Episode 68.5 – Disc 2 – On The Screen With Travis George

All-Star Superman was great. This is a modern myth, giving us the Man of Steel and his feats of strength, wisdom, and kindness. He is graceful and brave in the face of mortality, setting on a course to knit together the loose strands of his life and destiny through an episodic series of challenges. The comic series (and movie adaptation) is distilling 70 years of story-telling; elements that were thought of goofy in the Silver Age are used well here. Snyder and Nolan would do well to bring a similar characterization to Superman in 2012; he is humanized by facing his end with dignity and courage. I couldn’t be more pleased with it.

May I say I found the examination and discussion of some of my favorite movies in this episode to be a little shallow. I’m a big fan of The Matrix franchise and I won’t go into some fan-boy didactic explanation into the minutia of the films (you can go to this forum post at the following link to read that: http://mubi.com/topics/12647). I will say with the plethora of extras that supplied in the box set, including audio commentaries on all three films by two philosophers who loved the movies and three film critics who hated all the movies, could have supplied interesting discussion topics. Especially the “Return to the Source” documentary which is one of the best supplemental features I have ever seen on a DVD. I believe I’ve watched it more times then any of the movies in the box-set. It is like an introduction to philosophy course in a one hour movie.

As for the movie which holds a permanent place on my iPod touch, the Marx brothers “Duck Soup”. I believe it is a perfect movie comedy, and I don’t like movie comedies. There are no extraneous plot elements that slow down the film, which is something that I believe is something that hinders movies like “Animal Crackers” and “The Coconuts”. You touched a bit on how each of the brothers represented various facets of movie comedy that came before: Groucho is the fast talking wit, Harpo is the silent comedian, Chico is the crude Italian stereotype, and Zeppo is the strait man. But the last few minutes of the conversation was just a clumsy reiteration of one of the comedy bits.

Not to be overly critical, I love your podcast and keep up the good work.

I do agree with you about Duck Soup. The thing is, this is free form conversation. I don’t use notes, to be honest, when it comes to what’s been on our screen. It’s more like a venue for us to geek out about films that sadly wouldn’t be talked about during the regular conversation. Plus, Duck Soup, as you know, is a classic comedy (which I’m a big fan of the genre in general), so most of the stuff I would say about it would be tracking over what has been said time and time again. I thought the listeners, some of which might not have seen a Marx Bros film before (which is the case), might want to know of classic bits that have been used again and again, even in today’s comedy sphere.

Again, I know myself, like my fellow hosts, love feedback, and would rather have fans who might be a bit critical than those that only complain about the little things. I always wonder if people are going to ask why I watch so many strange films. :)