Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Superman"

David Corenswet is your new Last Son of Krypton. (Jessica Miglio)

One of my earliest Pop Culture Happy Hour appearances was to discuss 2013’s Man of Steel, a film I liked more than my pals Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon. My willingness to stick up for a movie that Looper, The Last Jedi and Knives Out writer/director Rian Johnson would later tell me was “the first film [he’d] ever paid to see in the theater,” became a big part of my identity on the show for several years thereafter. So it was only right that I’m back on this week to chop up the new Superman from writer/director James Gunn, which the three of us all liked a lot. But lest any opportunity for fake antagonism between Glen and me go untapped, let me say that my original greeting upon being introduced in this episode was “I like pink very much, Linda.” And so it would have stayed had Glen not ratted me out by pointing out that that line from Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman was in reference to… Lois Lanes underwear. (She invited Superman to look! Check the tape!)

And if that ain’t enough Glen-and-Chris-jaw-about-Kal action for you, FIimspotting just resurfaced our Top Five Batman/Superman Moments segment from nine years ago, tied to the release of 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — the single film Gunn’s bright, buoyant new Superman is most intended to course-correct. My No. 1 was of course that selfsame pink-knickers balcony scene from Superman ‘78.