Superhero Movies, Examining Pop-Culture, & the History of Police in Film (Interview w/ Joe George)

Eli (00:02.049)
Hello and welcome to The Establishing Shot, a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies. I am your host Eli Price and we are here on episode 67 taking a short break from our Spielberg series covering all of his movies at this point. I was kind of used to saying early Spielberg and his movies of the 70s and 80s, but now that we've moved

into the next phase. It's kind of, what do you say, the mid-career? I don't know. It's kind of awkward. It's his mid-career, but it's awkward to say. And we're probably just going to keep going with Spielberg. So we're just covering Spielberg at this point. But we're taking a break from that this week. I have Joe George back on with me from our Schindler's List episode last week. We made sure

Joe George (00:35.191)
Yeah.

Eli (01:00.088)
to record a week later and wear the same clothes and look exactly the same. No, we just actually recorded that and now we're recording this one. But yeah, George is, Joe, I said George. You do have two first names, so.

Joe George (01:04.525)
You

Joe George (01:15.455)
I have three middle names is what I like to say, but I answer to both.

Eli (01:19.49)
That's fair. Joe, it's great to have you back. I really enjoyed and got a lot of our conversation on Schindler's List. And I hope everyone else did too. It's a hard thing to talk about. was a little bit, I gotta admit I was a little bit nervous about it. Like how do you cover a movie like that and not diminish it? Yeah, well, great.

Joe George (01:42.957)
That didn't show at all. You did fantastic, man.

Eli (01:49.246)
Mildly nervous, you know But yeah, so this week I figured I would have Joe back on he has One book out. He has a lot of articles. I would imagine out there in the the intro webs and But he does have one book out I was able you did send me The book beforehand I was able to read some of the intro because you only sent it to me a few days ago

Joe George (02:15.915)
I'm about to say I'm impressed you got that. I was like, I don't I feel like I should send it, but. OK.

Eli (02:22.412)
Yeah, I read like half of the introduction. what I'll be doing is asking you questions to get excited about reading it and hopefully along with the listeners.

Joe George (02:36.793)
Hopefully I won't dissuade you.

Eli (02:38.414)
But the book is called the this correct me if I'm wrong because I don't have it right in front of me the superheroes and the glory The superpowers in the glory Drap I should have pulled it up so I didn't get it wrong. But yeah rookie mistake Yeah, yeah the superpowers in the glory it is Remind me what the subtitle is

Joe George (02:47.848)
Superpowers in the glory. Yeah.

Joe George (02:55.532)
You

Joe George (02:59.331)
equally good name.

Eli (03:07.438)
because I would probably botch that too.

Joe George (03:07.783)
a well here we go because I can't remember what the subtitle is and this is when you write a book you don't necessarily get to pick the title or the same thing with the articles with the headlines so I think I think it's a viewer's guide to the theology of superhero movies it's close to that okay

Eli (03:11.765)
Ha

Eli (03:15.928)
That's true.

Eli (03:25.416)
That sounds right. Yeah, yeah. When you say it aloud, I'm like, yes, I remember reading something like that. yeah, it's so, you I, you know, I've mentioned before on the podcast, I'm a Christian and Joe is as well. And one of the things that I think is interesting to do personally is to kind of have theological conversations with movies.

Joe George (03:31.253)
Okay, good.

Joe George (03:42.541)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:55.426)
I've talked about, I don't remember if I've talked on this podcast before, I've talked on another about Robert K. Johnston's book, Real Spirituality, R-E-E-L, and that's a big thing that he talks about is theological conversations with movies. So that's one thing I find interesting, and obviously Joe does too because he has a whole book about superhero movies and what they say.

theologically, or what they how they can inform and come into conversation with your theology in a way, I guess. Which I think is a really interesting endeavor, and probably not the first thing you would think about for a superhero book, or a book about superhero movies is, let's think about this through the lens of theology. But, yeah, yeah, it's

Joe George (04:48.035)
Yeah, no.

Eli (04:53.58)
Very interesting and intriguing to me. But I wanted to kind of go back to maybe the beginning for you as a writer. What is, do you remember like choosing to be a writer at some point in your life? Was there like a moment or like you just have always wanted to write or is it just kind of like this is where I am now? I don't know how I got here. What's, how did you start? What, what?

Joe George (05:19.121)
Ha ha ha ha!

Eli (05:23.03)
When did you know, I guess, that you wanted to be a writer?

Joe George (05:26.041)
I don't know that there was a time, like up through high school and towards college, I wanted to be an artist, you know, a cartoonist. It turns out I'm really bad at that. But I had parents that could pay for art school if I was really set on that. And they wisely dissuaded me from that. And you know what? guess I can remember I went to community college for.

Eli (05:45.23)
Hmm.

Joe George (05:54.866)
for Kalamazoo Valley Community College, and not in Kalamazoo and strangely, Oshtimo, Michigan, and taking just like a composition class, had...

Joe George (06:11.398)
probably the way that most straight men do things is I wrote something and a pretty girl said it was good. And I thought, well, well, that's that that that hasn't really happened ever since then. But that was enough to spark me into it. And so, yeah, I got nothing else going for me. So we'll do that. And then, you know, that was about that. But I went to I went to grad school and was set on teaching.

Eli (06:28.75)
It's like you don't say.

Joe George (06:41.18)
for a long time. But this is what people try to tell you before you go to grad school and while you're in grad school, but I didn't listen until after I finished my PhD, is that there's not actually any jobs, not full-time jobs in there. And somehow that went, while I was adjuncting around, started just writing.

movie reviews and movie articles just for fun and then that turned into a supplemental income and somehow that's turned into most of my income. I still adjunct to teach a couple of classes but most of my income comes from writing now so that wasn't a very clear answer but that was the honest one.

Eli (07:27.118)
Yeah. Well, it sounds like, it sounds like it all of a sudden happened to you, over time. Yeah. All of sudden over time. And now here you are. yeah. And you can, when people say, what do you do? You can say, I'm a writer now. does it feel weird?

Joe George (07:34.202)
I mean, yeah, all of a sudden over time. That's exactly how it happened. And now here I am, and we're talking.

Joe George (07:45.639)
I just started. yeah. I've just started within the last six months being like, I'm a writer and I also supplement with teaching. Because then they're always like, well, what do you write? Have I read anything? like, no, I wrote about Batman today. You didn't read anything I wrote.

Eli (08:04.173)
Yeah.

Eli (08:10.403)
Yeah.

Joe George (08:12.935)
But it's cool. It's weird, but it's cool.

Eli (08:15.958)
Yeah, yeah, so you're really like fresh into describing yourself as a writer, I guess. So that's that's kind of fun, I guess, is it?

Joe George (08:23.771)
Yeah.

I this is actually the second book that I've published and so, and published and I'm just now feeling brave enough so, I don't know. Imposter syndrome's real, man.

Eli (08:41.532)
Yeah. it is, you know, I, when you create something and put it out there, it's kind of like, I don't know, maybe someone will see this, but yeah. So I don't know.

Joe George (08:51.506)
nobody has seen it. I got my first royalty check, can tell you. Nobody's seen it, but yeah, exactly. It's just shouting into the void, isn't it? That's exactly right.

Eli (08:57.642)
Yeah. Well, I make no money doing this, so... Yes, but I have fun doing it, so yeah. What made you want to write about films in particular?

Joe George (09:15.884)
So my PhD is in American literature. And my first book was my dissertation. I just turned it into an academic monograph. And so I was writing about literature a lot. And I'm still an avid reader. But here's the thing. Even a long movie is like four hours long. Even a short book is like four hours long. And so.

Eli (09:41.091)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (09:44.684)
Yeah.

Joe George (09:45.705)
When it comes to just how much you can cover and what you can get out there, it just works out that movies are the thing. And I wish I wrote about literature more than I do, because this is my job now, it sounds so dumb, but I have to kind of look at the value proposition.

And I just, I've been sitting on a week, got something from my editor at Sojourners who was like, hey, are there any books coming up that you want to write on? And yes, I do. But is it going to be worth it to do? Do I want to turn my reading into work in that way? And if I do that, instead of just reading it because I want to read it.

Eli (10:36.899)
Mm.

Joe George (10:41.578)
If I do that, is it worth it for what they're going to pay me? You know, that sounds so dumb, but when you turn, when you get lucky enough to turn the things you love into money making endeavors, then you do have to start thinking about them in that way. So anyway, the short answer is more people are interested in movies than they are basically any of other things that I work with.

Eli (10:44.479)
Right. Yeah.

Eli (10:53.975)
Yeah.

Eli (10:57.517)
Yeah.

Joe George (11:11.402)
And I love cinema as well. And this will go into your question about why superheroes, I'm sure, why would I care that much about it. I'm a firm believer in going where people are at. I do not believe at all in being snotty about, I don't believe in the curatorial sort of approach to art. There are definitely, I have my opinion,

Eli (11:24.449)
Yeah, okay.

Eli (11:38.439)
The cannon or whatever yeah

Joe George (11:39.914)
The canon, exactly right. Like, I tell my, when I teach my literature classes, The Great Gatsby is my favorite book, but I don't have any sort of investment in telling you that you also need to love it. I'm more interested in helping you to express the things that you love. so, I sound bitter maybe when I'm talking about.

I gotta write about movies. No, no, no, I love movies and more so I love thinking about, I love engaging with people about how art is affecting them. And right now that's the main way we do storytelling in the United States and therefore I love it.

Eli (12:14.978)
Yeah.

Eli (12:18.808)
Yeah. Well, I think the best film reviews that I read are ones that not just like tell me, not just like the critic telling me what they think about the movie, but in a sense, like teaching me how to think about movies. so like, even if you're, even if I'm reading something about a movie I didn't like and maybe this critic likes it or vice versa,

Learning how they think about movies is Is really cool to me I get a lot out of it and You know, I'm not looking for them to tell me if I should like a movie or not so much as well How did they watch the movie? What what did they get out of it? And you know, it can teach you something about how to watch movies as well how to engage with the art whether it be movies which is

I the thing that more people are engaged with, or even literature sometimes. I could probably use some help in that area. I don't read as much as I probably should. this Spielberg series has got me reading more books because I'm trying to read all the movies he's adapted, and he's adapted a good bit of stuff.

Joe George (13:20.234)
Yep. Yeah.

Hahaha

Joe George (13:34.41)
Yeah?

Joe George (13:40.556)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you're in that kind of weird conversation about adaptations too, which is fascinating if you can approach it from that perspective of these are two discrete works of art in different medium, media rather. If you try to...

Eli (13:58.712)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (14:04.383)
I thought the character looked like this, and you cast it like this, you're gonna drive yourself nuts, and I don't think that's a very useful conversation anyway, really.

Eli (14:07.234)
Yeah.

Eli (14:11.02)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, I get the interesting conversation as far as that goes to me is, well, what was the point of the book and has the movie like distorted that in some way? And is that okay? Is it okay? Is it okay to buy the rights to this but fundamentally change what it is? Is that like in the ethics of art? Okay, I guess.

Joe George (14:25.1)
Yeah. Yeah. Is that OK is really good.

Joe George (14:33.921)
Yeah.

Joe George (14:39.127)
Yeah. I would argue in almost every case, yes it is. Because the original still exists. It's not taken from it. We're veering away from literature into the lead us there,

Eli (14:41.397)
the

Eli (14:46.04)
That's fair.

Eli (14:50.104)
That's true, yeah.

Joe George (15:01.427)
As somebody who writes about nerd stuff a lot, this is an argument that I constantly have with people, especially about superheroes and comic books and that sort of thing. It's not even just what it, I mean, that's a big part of it, but it's also, you know, this character had read it. Well, a big one is this character is white. In the movie, they're black, you know, and even if that was a just.

Eli (15:08.714)
yes and what is canon and what is not

Right.

Eli (15:24.366)
Mm.

Joe George (15:29.101)
I mean, sometimes it raises bigger questions that the movie doesn't want to answer. And that's that's its whole thing. But even if you hated this version, you still have the other. It's still there. You know, you can still go back and read the original. They haven't destroyed it. It's it's larger for adaptation. Or, I mean, we can think about this in literary terms, too. Like I said, The Great Gatsby is my favorite book. don't like any of the movie adaptations, but

Eli (15:42.147)
Yeah.

Eli (15:49.88)
Yeah.

Joe George (15:59.022)
They are in conversation and they enlarge, even when I say I don't like the Robert Redford one, I don't like the DiCaprio one because the Redford one's way too boring and the DiCaprio one's way too extravagant. That makes me appreciate the original one more, you know? So there can be...

Eli (16:17.496)
That's an interesting point.

Joe George (16:21.871)
Like I could understand if you were a big, it's so, Robert Heinlein fan, and you watch Verhoeven's Starship Troopers and you're like, he hates the book that he's adapting, right? Verhoeven looks at Starship Troopers, reads Starship Troopers and says, this is a fascist text. And he makes a movie that's, all of our heroes are dumb fascists. I can see how that would anger you.

But also, that's a valid interpretation of Starship Troopers. It's just that his valid interpretation, instead of writing it on his blog, is a Hollywood blockbuster. But it is still an interpretation. And so you respond to it like any other interpretation. I'm sorry, I'm ranting.

Eli (17:00.44)
Yeah. Right.

Yeah, no that's good. No, no it's good. yeah this is a maybe a taste of what you can expect from a book that you've read.

Joe George (17:16.248)
I'm way more coherent. It's like one o'clock in the morning right here and I'm all hopped up on soda. There's a reason I write and not speak. I'm way more coherent in my writing.

Eli (17:22.37)
yeah, I mean, it's probably most people could be. I don't know, it's probably just a personality thing. But speaking of interpretation, in the superpowers and the glory, you are looking at things and interpreting things through a theological lens. What I guess the most interesting question is like how

you personally do that? How do you... like what do you have a process through which you kind of step by step go through and let the movie... like do you watch the movie and then bring some theological questions to it? Do you watch the movie and just try to find what might be in there? Like what's your process of how you bring theology into conversation with

a movie, especially like a superhero movie.

Joe George (18:27.088)
Yeah. That's a really good question because the perhaps unsatisfying answer is I don't have a process because for me, criticism and the act of explicating

Eli (18:38.051)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (18:47.236)
any sort of interpretation is always highly personal. I don't, well, I do sometimes often like write a straightforward review that has a star rating at the bottom and you know, it's, it's saying I like this. What I'm really doing is telling you this is my experience of engaging with this piece of art. And that means then because I am Christian that I, I will always look at it through a Christian perspective.

It's the it's a lot of the stuff I write is political because I am always I am also far leftist and both of those things. I just reflexively they they help me make sense. That's how I'm always looking at the piece. You know, I'm always thinking how does so it specifically superhero stories. Most superhero stories are are power fantasies with a moral element.

Eli (19:45.838)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (19:46.055)
Fundamentally, they can't they can't get around that and I don't think I think it becomes a real problem when they try to pretend it's not And so that's what they are. And so well, I'm watching them or reading them. I'm thinking what is the moral compass here? How is how is morality? played out and one of the axes that I'm going to be looking at the morality is is

You know, are these characters motivated by love and sacrifice and, you know, understanding, Christian values or are they operating, according to accusation, domination and oppression? and I don't, I, I, I want to make clear that I don't go to them trying to,

Baptize them, you know, I I want them to say what they're saying And so You know it can be I'm trying to I mean Joker was the one that we were talking about before that's that's fine. We can look at that What that movie's saying the way that I read it is just total nihilism You know that there's it's garbage upon garb. I mean, it's literally in that movie

Eli (20:45.206)
Yes.

Eli (21:07.692)
Yeah.

Joe George (21:12.072)
There is a garbage strike happening and there's trash upon trash. And I don't try to make it, I don't want to make it say anything different, but as a human being and as a Christian, how do I, what does that make me think? And so in my chapter where I'm writing about movies about villains, which is where the first Joker fits in,

The book came out last year, so it was before the second one came out. when I'm looking at that chapter, I'm like, okay, so this movie is all misery. And I don't think I'm doing violence to the text to say that it's about misery. I think that's explicitly what it's about. That's its most coherent. Joker tries to say some other things, but I don't think it's actually interested in them. I think characters spout things off, but then the movie's...

visual and concerns are just let's watch miserable people have miserable things happen to one another. And so my question then as I'm watching is I'm thinking well what, this is hell. They're in hell. And so while I'm watching that and articulating this is what happens when everybody hates one another.

Eli (22:18.606)
Yeah.

Joe George (22:36.89)
is it's just, a miserable experience and it's an experience of hell. And then I draw in that particular section from Thomas Merton talking about, writing about hell in The New Seeds of Contemplation, where he's talking about hell not as a, you know, not the place of fire with devil in the pitchfork and all that sort of stuff, but an existential level of accusation and self-loathing. And.

That's what that movie is. Everybody loathes themselves and well, everybody in that movie loathes one another and that loathing of one another makes them hate one another, right? And so I look at it, there's no demarcation for me. That's just what I'm thinking of. Now, I don't always articulate it in different contexts. You know, I know...

Eli (23:05.965)
Yeah.

Joe George (23:31.188)
For example, I know sometimes when I'm writing for Christian audiences not to be like, and then the proletariat will rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie, you know, because that's going to set off some alarms on people, even though that's what I'm thinking. And vice versa. I know what I'm writing for a leftist organization to say, and we care about the proletariat because they are made in the image of God who will overthrow the oppressed. Right. So there are.

different spaces in which I articulate that, but it's always, all of that stuff's present. And the really nerdy stuff of, well, Joker first debuted in Batman number one from 1940, created by Jerry Robinson and Bill Finger. Like all of that's also happening in my head too, and there are times when I articulate that part. So that was a long answer to your question, but the short answer is.

There's no process. just, it's who I am. And so it's what I'm gonna articulate. It's what I'm thinking if I've got space to articulate it.

Eli (24:25.485)
Yeah.

Eli (24:30.508)
Yeah, and I think I think that's good to hear because I think a lot of times people want to know how do how do critics you know, how do they write about these movies and really at the end of the day what most critics do is they watch the movie they experience it and then they go home and they jot some notes down of this was my experience how can I turn this into a readable a readable thing

Joe George (24:57.706)
Yep. Yep.

Eli (25:00.102)
and that maybe might help others process it as I'm processing it through my writing. And I think, you know...

I don't know, it's...

It is, I guess technically you could say that is a process, but it's really not like a step-by-step thing. It's, and I think the other thing that stuck out to me is we always want to, and I think this, you you're talking about it through a theological lens. You're watching the movie, you want to watch the movie and let it say what it's going to say and not...

read things into it or watch it in a way where you're looking for one particular thing so much so that you'll miss everything else. And I think that's important here because even for listeners that you know might not be religious at all we all have like lenses that we watch things through and I think it's important to remember

to when you're engaging with a piece of art, whether it's literature or a film or a painting, you should always do your best. It's impossible to completely look at something without bias, but it's it's you should always do your best to be aware of your bias and try to look past that and try to experience something and try to see what it's actually trying to say instead of just reading your

Eli (26:39.778)
reading your own experience into it and try to see what it's saying and let it inform that before you

know, whether it's a theological worldview or watching with a feminist worldview or watching with whatever worldview or lens you might watch it through, you should always let the art speak for itself before you bring that to the table to converse with the movie. It is. Yes.

Joe George (27:12.78)
Converse is the key word. It's just like having a conversation with a person. Let them speak. I said as I cut you off.

Eli (27:19.35)
Yes, and listen. Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. And yeah, I think that's good for everyone to hear, really. Like, it's not just something people with a theological lens should do, it's something that everyone should do. And I think people forget that, and I think a lot of times, you know, it's... A lot of times it goes both ways in cultural wars, where

Joe George (27:35.469)
Uh-huh.

Eli (27:49.614)
You you can't make your movie about this because it's just trying to do this and you and then the other side is saying the same thing, accusing the other side of the same thing that they're being accused of. It's a mess. But if we take a step back and say, OK, let's just experience the art for what it is, for what it says, come into conversation with it. If you don't like it, you don't like it. That's fine. But let's let's try to see what it's trying to say and then.

Like you said, it's a conversation. Try to come into conversation with it. Ask the work of art questions, but also let it ask you questions as well. Yeah. Very cool. So why, for you, why superheroes specifically? Why you're like, want to write a book. I want it to be about superhero movies.

Joe George (28:46.913)
So the honest answer is that because I love superheroes, I have been reading superhero com- Okay, good. I have been reading superhero comics since 1985. So since I was seven years old. And I had various points throughout my life.

Eli (28:51.32)
That's what I wanted to hear.

Joe George (29:06.949)
You know, tried to be like whatever, you know, I had my teenage phase where I was like, girls won't like me if I turns out there were other factors that made me unlikable to girls. It wasn't just Batman. But, you know, like I gave it up then. And, you know, when I was studying literature in graduate school, I had a moment where I was like, I cannot. You know, I have got the greats of the Western. I've gotten away. I love them. I love them dearly. I've been reading them for decades. I continue to read them.

I love the genre. I love the characters. I love the conventions of superhero stories. And I especially love them when people let them be what they are, which they are silly stories about people in bright colored costumes doing ridiculous things. you can, there is always, there's pathos and there's

morality and philosophy and all of these things that can play out in that while still being stories about silly people that punch one another face in bright colors. And so I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder against I don't know if you like the Penguin TV show that's out right now. I'm reviewing this for Den of Geek. OK, it gets better. But the first three episodes are very much like.

Eli (30:14.36)
Yes.

Eli (30:25.518)
I haven't watched it.

Joe George (30:33.026)
We wish that we were the Sopranos, but...

And so we're going to be a little embarrassed about the fact that this is about a supervillain who wears purple and fights Batman. You know, it's like you can't be the thing that you are. So anyway, I love superheroes and that's I'm passionate about them. I have loved them before there was such a thing as the Marvel cinematic universe. And, you know, then there's all these hand wringing about is the MCU going to die? Yeah, of course, probably. And I'll still love them afterwards, you know.

Eli (31:05.464)
Yeah.

Joe George (31:07.508)
So that's the main reason. However, for a while there, superheroes were extremely popular. And so I thought that I'd have a shot where this is a thing that I care deeply about and everybody is paying attention to it. This is a chance to, as I said, go where the people are at. It just so happened to be right on that point.

Eli (31:17.164)
Yeah.

Eli (31:33.656)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (31:34.797)
until my book came out and and I my my launch coincided with Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantum Mania which was the movie where everybody said we're done with this and so it is it is I mean

Eli (31:47.703)
Yeah.

Eli (31:52.11)
It's cruel universe, really.

Joe George (31:55.477)
It's it had to happen. It's just the way that it works. It's it makes me laugh. I enjoyed writing it, but everybody got out of superhero movies the very moment that I jumped in with it. So that's why. So there is that. the short answer is I love these characters. And and I do think they are still rich for this.

while also being what they're about, you know? So like, for example, my chapter on Superman, I use that to think about theodicy because one hand, the Superman movies are about a guy that dresses in blue tights and a cape and says, here I come to save the, well, that's Mighty Mouse, but anyway, flies in and he saves people. But these movies are also about random, horrible things happening randomly to people because that's the way that the structure works, right?

Eli (32:29.55)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (32:49.336)
Right.

Joe George (32:50.136)
In order for Superman to save the day, everybody kind of has to be in danger. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I use that to kind of think about, what these movies are imagining a world in which bad things happen to random people.

Eli (32:55.574)
In peril. Yeah.

Joe George (33:09.051)
Well, why do bad things happen to people? That's the question of theodicy, right? Why is there injustice if there is an all-powerful and just God? Also, Superman movies are about a basically all-powerful figure who comes and saves the day, except for when those movies aren't about that, which is something...

I don't think that they're setting out to make this point. think it's just basic drama. If you've got a super invincible guy who never gives anything wrong, then you don't really have any narrative inertia or tension. So a lot of Superman movies have scenes where Superman fails and other people need to pick up the slack.

Well, if we're thinking about the Odyssey, if we're thinking about why do bad things happen if there's a just, all-powerful God, one of the answers, well, answers isn't the right word, but one of the responses to that is, well, it's our job.

To deal with this. We don't go waiting for God to clean everything up. We are the there's a wonderful book by Marianne McCormick called, horrendous evil and the goodness of God. And she talks about how

Eli (34:11.863)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (34:26.45)
what we're doing, one of the jobs of a Christian is not so much dwell on why God allows evil as much as it is to respond to the evil and be God's body. You know, that's a specifically Christian way of reading that. And to address that. Well, the Superman movies kind of do that. So what I'm getting at is I think all of that depth is there, even though these are movies about people in bright colors who punch each other in the face.

Eli (34:55.969)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. What, you were working through these movies and watching, like writing this book, was there something, because for, like you said, for a long time, this was just, this was the culture.

What did you notice about these sorts of movies, like maybe a common thread that run through that maybe could inform why it was the culture for a while?

Joe George (35:27.529)
I'm, I'm, I don't know that we're far enough from that moment to try to make any sort of large things of why that's the culture. You know, I do think there's something to the idea that, that kind of coming out of the shadow, this is going to sound so pretentious, but just bear with me for a second. Coming out of the shadow of 9-11,

The United States, in particular, wanted more hopeful narratives. For a long time, how many times did mean, The Dark Knight is an example of one of the same superhero movies where we saw movies that had exploding buildings and morally ambiguous heroes. Well, by the time we got to the 2010s and the Marvel Cinematic Universe begins in 2008, but Avengers is 2012. By the time we hit that point,

Eli (36:01.006)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (36:24.68)
We wanted cleaner moral narratives and superheroes gave us that at least on one level. And the fantasy aspect allowed us to kind of push that off elsewhere, right?

it would be, it's easier to cheer for Chris Evans as Captain America than it is to deal with the actual quagmires of, of

you what the united states is and so i i do one i do think that there's something to that that that's that's part of it you can't separate from the fact though that also you know the capitalist machine that is disney hit grew incredibly powerful in the twenty tens and you know with that much media presence they're allowed to push their content

Eli (36:56.45)
Yeah.

Eli (37:15.21)
Yeah.

Joe George (37:21.981)
But I would also argue that there is something inherently communal in a lot of these stories.

the idea of a shared universe kind of pushes through. my hot take on the Marvel cinematic universe is that those movies are essentially friendship movies. the action, if you want action, you can get better action someplace else. If you want drama, you can get better drama someplace else. You can visually.

Eli (37:45.55)
Sure.

Joe George (37:55.537)
You can definitely get better visuals someplace else. What Marvel offered and now everybody else tries to do as well is the fun of seeing your friends get together. Like the shawarma scene at the end of Avengers is actually the that's the juice that people can't come for. And that's inherently communal, you know? And there was something about the pseudo monoculture that we had where.

Eli (37:57.442)
Ha ha.

Eli (38:11.212)
Yeah.

Joe George (38:20.542)
You know, if I say I am Groot, you know what I mean. And it grew even larger. And so I do think that there's something, that there's a communal desire that people have that for a while superhero movies met that desire. And so many of the movies were about weird communities coming together.

Eli (38:32.354)
Yeah.

Eli (38:41.75)
Yeah, yeah, and it's what's interesting, I think, too, is it's almost like there was for a bit this kind of missing thing in pop culture that used to be there that you probably experienced as a kid where everyone was seeing these movies that were coming out. And so.

you know, all of the quotes and the images were out in the zeitgeist of popular culture and everyone could kind of relate to that. Even if you hadn't seen the movie, you know that it's about this and it has this quote and this character and this actor and everyone's kind of aware of that and seeing the same things. And the more prominent the internet became and it kind of starts tampering that down where

There's not so much a monoculture and it's somehow... This isn't necessarily an answer, but it's more of an observation of somehow these MCU movies tapped into that same sort of thing where everyone really was enjoying knowing about this same universe and talking about the same jokes that the characters were making. Talking about what might happen next.

in the next movie or the next Avengers movie or whatever and there was something that had been out there in the culture before that was kind of being brought back with the MCU as it relates to like film and how film resonates in popular culture. And I thought that was really interesting. And it was, it's weird because it's all, it was all around this thing that, you know,

maybe 15 years before would have been like, that's just nerdy stuff.

Joe George (40:44.429)
It is so bizarre to me that everybody knows who Groot is. That's just, I mean, like, 15, man, I don't remember if I talk about this in the book, but I remember as a kid reading Infinity Gauntlet number one, which ends with Thanos snapping half of Rhea, and I'm like 13 years old reading it when it's brand new, and just being like.

Eli (40:49.175)
Yes.

or Thanos or...

Joe George (41:09.836)
Can't believe that that just happened half of the universe is gone And I remember walking out of my bedroom and my younger brother who's who's wonderful, but is not a nerd He likes sports was just like whatever and my parents were like we'll pray for you and then and then watching Infinity War and getting that scene and like everybody was that was Weirdly validating for me where I was like, yeah, you get it Thanos is crazy

Eli (41:35.064)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. What here's here's the big question, though. What is the best superhero movie?

Joe George (41:49.637)
Spider-Man 2

Eli (41:51.266)
That's fair. I can accept that answer.

Joe George (41:55.958)
The other the other's possibility is spider-man into the spider verse

Eli (42:01.912)
That is, I think that is what I currently have up at the top. It's, I remember, see, I saw that in theaters and was like blown away. And to me it's, I don't know, that one and even, you know, the newer Spider-Verse movie, they're both, it expanded on it somehow, which I...

Joe George (42:06.06)
to argue with.

Eli (42:30.158)
thought was not very possible, you know, really, really incredible, just like artistically and store like tapping in. It was kind of, I guess maybe it's, a little bit because it was refreshing to see a real Spider-Man story and not a, you know, a Spider-Man needing a surrogate father in Tony Stark story. it was,

Joe George (42:32.685)
Yeah.

Joe George (42:52.845)
you

Joe George (42:57.686)
Yeah.

Eli (42:59.574)
Yeah, it was just refreshing to have a real Spider-Man story.

Joe George (43:03.679)
It's interesting that you say that because it's not about Peter Parker, which is.

Eli (43:07.266)
Right.

Joe George (43:08.173)
And you're not wrong. Like going into that first Spider-Verse movie, I was like, this is going to be a train wreck. Like I like Miles Morales, but he's not Peter Parker. And also you're going to do a multiverse story and it's animated and it's just too much. It's going to turn people off and somehow it is beautiful and thoughtful and really a Miles Morales story. But it's I, yes.

Eli (43:15.469)
Right.

Eli (43:29.634)
Yeah.

Eli (43:33.55)
I cry in those movies. Yeah, that's fair. That's very fair. Totally acceptable. Yeah. I was curious what you might say. I didn't know if you were gonna pull some movie that I'd never heard of out.

Joe George (43:39.339)
But Spider-Man 2 is still better, I think, because Sam Raimi is a king, so...

Okay, thank you.

Joe George (43:52.406)
you

Joe George (43:59.407)
I mean, I've got, I, I, for like a year and a half leading up to the book, I became, I did.

Reviews rankings of all the superhero movies on tik-tok And so i've seen them all and strangely that got me like even though i'm an old fat guy in his 40s That got like a lot of traction and so there were people Furious with me for some of my rankings, but

Eli (44:15.391)
Yeah.

Eli (44:23.426)
Yeah.

Eli (44:27.094)
Yeah. Hey, that's the best content. If you can get people mad at you, you know.

Joe George (44:33.1)
I don't know, I'm a little over it.

Eli (44:34.926)
Because if there's people mad at you, there's also people that are like totally on board. And so, you know.

Joe George (44:43.416)
I don't need either one, I don't think. I just be nice. What would you say? Would you say Into the Spider-Verse is probably the best? Yeah.

Eli (44:45.777)
No, nobody needs it.

Eli (44:54.07)
Yeah, yeah into the spider verse and I kind of have across the spider verse right up there with it and I'm really really hoping beyond the spider verse whenever it eventually hopefully comes out will wrap up things and not ruin it all. But man, I mean

Joe George (45:06.828)
Yeah. Yep.

Eli (45:17.442)
Before that, would be hard not to say The Dark Knight. I was ripe age for a movie like that when it came out. then my more like who nobody would even think of this movie when you say a superhero movie, but I really love is Unbreakable.

Joe George (45:21.964)
mean, Dark Knight's great, yeah.

Joe George (45:45.808)
yeah, Unbreakable's great.

Eli (45:47.178)
It's like my favorite non-comic book superhero movie by far. What's the best MCU movie? That's the real question, because neither of us have even said an MCU movie.

Joe George (45:58.267)
Black Panther. don't think it's close in my mind. Really? Yeah, yeah. That movie's another miracle, which makes me so mad that they biff the sequel so badly.

Eli (46:01.472)
How? We're on the same page. That's my favorite MCU movie.

Eli (46:14.154)
This it yeah to be fair You know losing Losing your lead actor had a lot, you know, there's a lot of weight on that Character and you know Bozeman playing him was a big deal So to be fair It was really set up to fail

once they decided to go forward with it after he passed, but you know.

Joe George (46:47.663)
I disagree, I'm gonna push on that because one of the, think the miracles of Black Panther is the first movie had such a great community. The unique thing about Black Panther as a superhero, at least in that movie, in comics he's not so much like this, in that movie is that that movie's all about him learning from everybody else. He starts out that film as kind of a spoiled prince who,

Eli (46:49.419)
Okay.

Eli (46:58.062)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (47:11.864)
That's true.

Joe George (47:17.356)
The first thing we see him do is disrupt Nakia's operation because he wants to ask her out on a date, right? Like and and he goes through the entire movie with everybody else, including Killmonger, which you ask me, it's Heathleather's Ledger's Joker and and Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger are like the two great villain performances. And I could switch on any day. But so what I'm getting at is, yes, his loss is felt.

Eli (47:24.578)
Yeah.

Eli (47:39.2)
Yeah, I agree.

Joe George (47:47.55)
I mean and you have to acknowledge that just what that meant as a performer a character but that movie was the sequel was so well set up to Because it gave us so many characters that we love instead it spends so much time with Julia Louis Dreyfus and

Eli (47:57.304)
Hmm.

Joe George (48:10.287)
I can think of the character named Everett McGill. Not I can't think of the actor's name, Martin Freeman. It's been so much time with them and then introduces Ironheart and introduces name or like, what are you doing? mean, and Letitia Wright was a lot of fun in the first movie. She doesn't have quite the gravitas, I don't think.

Eli (48:17.561)
yeah.

Eli (48:23.021)
Yeah.

Eli (48:33.398)
Yeah.

Joe George (48:34.8)
And then you push, you got like one scene with Winston Duke. What are you doing? That man should be all over that movie. Danny Gouraille should be all over the movie. It just, was such a, it was like the one movie that could have, I thought, absorbed and done something with the fact that you're losing your lead actor.

Eli (48:39.927)
Yeah.

Eli (48:57.484)
Yeah.

Joe George (48:57.742)
And instead, it just does everything that irritates us about Marvel movies, where it's just like, we're going to set up all of these other things instead of telling the story.

Eli (49:02.21)
Yeah. Uh-huh. Instead of sitting in the grief of that. Yeah. It starts out really good. man.

Joe George (49:09.2)
And starts out sitting in the grief, and then it moves away from that. So frustrating. I'm so excited for what Ry Cooler has next.

Eli (49:18.614)
He's doing... I saw the preview the other day. Sinners. Yeah. It looks very interesting. So I think the Creed is very good. think.

Joe George (49:21.442)
a vampire movie. can't remember. Yeah, Sinners. That's right. Looks great. Love Ryan Coogler. Want to see what he has next. Yeah.

Joe George (49:32.954)
I think Creed is still my favorite Rocky movie and I grew up with the originals, but that movie is...

Eli (49:36.91)
Yeah, I think the original is still my favorite, but the creator is probably second. Pretty close second probably, but...

Joe George (49:41.244)
Yeah. It's astounding. That movie is.

I always think about how that came out like right around the same time as The Last Jedi. It both are like eighth, or no, seventh entries in franchises that started in the late 70s. And you look at, it could have been the last, and I don't hate The Last Jedi, or not The Last Jedi, Force Awakens. And I don't hate Force Awakens, but Force Awakens is safe and lazy in a lot of ways. That's what Creed could have been.

Eli (50:00.61)
Yeah.

Eli (50:07.896)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It could have, yeah.

Joe George (50:14.4)
And instead it's this amazing, it gets a fantastic performance out of Stallone. Jordan is electric. And then you get that one shot fight scene that is just perfectly orchestrated. And it's so like allergic to just playing the hits that it saves the Bill Conti score, which is, you know, amazing until a snippet at the very end when Adonis has to get back up again. And then it goes to the dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

Eli (50:32.578)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (50:44.51)
Yeah, yeah, are boxing movies superhero movies? That's the question sort of That's true. Yeah, yeah, yes Well, awesome, what do you have a favorite superhero that's a fun question

Joe George (50:45.093)
I mean, just what smart filmmaking.

I mean, yes. As long as they're not raging bull, yes. That's a super villain movie.

Joe George (51:09.452)
Okay, you're gonna regret this question. The best superhero is Spider-Man. Like, easily. He's the best. My favorite superhero is a green lantern named Guy Gardner.

Eli (51:11.968)
man, no.

Okay.

Joe George (51:24.359)
who is, he's gonna be in the new Superman movie portrayed by Nathan Fillion, so people will have heard of him by then, but I'm staring right now at a signed comic book signed by Joe Stanton with Guy Gardner. The Green Lanterns are this goof.

Eli (51:43.488)
Is he in- is Guy Gardner the one that's in Blackest Night? Which-

Joe George (51:49.236)
the, the, the, comic book crossover? Yeah, yeah, he's in there. all the lanterns are in there. I prefer-

Eli (51:53.812)
Okay.

Eli (51:59.102)
Okay, I've read it but it's been a while.

Joe George (52:02.474)
don't think Walker's fight is very good, so you're all right forgetting it. He's in there though, but he's, I like him the best when he is an arrogant loser, because I think that there's a genuine pathos to the fact that he has, it's a power fantasy, and here's a guy that...

Eli (52:06.06)
Yeah, all right.

Joe George (52:21.675)
He keeps tripping over himself with his power. I find that endlessly interesting So he's my favorite but you know spider-man's the best then Superman then Batman but My actual favorite the one that I

Eli (52:36.874)
like Superman gets a bad rap but he's very a very interesting character usually my personal favorite is the Flash I love the Flash I love all the if I had to pick like a science it would be physics and so all like the physics behind all of his stuff is interesting and then I really like like my favorite comic book arc is Flashpoint

Joe George (52:45.684)
good!

Joe George (53:04.894)
Okay. We might have some words about this then.

Eli (53:07.918)
That's that's fine, but I just really enjoyed that story I Think so so there are a lot of like shootoffs of it and I don't even think I've read Any or many of those but the the main just flashpoint story I Don't know if it's I think it's fun to imagine like what would

Joe George (53:12.595)
Yeah, what'd like about it?

Eli (53:37.602)
what would happen, you know, if you went, went back and changed everything. I think it's interesting, you know, delving into your past and what, how your past makes you what you are. and I guess like also dealing with like grieving your past in a healthy way where, you know, it starts off with him grieving it in an unhealthy way.

of like, let me just go back and fix it instead of like really actually trying to face it. And at the end, he really has to actually face like that, that grief and go back and put things right. so just all of those things, I just think it's a really moving story.

Joe George (54:22.914)
That's really lovely. I don't know if you knew this. Flashpoint got burdened with rebooting the entire DC universe. And so it's hard for me to separate that a little bit.

Eli (54:34.272)
Yeah, it was, yeah.

Eli (54:39.574)
Yeah, so I'm not like, I'm a very mild, like DC fan. And so like, when I read a graph, like a graphic novel, it's just like, I'm just jumping in and reading this story for what it is standalone. I just like, I'm unaware of all the other stuff that it might be connected to. so that probably helps. Yeah.

Joe George (54:43.923)
Okay. Okay.

Joe George (54:52.96)
Yep.

Joe George (55:00.187)
so you can just enjoy what's in front of you. Yeah. That's really lovely, the way that you describe that.

Eli (55:07.148)
Yeah, I really did not like what the flash movie did with that story. I hated it. But yeah.

Joe George (55:14.686)
That

That movie was interesting. You mentioned you haven't read any of the spin-offs. If I can throw out a recommendation, check out the Batman spin-off from Flashpoint. It's only like three issues. They end up doing that Batman character and any other things. But the original one that's, I think it's written by Brian Azzarello and penciled by Eduardo Rizzo, that's really good. The art's really fantastic and it's...

Eli (55:27.639)
Okay.

Eli (55:43.256)
Okay.

Joe George (55:46.515)
interesting kind of deals with grief in an interesting way. So maybe check that one out if you're a fan of the Flashpoint.

Eli (55:48.887)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, the whole Thomas Wayne thing is fun. And I was hoping that's what they were going to do with Michael Keaton. But yeah, they ruined a great opportunity to have Michael Keaton back as Batman, which he was fun in the movie. Yeah. And so sometimes I just enjoy seeing actors have fun in movies. So I enjoyed his parts. But yeah.

Joe George (55:57.547)
Yeah.

Joe George (56:02.325)
That sounds like...

Joe George (56:09.749)
He was having fun.

Joe George (56:17.186)
Yeah. Yeah. Michael Keaton's always fun to watch, even when he's. But I would have said that about Michael Shannon as well. And he looks like he's got a gun to his head. Entire movie. So did he.

Eli (56:22.622)
yeah.

Eli (56:33.56)
I forgot he's even in it to be honest. Yeah I guess moving on from from superheroes you had mentioned That and we'll just touch briefly on this because I know you It's getting late for both of us for one thing but also Your you the way you talked about it when I was asking you

Joe George (56:52.672)
Hahaha!

Eli (56:58.582)
what we might talk about was that you're really just getting going on it. But you had mentioned that you're starting to work on a project dealing with police and film. Yeah, what is your endeavor there?

Joe George (57:17.433)
So it is in the early stages. I'm putting together the proposal and for those that don't know, to write a nonfiction book, you write basically the first two chapters as well as a detailed proposal. I'm both kind of more into it than you'd think and less into it than I feel great about.

It's going to be, at least the way that I'm pitching it now, it's gonna be a history of police and film and television in the United States. And what I'm, my central question is, how did we go from when the first uniformed police departments were introduced in the United States in the 1830s, there was a great deal of skepticism and,

and resentment towards them because it was a standing army policing American citizens. And if you've read the Declaration of Independence, that's kind of a big deal. And so how did people go from

Eli (58:18.648)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (58:23.063)
Yeah.

Eli (58:26.914)
Yeah.

Joe George (58:31.876)
how did Americans go from that to where we are today where not only do we take it as standard, but we can't, we fear that we will be in danger if we don't have a uniform police despite the fact that these are just statistics. I mean, I have my political views, but these are just statistics that they don't really solve crimes or even create safer spaces. How did we go from

Eli (59:00.939)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (59:01.82)
that and the answer that of course I'm going to come to is is movies and television and so my book will trace from the first depiction of police and motion pictures which is in Edison a 32nd Thomas Edison directed comedy bit in 1896 up through you know

now, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and kind of trace the evolution of these depictions of police, in the, I'm writing the silent era and the noir era chapters right now, so in the silent era, it's a lot of Keystone cops, you know, where police are buffoons.

Eli (59:27.778)
Yeah.

Eli (59:34.466)
Gotcha.

Eli (59:48.94)
Yeah, I'm thinking of Buster Keaton's movie, Cops, which they are buffoons. Yeah.

Joe George (59:53.71)
Yep, yep, that's a great one. They are, they are, you know, and Keaton is not nearly as, you know, and that short is interesting because like it all plays with a bomb threat, which...

the Haymarket riot is tied directly to that. mean, Americans are terrified about anarchists and communists throwing bombs at people as much as they are. And so, and that's interesting because Keaton is such a apolitical filmmaker as opposed to Chaplin who is, and you watch Modern Times, you watch City Lights, you watch Easy Street is the one where he becomes a cop.

Eli (01:00:24.172)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Joe George (01:00:35.96)
There's they're engaging with this but at the same time you've got DW Griffith and Especially Edison and and his folks that are making plays to respect ability by doing what we would call today Coppa ganda You know life in the day in the life of a police officer by Edward Edwin s Porter is Just like here's a a police officer with his family. Here's him walking the beat Here's how he's helping people and so what you see in the silent era

Eli (01:00:41.889)
Yeah.

Eli (01:00:49.879)
Yeah.

Joe George (01:01:05.694)
is kind of for the cheap cheap seats is a lot of cops are buffoons, oppressing poor people. And those like Griffith who are trying to go for cinema as a respectable art are playing a lot more of the police are respectable. And then you go into the noir era, you know, right after that, the noir movies that are made that are very like shades of gray, you know, where this is this is

54 so it's it's kind of late in the era, but it's good example you get something like Fritz Lang's the big heat where you got Shoot I'm blanking on it's so late right now The star of that movie who I can picture and could read off his credits, but I can't think of his name right now who is like a like a

Eli (01:01:45.904)
yeah.

Eli (01:01:51.886)
you

Eli (01:01:58.285)
Yeah.

Joe George (01:02:04.3)
on the line cop. That's the whole thing. he gonna, is the femme fatale Gloria Graham gonna get him to, you know, go over to the baddies or is he gonna stay with his brunette safe wife at home? You know, there's so many of them are playing with that.

Eli (01:02:16.942)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (01:02:20.22)
And it's not until you get a dragnet coming on TV, jumping from radio and TV in the 1950s that you really kind of get the idea of the professionalized police, which is happening in relationship to Christopher Wilson, who is the Berkeley chief of police who is sending these scripts to Jack Webb. And so anyway, I'm rambling. It's it's a really interesting sort of relationship between historical reality

Joe George (01:02:53.851)
and then the way that pop culture influences the way we interpret reality. That's what I hope to cover in the book. It's gonna be huge. I have still, I've watched maybe like three episodes of Law and Order in my life, and so in order to do this properly, I have to watch all 200 and some odd, so I still got a lot of work ahead of me, but.

Eli (01:02:59.201)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:03:14.328)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's very cool. And very interesting. As you were explaining, I'm like, I would definitely read a book like this. hopefully other people would too. And it's not just, I mean, I'm not so vain as to think you should write a book just for me. But.

Joe George (01:03:19.134)
So that's where we're at.

Joe George (01:03:31.198)
to be.

Joe George (01:03:42.674)
Well, my last book killed superhero movies, so even if nobody reads it, I will have killed American police. So the institution, not the people, not the people. I would like the people to be all very much alive. I would like the institution to go away. Yeah. Make sure you're sending your hate mail to me, not to Eli. This is not his fault.

Eli (01:03:45.282)
Yeah.

Hey, you know? Right.

Well, hey, you know, who knows who knows what could happen that's anything is possible I guess maybe I don't know

Eli (01:04:10.668)
Well, that's very cool I I am very interested and that's a That's a whole nother that we're not gonna get into Because you know, need to wrap up. That's a whole nother exercise and examining film because that's that's not like watching movies and Coming in a conversation with movies so much as it is looking at trends through movie history and how that kind of

Joe George (01:04:21.886)
You

Eli (01:04:36.78)
relates to the culture, which is another very interesting way to engage with film, which is cool. yeah, you really get kind of going from one endeavor with film, analyzing film, to a totally different one. yeah, who sleeps shmeep, right? Well, it's been great having you on. I guess to wrap it up,

Joe George (01:04:54.066)
I don't like sleep, so here we are. Yeah, exactly.

Eli (01:05:06.808)
Do you have just kind of a fun wrap up? Do you have like a movie that you've seen recently? Maybe, could be an old movie, could be one from this year that you think people should see because you thought it was really great.

Joe George (01:05:21.568)
gosh, yeah. I mean, if you haven't seen, if you don't watch Buster Keaton movies, you should watch COPS. It's, or any, yeah, exactly. I mean, any Buster Keaton, you really can't go wrong. But COPS is like, it's a one-reeler, so it's like 15 minutes.

Eli (01:05:31.436)
Really? It's on YouTube.

Eli (01:05:39.885)
Mm-hmm.

Joe George (01:05:41.839)
And it's hilarious and even if you don't jive with my political feelings. He's an amazing stuntman and He does hilarious gags. So yeah, pull up cops on YouTube and have some fun with some Keaton

Eli (01:05:42.998)
It is.

Eli (01:05:54.22)
Yeah, yeah, and then just follow a rabbit hole and keep clicking on the whatever Keaton movies next. He's one of my favorites. I realized actually I realized yesterday, that it's the 100th anniversary of Sherlock jr. Which is one of my just favorites just all time. so i'm like man, I need to pull up Sherlock jr. And watch that again, which is easy because it's 45 minutes Like it's nothing

Joe George (01:05:57.469)
Yeah.

Joe George (01:06:11.143)
Yes.

Joe George (01:06:17.949)
I'm getting ready. Yes, exactly. But it is legitimately one of those movies that you watch and you're like, I don't know how he did that. And that's so wonderful that you can watch a movie from that old. And yeah. Yeah, it's so delightful. Yeah. Just check out Keaton. You'll have a great time.

Eli (01:06:26.892)
Right, it is. 100 years old and you're like, how did he do that?

Eli (01:06:38.562)
Yeah, good recommendation. Well, it's been great having you on, Joe. We are both very on the verge of delirium probably right now. So I'm going to call it. We're officially done. Again, we are moving forward with Spielberg next week. I will be covering the Lost World Jurassic Park.

I've actually already recorded that episode, so it's a fun one. I'm spoiler more down on it, but my guest really likes it. So, it's fun conversation there. So, look forward to that. Joe, why don't you remind people, if they didn't listen last week, where they can follow you on all the things.

Joe George (01:07:28.165)
All the things is Joe writes words and my website is Joe writes words comm so send your hate mail there

Eli (01:07:33.666)
Great, yeah. And yeah, and the book, where's the best place for people to find the superpowers and the glory?

Joe George (01:07:42.993)
It's probably not gonna be on any shelves, but you know, can tell Barnes & will order it or Amazon or any of those places. It's around.

Eli (01:07:49.11)
Yeah, great. Yeah, the typical places you can find it. Yeah. And I'll find maybe a few of those links and put those in the episode description if you're interested in reading that. hopefully you are. Hopefully Joe sold you on it. So I was excited to see that my favorite MCU movie was the first chapter, which is Black Panther. So I'm like that gave me incentive to go ahead and

Joe George (01:07:53.673)
the typical places.

Joe George (01:08:14.207)
Yeah. Cool.

Eli (01:08:17.865)
start reading because I was like the first chapter is my favorite so there you go. But that's all we have for this week. I've been Eli Price for Joe George. You've been listening to The Establishing Shot. We will see you next time.