Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturday at 6pm GMT. However, this week, we’re going a little off-format.
This week, a special crossover episode with Speakin’ Geek, an Irish pop culture podcast wherein Graham takes a look at whatever is happening in the world of geekdom.
With Justice League being released this week, Graham invited us to discuss the two previous films in Zack Snyder’s trilogy, Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman. Even though the films were not on the list, we thought it would be an interesting discussion. We are glad to share it with you as a bonus off-format episode.
Show Notes:
- Recorded 11th November 2017.
- A special podcast episode recorded as a crossover with Speakin’ Geek.
- This is the first time that The 250 has covered a film that has never been on the eponymous list.
- This is the first episode of The 250 to cover more than one film.
- The films were suggested by Graham, who very graciously suggested the crossover.
- Listen to Speakin’ Geek on their homepage.
- Follow Speakin’ Geek on Twitter.
- Subscribe to Speakin’ Geek on iTunes.
- Follow Graham on Twitter.
- Read Graham’s reviews at Scannain.
- Phil Sandifer discusses Man of Steel at Eruditorium Press.
- Darren discusses the backlash to Batman vs. Superman and the “auteur blockbuster.”
- Darren discusses the rejection of nostalgia in Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman.
- Darren’s review of Justice League.
- Follow The 250 on Twitter.
- Subscribe to The 250 on iTunes.
- Subscribe to The 250 on Stitcher.
Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: batman vs. superman, graham day, man of steel, podcast, speakin' geek, The 250, zack snyder |
the m0vie blog 
Batman v. Superman always reminded me of the McDuffie/Riba Justice League TV episodes, “Question Authority”/”Flashpoint”, as both stories invite the viewer to dwell on the other side of the superhero fantasy, where it’s not one of personal power for the viewer but one where someone else solves your problems for you, and how that’s exhilarating, but more than a little frightening.
In the TV episodes, the show’s eye lingers on the non-“super-powered” Huntress as she hands the four-parter’s story off to the character who named that idea, on Huntress’s actions and reactions. It underlines the concerns of Superman’s former friend and the anti-League conspiracy he joins, how if Superman decided to do everything the way Huntress does, “off the books”, it’d be all people like us could do to react to it.
Snyder and Goyer’s movie shares its big influences with McDuffie and Riba’s show: how Alan Moore used this ground-up perspective in Miracleman and Watchmen to smash the superhero concept to pieces and examine its components, and how Grant Morrison used the same in “All-Star Superman” (which McDuffie adapted as a screenplay) to try to put that concept back together again.
But what strikes me most about the two, the movie and the show, is that McDuffie and Riba work hard to square the circle, with the scene shifting to Superman’s perspective to engender real sympathy in a pair of encounters with more earthbound perspectives. Snyder and Goyer’s movie instead makes a noisy spectacle of how Man of Steel’s events would look to people on the ground, then shoves the implications aside when they threaten to complicate the movie’s climax, assuring us that all those buildings falling over are conveniently abandoned this time. It comes off as cheap and cowardly to me.