It's a little too late for my nerd alert announcement.
JVL00:29:16And the Sonny had Spider-Man, but like the divided Germany of the post-war, this—we all know this is an abomination that eventually cannot stand. Eventually all Marvel will be brought into one. So The Wolverine started out, actually, as a Christopher McQuarrie script. So again, no surprise, it wound up as a great movie. And it's the only superhero movie—one of the only superhero movies where the stakes on it are not to save the world. So the story is, you have Logan, he is just living as a recluse out in Alaska, and a Japanese woman shows up and says, I will need to take you back to Tokyo, because this guy you used to know is dying, and he wants to—you saved his life once, and he wants to thank you. So Logan goes and shows up, and all of a sudden he's thrust into the middle of this family emergency in Japan, where the granddaughter of an industrialist is about to inherit the company, and a bunch of people are trying to kill her. And Logan decides to try to— Including the Yakuza. Including the Yakuza. Yakuza. And Logan decides to try to keep her alive. And so it is, in a weird way, it's like the Bourne identity meets Lost in Translation, because you have Logan as this stranger in a strange land, it's a little bit dark, it's an R-rated superhero movie, so you get when Wolverine is killing people with his claws, like you see people dying the way they would actually die. And it's great, like it's really tense, the stakes are very small, and that, to my mind, this is like one of my persistent complaints about action movies, is that the best tension comes from small stakes. I always think that you don't need to have the stakes be like the fate of the universe. It could really just be the fate of the two people you care about. Anyway, and the third one I would go to briefly— is Iron Man 3, which is a Shane Black creation, written and directed, and it is, it's really funny, it's essentially just a stripped-down detective story.
Vic00:31:07And that is the movie with Guy Pearce as the villain?
JVL00:31:08With Guy Pearce as the villain, and it is, if you liked Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and if you don't, then you're crazy, and if you haven't seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, you should go and rent it tonight, because that's the movie that resurrected Robert Downey Jr.'s career. This is, imagine Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as a superhero movie, that's what Iron Man 3 is, and it even achieves— This is the only time I've ever had a kid as a sidekick in a movie, and not have the kid be annoying.
Vic00:31:33Whoa, who's the kid?
JVL00:31:35He's just some kid that—
Sonny00:31:36Oh, right, I know the kid, I remember that, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like barely a sidekick. No, I thought it worked out well.
JVL00:31:41He's the second act.
Vic00:31:42The kid is the second act. I think it worked out, because he's a nerd kid, he can tinker with things right, and he helps them rebuild. But there's no schmaltz doing the dealing, this is what's so great about it,
JVL00:31:52so Shane Black leads you by the nose, thinking that you're going to get movie schmaltz with the kid, and then sort of gives you the finger, and it's great. And then I think Captain America Winter Soldier is a really awesome paranoid thriller, with, again, really good character work. I thought you could spend the whole movie out on the land with Cap and Black Widow. So those are my favorite superhero movies, non-Nolan division. We talked about this before the show, that I don't think we should include the Christopher Nolan movies in any of this discussion, because those are art.
Sonny00:32:19Yeah, well, I think that's fair. That also kind of stacks the deck against DC. It's like, well, you can count all the— You can count all the DC films, except for the three best ones.
JVL00:32:28Tell me how great Green Lantern is.
Sonny00:32:30Oh, that's terrible. It's as bad as, say, Thor 2, or— It is not as bad as Thor 2.
JVL00:32:37Thor 2 is not as bad as Green Lantern. Green Lantern, the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie, is the worst aborted franchise-building movie since— I don't even know. It's absolutely terrible.
Sonny00:32:47I will say— Fantastic Four. My thing about the Marvel movies is I never watch any of them again. I've never had an urge to watch— I don't want to watch any of them again, except for Guardians of the Galaxy, which I think is very fun and very, very, you know, kind of light. And Chris Pratt is fantastic.
JVL00:33:06Do you think Guardians of the Galaxy is better than any other beloved genre movies, Sonny?
Sonny00:33:11Well, this is one of my most controversial takes. Imran Burgundy? Yes. Well, I mean, it is the same exact movie as Star Wars, A New Hope.
JVL00:33:20What, what, what? But it's better. But it's a better movie. Tell me more.
Sonny00:33:26It's too complicated to go into now. We don't have time for this. But if you follow me on Twitter and ping me, I'll fill you in.
Vic00:33:35I found the spaceships not to be memorable, but the characters to be memorable.
Sonny00:33:39I know, the characters are great.
Vic00:33:40They all look like these things floating around. I just saw this movie yesterday, by the way. So I can tell you with fresh, fresh eyes, I really enjoyed it. And I think what really mattered in this movie, well, you have a great cast. Chris Pratt is great. Michael Rooker is great. He's always an underrated actor. John C. Reilly. John C. Reilly. Glenn Close. It is Glenn Close. Everyone's great. Everybody's great. But the soundtrack.
Sonny00:34:02Great soundtrack. The 80s mixtape soundtrack. 80s mixtape soundtrack.
Vic00:34:05That's all you need to know.
Sonny00:34:06Perfect. It saves the movie. I love that movie. I love that movie. And as I said, it's really the only, except for The Avengers, which I got drunk one night
Vic00:34:14and was like, oh, The Avengers on Netflix. Sure. Why not? That's how I feel at Blue Lagoon.
JVL00:34:21I mean, that's honestly. Jeez. That's how my fourth child was conceived.
Sonny00:34:25Blue Lagoon. Blue Lagoon? Lovely. Oh, God. I feel like we've gone on.
Vic00:34:28You know what I'm thinking about Blue Lagoon is? I didn't know until later that they were rescued. I thought the movie stopped when she got pregnant. No, no.
Sonny00:34:34Sorry. Yeah. So, Marvel. Marvel's cinematic universe, not that good, frankly. I'll watch Man of Steel 10 more times before I watch Captain America, Winter Soldier.
Vic00:34:46Don't watch Howard the Duck. That's technically a Marvel movie.
JVL00:34:49We had another one coming, you know.
Vic00:34:51A remake of Howard the Duck? They're going to do another Howard the Duck.
Sonny00:34:53Well, because this is the end of The Avengers. No, at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy. That's right. They're not going to make another Howard the Duck.
JVL00:35:01What I love about Marvel as a company here is that they had sold off the best of their characters. They had sold off the Hulk and sold off Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four and all the flagships. And they said, we're going to build our company on our cast-offs. So, there was this – remember this internet joke coming out before Guardians of the Galaxy came out? There was this thing where DC had put off doing a Wonder Woman movie. And, you know, the joke was, you know, DC says, oh. We don't think we can do Wonder Woman yet because we just don't know that audiences are ready for a female superhero carry-on movie. And Marvel was like, hey, we got a raccoon with a machine gun. Let's go. And a talking tree.
Vic00:35:37Yeah. And it worked. Okay. And it worked. Have you all said your piece now?
Sonny00:35:41Yes.
Vic00:35:41Good. Can we move on? DC forever. Okay. On to corrections. And we've got a ton. Jonathan, do you want to start first? This is from last week's episode. Things that you wanted to air out.
JVL00:35:54Grievances. The first correction, actually. Something I got right. I couldn't believe that I got it right, that I was going to pat myself on the back for it. I talked about a book called The Devil's Candy, which is a book about the making of Bonfire of the Vanities. The author is Julie Salomon. And I mentioned this again, not actually to plug myself, but to plug the book, that if you like this sort of thing, you should go out and read it. It's one of the three or four best books I've ever read about Hollywood. Correction number one for me is in the movie Catch Me If You Can, Tom Hanks' character, Carl Hanratty, did not work for the Treasury Department. He was for the FBI. I think I said that, yes. You asked me, Victorino, Commissioner Gordon in Tim Burton's Batman, who is that played by? The answer is Pat Hingle. And the third correction is Sonny was assailing Samuel Jackson, saying how he just plays Sam Jackson in every role he's in. And I went back and looked at this. This is just ridiculous. You have sort of cool Sam Jackson, which he does often, but you also have Nick Fury's Sam Jackson, which is very different. You have Steven from Django Unchained, who's very different. Serious Sam Jackson in Black Snake Moan. He does villains like Unbreakable and Jackie Brown. He does action. He even does prestige like in A Time to Kill. And unlike Tom Hanks, Sam Jackson can be in a movie just being on the periphery, adding value as part of an ensemble. He doesn't need to be the big fat star. Team Sam.
Vic00:37:14I am imagining, Jonathan, I'm imagining Sam Jackson in all the movies you listed. And to me, I think he's still the same guy. Anyway, same exact guy.
Sonny00:37:26Biggest correction for last week, I need to apologize to my friends at Roll Call Newspaper, where I spent formative years. And twice last week, I called it The Roll Call Newspaper. That's just not, that's not right. So my bad.
Vic00:37:39Was that it? Otherwise, you were flawless?
Sonny00:37:41I think there was another one, but I can't find it in my email.
Vic00:37:44You rarely make mistakes. Okay. I am pretty much perfect. Thank you. As you know, we did a very special episode of Tom Hanks, and some listeners were disappointed. Longtime listener Tim Flacco said, quote, we blew. We blew it by not mentioning Joe versus the Volcano. So here we go. Joe versus the Volcano. I hope he's happy. That movie's bad. I'm just mentioning it. Also, somebody mentioned The Man with the Run Red Shoe, and I actually like that, and I think Jim Belushi and Carrie Fisher, and I think they're great. And then a few people complained about not mentioning You've Got Mail or Sleepless in Seattle, and I just wanted to tell these people, somebody on Twitter named Shannon Last or something like that, said, what happened to You've Got Mail? And I just want to say, I mentioned both. I mentioned both of those as my favorite rom-com Tom Hanks movies, but somebody left that on the cutting room floor. No names. Speaking of things that were terrible. No names. No names. It's just somebody who doesn't like to smell bourbon. Okay. Anyway, don't cry, shop girl, as I say. And also, two things about Apollo 13. I was talking about the German engineer, not the scientist, the German engineer, NASA pad leader, Gunther Wendt, somehow said space uniforms instead of space suits. Space costumes? Space uniforms would happen until the United Federation of Planets comes into effect. I want the red shirt. Thank you. I'll take the brown one. And thanks to longtime listener Evan Sparks, who reminded me where that line about Wernher von Braun came from, and it's a song from the great Tom Lehrer, once the rockets are up, who cares, as soon as they come down, check it out on YouTube. That's all I got. What are you boys drinking today? Ah, I'm so glad you asked, Jonathan. Today we've got a good one. This is called... Wassmann's Rappahannock pot-stilled, non-chilled, single-malt whiskey from the Copper Fox Distillery, courtesy of my brother-in-law, Bill Dwyer. It's 96 proof. What did you think, Sonny?
Sonny00:39:38I thought it was tasty. Yeah. I have no strong objections to this delicious brown liquor.
Vic00:39:44I agree. It grows on you, like Virginia. Was this made in Virginia? Yes, it's Rappahannock. And, you know, Virginia has been, you know...
Sonny00:39:54I'm just going to reassess what I said. I just said. I take it back. Terrible.
Vic00:39:58They make great whiskeys, and they're very important in elections, as you know. Well, as from last night.
JVL00:40:03Yeah. Wow. I'm enjoying my Zima over here. Even though it was discontinued in 2008, I kept a stash of these things in my basement.
Sonny00:40:09I was wondering, where did you get that tasty-looking Zima? Those have not been sold for years. It goes bad.
Vic00:40:16There's just enough alcohol for it to go turning sour, I guess.
Sonny00:40:20Don't let Vic have those. I know he likes to feed them to the...
Vic00:40:24And... That's all the time we have for this week's episode of The Weekly Substandard. If you have questions and complaints, you can tweet me at Victorino Matus or at Sonny Bunch. And Jonathan, no, you don't want to be tweeted at. No. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you at the movies.
JVL00:40:46Get it. Come on. They can't see you blinking.
Vic00:40:49Oh, they can't see me? I'm blinking, which means I must be doing an impression of... Jean Shallot. I can't believe... No, the ABC movie reviewer guy. Oh, NBC. With the frizzy hair. No, no, not at all. Arch Campbell. Oh, you're doing the local...
Sonny00:41:06I love Arch Campbell. Did you ever see him at screenings?
JVL00:41:09He's at the screenings all the time still, even though he's not.
Sonny00:41:12So he still goes. Oh, yeah. He doesn't review them anymore, but he still goes.
Vic00:41:16That happens.
Sonny00:41:17Do you think people will get the... Election? The fact that we taped this... On a Monday? On a Monday.
Vic00:41:22Before Trump won? I know. Wow.
JVL00:41:27You went pretty dark there, huh?
Vic00:41:29Yeah, well, you know, whatever... I know what's going to happen with North Carolina, Utah, Colorado, Michigan. It's the Brexit vote. Well, it's... It's the Brexit vote all over.
Sonny00:41:39Evan McMullin is going to swing it, too.
Vic00:41:40He is. It's going to go... It's going to get sent to the House, and then he gets elected. That's what's happening. And we're seeing it 24 hours before it happens. So that's what's really exciting about this special podcast. You heard it here.
JVL00:41:51Yeah.
Sonny00:41:52Do you think that worked?
JVL00:41:54I think it's obvious I'm Team Marvel. You, Zack Snyder, super fan. Or Team DC.
Sonny00:41:58That'll work. Right? I also get Christopher Nolan, though. Yeah.
Vic00:42:01And Jonathan gets Bryan Singer. I just... You know, a hot tub.
JVL00:42:06Outtakes? I thought those were the outtakes. Oh, those were the outtakes. Oh, those were the outtakes?
Guest00:42:10I'm sure it was fine.
?00:42:25Outtakes?
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