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Batman & Robin
165 Plays5 years ago
With Joel Schumacher’s recent passing, the guys decided to cover Batman & Robin, one of the most maligned movies of all time. But here’s a plot twist—they’ve got some positive things to say about it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Poison Ivy
00:00:21
Speaker
Hi there. And you are? Poison. Poison Ivy. Why not send Junior home early? I've got some wild oats to sow. On the other hand,
00:00:51
Speaker
Youth does have its advantages. Endurance. Stamina. Forget the geriatric bat. Come, join me. My garden needs tending. I'll take it from here, pal. Wouldn't you like to hear rings, too? Some lucky boy's about to hit the honeypot. I'll include an evening of my company for the winter.
00:01:19
Speaker
I'll bring everything you see here, plus everything you don't. I bid $50,000 for Poison Ivy. $400,000. And I bid $500,000. One million dollars.
00:01:45
Speaker
Two million. You don't have it. Three million. I'll borrow it from you. Four million. Five million. That's a utility belt, not a money belt. Six million. Seven million. Never leave the cave without it.
Podcast Hosts Introduction
00:02:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephile podcast. I am half of your host, Perry Cotsentine. And as always, I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How you doing today, Derek?
00:02:11
Speaker
Oh, pretty good. Trying to stay out of the heat. It's like 90 degrees here in Brooklyn. Oh, wow. I don't know if you heard, but over here we had a bunch of flooding in the area. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Like all of, like Southern Japan has just got like massive amounts of flooding just because of all, we got the other night, no joke, like three times I was woken up in the middle of the night by emergency alerts.
00:02:36
Speaker
Really? Yeah, but we're in a, we're in a safe place. Like I think I mentioned before, we're up on a mountain. So yeah. And it's a very level area. So, so we don't really have anything to worry about. So the, the alerts are just more of an annoyance than anything. Okay. Well, listen, you know what is good to know? It is, it is. Yeah, it is.
Weather and Personal Updates
00:02:57
Speaker
I mean, you know, just in case, I mean, you know, you never know when
00:03:01
Speaker
My whole thing is safety first. I'd rather know than not know, at least this way. Listen, as we have said before, the way this year has been, there is no sense in taking any chances. Literally anything could happen. Right, yeah. Yeah.
00:03:21
Speaker
And Oh, so my, you know, my fiance. She's in her. She's just she's officially entered the second trimester now. All right. So this is the part where usually the
00:03:35
Speaker
you know, the mother gets a lot more energy. You know, she's starting to get a lot more, um, you know, she's getting used to the pregnancy and everything and the baby starting to move around and stuff and can start to hear things. So, so yeah, like everybody I've talked to and everything I've read says like, this is like the fun period of pregnancy
Netflix and Media Backlog
00:03:51
Speaker
that we're entering now. So that's good. Okay. But, uh,
00:03:57
Speaker
Well, you know what? You're about to see for yourself. Yeah, I am. We'll see how it works out. Everybody always says it's fun until they actually go through it. And all of a sudden, it's a whole different thing. But hey, you know what?
00:04:15
Speaker
Enjoy it whatever happens. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're just kind of taking it one day at a time. In fact, last night, which is one of the reasons why I ended up oversleeping and waking up late to record for our meeting is because I got home last night from work and she wanted to watch the new Ju-On series on Netflix. So I don't know if you heard about this.
00:04:36
Speaker
Um, but it's, but it's like an origin series. It's like, it's, it's six episodes, but it's really like just a three hour movie broken up into, um, six parts. Cause each episode is only about 30 minutes, but it's really good. You know, it's an all Japanese, it's Japanese series, all Japanese casts, you know, Japanese language and all that. And, um, cause I.
00:04:57
Speaker
You know, I love the original movie, but I didn't really care for the American remake. And there was a, there was a, there were a bunch of sequels. I only saw the first sequel, which was, you know, just kind of okay. But, but yeah, this movie, this, or this series, it's pretty good. So if you're into horror stuff, then I recommend checking out the Juwan series. With all due respect, I mean, no more recommendations to watch anything. I posted something the other day where I said that, and people think I'm making this up, but seriously, no.
00:05:27
Speaker
I have stuff in my Netflix too.
00:05:30
Speaker
that's been there, movies and TV shows that's been there, no lie, for 10 years. Oh, I believe it, I believe it. Because someone posted something yesterday, like some, some GIF or something. And, or like, you know, I posted like it was like a fist bump GIF or something. And it was like in this writers group I'm in. And someone commented, she's like, Oh, I love that show. I'm like, what show is that? I just thought it was a funny GIF. And she's like, she's like, Oh, that's Santa Clarita Diet. I'm like, Oh, yeah, yeah, I've got I've had I've got that on my list, along with like 10,000 other things. Yeah, yeah. I mean,
00:06:00
Speaker
And I have made up my mind this summer since, you know, of course with the COVID, you know, because usually me and my wife, we usually, you know, like traveling a lot. We used to take like a lot of road trips, but this year, I mean, you know, with the COVID, we haven't went anywhere, especially not Florida, which is on fire. Oh God, yeah. Yeah. So I said that, you know what? This summer since we're going to be home, I'm going to,
00:06:28
Speaker
make an effort to watch some of this shit. And anything I haven't watched, I'm just going to get rid of it. I'm just going to delete it because it's ridiculous. And so let me ask you a question about, did she laugh at you when you said that? Who? Your wife? Did she laugh at you when you said that you had made this commitment to watch everything or delete it? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Are you kidding me? The science was hurting. She said, yeah, right. You know, because
00:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know what? There's just too much stuff. But you know what? I'm tired of looking at it every time I go on Netflix. But you know what? You're like me, because we've had this conversation before, with the movies we own. Because I still have movies from like 10 years ago that I bought that I still haven't watched. So when you say you're going to take stuff off and not watch it, I'm like, yeah, all right, bullshit. I have a stack of Blu-rays.
00:07:18
Speaker
There's about 30 of them, no lie. They're still in the wrapper. Oh, yeah. I know. I know exactly what you mean. They're still in the wrapper. I have watched them, which is why my wife forbade me from buying any more Blu-rays. She said, you know what? She said, I got to teach you like a child. She said, watch more than you have, and then you can buy more.
00:07:36
Speaker
See, my thing is I'm a little bit better because I don't buy the new ones and not watch them, but I buy the used ones. So I go to the used DVD shops and stuff like that, the recycle shops, and I stock up there, especially when I go back to the States, because they're like two bucks a pop now when you go back to the States. So I will load up on those. And Best Buy as well, last time I was in the States, Best Buy was selling DVDs, excess DVDs for two bucks a pop.
00:08:04
Speaker
Well, I don't buy DVDs anymore. I just buy Blu-rays. But, I mean, you know, like Blu-rays is like $5. Right. Well, you know what? I will, if it's, you know, it depends on what kind of movie it is. If it's like, you know, like a big, you know, action epic or something like that, or something that I really care about, then I'll go for the Blu-ray.
Physical vs. Digital Media Debate
00:08:25
Speaker
But if not, if it's like, you know, like a comedy or something like that or a drama, then usually the DVD is just fine for me.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I said, well, because as far as I'm concerned, that's it. I don't care what they come up with after Blu-rays, I'm not buying it. You know, I upgraded from VHS to DVD and then I upgraded from DVD. And mind you, I replaced my whole movie collection from VHS to DVD and then from DVD to Blu-ray. You know, I think if anything... I'm not doing this. No, if anything, I don't think they'd come out with a new format. I think they just might go all digital.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And just go with the, you know, because right now when you buy a movie on like iTunes or Amazon or something like that, technically you don't own a copy of the movie, you own a license to view the movie. Right. So I think we're going to see more of that coming along. Well, the reason why I have, because my wife, she asked me and she said, well,
Superhero Movies Overview
00:09:26
Speaker
If you want to see the movie, you can just go on Amazon and you can do this. Well, no, sometimes I just feel like watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or The Wild Bunch or Full Mail Jacket at 2 o'clock in the morning. And I don't want to have to go through the hassle of looking at all these different streaming services to see who's got it. I just want to be able to just go to my bookshelf and pull down the movie, stick it in the thing, and just watch
Joel Schumacher's Impact on Cinema
00:09:54
Speaker
it. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
No, I got you. Okay. All right. So, I think now we can, you know, bullshit it for long enough. We can get into the movie of the day. And this was my pick. And that is, even though we did a Batman movie last week and a Batman movie a few weeks prior to that, when we did 66, I wanted to do Batman and Robin because of course, as everybody who's listening probably already knows, the director, Joel Schumacher passed away a few weeks ago.
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, and we're not like most Batman fans like most superhero movie fans like you and I we both Have a lot of respect for for Schumacher as a director because he made some really good movies Oh, yeah. I mean I tell people all the time and actually when they go
00:10:47
Speaker
you know, they Google him and they look at all the movies that he made, they are actually surprised. They said, oh, shit, he made that. I said, yeah. I said, the guy was an extraordinary, was a very well-respected, talented filmmaker. Right. He did, you know, he did A Time to Kill. He did 8 Millimeter, which was one of the best, you know, movies that Nicolas Cage has ever done. Yeah. And you know, you can have Joker all you want, but Joaquin Phoenix was amazing in that movie as well.
00:11:16
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, Joel Schumacher. And to me, it's always a shame that people always want to reduce his career to just the two Batman movies that he made. And he unfairly got the label of being the guy that killed the franchise, which is not true.
00:11:38
Speaker
right well also you know he directed uh he did um he had a bit of a renaissance at uh in his later years after batman and robin he did you know he did phone booth he did tiger land both with colin ferrell yeah tiger land yeah and um you know he did uh the client um falling down i mean falling down oh my god modern classic or you know
00:12:02
Speaker
As a matter of fact, I've been recommending falling down to people because I said, that movie is even more relevant now. Oh my God. Than when you first made it. I first saw falling down like two years ago. And then I'm just like, oh my God, this movie is so relevant today. And it was made in, what, 1994, 1993? Yeah, yeah.
00:12:25
Speaker
And, you know, also, of course, the Lost Boys, which a lot of people, you know, like Lost Boys, I didn't care about, I didn't care for too much. I wasn't too impressed by it. But that's because I didn't see it at the time. And if you saw Lost Boys at the time, Lost Boys completely reinvented vampires. Like, if not for Lost Boys, you do not have Buffy. You do not have the vampire diaries. You do not have any of this stuff that has happened with vampires in the modern day.
00:12:54
Speaker
Like, lost boys really kind of redefined vampires. Because up until that point, vampires were always just kind of like this, you know, aristocratic, Eastern European type of thing, very old-style thing. But he took lost boys. With lost boys, he took vampires, and he basically made them into punks. And he brought that punk sensibility to the vampires. And that really redefined what the vampire is. And that's an approach that's still being reused and reused to this day.
00:13:24
Speaker
Exactly. Like you said, before the Lost Boys, vampires were Dracula Knuckles. That was it. Exactly. Exactly. Dracula Knuckle, which is why nobody thought nothing new could be done with vampires. But then you had Joel Schumacher. And you had, who was it that directed Near Dark?
00:13:43
Speaker
Oh, um, ah, crap. I know it was a female director. Was that Kathryn Bigelow? Yeah, Kathryn Bigelow. Yeah, you know, we need a dog. You know, you had movies like that that reinvented the vampire.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Catherine Bigelow, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, which was, you know, um, probably in no doubt influenced in some small part by Lost Boys, even though they came out the same year. But I imagine that might've been one of those cases, like, you know, the studio gets wind of some, of another studio doing something like with Deep Impact and Armageddon. They just say, you know, we're going to put out our own thing.
00:14:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But as you so accurately say, these are movies that completely redefined the whole vampire thing. And like you said, you wouldn't have had everything that came after it without Lost Boys.
Nostalgia and Film Reception
00:14:32
Speaker
Right, yeah. So even though I'm not too crazy about the movie myself, but I think that that was one of those movies that
00:14:40
Speaker
And we've had this discussion before as well. You know, certain movies you have to see at a certain time in your life. And when you see it, it makes an indelible, you know, kind of... Because I know people, you know, that love the Goonies, they love Lost Boys, they love, what is it, Fright Night, another vampire movie, Fright Night. And, you know, I look at them, I say, well, they're all right, but, you know... Well, you know, we were just talking about a perfect example of this, we were talking about the other day, is The Dark Crystal.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah, like the Dark Crystal is one of those movies that inspires so much devotion in its fan base. And when I first watched it, it was like, I don't know, like maybe like 15 years ago, I was in university and stuff and me and my buddy, we were in a Best Buy and they had the Dark Crystal, like a new DVD release. It was on sale for like, you know, 10 bucks or something.
00:15:32
Speaker
And my buddy said, he's like, oh, Dark Crystal, that's an amazing movie. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, yeah, it's so good. I'm like, all right, well, I should probably watch that. So I bought it, I watched it, and I'm like, that's it? Yeah. And it just didn't really impress me. And the reason I think is, and you mentioned this too, when you were talking about, you were commenting on a post someone made about the best fantasy film to the 80s. And you commented on how you tried to watch Dark Crystal so many times, you just could not get into it.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I had the same thing. And I think my theory is that Dark Crystal is one of those movies that you had to have watched when you were a kid. Otherwise, you will not have that passion for it. It's not like something like, what's the one, David Bowie and... Oh, Labyrinth. Labyrinth. That's a legitimately good movie. I watched that as an adult and I love that.
00:16:21
Speaker
But something like Dark Crystal, I think you have to have been at that certain point in your life to really- Yeah, but it's David Bowie. Right, exactly. Now, mind you, if David Bowie had been in Dark Crystal, I probably would have loved Dark Crystal. Well, yeah, David Bowie makes everything better.
00:16:39
Speaker
Well, this is what I'm saying. You know, I mean, to me, the whole thing about that movie is David Bowie, which is what everybody talks about. If you ask somebody what the actual plot of Labyrinth is, or ask them to name certain scenes, they can't do it. I had a friend in high school, no joke. She had, because there's one scene in the movie when David Bowie's running naked.
00:17:00
Speaker
And she was such a David Bowie fanatic that she had gone frame by frame and there was one single frame where she swears you can kind of see a little bit of David Bowie's penis. See what I mean?
00:17:16
Speaker
uh see what I mean yeah yeah see what I mean if you take David Bowie out of that movie you don't have a movie no no nobody cares about that movie without David nobody and that's nothing against Jennifer Connelly because she's another you know brilliant actress someone that you and I both love but but yeah absolutely but yeah you're right it's that movie is all about David Bowie yeah yeah and mind you I love the Muppets as a matter of fact
00:17:40
Speaker
People crack up when I'm telling this, but I don't care. Muppets Treasure Island is my favorite film version of that story. Well, I mean, it doesn't
David Bowie and Batman Casting
00:17:49
Speaker
have a whole lot of competition either, too. Well, that's true, too. But I love Muppets Treasure Island. But I mean, you know, like, OK, Dawn Crystal, I'm sorry. I just don't get it. And I have just got a conclusion that it didn't catch me at the right age. I was an old jaded adult by the time I saw it, and I just didn't get it.
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Now that's actually a nice transition because actually Bowie was asked to be the Joker in the first Batman movie.
00:18:19
Speaker
Yeah. So that's actually kind of a nice little transition into this because so we had a choice. There were two Joel Schumacher films and we had to choose which one we wanted to talk about, you know, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin. And I didn't want to do that thing where we just bashed Joel Schumacher for two hours because, you know, a lot of the problems with with these movies were not his fault. And actually Batman and Robin has kind of had a little bit of
00:18:47
Speaker
I don't want to say a renaissance, but people are kind of taking a second look at it in retrospect all these years later. And they're realizing that, you know what, it's cheesy, it's campy, it's not a good
Batman and Robin Analysis
00:18:58
Speaker
movie. Like objectively, it's not a good movie, but it's fun. And I think that, and also I found out this when I was doing some research, it was kind of a defining moment for a lot of young people in the LGBTQ community at the time.
00:19:16
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah, because, you know, you know, Joe Schumacher famously was an out gay man. He was very, he was very open about it and claimed in an interview to have slept, we mentioned last time, he claimed to have slept with 20,000 men, which I don't know how he had the time to direct all these movies.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah. Where'd you find the time? Exactly, yeah, yeah. So there's a little bit of speculation about that. In fact, Mark Bernard and about the
00:19:48
Speaker
Batman Beyond podcast, he posted on Twitter that he'd heard that there's enough footage of Batman Forever to release like a full two hour, a full like two and a half hour cut event or something like that. Because yeah, that movie was chocked to shit. The scenes were rearranged out of order. So a lot of the problems with that movie are related to that, but also, you know, also the, you know, famously with Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones and all that, but also the studio butchered it to hell.
00:20:19
Speaker
And apparently, there's a longer, darker cut of that movie that exists. And Mark Bernard had posted about this on Twitter with the hashtag, release the 20,000 cut. Oh, God. Oh, please. But yeah, so this movie, Schumacher had been brought in for Batman Forever because after Batman Returns, which we talked about last week,
00:20:42
Speaker
you know, the studio was terrified of releasing another film like Batman in return. So, yeah, they, yeah, they definitely did not want the backlash from that movie from various family groups and critics and, you know, people who just felt that, no, this was not a family friendly Batman, which is what Warner Brothers wanted so that they could sell toys quite frankly. They could sell toys and
00:21:11
Speaker
As you pointed out, when we were talking about it, McDonald's actually pulled out of their Happy Meal deal. They had with them, the backlash against Batman Returns was so severe. And rightly so, because it was not a movie made for kids. It wasn't.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And plus all the sexual references and everything and how disgusting the penguin was and all that. So yeah, parents freaked out. As we talked about last week, go back and listen to our Batman Returns episode, kids were taken out of the theater crying when they watched the movie. Yeah, they took kids out of it because- I was almost one of them. I fully admit, I was almost one of them, but I held it in because I'm like, I want to watch the rest of the Batman movie.
00:22:02
Speaker
He said, you tough it out? Yeah, yeah. Even at that age, I knew it was up. I'm proud of you. But yeah, so all this all this stuff had happened. And then so they went to Joel Schumacher, asked him to do Batman Forever because they told Tim Burton, you know, we got to do a lighter movie. And Burton's like, well, I'm not interested in that. So they went to Schumacher and Schumacher said, yeah. And Schumacher, unlike Burton, actually, was a huge Batman fan growing up. So he's like, well, I want to do Batman year one.
00:22:32
Speaker
And they're like, right. Yeah. And that's why he signed on because he thought he would get a chance to do like a Batman movie in the vein of like the Burton stuff, but maybe take it closer to the comics. But then he had, he, he, he accepts, he accepts the job and they bring him in and he says, I want to do Batman year one. They're like, no, we don't want to do year one. We want you to do a continuation of the Burton movies, but we want you to do it with a lighter tone, more family friendly. And so.
00:22:58
Speaker
And, you know, Schumacher is, you know, he's a worker. So he's like, okay, yeah, sure, I'll do it. So he goes in, meets with Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton says, you know, I'm interested in what you guys are doing. So he passes and, you know, he gets permission from Tim Burton. Tim Burton doesn't care. By this point, he's moved on from Batman. He's like, do whatever, do whatever, I don't care. And so then he casts Val Kilmer and has, famously has lots of problems with Val Kilmer on set of Batman Forever.
00:23:28
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Well, Val Kilmer is notoriously difficult to work with. Right. Which is why he hasn't gotten a whole lot of work after in the years since. And which is why I think that, you know, you never see Val Kilmer work with the same people twice.
00:23:43
Speaker
Right, right. I think the one exception would probably be, if it ever happens, but Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr., because they said if there was to be a, you know, all of them have said that they would love to do a sequel to Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, which was a great movie. And so everybody on that, so I think Velcom seems to have mellowed in his older age, which is good because yeah, he was famously difficult to work with.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, but you know what I think it is, too? Robert Downey Jr. is a guy, you know, even though, you know, nice guy and everything like that, very friendly. But you know what? He's a guy that's lived and he's a guy that doesn't take a lot of shit. And I've heard like kind of the same thing about Shane Black and I just think that they just didn't take a lot of shit from Val Kilmer and other people did, you know. And that's why, you know. Right.
00:24:35
Speaker
They can work with him. Right. Because if you're working with somebody that knows that you're not going to take any shit from them, they tend to act differently. It's like Marlon Brando. Marlon Brando was famous for trying to see how much you could get away with because he didn't like to work.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah, oh god, the stories of him on the set of Apocalypse Now are legendary. Right, and some people, you know, let him get away with this shit, and other people didn't. Right, yeah. And from what I heard, when he ran into people dead, wouldn't take his shit, he fell in line and he went along with the program. But he just wanted to see how much he could get away with. Right, right.
00:25:16
Speaker
So Batman forever despite all the problems was a huge success like it did it far surpassed Batman Returns didn't quite do Batman levels but it did it got very close.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah. And so obviously, you know, Warner Brothers, right away, they fast-track a sequel. And that was Batman and Robin. Now, for the longest time, a lot of people, and myself included, felt that Batman Forever was the better movie. Batman and Robin was the weaker one. But over time, my perception on this has kind of shifted because I remember as a kid seeing Batman Forever in the theater and loving it. I was like, what, like 12 at the time or something like that.
00:25:54
Speaker
And I loved the movie when I saw it in the theater at the time. And then, so I was so psyched for Batman and Robin when it came out. And then I went to the theater, saw Batman and Robin, I'm like, what the fuck is this?
00:26:09
Speaker
And let me tell you, OK, now let me tell people, because people always get the impression because, of course, I vigorously defend this movie. But I was the same as everybody else. I hated this movie when it first came out. I did. And for plenty of years afterwards, I actively disliked Batman and Robin until I took the advice of a friend of mine
00:26:36
Speaker
who say this is how you gotta look at the movie. It's got nothing to do with the previous three. It's the 1966 Batman TV series. It is, yeah. Once he told me that and I went back and I looked at the movie,
00:26:50
Speaker
Okay, with that mindset, I said to myself, you know something? This ain't that bad. I still, like I watched it last night. I still don't think it's a good movie, but I can still appreciate it for that reason. I can, there's still things about it that are good. Like, you know, I never realized this before, but Uma Thurman's performance in this is brilliant.
00:27:11
Speaker
I mean, you wanted to, I mean, we go on and on and on about the casting in these superhero movies. And to my mind, they couldn't have picked a better Poison Ivy than Uma Thurman. Especially for this style that they're doing it in. I saw one review I was reading last night saying she's doing like a Mae West by Jessica Rabbit impersonation.
00:27:36
Speaker
And that's the perfect description of what she's doing in this movie. Yeah, she goes, you know what, she falls right into the spirit of what this movie is supposed to be. Right. Also, you know, more than anyone else, more than anyone else, she understands what she's doing. More than anybody else, she gets the material. In fact, even more than I think Jill Schumacher did. Yeah.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, because Joe Schumacher was, you know, he had a lot of problems on set dealing with the producers because they're like, you know, we want to make it more, more like toys and everything. And, and a lot of actors did not have fun on set. Like it was just not it was not a good working environment. George Clooney was still filming ER, the TV show at the time. So he was working like, like 12, 14 hour days, like he was going from this. He was going from the set of ER over to the set of Batman and Robin, just like nonstop. George Clooney.
00:28:29
Speaker
has said publicly. And this is why he apologized for the failure of this movie. You can look at him. And in some scenes, there are some scenes where he looks like he just wants to sit down. Yeah, yeah. If you see some of the scenes where it's him and Alfred that are talking, Clooney visibly looks tired. Right. Because he was filming, like you said, he would film ER during the day. And then at night, he would go film this movie.
00:28:56
Speaker
you know, during the weekend. And he said, yeah, that he was exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, to Clooney's credit too, like anytime someone told him they didn't like this movie, he offered to give them a refund. And he actually gave a lot of people refunds for their money for watching this movie.
00:29:11
Speaker
And he took responsibility for this movie nonstop, like for years. He was like, you know what? Batman and Robin was my fault. And then, you know, and of course, and also to Joel Schumacher's credit, he also came out and he apologized and he said, it's not George's fault. It's not Chris's fault. It's not Uma's fault. It's not anyone's fault but me. I'm the director. All the blame for the movie falls on my shoulders. But really, the shoulders it falls on are the shoulders of the producers of the movie.
00:29:39
Speaker
because they're the ones who demanded something that was, you know, very family friendly, very upbeat and bright, very, very campy in a way. And they wanted something in which they can sell a lot of toys. And that's what Schumacher delivered. In fact, on the set, he was famously credited as saying before each take, remember, people were making a cartoon. Yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
And that kind of set the tone for the whole movie. They told them this movie has to be toy-riffic. Right, exactly. That was the actual phrase that he was told. He said, you gotta make this movie toy-riffic. Right, right, exactly, yeah.
00:30:18
Speaker
And then again, as I was saying before, you know, when I have this discussion with people and, you know, the first thing they came out, well, Joe Schumacher should have had artistic integrity and he should have refused to make it. He should have made the movie that he wanted to make. I said, yeah, well, okay, it's easy for you to say that, but Hollywood is a business. Right. And plus he was under contract already.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, he was on the contract. And so when they told him what he wanted, and he did have creative vision with this movie, he said, you know what, they want me to do this, so I'm going to replicate, I'm going to homage the camp style of the 66 Batman and the work of Dick Spraying and all that. And that's what he tried to do. He legitimately was not trying to make a serious Batman movie because everybody said in the studio, that's not what they wanted.
00:31:10
Speaker
Right, exactly. He gave the studio what they want. They did not want a series Batman movie. They wanted something that they could sell happy meals, they could sell toys, and audiences would come out smiling and saying that. They wanted a Batman movie that people would feel good about when they came out of the movie theater. That's what they wanted.
00:31:32
Speaker
And unfortunately, yeah, and unfortunately, I think this movie kind of came out at the wrong time, because if this movie had come out today, I think people would have gotten the joke.
Evolution of Superhero Movies
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah. They would have understood what it was trying to be. Because you've had like, you know, the 66 series has had, you know, has now looked upon more fondly than it was in the 90s. Exactly. In the 90s, people were still kind of in a, it was kind of like a, it was, they were still kind of reeling from the shock of what the 60s series had done to the impression of comic books in the mainstream media. Because, you know, for years,
00:32:08
Speaker
decades even. Every time there was some story about comic books in the newspaper, the headline, I swear to God, every time it started off with Biff bangs up, comic books, whatever. Every single article. And I'm like, every single one. These editors were so freaking lazy. Every single one had to reference the Batman TV show's sound effects in some way.
00:32:31
Speaker
And you are 100% correct, my friend. That was it. Because in their mind, that's all comic books was. Right, right. In fact, growing up, my dad would see me reading comic books. I don't understand why you're reading that crap. And this is stuff like we're talking Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, stuff that was taught in colleges these days. But my dad's impression of it was Biff bangs out.
00:32:58
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. My father, you know, I mean, listen, my father was glad that I loved to read, but he just never understood why, you know, he said, aren't you a little bit old for that? You know, unless I was reading a Western comic book.
00:33:14
Speaker
Now, if I was reading Kid Co. Outlaw or Ro-Hod Kid, yeah, he would say, oh, well, let me get a look at that. Oh, now it's like, you want, you know, oh, let me see that. Or if it was a war comic, like, you know, like a Sergeant Rock or something like that. He would say, oh, well, let me get a look at that. And he would, you know, but, you know, the stuff with the superheroes now, he would look at me and say, well, aren't you a little bit old for that?
00:33:36
Speaker
Right, yeah, yeah. And it was the same thing with My Father and a lot of people's fathers and parents in general, I think. And that was the, so, and all this time, like all throughout the 90s, like, you know, comic fans were trying to convince people like, look, comic books aren't like the 60s Batman series, like they, and so people had developed an aversion to the 60s Batman and the camp style because of that. But that's, I mean, now superheroes are completely mainstream.
00:34:04
Speaker
All the big tentpole movies are superhero movies, like all the big TV shows are superhero TV shows, to the point that you have people complaining that there are too many superhero stuff. So it's totally mainstream now. Superheroes are the new Western, the new detective movie, or the new sci-fi movie. Exactly, exactly. Which is what I tell people all the time. I say, listen,
00:34:28
Speaker
If you as a kid would see, I was growing up during the time of the big Western boom, where you couldn't watch anything on TV except for Westerns. Right. That was it. If you didn't want to watch a Western, well, then you would just stop. And then after that, it was the cop and the detective shows that was on there. And that was the big thing. These things go in cycles, you know? Right.
00:34:48
Speaker
Now, I don't know what's going to be the next big thing on TV, but for the foreseeable future, yeah, it's going to be superheroes, because that's, like you said, that's the mainstream now. Right. Well, the thing about superheroes, I think it's a little bit different than, I understand the comparison to the Western and the detective movies, but the thing about superheroes is that unlike the Western, unlike the detective story, it's not really a genre in itself, right? It's more of
00:35:14
Speaker
It's more of a character type that appears in a genre. So, and you've seen the superhero movies evolve. Like originally it was all just like these origin story movies. Then with the sequels, they didn't really know what to do. But now it's evolved to where they're doing, like what Marvel is doing very, very smartly is they're saying, no, these are movies in different genres. So we're doing genre movies that just happen to have superheroes in them.
Genre Blending in Media
00:35:37
Speaker
Right, exactly. Like when we were talking about a couple episodes ago, we were talking about the Ghost Rider, you know, sequel, which was like a grind house. Right. Or also a few episodes ago, Hellboy, which was, you know, like this, this pulp fantasy type movie. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you can do different, you know, and even now when they do, okay, you will have a Western, they don't really make a straight Western anymore. They'll make something like Bone Tomahawk. Right.
00:36:05
Speaker
which is, you know, which is, you know, got horror elements and that's what they'll do with the Western. They'll throw in like fantasy elements or horror elements or something like that. So yeah, so we really don't have
00:36:17
Speaker
like really any straight sort of genre anymore. It's kind of everything is like kind of mashed up together. Like recently I was watching, what was it? City of Angels, which was set during the 1950s in Los Angeles. And it was about a Hispanic cop, the first Mexican cop. And he was teamed with a Jewish cop. And they were tracking down Nazis. And there was the supernatural demons. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was like four or five different genres all mashed up into one. Wait, so this is the TV show you're talking about? Yeah, right, this is a TV show. Matter of fact, it's supposed to be a sequel series to Penny Dreadful. Right, right, yeah, yeah, okay. For a second there, I thought you were talking about the Nicolas Cage movie, and I'm like, wait a minute, I don't remember, I never seen that movie, but I'm like, I don't remember everyone talking about supernatural demons in that.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yeah, and actually, when I first started talking about City of Angels, people thought I was talking about the Wayne Rogers detective series from the 1970s. I said, no, I'm not talking about it. Who remembers that except for me? Well, apparently a few people do. Yeah, I mean, I was honestly surprised because the show didn't last that long. But yeah, he was playing like a Philip Marlow type of a private eye in 1930s Los Angeles.
00:37:36
Speaker
Now, this is also so, you know, going back to this movie, Batman and Robin, one of the things I'm looking that just kind of struck my eye is this movie actually did turn a profit, which a lot of people maybe don't realize. And again, this movie, supposedly, if you listen to people don't like this movie, this is all this movie was terrible. It didn't make any money. People hated it. Actually, a lot of people did like it when it first came out because a lot of people went to see it. Right. Yeah.
00:38:06
Speaker
People forget Arnold Schwarzenegger. This was a movie that was so specifically on his star power. George Clooney was at the height of his popularity thanks to ER. George Clooney has said that despite all the problems he had on set, despite how exhausted he was working on it, he does have some fondness for this movie because this movie is what got him into Hollywood. Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
This movie was sold on a star power. Arnold Schwarzenegger was also at the height of his popularity in this movie. As a matter of fact, just like Jack Nicholson in the first Batman movie, his name was the first one up there above George Clooney's. Yeah, well, this was the first movie since the original Batman because the villain had top billing over the guy. They actually would play Batman.
00:39:07
Speaker
So you had a lot of fans of George Clooney and a lot of fans of Arnold Schwarzenegger that went to see the movie just because they were in it. Yeah, exactly. And Uma Thurman, of course. Uma Thurman, who... Yeah, she wasn't very big at this point, but she had some clout to her because she had done, you know, Pulp Diction, which, you know, famously... Exactly, right.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah. And so the movie, like right from the start, it really does kind of, well, I thought it was kind of funny that it sets these two competing tones, right? Because the opening of it, it's like the classic Batman opening and the Warner Brothers, it's like in this darkness type thing. Although the new theme music, which they don't use the Danny Elfman theme anymore for this, but it is a bit more upbeat.
00:39:58
Speaker
But then it transitions into the bat cave and the infamous suiting up sequence. Oh yeah, with the buttocks. Yeah, you got to get the butt shots in. But you know that's Schumacher having fun. Yeah, you get the butt shots, you get the crotch shots, you get the nipples of course, the infamous bat nipples.
00:40:22
Speaker
What I like about this scene in that it basically sets the tone visually for the relationship that Batman and Robin have. Yeah. Because in the previous three movies, we've seen the Batmobile is a two-seater. Now Batman has a partner, but he's got a new Batmobile that only has one seat. Right, right. Also, this Batmobile doesn't have a canopy.
00:40:46
Speaker
No, no, no. Yeah, it's completely open, which, again, so much of this movie makes no sense. But then again, a lot of this movie
00:40:56
Speaker
is just spectacle. It's also a nod to 66 because 66 famously, the Batmobile had no canopy and it also has red in it, just like the 66 Batmobile, which I never picked up on these things before. But after you, to your credit, told me that this movie is, it's an homage to 66. And then looking back at it now, now I can see like, oh yeah, look, they got red in the Batmobile, the red highlights and stuff. They got the open canopy. That's gotta be a callback to 66.
00:41:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And I mean, they do the thing with the camera, like, when it's a scene with the villains, the camera, you know, all of a sudden, everything is slammed at the one side. Right, yeah. They get a lot in the 66 TV series, when it was seen with the villains, it would be a skew, the camera angle would be the skew, you know, the crazy oversized sets.
00:41:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And also the henchmen, the scene where they have to fight the henchmen in some ridiculous way, that was a total 66 callback. Even like the call he gets when he's in the Batmobile and he's racing towards Gotham City, and Commissioner Gordon calls him, and it's an updated version of the old red phone stick.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, Commissioner Gordon calls him up and he said he even says straight up, there's a new villain in town calls himself Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze. Yeah, that's totally a 66 callback. Absolutely. In any modern Batman story, Commissioner Gordon would never say there's a new villain in town. He would say we've got this criminal or something. We got this we got this suspect or something like that. He would not say villain.
00:42:28
Speaker
And if you notice, okay, it's Commissioner Gordon, but who is he dressed like? Right. He's dressed just like Chief O'Hara. He's dressed dressed just like Chief O'Hara, which to me is like a homage to Chief O'Hara because they don't have him in this movie. Right. But if you look, but all throughout the movie now in the previous movies, Commissioner Gordon just wore a suit. Yeah. But in this movie, every scene you see him, he's dressed just like Chief O'Hara.
00:42:52
Speaker
Right, yeah. And you know, I think this movie actually gives Pat Hingle more to do than any of the other Batman movies, because he or he gives poison ivy the keys to the bat signal. And that's like, that's the most he's done in three and four damn movies. Actually, he had a lot to do in the first movie. Well, not really, like he was just kind of like there and all these points, but he didn't really do much. Like when you think about it,
Casting Critiques and Comparisons
00:43:20
Speaker
Like he was at the, he was at the, you know, Access Chemicals plant. He had made speeches on TV, but he did, as a character, he doesn't really do much in any of his movies. Oh yeah, okay, okay, yeah, okay. Well, okay, I'll go with you on that one. I just think that in the first one, he tends to have a little bit more to do, because like you said, he's at the Access, you know, chemical plant, and he's actually has a little conflict with the crooked cop.
00:43:46
Speaker
Right. Well, he did stuff with him. But as far as like his impact on the overall story, he doesn't really have any of this movie. This is the only time his actions have some impact on the story. No, I mean, he doesn't have much to do. You know what? He's there because it's Batman and Commissioner Gordon has to be there. Right. Which is, you know, in some capacity, but he's not like a character. Right. Which is one of the failings of all these movies that they don't take Commissioner Gordon really seriously.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he's there because it's a Batman movie. So you have to have Commissioner Gordon. Right. I mean, for no other reason. And that, you know, he's the liaison between Batman and the Ray, which cracks me up with that. They have a scene where Batman is walking around with all these cops is there when they're at the crime scene. And, you know, it's okay for Batman to be walking around a crime scene. It's so funny to watch this after Batman Returns, because last week we were talking about Batman Returns and how
00:44:45
Speaker
after he stops the Red Triangle gang, like Commissioner Gorn's trying to talk to him, and Batman's got like no time for him at all, and he just completely blows the mayor off. But here, you know, he's going to charity events, he's sitting and talking with the police and everything. He's hanging out, you know, and, you know, he's just, again, like the Adam West, 1966, this is a very public Batman.
00:45:09
Speaker
You know, nobody freaks out seeing Batman, you know, walking around. During the day, you notice, oh, yeah, well, that's Batman. Yeah, exactly. So there's a total different relationship. And, you know, if not for, and we'll talk, I'll talk about him later, but if not for Michael Guff, you'd be totally forgiven for thinking that these movies are, this is a complete reboot of the series. Yeah, that, yeah, he's like really the linking element
00:45:36
Speaker
between this movie and the other three. And what really surprised me in this movie is the depth of feeling in the scenes he has with George Clooney. Right, yeah. There's real, you know, they play their scenes together really well. There's real feeling, you know, between the two of them. They got me convinced that, yeah, okay, this is Bruce Wayne, you know, that he's gonna raise up from a kid.
00:45:59
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Michael Guff's credit is like an alt with, he worked with three different actors playing Batman, but every time he plays this role, he treats them as if they're the same character every single time. And he makes you, his performance and his treatment towards Bruce makes you believe that Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney are all the same guy. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
00:46:24
Speaker
So, and also we get the famous opening line, you know, which is Chris O'Donnell reciting Belle Kilmore from the last movie, you know, you know, chicks dig the car.
00:46:36
Speaker
And then we get another DC Comics reference here, just like in the last movie, because the last movie, Belle Kilmer, mentioned how, you know, the circus must be halfway to Metropolis by now. And in this movie, he says, you know, this is why Superman works alone. Yeah, it's why Superman works alone, yeah. So very obviously, yeah, this is set, this is in some DC universe where there are other superheroes. Yeah, yeah, I don't know about you, but when I saw that line in Batman Forever, when he said the circus must be halfway to Metropolis by now,
00:47:04
Speaker
I freaked out. I'm like, oh my god, Batman and Superman are in the same world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he throws it off so casually. I love the way Killme just throws it off casually. Yeah, well, it's our way to Metropolis. Right, yeah. Now, and that actually makes, does fit better in that movie. In this movie, you're not sure if he's being, you know, being super, like there really is a Superman or if he's just being flippant about the fictional character Superman.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know what? It's one of those lines that I think that you could take either way. Me, I prefer to think that, yeah, there is a metropolis. Right. And, you know, the Christopher Reeve Superman is over there somewhere, you know, wondering what that crazy bad guy is doing. Or at this point, the Nicolas Cage Superman, because that's what they were beginning of. Oh, yeah. The Notorious Nicolas Cage Superman. We're going to have to do an episode on that documentary one day. Oh, man.
00:48:01
Speaker
You know what, I'm so glad that train wreck did not come to pass. I don't know, but I do agree with you, it would have been a total train wreck, but after seeing that documentary, The Death of Superman Lives, I'm really curious to see what it would have been like.
00:48:16
Speaker
Although what I do love is that I watched the Kevin Smith when he did his documentary. Oh, yeah. And he was talking about when he went in for his meeting and he was talking about it. John Peters, yeah. That thing approaches Richard Pryor levels of humor. Oh, God, yeah. He's telling about that meeting and everything like that. Oh, that. Yeah, OK. We're going to have to put that on the list of, you know,
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, that we got to get to, because that is a fascinating project. Any way you look
Actors' Financial Pressures
00:48:49
Speaker
at it. Oh, yeah. I don't care what you think about it anyway. It's fascinating just to explore.
00:48:55
Speaker
And now I think one of the biggest weak points of this movie is Chris O'Donnell. Like his Robin, I never liked his Robin. He's just, you know, the problem is he plays it like a petulant teenager, which is, which is, which is how. He's not de-gracing in the episode. That as well, yeah. But he plays it as like a petulant teenager the entire time when he's like 35.
00:49:20
Speaker
yeah i mean he's a grown man and he's acting like this really entitled whiny brat yeah yeah you know and in both in both movies batman forever and batman and robin like you both you know what
00:49:36
Speaker
They go through issues in this movie that should have been resolved already. The movie is Batman and Robin, not Batman against Robin, which is what we get from their characterization through the whole thing. They're constantly bickering and fighting and arguing and everything like that, which is not what you want to see Batman and Robin do. You don't want to see him bickering and fighting and carrying on. And like you said, Chris O'Donnell, he is clearly too old
00:50:05
Speaker
to be acting like this. Exactly. Yeah. Like it's one thing if he's like, if it's a 15 year old kid doing this part, then I can understand it, right? You know, you're, you're 15, you got hormones raging and everything. It makes sense for you to like lash out and something, but he's like 35. Come on. Yeah. I mean, it's ridiculous when you see a guy who's obviously a, you know,
00:50:27
Speaker
I don't know. He just throws off this whole movie in terms of tone. And when he's on screen, he makes me cringe. Exactly. And you know, the way he delivers his life. And George Clooney, I love him because he's just standing there with his head cocked to the side and say, why are you being a dick? You know, he's like, why are you being a dick, dick? You know?
00:50:46
Speaker
And that's the look on his face. Like, you know, really? Come on, man. I think this is in part because of how like George Clooney, I think, would be able to play a good Batman back in the day under under a better script and under better and under a different kind of direction. But and, you know, if he's not, you know, working like doing shooting ER 12 hours to begin with. But but in this, he just
00:51:10
Speaker
The exhaustion shows in his performance too, because he does feel like he's sleepwalking through the whole thing. I have always, I don't know why, for some reason I have always felt that George Clooney would be a perfect Green Hornet.
00:51:23
Speaker
Well, that's so funny you mentioned that, because he actually turned down Green Hornet to be in this movie. Really? Yeah. Well, Batman, yeah. Well, I guess he figured Batman was, but I can see him. You know what? I can't see him as Batman. Much as I don't knock his performance in this movie, because considering, as we have said, and I will continue to say, considering for a guy that
00:51:47
Speaker
considering a man working with the level of exhaustion that he was, he turns in a pretty damn good job. He does the best he can with what he's given. Yeah. And this under the circumstances he was placed under. And you know what? For me, before Robert Downey Jr. came along, he, George Clooney was my ideal pick for Tony Stark.
00:52:06
Speaker
I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. I can see him being Tony Stark. Yeah. I mean, he's got that whole, like he's not the, as sarcastic and as quick, but that's really something that Downey brought in, brought to Tony Stark. But if you're talking like the comic book Tony Stark, it's George Clooney over way. Yeah. George Clooney could have played it, but no problem. Like you said, I don't think he, he wouldn't have played it as sarcastic. Right.
00:52:27
Speaker
Because nobody, let's face it, nobody does sarcastic like Robert Downey. No, no, no, no. But Robert Downey basically invented that trait for Tony Stark. Tony Stark was always kind of like dry and witty, but he wasn't as sarcastic and snarky as Downey gets. Yeah, I mean, he played that role so well that I believe, you know what, they're going to have to give it at least another decade before they can
00:52:54
Speaker
if they do another Iron Man movie with somebody else playing Tony. Because he's like Christopher Reeve. You think of Superman, you think, oh, well, Christopher Reeve. You think of him. You think of Iron Man, well, oh, Robert Downey Jr. And you really can't see anybody else in that role. Yeah. But I mean,
00:53:19
Speaker
If this movie has any weak point at all, I mean, Alicia Silverstone comes off better in this movie. She does. Yeah. And she has nothing to do. She has nothing to do in the movie. She had nothing to do, but she comes off better than Crystal Don. Right. She's supposed to be like.
00:53:36
Speaker
You know, I feel so bad for her because she was 18 when she made this movie. And the press was vicious towards her. Oh, she got massacred. Like, she gained a few pounds on set. And, you know, they had trouble fitting into the costume. And these fucking reporters, they're writing stories about how she's a fat girl. I'm like, she's an 18-year-old girl, for fuck's sake.
00:53:57
Speaker
What the hell are you doing?
Visual Style of Batman and Robin
00:53:59
Speaker
Listen, they must have been looking at a different Alicia Silverstone than I was, because to me, I saw nothing wrong with her in there. No, she looks great. Well, apparently, there was a lot of the footage from when she put on weight was cut. So we don't really know. But yeah. But she does look good in this movie. And Joel Schumacher, again, to his credit, he went and he defended her. He's like, what the fuck is wrong with you people? She's an 18-year-old girl.
00:54:25
Speaker
she ate a fucking what you're you're writing these stories insulting her because what she ate a fucking pizza who gives a shit seriously all the stuff that you could be writing about this movie and you're gonna pick on her for that bullshit yeah i mean and an 18 year old girl i gotta stress that i can't stress that enough 18 year old girl and your body and your body shaming her what exactly exactly and then we wonder what's wrong with this society
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. That pissed me off when I read about that. Yeah. Because I was, you know, I was, I was, when this movie came out, I was too, I wasn't old enough to the point where I was paying attention to like all the Hollywood gossip and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, looking back on it now and reading about it, like, that's just such a shitty thing to do. Exactly. You know, very,
00:55:12
Speaker
very poor journalism. Yeah. And know what? And I feel embarrassed for calling it journalism because that's not what it is. You know what? All this, this is a bit of a tangent, but in the same, you know, all this celebrity gossip bullshit, like I just, I would love to just take all of those people and shoot them in a cannon right into the sun because they're just fucking scum of humanity. You know, I don't, you know, okay.
00:55:40
Speaker
I'm not gonna lie, I love a good bit of gossip as much as the next person. But you know what? I also do believe that there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed. And you don't have to mention everything. And if you call yourself a journalist, you're not supposed to let your personal feelings.
00:55:59
Speaker
come into what you write. I mean, there's a lot of things that I, when I do movie reviews, there's a lot, one thing that I pride myself on, that I take pride in myself in, is that I can be objective. I may not like something, but I can be objective about it and I can examine it for what it is and say to you, okay, this is why you should watch this, even though I don't particularly care for it, but this is why it's of value, this is why it's of work.
00:56:27
Speaker
I mean, we've covered movies like that here on this show, where even though we may not personally like it, we still try to find things about it that are good. We still try and approach them objectively. Yeah. And you know what? Me, I'm the sort of person, because I'm at the time of my life where, you know what? I don't have the energy or time to expand to hate something that much. I would rather spend my time
00:56:54
Speaker
recommending you something and saying, go watch this, then spend two hours on here wasting your time and my time tearing something down for no reason at all, simply for the fact that I feel like I should be tearing it down. And I'm going to be very blunt about this. I've heard a lot of movie podcasts. I don't like that. Oh, yeah. That the hosts do nothing but spend two, three, four hours
00:57:20
Speaker
ruthlessly tearing apart a movie. Why? Why is your life really that petty that this is all you have to do? There was an, there was an article the other day on, I saw on Twitter, from What Culture, which is a site I used, you know, full disclosure, I used to write for. And it was like, you know, 10 actors that need to, to stop doing the same thing. And I'm like, and they're, they're bringing up people like Jason Statham and, you know, The Rock and, and all these other actors. And I'm just like,
00:57:49
Speaker
What they do works. That's why they keep doing it. Why do you have to tear everything down? Well, yeah. I mean, that's why they do what they do, because it works. And it's successful. And they make, you know what? That's like saying to, I don't know, to Donnie Yen. Well, you know what? You should stop making martial arts movies. Why? That's his thing. He makes martial arts movies. If you're an action star,
00:58:16
Speaker
Well, you make action movies. Yeah, maybe once in a while you might stretch yourself and you do something else. And then you know what happens? Nobody goes to see it. Exactly. So you know what? Well, now you go back to making action movies. And then these same people that you were just talking about, they said, well, he has no range. He's afraid to stretch himself. Well, no, he's not or she is not afraid to stretch themselves. It's just that nobody wants to see them do anything else.
00:58:44
Speaker
I mean, what these people forget is that actors and directors, they gotta eat too. They gotta make a living. So they take on projects just for the paycheck, just like you go punching a clock and wherever you work every day just for the paycheck. I mean, you're not going to work in some office because that's your artistic calling.
00:59:07
Speaker
I thank you which is why I and really this drives me totally ate shit when people talk about any actor and they said well they just did that just for the money. Well of course they did. Yeah yeah. You posted something up the other day about um you know what's the worst creative advice you ever received and I said the worst creative advice I ever received was you know
00:59:32
Speaker
write only what you want to write and don't pay attention to the market. Well, you don't pay attention to the market. You don't make any money is what I quickly found. And so then I changed my approach and I started writing stuff that had an intersection between what I want to do and what the audience wanted. And then look, I started making money because of that.
00:59:52
Speaker
And you know what, you can go on Facebook, for all of you listening, you go on Facebook right now, go to any writer's group that's on there, and you know what you find a whole bunch of? You find a whole bunch of people who are writing what they want to write, but they're also complaining that nobody is reading. Oh, we know lots of people like that. They're always complaining about how they're not making any money. And I've talked to these people, like, well, have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this? No, I don't want to do that.
01:00:19
Speaker
Well, you're not going to make money. I mean, you're not going to make money. Yeah, you're not going to make money. It's just that simple. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing if you want to do it as a hobby, right? You want to just do it as a hobby and, you know, write, then fine, go ahead. But then don't complain that you're not making a, you're not making a living as a writer. If you don't want to do the stuff that you have to do. Yeah. I mean, you know what?
01:00:41
Speaker
do what you have to do until you get to the point where you can... Which is why a lot of people in Hollywood, they do... Okay, and I hear this all the time. Well, I don't understand why they made this movie. I don't understand why they made that movie. Well, they made that movie for a variety of reasons. They made it for one to make money to support themselves so they can get a project that they want, or they're doing it as a favor to somebody who's gonna give them a favor later on and put them in a better movie. Right.
01:01:05
Speaker
You know, I've heard plenty of actors say that, yeah, they was in, Ali Baldwin, one of the best shows I ever saw was inside the actor's studio, and they interviewed him, and a person asked him, well, you've been, said, came right out, well, you've been in a lot of shitty movies, you know, why were you in those movies? And Ali Baldwin said, well, a variety of reasons.
01:01:23
Speaker
One of the reasons that, you know, it may be filmed in a country that you've always wanted to go see. So you go do the job. Yeah, you know it's a shitty movie, but you get to see the country on studios die. Right. Or you want to work with a certain actor or a certain director, even if the script is shit. Like, I mean, come on. If they had a movie with, if they asked me to be in a movie with Robert Downey Jr., and it would say like, I don't know, like a remake of
01:01:53
Speaker
Ishtar. Ishtar. Or, you know, what was that? Breaking. If it was a remake of Breaking 2, they asked me, do you want to be in this movie? I'd say no. And they said Robert Downey Jr. I'm like, well, fuck yes, I'm going to be in that movie, though. Well, of course. Yeah, naturally. Because I want to hang out on set with Robert Downey Jr., of course. And also, you know, OK, you're an actor, you're a director, right? This is your job. You work.
01:02:23
Speaker
You know, you're not like a, okay, you have a carpenter, you have a plumber, you have an electrician. They don't turn down certain jobs because they're not artistically inclined to do that. They do it because that's what they do. That's their job. Right. And you know what? One movie you make may have to be your income, your salary for the next two or three years, because you don't know when the next project is coming.
01:02:54
Speaker
And also, if you're a working actor, you have other people whose salary you're paying. You've got your publicist, you've got your agent, you've got your manager.
01:03:08
Speaker
You've got a whole bunch of people that you have to pay. Right, yeah. And I've been listening to Zach Braff and Donald Faison's podcast, Fake Doctors Real Friends, where they're going back and they're reexamining all the episodes of Scrubs. And one of the things that was kind of revealing, listening to it, is Donald Faison talking about being a working actor.
01:03:31
Speaker
and saying like well you know I took this because I needed the money and they were talking about the anxiety of like at the end of the first season like you know are we going to get picked up are we going to get renewed because you know we're counting on this money coming in you realize whoa you know yeah these guys have a pretty good lifestyle but they're not so rich where they can just stop working.
01:03:54
Speaker
Thank you, this is what I'm saying. People hear about these actors making these fabulous sums of money, and they think, oh, yeah, well, they're living high off the walk and everything like that. Yeah, well, you know what? Some of them are, but most of them, 90% of them aren't. Yeah, they're just working actors.
01:04:10
Speaker
Right, exactly. That work, which is why you see them working all the time when, okay, this TV series, okay, that gets canceled. Two months later, you see them on another TV series. Right. They got to keep working because the bills are still coming in. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:26
Speaker
And so, yeah, you know, it's funny, we've ranted about so much in this episode, except the movie that everybody probably thought we were going to rant about. Well, no, because you know something, that's because, like I said earlier, really the only problem I have with this movie is Chris O'Donnell's performance. His performance to me, like I said, it's very cringe-worthy.
01:04:48
Speaker
when he's on screen. I love the set design of this movie because, yeah, it's supposed to be like a live action cartoon and they use an obscene amount of neon in this. And there's the one scene where Poison Ivy
01:05:07
Speaker
Goes into this place where everybody is wearing like day glow colors and stuff like that. Yeah, you know, it's a very colorful see biblical Fox. I would just like to mention I was like, I want to, I was gonna bring her up as well. I forgot she was in this movie. I completely forgot she was in much as much as I forgot that
01:05:27
Speaker
What's her name? She was in Batman Forever. What's her name? Oh, Drew Barrymore? Yeah, you know what? I completely forget her and Debbie Mazar are in that movie until I actually see the movie, just like I forget that Vivica Fox is in there. Let me just say something as a Black person. He would not have a... Mr. Freeze would definitely not have Black girlfriend, because Black people don't like Nicole.
01:05:51
Speaker
They don't like the coal. Do you know what her character's name is in this movie? No. Ms. B Haven. Ms. B Haven, really? Just like that, Ms. B Haven. So B is her first name, Haven is her last name. But for somebody who only has like, I think she's only had like 30 seconds of screen time. Yeah, yeah.
01:06:16
Speaker
Well, that's a memorable 30 seconds. I'm just like, yeah, she's how you turn that down. She turns and walks away. I said, OK, I don't got my OK. OK. I definitely got my money's worth. Coolio has a cameo in this movie. Right. Yeah. We last saw in Daredevil. During the motorcycle racing scene. Right. Yeah. You know, he's in this one. R. Kelly.
01:06:45
Speaker
did a song for this movie called Gotham City. And if you listen to it, you will realize that R. Kelly does not know anything about Batman or Gotham City. He sings about Gotham City being a city of hope and peace and love and justice. I said, apparently,
01:07:09
Speaker
R. Kelly has never read a Batman comic book. Well, you know, he was too busy, he was too busy pissing on girls, that's why. Apparently so, you know. What else is... John Glover, John Glover is in this. No, yeah, as Dr. Jason Woodrow. The Floronic Man. Yeah, the Floronic Man, for those of you who are familiar with... And like, you know, like Uma Thurman, he gets that he's in a campy movie.
01:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he gets it, you know. Like I said, you know what? You watch these movies, and you can tell who gets it and who doesn't. Yeah. Like, as opposed to something like, OK, now here's where we can find a movie that we can really not, that we go back to every time a movie and not. Batman Forever. Right. Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey did not get it.
01:08:01
Speaker
No, no, no. They did not understand at all the type of movie that they were in or what they were supposed to be doing. They didn't get it. They thought, which really surprised me, Jim Carrey more than Tommy Lee Jones. You know? Yeah. I would expect him not to get what type of movie he is. But Jim Carrey is kind of hip. I would have thought that he would have got it.
01:08:22
Speaker
right yeah yeah and you know Tommy Lee Jones was just like I don't know I don't know if it was just jealousy at all the attention Jim Carrey was getting or what but he just he went nuts in his performance yeah uh what else I want oh something I wanted to point out to people and um I have seen them in person from a distance and I tell people this all the time
01:08:47
Speaker
If you, there's a scene where, after Batman has captured Mr. Freeze and they bring him to jail, I presume it's Arkham Asylum. Yeah, it is Arkham Asylum. It's Arkham Asylum. They bring him there and he's taken to the cell and the two guards, you know, they take him out. Once they get him out of that little refrigerator that they have him in, you can see how short Arnold Schwarzenegger really is because the two guards are played by Jesse Ventura and Rolf Mueller.
01:09:16
Speaker
Oh, okay. Rolf Mueller, who was in the Conan TV series.
01:09:21
Speaker
and who was a friend of, you know, Arnold, and of course, you know, the bodybuilder wrestler Jesse Ventura. But when you watch this movie, look at how short Arnold Schwarzenegger is compared to them. You know what, I never noticed that, but now you mention it, I'm remembering it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and you get an idea of how Arnold Schwarzenegger really isn't that tall. He's not as tall as you might think he is. That is really surprising. Because they actually tower over him. Yeah, yeah.
01:09:51
Speaker
Yeah. Now, I don't know if they did that deliberately to show how small Freeze is when he's not in that armored suit.
01:10:03
Speaker
which also I have a problem with that almond soup because as far as I know diamonds in and of themselves are not a power source. Like the story in this movie makes no sense. I mean you've got Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze teaming up to freeze the world, which is what Mr.
Absurdity in Batman and Robin
01:10:20
Speaker
Freeze wants, and then for Poison Ivy to
01:10:22
Speaker
recreate it and like with like their their goals are in total opposition to each other it makes first of all it makes no sense why mr frieze and poison ivy would team up right at all you know like you said it's completely and
01:10:41
Speaker
Mr. Freeze is going around stealing these diamonds because that's what powers his armored suit. And like I said, wait a minute, diamonds are not a power suit. He's like picking them up by the handful and dropping them in the suit. And then he said, oh, because I'm running low on power. Wait a minute. What do you mean? If you were stealing uranium or vibranium or something like that, OK, I can understand that. Well, I mean, uranium or vibranium, you know,
01:11:07
Speaker
But diamonds? And he's picking up handfuls of this shit. He's just dropping them in the suit. And he says, OK, I'm back up the foot. And there's a little gauge that goes around. Yeah, yeah. What? It makes no sense. Oh, it makes no sense at all. But to give him his credit, Arnold Schwarzenegger is having the time of his life. Oh, he's eating up. Like, he's another guy who gets what kind of movie he's in. Yeah. You know, all the villains understand what kind of movie they're making.
01:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger's just having the time. Because this gives him something different to do. You know what? At the time, I hated him. But now, looking back on it, his ice puns are kind of endearing. Oh, he makes every corny ice pun. He must have looked at every episode of Otto Preminger as Mr. Free. Because that's what he's doing. He's doing Otto Preminger. He's like the ultimate dad joker.
01:12:01
Speaker
yeah and he's making every he's making every bad ice pun joke imaginable yeah i'm sitting there i'm taking notes because you know and a bit of them to be a dad myself and i'm just like i'm like i gotta remember to use this on my kid i had to make notice of the bad dad jokes oh man but but you know what i enjoy and i like
01:12:23
Speaker
the scene. Again, George Clooney sells what he's doing when he's doing it. I give him credit for that. It's the scene at the end of the movie where they're at that whacked out observatory. I have no idea how people get up to this observatory. It's this observatory. It's like a round building or something being held up by like a giant Greek statue.
01:12:46
Speaker
It's like, who the fuck designs this shit? Who designs this thing? And it looks twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. And like you said, is this building? And I'm saying, wait a minute, how do people get up there? The people has got to work there, much less visitors and stuff like that, because they have a whole reception. That's not the thing. But anyway, Batman has blown up.
01:13:09
Speaker
you know, the observatory, and he's unfrozen, Gotham City, everything like that. And he goes over to Mr. Freeze, who's laying there, and he actually talks to him. Yeah. And he explains to him how he's been tricked by Poison Ivy. He shows her the thing. And he says, OK, listen, you were once adopted, though. One thing, though, I thought about when I was watching that.
01:13:31
Speaker
This was also the thing, this was also a thing we talked about in Batman 66. Where was the freakin' camera recording for the reason I have you saying that? Bingo, exactly. Where was the camera at? Did he have a bat drone flying around inside? Yeah, yeah, because he was being held up by the vines or whatever at that point. He was being held up by the vines, exactly. So how did he take the...
01:13:52
Speaker
you know, the thing. But he actually talks to him and he explains to him. He says, there's a man that's dying. You know, I will do what I can. I'll talk to Bruce Wayne and I'll get you to research facilities that you need to, you know, save your wife, but help me save another life. And
01:14:10
Speaker
I said, you know something? That's what a hero does. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, which is why I like that scene because, you know, he, you know, he just talks to him and Mr. Freeze says, yeah, he and he gives him the two. And of course he makes the ultimate bad doctor joke. He just called me in the morning. Oh, I say he just had to go there. Yeah.
01:14:36
Speaker
And you know what? I can see them fighting on the center bat. Joe Schubacher say, listen, Arnold, you can't do it. I'm going to say it. I have to do it. I have to. I cannot get this far and not do it.
01:14:53
Speaker
Oh, man. Yeah, I can see him doing that. It's so funny when you think about, like, because if you're talking about Mr. Freeze, like, a serious Mr. Freeze, like they did in the Batman animated series, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the last person you would ever consider for Mr. Freeze. And, you know, some of the other people were considered, you know, Patrick Stewart was one of the guys that they were thinking about. Yeah, Patrick Stewart. He would have been amazing in that serious role. But when you're talking about the
01:15:21
Speaker
the bad joke guy. And also, I love that thing that he mentions that, you know, you know, when he's given the rundown of Mr. Freeze and he's like, you know, Victor Freeze, he was a Nobel Prize winning biologist and a two time Olympic decathlete.
01:15:43
Speaker
From what I heard, yeah, Patrick Stewart was like this close to getting the role, but then I also heard that Arnold Schwarzenegger, he really wanted to do it. Well, also Schumacher said that he wanted Freeze to be like someone, he wanted someone like Buck, because he wanted to be like this image of him being like chiseled out of ice. So that's why he was looking at Schwarzenegger. He was also looking at Stallone at one point, I think as well.
01:16:10
Speaker
And some other guys too, some other big guys they were looking at, but yeah. And his performance is just so ridiculous. Like when he's directing his henchmen and singing, I'm Mr. White Christmas. And the poor guys are freezing their ass off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's saying, sing, sing, and then look at him and say, man, screw you. Yeah. And then, you know what, also,
01:16:37
Speaker
Vivica Fox, how the hell is she not freezing her ass off in that outfit? We'll see, this is what I'm saying. Now see, I knew he was in the realm of science fiction when I said to see black people, black people don't like cold. You got a guy walking around in a giant ice suit, but the thing that takes you out of the movie is a black woman in the cold.
01:16:57
Speaker
Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Nancy. Nancy. Okay. You've ruined my suspension. Yeah, there's some things I can take. Yeah, I can take the guy in the giant ice suit powered by diamonds.
01:17:12
Speaker
I can take you driving the Batmobile over the arms of statues and jumping them over buildings. Hey, listen, I'll go with it. A black woman walking around in lingerie with, you know, wearing nothing but lingerie? Totally unbelievable. I'm tired.
01:17:29
Speaker
I can't go there. And not noticing the cold at all. All these other guys are wearing like these parkas and shit and they're shivering and this completely fine. Yeah and she's completely fine. Yeah she's just strutting around like you know. Well something else too I don't understand why she even works for him because it's clear that he's not having sex with her. They never explained that. No she just idea. I was like what did why did you even hire her it's like okay all right
01:17:58
Speaker
Okay, Ms. Haven, I'm going to hire you to be my henchwoman. Okay, what do I gotta do? Do you want me to be, you want me to have sex with you? No. No. But I want you to, I want you to walk around and lingerie all the time.
01:18:13
Speaker
and make advances and suggestive sexual references that I would completely ignore. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's it. So like you said, it's obvious that, you know, he's not doing anything with her. Right, yeah. So I have no reason, I have no, like, and she looks great, you know, not not concealing her in this movie, but I have no reason why she, there's no reason for her to be in this movie. Like I said, I,
01:18:37
Speaker
But then again, she is only in the movie for 30 seconds. So I can't be forgiven for forgetting that Vivica Fox is in this movie until I see it. And then I see it. I said, oh, OK, now I know why. And then when she turns and walks away from Mr. Fox, I said, OK, now I know why she's in this movie. Yeah. Something else too I picked up on this last time is Woodrew, when he's doing the bidding war, and he has that mystery bidder.
01:19:05
Speaker
on the phone, right? And that's the guy who gets the, who ends up buying bang. You know what I was thinking this time was, do you think that might've been a set up for Ray Shaogool and a possible sequel? I would not be surprised if that was the intention.
01:19:22
Speaker
Because otherwise, why is he talking to this mystery guy on the phone that he sells Bain to? And he tells the guy later, yes, we've gotten your money. We're going to ship him out tomorrow. And it's like, why would you have this mystery phone bidder if it's not supposed to be a setup for something later on down the line? Exactly. They'd make too much out of it for it not to be something.
01:19:44
Speaker
Right. Because there's no payoff to that in this movie at all. I get what you mean. Yeah. But then if they do another one after this, then they can refer back to that. Also, you know what? How the hell do they restrain Bain again? Because he broke free during the bidding.
01:20:00
Speaker
And then later, Woodrow's like, yes, we've got your money. We're making adjustments to him. It's like, how did you restrain him again? In the context of this movie, Bane makes absolutely no sense. No, no. He is nothing more than just a plot device. He's there to serve the needs of the plot. Oh, good. And I like Bane as a character. A lot of people bitch about the
01:20:24
Speaker
the Nightfall comics and everything. But Bane is legitimately a good character. He's a really interesting guy. He's a really, really intelligent villain. Like he deduced Batman's secret identity. You know, he's Batman. He's more than a match for Batman, both intellectually and physically, which is not a lot that most villains could say. Well, he's his mirror image. You know, he more than anybody else is the anti-Batman. Yeah.
01:20:53
Speaker
you know, if done right. But unfortunately, I don't think that he, you know, like in this movie, he's actually, he's more like the Hulk in this movie than, you know, Bane. Just like this monosyllabic henchmen, like, bomb, bomb. Yeah. So I don't think that we have seen the definitive Bane on screen
01:21:15
Speaker
No, they came close in Dark Knight Rises, but then again, they turn him into like just a henchman in that movie as well. Man, I'm sorry. Once he started talking, and I know we've had this argument before, he sounded like Sean Connery on a three-day bender. I couldn't take him seriously once I heard that. If I could tell Tom Hardy, if I ever meet him, I'm going to ask him, why did you decide on that voice? Of course!
01:21:43
Speaker
Why did you decide on that voice? What was your artistic process to get to that voice? I want to know what... Because both him and Christian Bale have terrible voices in these movies. I want to sit down with Christopher Nolan. Look, we got to talk about the voices that you direct these actors to use.
01:22:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have no idea what he was thinking of. They would have did better to have dubbed Batman's voice with Kevin Conroy. Yeah. Yeah. Which is what I've always said that they should have did. They should have went back. Somebody should have had to, but then he's Christopher Nolan. So who's going to tell him that he made a mistake? Right.
01:22:31
Speaker
Somebody should have had the balls to tell him, listen, that voice doesn't work. We're going to have to do something. Well, you know, speaking of voice, actually, I can't remember Kilmer's performance, because it's been so long since I've done, I've seen Batman forever. But I think that since Adam West, George Clooney is really the first actor who didn't use a different voice as Batman. No, he doesn't. Like, did Val Kilmer use a different voice? I can't really remember. Val Kilmer, he used a different voice. He just like deepened his voice. OK, OK.
01:22:59
Speaker
He just deepened it. But it wasn't like a Kevin Conroy or Michael Keaton-esque performance though. No, no, no. No, it wasn't like he did a completely different voice. He used it. It was his voice, but he deepened it. Right, right. But George Clooney, he just throws that out the window. Like I said, he goes the Adam West route where there's really no difference between Batman and Bruce Wayne. They apparently did some post-production work, like audio work, like lowering his voice as Batman, but you can't tell.
01:23:29
Speaker
Oh, okay. Like I could not tell at all in this movie, because he sounds exactly the same to me.
01:23:34
Speaker
Yeah. That says more about my bad hearing than anything else, but yeah, I could not tell. Oh, no, I watched it. I'm like you. I watched this movie last night. And yeah, there's no difference between his voice. It's like, you know, yeah, he makes no effort at all to differentiate between, unlike, you know, Val Kilmer and, of course, Michael Keaton, who may, who, you know, played Batman and Bruce Wayne as two separate characters. Right, yeah. He doesn't do that at all in this room. Yeah, Cooney doesn't do that.
01:24:03
Speaker
Part of it is probably because he was just too tired to put in the work to do that. Well, I mean, there's not a whole lot of Bruce Wayne stuff. This is the least, I think this might be the least Bruce Wayne Batman movie of all the Batman movies. Because there's almost nothing involving Bruce Wayne in this movie. Like even like his love interest, you know, you've got Julie Madison there, also a character from the comics who, you could delete her scenes completely and you would never notice anything's missing.
01:24:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And she's played by what, some supermodel? Elle McPherson. Who? Elle McPherson is your name.
01:24:39
Speaker
Oh, okay, well, whatever. And she's supposed to be like his fiance or something in this. Yeah, because they go to the observatory and he's there for some kind of social function and that's when Poison Ivy shows up. And I believe he announces that they're engaged or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:25:04
Speaker
They asked the cast what things they'd want to take from the set, what props or something like that, or what they wanted to take home from the set.
01:25:17
Speaker
You know, all of them had like Schwarzenegger wanted like the armor. Chris O'Donnell, I think. Yeah, Uma Thurman said she wanted Ivy's like floral throne. El McPherson just said she wanted a cap or something with the movie's logo. And George Clooney said he wanted El McPherson. I hear that.
01:25:35
Speaker
I hear that. But for all the screen time that she has in this movie and for, you know, like you said, for somebody that's supposed to be his love interest, you know, there's really none of that in the movie. No, not at all. You know, she's just like an, you know, see, again, just like Commissioner Gordon, she's just there. Yeah. Yeah. So especially when you consider that a large part of the plot of this movie,
01:26:03
Speaker
is concerned around the artificial feelings that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson have for Poison Ivy. She used some kind of weird plant extract to make them fall in love with her. So why would you even introduce that Bruce Wayne has a fiance if you're not gonna do more with that? Well, apparently there was a cut scene where Poison Ivy kills her.
01:26:33
Speaker
Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, yeah. But it was cut because, you know, Joe Schumacher felt it didn't fit the tone of the film. I know that there was a scene that they cut out that, because the Alicia Silverstone character, she's introduced as Alfred's niece. Right. There's a scene also that was cut out where it's kind of intimated that he's actually
01:26:58
Speaker
his daughter. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. When she says, oh, well, Alfred, she says something like, well, Alfred's really not my uncle. You know, he just knew my mother when he was in Metropolis. She mentions Metropolis. Oh, okay. She says, yeah, you know, he, you know, Alfred knew my mother in Metropolis and they were good friends and blah, blah, blah. Well, you know what? That also is another thing that kind of shows that, um, uh, what is it? Um,
01:27:27
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to come back to this part later because there's interesting little fact that I just found out about this movie.
01:27:37
Speaker
But I was going to say something about Batgirl and I just completely lost my train of thought. But oh, wait, The Metropolis thing. That's what I wanted. That kind of shows that Schumacher is a fan, because Tim Burton never would have thrown in any of these Superman references. No, no, no. He never would have thrown in any of them. He could have made a dozen Batman movies. He never would have had a reference to any other DC character. No. And in total, out of a dozen movies, Batman would probably have an hour of screen time.
01:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's because he actually wasn't interested in Batman. No, no, no. He just wants to make movies about the villain, truly. I mean, much less, you know, the larger universe with other, you know, superheroes in it, you know. As a matter of fact, from his movie, you get to feel that Batman's like the only superhero that's on that
01:28:25
Speaker
world, you know, the Burton universe that just Batman and that's it. Yeah, definitely, definitely. But, you know, Schumacher does have like these little fanboy moments, like he brings in, he mentions, he name drops Superman, he, you know, I mean, he didn't have to bring in the Floronic Man, but he did, he put the Floronic Man in the movie. Also, here's an interesting little factoid. So Coolio appears in this movie. Do you know what his character's name was? No. Jonathan Crane.
01:28:55
Speaker
Oh, the scarecrow. Yeah, he was, he said that he was going to play the scarecrow in the sequel.
01:29:06
Speaker
Now that's the first time I've ever heard that. Yeah same here I just I just scroll in and yeah it says Coolio appears the cameo as Jonathan Crane later stating he was to reprise the role as Scarecrow in the sequel which at first it was called Batman Unchained later was called Batman Triumphant but yeah he was. Now that I've heard yeah that I've heard that the that the next movie was supposed to be called Batman Triumphant.
01:29:30
Speaker
And it was supposed to be, the villains were supposed to be Scarecrow and Harley Quinn, who would have been the Joker's daughter, actually. And Jack Nicholson had actually agreed to come back as the Joker in a fear sequence that Batman experiences when he's exposed to the Scarecrow's fear gas. That's what I've heard, that he was going to come back as, yeah, it was supposed to be like a dream sequence or something like that. Yeah. If Batman is exposed to the Scarecrow's fear toxin.
01:29:57
Speaker
And yeah, that of her. Yeah, yeah. And, oh, apparently the scene when, you know, you see there, the costumes of Riddler and Two-Face in Arkham Asylum, there was apparently, like, Schumacher apparently also wanted to film a scene with Poison Ivy and Mr.
Potential Batman Sequel Villains
01:30:16
Speaker
Freeze escaping, while other villains, other famous Batman villains are in their cells watching them escape. So I kind of have like some villain cameos in there. Which would have been a cool little thing to happen there.
01:30:27
Speaker
Absolutely. But again, like you said, that shows that Schumacher knew what he was doing. Yeah. I mean, when people talk about, oh, well, he doesn't understand Batman. Schumacher understood Batman a lot more than people gave him credit for understanding. Right. He understood the conventions of a superhero world and a superhero universe. And when you look at this,
01:30:54
Speaker
This is a large in their life world, which is why we were talking earlier on about, okay, Gotham Observatory and, you know, how did people get up there? Well, it doesn't matter. It's like, you know, well, who puts the air and the tires on, you know, the Batmobile? Who cares? You know, this is a comic book world. This is a comic book, you know, thing that we're dealing with. So some of these things don't matter.
01:31:22
Speaker
And I know that sounds weird. When I say that to people, they say, well, what do you mean it doesn't matter? Oh, no. What do you mean it doesn't matter? It doesn't make sense. Well, it doesn't make sense that an American city like Gotham City looks like something out of 1930s German expressionistic movie. No. No. That doesn't make any sense either. It doesn't make sense that Wayne Manor looks like something that should be in Transylvania. That doesn't make any sense either. But this is the universe.
01:31:50
Speaker
that this is setting. Yeah. You know, I'm sorry, but it is what it is. You know, there's one fan theory about this movie that Bruce Wayne ended up in debt and his identity was discovered as Batman. So what he did was he licensed out the Batman rights to a movie studio and this is the movie they made. I've never heard that before. Yeah. I like that.
01:32:16
Speaker
And you know, I got to talk about the back credit card. Oh yeah. I love that when he just flashed at the back credit card. I said, wait a minute. Expiration date forever. Wait a minute. What did he do? Did he go to American Express and he said, listen, I need for you guys to make me up a special credit card. That will last forever.
01:32:43
Speaker
There's a whole there is a whole movie behind the back credit card. Yeah, yeah. That's something that, you know, that is the one item Adam West never had in his utility. No, no, that's the one thing he never had that yeah George Clooney got that over. He's got Oh, speaking of speaking of the ties to the the 60s TV show the the
01:33:03
Speaker
When I first saw this movie, the moment I gave up on it was when they get knocked out of the ice, they look at each other and they tap their heels and ice skates pop out. And ice skates pop out, exactly. And they start playing hockey with this henchman. At that point I'm just like, you don't forget it, I'm done.
01:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. You know what, all they needed at that point was the pow and the blam and the splat across the screen. That's really the only thing missing. Yeah, that's the only thing missing and right and actually
01:33:35
Speaker
that first 20 minutes that whole sequence there where they leave the bat cave and they go fight with mr frieze they fight with the henchmen and batman is driving the batmobile on the arms of these huge humping statues and everything like that and and they're they're air surfing yeah they go up in the rocket it blows up and that 20 minutes sets the whole tone for the whole rest of the movie yeah if you're not going to go with that first 20 minutes
01:34:00
Speaker
turn off the movie. Not to mention all the ice puns. I think he sworts an air cramps as many ice puns as possible in those first 20 minutes. Yeah. That whole sequence right there sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Yeah. You can't handle what you just saw just then. Turn it off after the air surfing. Yeah. What else do I want to talk about?
01:34:31
Speaker
Alicia Silverstone as Barbara Wilson, Batgirl. So here's the thing I don't get. She's at Oxbridge, a combination of Oxford and Cambridge. And Cambridge, yes. And she's a computer science student. So presumably, she would have some computer skills. She would be able to break Alfred's encryption and his hard drive or whatever.
01:34:57
Speaker
Right. But instead, she does the password guessing thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, why the hell did you make her a computer science expert if you're not going to use that in the movie? Yeah, if she just couldn't just simply crack into, you know. And that would have made so much more sense than her guessing the password. And again, this, which we've talked about before, this Hollywood thing that, you know, you can't fault this movie, all movies do this, of where people just have like a very simple password.
01:35:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of course, Alfred is going to hack. And then after she hacks into it, well, not really hacks, but she guesses it. Oh, well, it's the nickname of my mother. OK, she gets it. And she goes down to the back cave. And then this program opens up, and it's Alfred. And he said, well, I figured that you was going to get into the disc anyway, so I made it. Well, then why don't you just tell her, Alfred? Why are you wasting all this time on this bullshit?
01:35:56
Speaker
Well, I knew he was going to get into it anyway. So when you gave her the disc, why didn't you just tell her, listen, the password is your mother's nickname. Not only that, but he makes this whole thing about when she arrives and she sees Dick's motorcycle and Dick says, oh, well, maybe I'll take you riding sometime. And Alfred's like, no, you won't. And then he's like, oh, by the way, here's a bat suit so you can run into danger untrained and fight super villains.
01:36:22
Speaker
And again, we see this thing, this thing, and I've spoken about this before, this convention that we have in some of these superhero movies where that apparently all you have to do is just put on a costume and without any training at all. Yeah.
01:36:37
Speaker
you can go out and fight super villains and you know martial arts and and you're able to shoot up you know these lines and scale buildings and everything with no problem at all. Yeah well the same thing with Robin too because that happens in Batman forever right he just suddenly walks down the steps in costume and Batman's like what are you doing and then Alfred's like oh I made him a suit.
01:36:59
Speaker
But at least he's an acrobat. At least he's an acrobat, yeah. But still, the real Batman is probably watching these movies and being like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? He's an Avenger. Yeah, exactly. But again,
01:37:18
Speaker
Batgirl is somebody that's put into the plot. Strictly so we can, okay, strictly so that, okay, one, I guess they, okay, I figured out why they had Vivica Fox in it. They had Vivica Fox in there because we don't have, there are only two black characters that I noticed that's in the whole movie. It's her and one of the women that works at the observatory. Oh, so three then, cause it's Coolio as well. And Coolio, right, that's it. That's three black people.
01:37:46
Speaker
But there are no major female characters except for Poison Ivy. So they needed a good character and they needed a bad female character. So that's why we have Batgirl. Which is kind of weird that they didn't elevate Elmer Fiercen's character at all, like Julie Madison. Well, okay, this goes back to what I said. Since you had the plot with Poison Ivy making Ruth fall in love with her, you could have had beefed up her role
01:38:12
Speaker
with Bruce fall in love with this other woman and she's upset, but then see, that would have made the movie too adult. Right. It would have made a lot more sense to, and it would have worked a lot better than the whole Batman, Robin rivalry thing. Yeah, because exactly. It's artificially constructed conflict between our two main characters that we shouldn't have had.
01:38:33
Speaker
Well, you know the real reason why they got Batgirl in this movie is for an excuse to make another toy. Well, of course. That's really the only reason. Because that's also why they wear those like those bat suits at the end with the silver in them was just because that gives them a choice to make an excuse to make another toy.
01:38:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, they show up with these other vehicles out of nowhere. Batman, I don't know. It's just like we were talking about that. He keeps the Bat boat from, what was it, Batman Returns that goes through the sewer? Yeah, the Bat ski boat. Yeah, the Bat ski boat. Well, you know, why does Batman have...
01:39:14
Speaker
Well, he's Batman. So, you know, I guess he's got an ice, I guess he's got an ice boat. The thing I thought was funny is that, you know, Alfred made a Batgirl costume for Barbara, and then apparently he made a special ice suit for her as well. Thank you. That Alfred, I tell you, that's a hell of
01:39:38
Speaker
And he also, like last movie too, you know, he made Robin's, you know, rubber batches. Like, where the hell did Alfred know how to find out how to vulcanize rubber and shit?
01:39:48
Speaker
The only thing that I can figure is that Alfred must have went to the same costume. Him and Reed Richards must have went to the same school. Because they got this thing for costume design that apparently nobody knew about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Alfred is a hell of a costume designer. I know, man. He makes that Robin costume in no time at all. And then he does. And then he's made a spare ice costume for Back Girl.
01:40:12
Speaker
you know, that fits perfectly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, supposedly he hasn't seen his niece in years, you know, hasn't seen in years, but he got her measurements down. Yeah, yeah. That suit fits like, you know, I mean, the cape is at the right length and everything like that. And hey, you know what, you know, just saying, how come we didn't get nipples on her back seat? Ah, now see, that's what I was waiting for.
01:40:40
Speaker
That's what I was waiting for. I said, oh, when she turned around, I said to Michael, ah, I guess not. But on the whole.
01:40:51
Speaker
When, like I, as I said at the very beginning of this, Batman and Robin, you can enjoy it best if you just take it. But then again, it all depends on how you feel about the 1966 Batman, you know, Adam West, because a lot of people don't like it. If you like it and you take this movie as a reboot slash homage slash remake,
01:41:17
Speaker
of that, you know, show, I think that you will enjoy a lot more. Matter of fact, I'm with you. I like this more. You know what? I like this more than I do, you know, the previous movie, Batman Forever. Yeah, same here. My opinion is completely fifth time. Because Batman Forever is just, it has nothing going for it, really. Yeah. Like, this is a movie that you can have fun with. You can't really have fun watching Batman Forever.
01:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, this is a mess. Don't get me wrong. Oh, it's a total mess. From start to finish. But it's also fun to watch. It is. Batman Forever is not fun to watch. No, no, no. This is why I've said to people, and I stand by this, I think Batman V Superman is the worst superhero film ever made. Worse than Batman and Robin. Because Batman and Robin is fun.
01:42:06
Speaker
It's stupid, it makes no sense, it's incoherent. Everybody is, you know, nobody has taken it seriously, but somehow it still makes me laugh. Like this is a movie I can have a few beers while I'm watching and I can laugh my ass off at it. It's like the room, it's like the room. It's so bad it's good.
01:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, and everybody, with the exception of Chris McDonald, looks like they're having a good time making this movie. Yeah, yeah. They look like they're having fun making it, you know, which we know they weren't, from what they've said about the stories afterwards, but you know, to Joel, like that, they're under lots of pressure, and to Joel Schumacher's credit, you know, he stuck with it, he defended the cast, and went like with the Alicia Silverstone thing we mentioned, and
01:42:52
Speaker
you know, he turned in this movie two weeks ahead of schedule. So he, he did his job. He got paid and he got all the shit on him where I don't remember any executives being fired for this, for this. Exactly.
01:43:06
Speaker
None of the suits that green lighted this guy, you know. And forced him to make all these changes and forced him to do it this way. I mean, come on. Exactly. They didn't step up and say, well, listen, you know, we were the ones that told him to make it like this. And one more thing I want to mention about George Clooney is that under better circumstances, I think he could have been a good Bruce Wayne. But the thing about George Clooney in this movie, and I think it's in part because of his exhaustion, is he's too George Clooney.
01:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, he doesn't really try at all as Batman. Like as Bruce Wayne, I can totally picture that. Like George Clooney in his regular persona, the types of roles he usually plays, that's Bruce Wayne. Now, if you gave him the kind of personality from like his character in Siriana or something like that, that would have been good as Batman. So like, and there is a world where I can see George Clooney playing a good Batman, but he just
01:44:01
Speaker
was not experienced enough. He was exhausted at this time. The script didn't give him any favors. And yeah, he's just not able to really do anything in this movie. And he's just, he's too George Clooney. He's like, he's got too much of that, like, you know, George Clooney's got kind of like this
01:44:20
Speaker
smugness about him in his performances. And I'm not saying that as a bad thing. It's just like, you know, he's, he does have this kind of like smugness in his performance. You know what I mean? Yeah. Cause it works for him in when he did, uh, what was it? The Oceans of Lemons. Oh yeah, totally. It totally works for him in those movies. Yeah. You know, it works for him. And most times it does work, but in this movie it doesn't really work.
01:44:42
Speaker
But I can also kind of understand, because it does kind of seem, when you're dealing with Chris O'Donnell being a petulant teenager, I can understand why he'd be a smug son of a bitch the whole time. He works best as Bruce Wayne. Like, I think like the best scenes he has in this movie is what he has. And he has about like two or three really sizable heart to heart conversations with Alfred. And I think that those are the scenes that he's in that works the best. And like I said, Michael Gao himself,
01:45:10
Speaker
Since he's had experience working with all the actors that have played the same character, he does his best to, you know, make you believe that this is the same guy we've been following through, you know, three movies. Yeah, Michael Gallo is really the heart of this movie. Like, it's movie does not connect at all to the rest of the series without him. Even with Chris O'Donnell having been in the last movie, like, it still does not connect.
01:45:34
Speaker
Oh, no, there's like two different characters. It really is. Like I said, if we're talking about the comic books, this is more Jason Todd than Dick Grayson. Right. And like, you know, the really dickest Jason Todd.
01:45:46
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The one that everybody wanted to kill. So that's... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you go through half of the... I mean, I was watching this movie last time and I was just saying, man, why does Batman just call for smack the shit out this dick? You know, really... Just like the meme. Yeah. Yeah. Robin's such a dick. Yeah. After a while, you just really... You just want to hold... Well, you know, why are you taking this shit from him? You know? Yeah. He's Robin. You're Batman. You know, smack me. Smack the shit out of that little kid. Yeah. Yeah. Send him to his room.
01:46:19
Speaker
Listen, if you want to act like a five-year-old, I want to act like a five-year-old. Go to your room.
01:46:25
Speaker
With no dessert. Alfred, no dessert. Seriously. Especially now you got Batgirl and you got Barbara in there who's, you know, much more tolerable. Much more tolerant and who wants to be a team player. And apparently, you know, doesn't need any training. All she has to do is put on the costumes. Another thing that I like about this movie,
01:46:50
Speaker
that I'm gonna put in, that if they had ever, and I wish they had carried it on through the rest of the Batman movies that they did, but they didn't. And I really wish they did because it's kind of iconic, just like what Christopher Reeve used to do to fly over at the end of the Superman movies. Oh, the running of that in front of that signal. And they have Batman running from, you know,
01:47:15
Speaker
Yeah, because Burton had his own signature thing where he had the bat signal flashing in the sky and Alfred driving someone away. And then you had someone looking up at the bat signal, right? And Batman, it was Batman himself looking up while Alfred drives Vicki Vale away. In Batman Returns, Alfred's driving Bruce himself and then it's Catwoman looking up at the signal.
01:47:35
Speaker
And then Batman Forever, it's Batman and Robin running in front of the bat signal. And then in this movie, it's Batman, Robin, and Batgirl running in front of the bat signal. Yeah, yeah. I kind of like that. I got a lot so loud. I say, you know what? Now, that's actually kind of cool. If they had did another movie, I would have hoped that they would have kept that. But yeah, we didn't get that. So yeah, I think we've talked about everything we need to talk about with this movie.
01:48:03
Speaker
But yeah, as I said, and I, again, folks, I am not going to sit up here and tell you this move does not have its problems. Oh no, it's got a laundry list of problems.
01:48:13
Speaker
But I will say this. And yeah, like I admit it, for a lot of years, I did not like this movie. But I was watching it last night. And you know what? I had a good time watching it. It's not a perfect movie at all. But oh, I know some. Listen, let me tell you what. I watched that movie that you was telling me about, Batman, the assault on Arkham. Yeah.
01:48:40
Speaker
I'd rather watch this than assault on our community. You gave me a choice, but that was a terrible movie. It was a good Batman movie, and it wasn't a good Suicide Squad movie. Right, exactly. It was a terrible movie. I said, oh my god. Thank god this thing was only in an hour and 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know what? I'd rather watch this.
01:49:02
Speaker
No, if you like, there are some like, you know, assault on Arkham's a good example. Batman V Superman's a good example. Batman Forever, another good example. I would rather watch Batman and Robin than any of those. Yeah, Batman V, yeah. If you gave me a choice, I'd rather watch this. Yeah. Because at least this I can have fun with and I don't feel like killing myself after the movie's over. Exactly. I'm not looking at the console. God, is this thing ever going to be over? Right. Yeah. Yeah.
01:49:29
Speaker
All right. Um, any, uh, any last thoughts? I think that was a pretty good summation, but do you have anything else you wanted to add about this movie? Uh, no, I think that's it. I think that we have said that we've had the last word about Batman and Robin that I think could be, you know what, at this point,
01:49:48
Speaker
Nothing we can say is going to change the mind of somebody. People have hated this year, have hated this movie for years. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, it's really kind of, I don't know, to me astonishing. How can you spend that many years hating something that much? Yeah, it's nuts.
01:50:13
Speaker
Yeah. But like, you know, their entire YouTube channels, YouTubers who have devoted their entire careers to hating on this movie. Yeah. Yeah. People, yeah. There are people that have made a career out of this movie. It's really, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, folks. I don't have that much energy in my life. You know what? I always tell people this. I reserve that type of hatred for people that owe me money. Not for movies. Speaking of, you still owe me that Black Panther check. Yes, I do. Listen.
01:50:43
Speaker
Listen, believe it or not, I just got through with the bees. Yeah, that's what you were saying like three months ago. Listen, there's a lot of people I owe money to, man. You have no idea. People are coming out of the woodwork, you know, with IOUs. Oh, you remember when you saw? All right. OK, so we'll add it to the tab.
01:51:13
Speaker
Okay, I'm just I'm still computing the interest so yeah, I know you are Yeah All right. Okay, so Batman and Robin was my pick for this week. So that means we're tossing it back to you for next week Okay, we're gonna go since we've done a lot of DC lately. We're gonna go to Marvel and we're gonna go in and I'm going to since We did a controversial movie This time around I
01:51:43
Speaker
I think I feel obligated to kind of stick with that. So I'm going to pick a movie that I myself unabashedly love, but one that was quite controversial at the time it came out, and I think it still is. It's one of my favorite Marvel movies. I don't know if it's one of yours, but it's Thor. Oh, the first one? The first one? The first one? OK, yeah. Yeah, I like the first Thor. When you said, I thought you were leaning towards the dark world, because that's one that a lot of people hate.
01:52:12
Speaker
Oh yeah, everybody hated the dark world, but I like, I like, I like the dark world, but I like Thor too. So yeah, so I'll have fun. Yeah, I listen, I had. Okay, here's the thing. I understand why people didn't like the dark world. I understand that, which I usually can when people tell me why they don't like us. Okay, well, I could see it, but I had no problem with it. But that's probably because Thor is my favorite Marvel superhero. So right.
01:52:37
Speaker
Yeah. OK, yeah, cool. But no, I'm all in for Thor. I love that movie. So yeah, I'm totally not more with that. OK. All right, so that does it for this week. Come back next week when we talk about Chris Hemsworth's debut as Thor. Until then, head on over to Facebook.com.
Podcast Support Appeal
01:52:54
Speaker
Head out to the Superhero Cinephiles group. Just type it in the search bar. You can find it right away. And join in the discussion. We're posting up new stories as they come up.
01:53:04
Speaker
Oh, we've got a, we've got the Patreon page, but if you don't want to commit to a monthly subscription, I did put up a donate button for PayPal. So if you just want to, you know, toss us a little, a little tip here and there, then you can just go over to the website, superherocentafiles.com. Just click the donate button and you can donate however much you want. You want to donate 50 cents, donate 50 cents.
01:53:26
Speaker
Every little bit helps. Every little bit helps, yeah, absolutely. All right, that does it for now. Thanks for listening, and we will, you know, as Derek probably, I'm stealing his slender here, but, you know, we still got the coronavirus out there, and it's gotten worse in America, like monumentally worse. It's actually gotten worse in Japan. We went from like one case to like 100, almost overnight. Wow. Yeah. Because some idiots went to a bar.
01:53:55
Speaker
Arizona and Texas and Florida on fire. This thing is getting out of control. And the same thing happened here in Kagoshima. A bunch of idiots went to a bar and they got infected.
01:54:14
Speaker
You know, folks, you know what? I don't know whether y'all can understand this or not, but this is no joke. I don't want to see anybody, especially not any of our Lord Hill listeners, but I don't want to see anybody get sick and die. This thing is serious. You know, if you got a drink, do what we do. Drink at home. Yeah, I mean, come on, it's cheaper anyway.
01:54:36
Speaker
You would drink as much as you want. You don't have to worry about driving home. Right. Don't gotta worry about getting a cab. Don't have to worry about getting a fight with some asshole. You can just, you know, just sit back, watch some superhero movies and get drunk. Yeah. And I mean, we do it all the time. We do it every week. All the time. Yeah. You know, and I understand, you know, you miss your friends, you want to go out, you want to do it, but you know what, folks,
01:55:03
Speaker
Some of y'all gotta start taking this shit seriously. Also, I gotta say, you know, I'm sick to death of this wearing a mask isn't manly bullshit. I mean, come on. You people grew up wanting to be Batman and now all of a sudden you think masks aren't manly. You have an excuse to wear a mask now and you won't take it. Yeah.
01:55:25
Speaker
You know, I mean, I don't want to just listen. I'm not looking to die anytime soon. So all I can just say is please be careful, wash your hands, wear your mask.
01:55:39
Speaker
stay home as much as possible. And stay home, watch a bunch of good movies and watch it. Catch up on, like me, I'm gonna catch up on all of those shows that have been in my Netflix queue for these guys. And like we were saying, I think we've mentioned this before we started recording, but I asked you how hard did your wife laugh when you said that? Oh yeah, she, oh yeah. Her ribs are so, she said, yeah, right, sure you are.
01:56:06
Speaker
But your point is well taken. There is a lot of good stuff out there that's been coming out. I mentioned earlier that my fiance and I, we started watching the Ju-On series, which is pretty damn good. So if you like horror stuff, there's that. They've got the Warrior Nun TV show, which is based on a comic book. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear it's pretty good.
01:56:28
Speaker
I hear very good things about it. I'm looking forward to seeing that this weekend. Yeah. The new on Netflix had a new season of Unsolved Mysteries, which has been off the air for like what, like 20 years now.
01:56:40
Speaker
Yeah. I have fond memories of watching the original with Robert Stack. Yeah. In fact, I binged on the new series. What was it, last week? And yeah, it was pretty good. So lots of really good stuff out there. Lots of stuff to watch. I also played on Catching Up 2, which I haven't watched it yet, but I hear nothing but the things about it. The New Twilight Zone. Oh, OK. Is that out? I didn't know that was out yet. Yeah, with Jordan Peele. He's the host now.
01:57:07
Speaker
What is that on all access CBS all okay that's why I didn't know about it because I don't have all access. Well, we got it because what we didn't have it until my wife who was probably a bigger Star Trek fan than I am.
01:57:21
Speaker
where Picard came on. Right, right. She signed up for it, you know, because, yeah, because she loves anything that's got to do with Star Trek. Well, also, you know, they had Disney Plus, they had Hamilton, the recording of Hamilton on Broadway, which, you know, I'm not a musical guy, and I thought that was great. We watched that on the Fourth of July. I did. Yeah, I hear. Because I always watch
01:57:45
Speaker
The movie 1776. Sit down, John. Yeah. Every 4th of July, I watch that or turn a classic movies and I also have it on Blu-ray. But yeah, but we watch it. And let me say this about Hamilton, folks. If you haven't seen it yet on Disney Plus, I want to go some parts and say it's worth signing up for Disney Plus to watch not only The Mandalorian, but
01:58:12
Speaker
Hamilton, because I hear a lot of things get hyped all the time. Hamilton is the first thing I've seen in quite a few years that actually did live up to its hype. Yeah. That thing was out of sight. And like I said, I'm not a musical guy. I don't really care much for hip hop music, but I was really getting into these songs. It was really good. The performances are excellent. Those songs were fantastic.
01:58:40
Speaker
You know, and of course we're having people of color play these historical characters, it gives a whole new vibe and energy. Oh, yeah. This whole story, you know.
01:58:50
Speaker
And to think that that one guy, he wrote all the songs and the lyrics and the music and everything like that, that guy's a genius. I'm shocked. Lin-Manuel Miranda. Oh, amazing. That guy's a freaking genius, man. Okay, we watched it on Fourth of July. I'm probably going to watch it again sometime this weekend because I want to let some time go by again.
01:59:15
Speaker
exciting to build back up again but I'm looking forward to watching it again because it really is it really is good folks if you have not seen Hamilton yet please do yourself a favor like I said this is just me but I honestly believe it's worth signing up for Disney Plus just to watch that and then you know after you watch Hamilton watch Thor and prepare for our next uh next week's episode yeah because they've got all the Marvel movies on there too you can watch
01:59:41
Speaker
you know, and keep it, because we're going to do more Marvel moves. Yeah, yeah. We barely, we haven't even scratched the surface of the Marvel stuff. So there's a lot of stuff where you got to talk about. Yeah, absolutely. We really, yeah, we did what? Dr. Strange? Black Panther? Well, yeah. Well, not even the MCU Dr. Strange.
02:00:00
Speaker
We just did, we did the TV version, so we didn't even talk about the MCU one. But we did, yeah, we did Black Panther, we did First Avenger, and we did Guardians 2. And I think that's pretty much all the MCU. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Like you said, we barely scratched the surface, but we got plenty of time to get into it. Exactly, yeah. All right, so thanks so much for listening, and we will see you next week. Good night, God bless, and please stay safe out there. Absolutely.
02:00:35
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superheroescinephiles at gmail.com, or you can also visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com.
02:00:55
Speaker
If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners. You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of pheasantudios.com.