How are things going for you? Still grim? Yeah, I thought so.  Maybe this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie can offer a little hope.

I’m joined by writer-director Lowell Dean, who made the Wolfcop movies and has two films coming out in 2024; one of them,  the horror-wrestling mashup Dark Match, is dropping on Shudder in the US and opening in Canadian theaters this Friday.

And we talked about Superman.

Sure, Richard Donner’s 1978 blockbuster defined the superhero movie narrative that now dominates mainstream American cinema. But it also endures because it’s a goddamn great movie, a film that wears its heart on its sleeve and understands its characters on every level. Christopher Reeve’s performance connects directly to kids and helps them be better adults. Margot Kidder is having the best time. Gene Hackman! Ned Beatty! Valerie Perrine! Jackie Cooper! What more could anyone ask?

Anyway, it’s a wonderful picture and Lowell and I both love it. We talked about the big-screen treatment of the Man of Steel over the last half-century — and how Reeve’s performance casts a long, long shadow over every subsequent interpretation of Clark Kent — as well as our admiration for what Donner accomplished cinematically and the stones it must have taken to deliver a movie that argues for hope over cynicism in the post-Watergate era. Because that’s Superman; it’s even more of a miracle than you think it is.

Come listen! Find the show in all the usual places:  Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts, your podcatcher of choice … or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it on your morning commute to the Daily Planet.  It’s swell.

And then catch up to Shiny Things, where I’ve just written about the new releases of Conclave and We Live in Time and Imprint’s exceptionally curated 4K special edition of The Longest Day, which took almost two months to reach me but was entirely worth the wait. You’re already a subscriber, right? Otherwise why am I even doing this?