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SCP Classic – Batman (1989)
247 Plays1 year ago
For the next two months, I'm taking a break from the show to catch up on recordings and get some work done on my comic book project. So I'm giving you a glimpse into the past with SCP Classic, featuring replays of past episodes influenced by recent releases.
The Flash came out this past summer to mixed reactions and a lackluster box office return. But one thing everyone loved was the return of Michael Keaton's Batman. So for the first SCP Classic, Derrick and I discuss Keaton's first outing as Batman in Tim Burton's 1989 film.
PARAGONS OF EARTH is a comic book project I'm developing with Thomas Deja and Eric Johns. Sign up for the free PARAGONS OF EARTH Substack to learn when the crowdfund campaign is live!
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Transcript
Introduction and Iconic Batman Scene
00:00:45
Speaker
Don't kill me, man! Don't kill me! Don't kill me, man! I'm not going to kill you. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to tell all your friends about me. What are you? I'm Batman.
Podcast Introduction and Personal Anecdotes
00:01:10
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles. My name's Perry Constantine.
00:01:16
Speaker
And I'm Derek Ferguson. And today, how you doing, Derek? Oh, pretty good, actually. Pretty good. Enjoying myself here in beautiful downtown Brooklyn. We had a sudden return to summer after a couple of days where the temperature dropped down to like in the 60s and 70s. But now I jump back up to like I think yesterday was like almost 90 degrees yesterday.
00:01:40
Speaker
That's actually been the norm here in southern Japan for, like, the past month or so. When I came back from Chicago, it was just, like, hit with a wall of heat, and it's still like that now.
00:01:52
Speaker
Really? Wow. Yeah. I'm going to ask you, does it get really hot over there? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because we're kind of on the globe. We're kind of positioned in Florida area. So it's pretty warm out here.
Japanese Home Insulation Discussion
00:02:08
Speaker
We don't get any snow. Well, we get one day of a light dusting of snow at the most, and then it's gone by the afternoon.
00:02:16
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it stays pretty warm here. Uh, doesn't actually, especially, you know, with global warming and everything, it doesn't actually start to cool down until like November now. Really? Although it can feel pretty cold because, uh, at least inside because Japanese homes aren't really well insulated. Why is that?
00:02:39
Speaker
I don't know, actually. I think it might have to do with construction standards. Well, I think the old construction standards, it used to be that you keep the house kind of lightweight so that the air can easily pass through, so it keeps it cool in the hot months. Oh, OK. And also, I think it has to do with earthquake standards, because something about the construction of the homes, it makes it easier to withstand earthquakes and that kind of thing. I don't know exactly, but something like that.
00:03:10
Speaker
Okay, I got you although newer homes They're starting to improve on that and they're starting to use a bit more insulation things like double-paned windows and that sort of thing Oh Interesting yeah, that was one of the surprised when I first came out here was how cold it was in the winter even though It was only like 35 degrees
00:03:31
Speaker
Really? No. Because you know what? The only thing, like most people I suspect the only thing I know of in Japan is from the movies. And in most of the movies I've seen, unless it's like a samurai movie but like most modern day movies, there never seems to be any winter in Japan.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, there is in the northern parts, like Tokyo gets snow, Fukuoka gets snow, but in the southern area, not really. But yeah, you don't see it a lot in movies except for like, Lady Snowblood and Kill Bill. Right, yeah. Like I'm saying, unless I watch like a samurai movie or watch like
00:04:14
Speaker
uh some kind of period piece yeah they may show like snow or do something to indicate like it's cold weather but most modern Japanese movies i said so wait a minute does it stay warm all year round because it never seems to snow there yeah actually you're right i never really thought about that until now but most movies most Japanese movies set in the modern day like the ones i talk about in my other show like there's not really any any winter scenes in them um yeah
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it has to do with filming schedule, although they film year round. So I've got no clue. That's something interesting, though. I never noticed that. Well, maybe they just don't like to show snow. I don't know. Maybe, yeah. All right. So last time we talked about Superman, the movie, which was my suggestion. So for our next movie, Derek suggested we watch Batman, 1989's Batman.
Superman vs. Batman Cultural Debate
00:05:06
Speaker
Well, yeah, because to me it seemed like
00:05:10
Speaker
the logical next step because we did Superman, the movie, which, you know, as we said in that episode in which a few good people haven't listened to it yet. Why haven't you? It just seemed to me the next logical step because most people, even a lay person,
00:05:32
Speaker
who, you know, who are not into comics the way you and I are. When you think of Superman, then you just naturally think of Batman. Right. Or when you think of Batman, you think of Superman. I mean, they're like peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and chocolate, you know. We're going to use the more obvious metaphor, day and night.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, bingo, there you go, yeah. So it just seemed to me, you know, okay, we do Superman. Okay, well, let's just bite the bullet and go write the Batman. And in speaking of that, there actually are a few Superman connections to this movie because Tom Mankiewicz wrote the original script and Warner Brothers did think about hiring Richard Donner to direct. And Donner, if he had done it, would have wanted to cast Mel Gibson as Batman.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson. At one time, I believe Kevin Costner was a serious contender. Yeah, he was one of the people who was up for it as well. Kiefer Sutherland was up for Robin.
00:06:38
Speaker
actually when he was originally in the script. Okay. There's also Steven Spielberg was at one point interested in directing it. He wanted Harrison Ford as Batman and Michael J Fox as Robin. Tim Curry as the Joker, Dustin Hoffman as the Penguin, Gina Davis as Silver Saint Cloud, John Pertwee
Casting Considerations for Batman 1989
00:06:57
Speaker
as Alfred, Burt Reynolds as Commissioner Gordon, Martin Sheen as Harvey Dent, and Richard Dreyfus as Rupert Thorne.
00:07:06
Speaker
Okay, see okay now see that's a Batman movie. I definitely would have went to see yeah and Donner also, you know, we wanted Gibson for Batman Fox for Robin Willem Dafoe for the Joker and Joe Pesci for the penguin, which would have been really interesting Okay, yeah I could definitely see Joe Pesci as the penguin that That would have been a really good choice
00:07:31
Speaker
Matter of fact, he probably would have been bad. I know, you know, a lot of people, they love Danny DeVito as the penguin, but, you know, and yes, folks, I know we're not talking about Batman returns. We'll get there eventually, but I tend to digress. So just live with it. Uh, you know,
00:07:53
Speaker
While I love what he did, I felt that he really like went too far out there in some regards. I think a lot of that is also on Burton as well. But I think if you had done like the more comics accurate penguin who was kind of like this wheeler and dealer mob type guy, then Joe Pesci would have been perfect.
00:08:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah, exactly. Now, see, that's what I think of. I think that Joe Pesci had done it. That's what we would have got. We get it. We would have got more like the mob boss. Yeah. You know, type of penguin as opposed to the one we got in, you know, with the. And as a matter of fact, Dan DeVito
00:08:35
Speaker
was adamant he did not want to play it at all. It was Jack Nicholson that talked him into playing it. Jack Nicholson told him, listen. And Jack Nicholson also did the same thing to Morgan Freeman, because Morgan Freeman wasn't really interested in being in Batman Begins. But then Jack Nicholson talked to him. He said, look, do ask for a ton of money and do it, and you won't have to work again if you want, if you don't want to. And yeah, and that's what he said. Exactly. That's what he told David Vito. He said, listen, ask for a ton of money and go put your kids through school, man.
00:09:05
Speaker
And Dan DeVito said, you know something? That's exactly what he did. He said the money that he made just from Batman Returns, he said, paid for his schooling. Yeah.
Controversy Over Michael Keaton's Casting
00:09:16
Speaker
And so who they eventually ended up deciding going with was Michael Keaton, who was not considered a good choice at all. Like me, I was
00:09:27
Speaker
You know, I was I was I was a little kid when this movie came out. I was born in 83. This came out in 89. I don't think I even saw it in the theater. I only saw it on home video. But you you were a grown man at the time. So what was it like back then in the lead up to this movie when they announced like Michael Keaton and all that? The ramifications of Michael Keaton playing Batman resonated so strongly
00:09:54
Speaker
in this country that it was even a front page story of the Wall Street Journal.
00:10:01
Speaker
If you can believe that. Yeah, that is how for superhero movies were considered anything like, I mean, like today, it's no that that's not a surprise. But back then, that would have been unbelievable. Oh, well, if there had been an Internet back then, you know, forget about it. The world would have cracked in two. There wasn't a but but Warner Brothers did get like they said they got like literally thousands upon thousands of letters.
00:10:27
Speaker
and postcards and telegrams are begging them, no, please do not let Michael Keaton play Batman because everybody was convinced that Michael Keaton played Batman. This movie was going to be a comedic disaster.
00:10:42
Speaker
Right. Well, I mean, they had they had some precedent because Michael Keaton, his biggest role at the time was probably Mr. Mom. And then you combine that with the last time they did anything Batman related in other media. It was the 66 show, which took the camp tone.
00:10:59
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And remember, Michael Keaton was just coming off because I believe Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice came out before this. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Beetlejuice had come out, you know, before this. So, I mean, so you can understand why people felt the way they did when they said, OK, this move is going to be a comedian. As a matter of fact,
00:11:20
Speaker
Warner Brothers, in order to massage the public, they threw together, I mean, the most bareboned trailer you could ever imagine. This trailer did not have anything except a couple of scenes from the movie. It didn't have what we think of as a trailer nowadays. It didn't have any credits. It didn't have any music.
00:11:42
Speaker
Seriously, it didn't have nothing. You went to the movie theater, and if you saw the trailer, you saw like 30 seconds of scenes with the Batmobile, a brief scene with Jack Nicholson as the Joker, and a couple of scenes with Michael Keaton as Batman, and that was it.
00:11:59
Speaker
Yeah. And they screen that randomly, like they just chose a random theater to show it out. And then it becomes such a hit, like it got a standing ovation that it ended up being bootlegged at comic conventions after that. Yeah, yeah. But it had the desired effect in that the public at large said, OK, maybe this isn't going to be as bad as we
Cultural Impact of Batman 1989
00:12:27
Speaker
thought it was going to be. Yeah.
00:12:30
Speaker
Now, Sherman, we got to get in the Wayback Machine. We have to go back to the summer of I'm going to play Mr. Peabody. Quite appropriate. Quite appropriate. We've got to get in the Wayback Machine. We've got to go back to 1989. Because as you said, you know, you weren't around then. I was around. I was just too young to really know what was going on.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, but for those people who weren't around and I've told this story before, but there actually is no adequate way for me to I mean, I could easily sit here for the next three hours and describe the bat frenzy that took hold of this country in the summer that this movie came out. I have never seen anything like it since then.
00:13:17
Speaker
You could not go anywhere without seeing the bat symbol. The bat symbol was on everything.
00:13:23
Speaker
people walk around with bat tattoos with the bat symbol cut into their hair. I've seen those in videos. There's this documentary that came out, it was called Batmania, and it talked all about the old 60s TV show and then what happened the summer before Batman came out. And they showed the news reports of. And these weren't comic book fanboys, these were just normies getting this done.
00:13:53
Speaker
This was everybody. I mean, people would people would never thought of Batman before got caught up in the frenzy because you got to remember something. It also had the push behind it because Batman is one of the few movies that had two soundtracks. That's right. Yeah. It had the one done by Danny Elfman with the now iconic
00:14:16
Speaker
Batman theme song that was also used in Batman the Animated Series. Right. And it also had the score done by Prince. Now, people always ask me, they said, well, Derek, you know about movies. How did they ever get Prince to do a soundtrack for Batman? And I said, well, very simply, I said, very simply, Prince went to them and asked, could he do it?
00:14:40
Speaker
I think that Prince was a Batman fan. I mean, who isn't a Batman fan? But I think that people are really surprised when they hear that a lot of people, oh, what? Wait a minute. Prince like Batman? Yeah, Prince like Batman. And that was actually one of the things that contributed to some of the worries too, because you're getting a pop star to do a Batman soundtrack. So I think that probably contributed to the worry that it would be more comedic in tone as well.
00:15:12
Speaker
Well, that's if you didn't know Prince. Right. I mean, if you know Prince. And then when people did actually start to hear the music from the movie, that did a lot to say, OK, this is going to be a major production. But yeah, like I said, you could not go anywhere that summer without either hearing the Prince music or seeing the bat symbol somewhere, everywhere, anywhere. And the night that I went to see it,
00:15:39
Speaker
And I'll never forget it because it was one of the one of my favorite movie going experiences in my life. First of all, I got to recognize that that was kind of an extraordinary summer for movies. Anyway, we had a James Bond movie, License to Kill. We had not only a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, but a Friday, 13th movie. Do the Right Thing, Lethal Weapon 2. Damn.
00:16:09
Speaker
Me and a bunch of friends of mine about six or seven friends of mine. There was a midnight showing of Batman on Broadway. So what we did, excuse me, we all met up.
00:16:25
Speaker
We went to the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Was that also that year too? It was also that summer, yep. Wow. Went to see that, came out of that theater, went to dinner, and then walked two blocks up to the theater where they were having a midnight showing of Batman. In the crowd that was waiting outside, you had people in costume as the Joker, the penguin.
00:16:52
Speaker
are Catwoman. Every character you can think of from about Robin, people came in costume to see this movie. Yeah. They let people inside. Everybody goes inside the movie theater. We go inside the movie theater. It is so crowded that they didn't care. They didn't care about fire codes back then because there were people sitting in the aisle. Right.
00:17:16
Speaker
There was an impromptu costume contest because people just ran up on the stage and were posing and modeling their costumes and we were applauding and cheering and all that other good stuff.
00:17:29
Speaker
Now the movie starts. Everybody sits down and the movie starts. And it does that slow pan while the credits are coming on through that stone labyrinth. And you don't know where you're going. But we know this is going to be
Opening Scene and Cinematic Experience
00:17:46
Speaker
good. And then when it's finally revealed that it's the bat symbol, well, the place goes absolutely nuts.
00:17:53
Speaker
Because now we knew, OK, we're going to be in good hands. And sure enough, he was. I mean.
00:18:00
Speaker
First of all, we gotta remember that back then, people had fun when they went to the movies. We were laughing, we were cheering. When the Prince music was playing in the museum scene, people got up and danced. We were cheering at the right parts. We were laughing at the right parts. We caught our breath at the action sequences, which weren't that good, but I'll get into that later. And by the end of the movie,
00:18:27
Speaker
When you get to that scene with the bat, uh, light battle with shine. Yeah. The bats and Batman, he's standing on top of there.
00:18:36
Speaker
Once again, the place went absolutely berserk. It was like, you know, yeah, I mean, like I said, that was one of the best movie-going experiences of my entire life. And I treasure the fact that I was there to see it because what you guys have now is a pale limitation of going to the movies. Nothing compares to how the movie-going experience was back in the eighties, the seventies and the eighties. Especially here in Japan, because in Japan, like the audience does not react at all.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, there are no audience reactions. It's the first movie I saw here in Japan was The Dark Knight. And, you know, I'm like laughing at jokes and everything and everyone around me. They're just everyone's quiet. It was and it was. And then there have been a few exceptions. Like when I saw Deadpool 2 in the theater, people were laughing and getting into the jokes there. And when I saw Infinity War, people cried at the end.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah. But other than that, like, there's almost no reactions from Japanese audiences in a movie theater. And even my girlfriend, like, she has, you know, she's Japanese, she's got two different modes. Like, when we're in the theater, she doesn't really react to the movie at all. But when we're watching, we can watch that same movie at home and she gets into it. So it's like two different versions. I don't know how they do it.
00:19:56
Speaker
I guess that's like a cultural thing. It is. But I just it's just amazing that they can hold it in like that, especially when they're seeing a movie for the first time. Well, here in America, the only other OK, like when I went to see Black Panther and the two Avengers movies, that's the only time that I had a movie going experience comparable to.
00:20:21
Speaker
going to movies back in the 1980s, where people were cheering and clapping and leaping to their feet and standing ovations, everything like that. Yeah. I mean, you know, back in the 80s, we did that all the time. Right. But now people, you know, and also when people walked out of the movie theater, OK, there would be a line of the people waiting to get to go to the next showing. Right. Right. People would ask you to tell them about the movie.
00:20:51
Speaker
Like, see, of course, now everybody see, oh, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. No, people would ask you, okay, well, what happens? They would ask you, yeah, and you tell them, and they still go in to see the movie anyway, because it was a completely different, it was a completely different planet back then, folks. That's all I can tell you. It was. So, now, were you like a Batman fan of the comics before the movie came out?
00:21:19
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. OK, so so what was your first impressions coming out of the movie than being a fan of the comics leading into it? Oh. My first impression, OK, the first impression that I had was that.
00:21:38
Speaker
I truly honestly had never before seen anything like this, even the Superman movie, because you got to remember that Superman movie, OK, that had come out, what, 78. So we talked like a whole decade. Right. You know, before, you know, but still Batman had it had like elements of film noir. You know, it took place like
00:22:04
Speaker
The Superman movie, OK, we definitely knew and it took place. Right. They didn't mention a year. But, you know, you kind of know. But with the Batman movie, with the fashion and architecture and the technology, it was like a mashup of the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s. You really couldn't tell.
00:22:24
Speaker
when it took place or where, you know, but, you know, but but me being a science fiction comic fan, OK, well, this is an alternate world. Right. All right. I just went with it. But. For somebody who only knew Batman cinematically from the TV show, which I enjoyed, by the way. Yeah. I enjoyed for what it was. I mean, I knew it wasn't.
00:22:52
Speaker
the Batman that a lot of people, I mean, I knew that there was another Batman that was out there. Mm-hmm. Because by now, I really liked the Denny O'Neill. You know, the O'Neill Adams. Right, right. The one that, like, everyone gives Frank Miller credit for darkening up Batman in the comics, but really, it was O'Neill and Adams who did it first. Right, yeah. And there are elements of that, of that here. A large part of it is also influenced by
00:23:23
Speaker
My favorite run of Batman in Detective Comics, Steve Engelhardt and Marshall Rogers. Right. In fact, the Tom Mankiewicz script that they're originally working off, it was based on a on a on a serial on a run that Engelhardt had done. Oh, OK. OK. Yeah. Well, I definitely can see that because I because I was I said, OK, yeah. Well, there's some of this in here that I recognize from, you know, that run. So.
00:23:54
Speaker
As OK, strictly as a comic book fan, I was delighted to no end to finally see Batman because folks have to remember that, yeah, we OK, there had been Batman on, you know, in TV and cartoons and in the serials. But this was the first time Batman had ever been presented.
00:24:19
Speaker
as close to the comic books as any Batman fan could imagine. And I think that came about because I believe Michael Ouzland, who taught a course in comic books at some university, I don't remember which, but he was comic book fan from way back and he was instrumental
00:24:42
Speaker
in this movie and I think that that was the difference that they actually had a comic book fan who knew Batman and said okay well this is who Batman really is. In fact yeah it says here that because Burton and Keaton had never had any previous exposure to the comics so Uslan gave them reference material and it says here that he gave Burton
00:25:03
Speaker
every issue of Batman's first year before Robin. So it was Detective Comics 27 through 37. And then he gave Keaton the Dark Knight Returns. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's the way to go. And also here, they say that Tim Burton was also influenced by the killing joke as well. Okay. I can see that. I don't like it, but I can see it. Um, so,
00:25:34
Speaker
Like my experience going like this was really kind of my first exposure to Batman that I remember. So really? Yeah. Well, because I was I was. Well, I was 1989. I was five years. I was like, oh, five, six years old at the time. So yeah, I didn't get into the comics until later. But but yeah, there was this and then it was I don't remember which I was exposed to first, because back then Fox was doing had the Batman TV show in syndication.
00:26:04
Speaker
So like I've got memories as a kid watching both. So I don't know which was my first exposure, but it does kind of make me laugh when they talk about, you know, how like Warner Brothers had this kind of bad embargo with Justice League, the animated series and how they didn't want
00:26:24
Speaker
other Batman characters to be on the show because they didn't want brand confusion and all this kind of stuff. And I remember thinking like, well, when I was like, you know, five, six years old, I knew that there was this dark Batman and this comedic Batman and I had no problem reconciling the two. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, okay. It's like when I have
00:26:47
Speaker
conversations with people when they complain about Batman and Robin, you know, and I tell them, oh, well, I liked it. And of course, you know, people they look at me like I've grown a second head. But what I said, well, see.
00:27:00
Speaker
What it is is that the trick that you have to do is that you have to divorce that movie from the three previous ones and just take it as a sequel slash remake slash homage to the 1966 Batman. Right. And if you take it that way, yeah, Batman Robin works.
00:27:17
Speaker
But the point that I'm trying to make is that I'm with you that yeah, my brain is sophisticated enough that it can hold room for the concept of more than one Batman. The Batman can be presented in more than one way. You know, just like most other superheroes. I mean, like, uh, Spider-Man, you've got Spider-Ham. Right, right. Like, into the Spider-Man. Yeah. Right, yeah. And nobody has a problem with that. And there's Spider-Man 2099.
00:27:45
Speaker
You know, people are not as dumb.
00:27:49
Speaker
as the people behind the scenes who sit in these boardrooms and offices and make these decisions. And me and you, we've been following movies forever. And we read how people make these decisions and everything like that. And I really think that they believe that audiences are really stupid, that there's certain things that they're not gonna get. And my thing is, well, listen, just because you don't get it doesn't mean I'm not gonna get it.
00:28:18
Speaker
Oh, so here's an interesting fact, too, about the casting. Apparently, they really wanted Ray Liotta in this movie, because they offered him Harvey Dent, Bruce Wayne, and the Joker, and he turned down all three for Goodfellas, although he said he later regretted that, because he realized what a big cultural phenomenon Batman was and what an amazing opportunity it would have been.
00:28:42
Speaker
I actually saw Ray Liotta give like an informal kind of talk or something like that. I went to a book signing and he was there.
00:28:54
Speaker
And, you know, people ask them questions, stuff like that. And they ask them, you know, what movie role, you know, because everybody always ask the act of that, you know. Yeah. What movie role do you like? I was watching an interview today with Denzel Washington, where Jamie Foxx asked him, well, what role do you regret? Turn it down. He said, oh, well, they wanted to give me the Brad Pitt role in seven. And I turned it down.
00:29:17
Speaker
Oh, that was interesting. I said, whoa, really? So they asked, you know, Ray Liotta. He said, oh, Batman. He said, really? He said, yeah, they said if I wanted Batman, he said I could have had it. That would have been interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And know what? I haven't seen Ray Liotta in a whole bunch of stuff.
00:29:39
Speaker
I have no doubt that he could have pulled it off. Oh, especially. The movie he did with John Cusack, Identity, where he plays the serial killer posing as a cop. Right. Oh, man. He was great in that. That show was like he could do that whole dual personality thing really well. Such an underrated movie. Yeah, yeah. Really good film.
00:30:03
Speaker
Yeah, but I have no doubt that if he had taken the role, we would be talking about him now the same way we talk about Michael Keaton. Right. And that's actually a good part to move into, because let's talk about Keaton's
Michael Keaton's Batman Portrayal
00:30:20
Speaker
performance. Because like we said, everybody's thought he couldn't do this. But one of the things that really
00:30:26
Speaker
uh intrigued um the producers about keaton was clean and sober and the way he uses his eyes in that movie and and like how how much he communicates with his eyes like this and he's got these really intense eyes
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah, now see me. OK, I had seen clean and sober, so I think so. I said, OK, yeah, this guy can play Batman. Right. He can do it. And then after that, there was another movie that he made called One Good Cop. It was action movie that he made that will, you know, and everybody said, OK, well, we shouldn't know. Of course, now you got people that say, oh, yeah, well, that was a terrific casting choice. I said, get out of here with that bullshit.
00:31:07
Speaker
You were one of the ones who was burning him at effigy, talking about burning the witch, burning the witch. Oh, it happens all the time. People did that with Heath Ledger, too. I remember the backlash against him, everyone saying that, why are you going to get a gay cowboy to play the Joker? And my response to that is always, well, first off, he's played more than just one role in his life. And second,
00:31:32
Speaker
Have you ever seen the Joker? I mean, the whole his like obsession with Batman is often been compared to like a homosexual obsession to begin with. So it's not that big of a leap. Right. Exactly. Exactly. As as a matter of fact, there had, um, what was it? I'm trying to think there was some graphic novel or something like that.
00:31:58
Speaker
Okay. Okay. That was in the Joker's narration. He's always referring to Batman as darling. Right. Okay. That's what I'm thinking of. Thank you, partner. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. So yeah, there's always been that subtext in the relationship between Batman and the Joker that there is some kind of
00:32:16
Speaker
Homosexual attraction that the joke although I don't particularly subscribe because me personally I don't think that joke has any sexual attraction to anything really even Harley thing You know that whole thing with Harley is more like him having control over her exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and you know, he likes being able to his whole thing was that I
00:32:37
Speaker
He liked being able to twist his normal psychologist and make her as crazy as he is, which is what he would love to do to Batman. Did you read Scott Snyder's run on the Batman comics? No. Okay, I recommend you check that out because his take on the Joker was really cool. And it was more of kind of like he saw himself as Batman's court jester.
00:33:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it was really good. Like they eat the one, the first, he did two stories with a Joker. The first one was called death of the family. And that was a really good dive into like the Joker Batman psychology. So I'm wondering. See, I recommend check out that run. It was really good. Cause I'm one of those people. I'm one of those people that I don't know if you do, you probably do because you're,
00:33:31
Speaker
just about as brilliant as I am. I'm one of those people that subscribe to the theory that the Joker full well knows that Batman is Bruce Wayne, but he doesn't care because he doesn't care about Bruce Wayne. He cares about Batman. Exactly. Yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
I think that was actually one of the plot points in The Death of the Family or in one of the other stories where he goes to him as Bruce Wayne. He meets the Joker as Bruce Wayne and the Joker acts like he doesn't know who he is.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because Bruce Wayne means absolutely nothing to him. It's like that John Byrne story. Remember the story he had, the Lex Luthor story, where Lex Luthor finds out that Superman is Clark Kent and he's an ass bunch of bullshit. Right, right, he refused to believe it. Yeah, he doesn't think he's a couple, because he's so clouded by his own, because, well, if I had all that power, if I had the power, I wouldn't hide as a human, you know. He couldn't see what was right in front of his face all the time. Yeah.
00:34:36
Speaker
Excuse me. And then Michael Keaton in this movie, he did a few different things that became kind of like trademark for Batman.
Development of Batman's Voice
00:34:46
Speaker
Like the whole thing about using a deeper voice. On Batman. That was Keaton's idea. That was something he came up with. And it became so influential that it became used in every other iteration of the character. Yeah. Yeah. Because, okay, first of all,
00:35:05
Speaker
I love the way that in this movie, unlike the Superman movie, where we're almost like an hour into the movie before we actually do see Superman. Right. Batman, no. In the first five minutes, you bam. OK, we get Batman. That's the perfect introduction. That's one of the things I like. They really don't play up the origin story here at all. They don't. We don't see the origin until right before the final battle. And even then, it's just like this quick flashback.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, which is exactly because OK, let's face it. We all know the origin of Batman. But however, this is unusual in that even though Batman, like I said, he we've seen them in like in our Saturday morning serials and animated and TV series. This is the first time on screen we ever saw, you know, the Waynes being killed. Exactly. Yeah, they never even mentioned it in the original TV series, I don't think.
00:36:03
Speaker
No, no, no, they didn't because, well, you know, that was for television. Right. And it was kind of, you know, sensitive and everything like that. Because remember, we got on Harriet. She was introduced as a character because the network was nervous. And these were we got three men living in the house together. We don't want people thinking that, you know.
00:36:24
Speaker
Excuse me, we don't want to think that there's anything, you know, going on in Wayne Manor. But yeah, Michael Keaton, when he does that whole thing, that whole rooftop fight, you know, even though Burton is not an action director at all, he's not at all.
00:36:44
Speaker
But he sells that scene. That's one of the few action scenes that he said. And I love that battery because to me, that's like a homage to the 1960s as well when he. Yeah, you know, because it folds out like the 1960s. Oh, battery and.
00:37:04
Speaker
The whole way that thing is set up where he slowly floats down and we don't know how he's doing that at first. Holy shit, how is he doing that? You know, and he beats up the two thugs and we see how scared they are of him and everything like that, which to me.
00:37:19
Speaker
is why Michael Keaton sells this movie so effectively. Because to me, Batman's not supposed, okay, Bruce Wayne's not supposed to look like the guy that could be Batman. That's the whole point. Yeah, yeah. And what's great about it is that scene, too, like the famous line, I'm Batman, Keaton ad-libbed that. He wasn't supposed to say that in the script. In the script, he was supposed to say, I am the knight. Nah, it wouldn't have worked.
00:37:44
Speaker
It wouldn't have worked. No, that it's such an obvious thing, right? But it became such an iconic line because because Keaton. OK. And he does it later on, too. And I'm going to get to that in about 30 seconds. That line is so.
00:38:03
Speaker
Iconic because Keaton says it with such authority. Yeah, there is no friggin doubt in this man's mind and once he says in our minds either This is Batman. Yeah He says it was such that and then later on He has the scene where he's having a big charity banquet in Wayne Manor and Vicki Vale played by Ken Basinger
Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale Dynamics
00:38:30
Speaker
And the reporter, Alexander Knox, played by Robert Wall, another great comedian. They're going through, you know, this whole hall of ancient suits of armor. And I love that scene because like a lot of scenes in this movie, and that's one thing I want to get into later on, is that there's very tight economic scenes that tell us a lot about these characters. But they're walking through this hall
00:38:58
Speaker
And they're looking at all these suits, arm and everything like that. And they stop in front of one and Alexander Knox says, OK, well, I wonder where he got this from. And Bruce Wayne has been walking behind them all the time. They don't know he's there, which also says something about the carriage because Batman has been trained by ninjas. Of course, he knows how to walk behind people and they never know he's there. Right. Right. See what I mean? Yeah. He's been walking behind him all the time. They don't know he's there until he says something.
00:39:23
Speaker
And then that's another hint too, because they're like, you know, where's this from? I have no idea. And then Bruce Wayne just says, it's Japanese. And they look at him and they're like, how do you know? And he says, and he just looks at them like they're crazy. He's like, well, I bought it in Japan. Yeah, it's that lucky user. He said, well, I bought it in Japan. And then Alex had an accent over who are you? And he says, I'm Bruce Wayne. And he says it with the same authority that he said. He said, I'm Batman. And this scene, and the scene right before that when
00:39:51
Speaker
when Vicky's veil is looking for Bruce Wayne, right? And she goes up to him and she's tapping him on each shoulder and he keeps turning in the other direction. And when he finally faces her, she says, do you know which one of these guys is Bruce Wayne? He says, well, I'm not really sure. And then he starts to follow her. And then when he comes in later and she says, he says, hi, Bruce Wayne. She says, are you sure? And he says, yeah, this time at least. Yeah. And it's the way he plays the character. It's he's got this total like,
00:40:20
Speaker
you can see he's this he's got this total absent-minded rich kid vibe to him and you know like just totally flighty and not concerned with anything any
00:40:30
Speaker
It's perfect. Like he really uses his comedic timing to a lot of benefit to help sell the difference between Bruce Wayne and Batman. And he walks such a brilliantly fine line in that scene that can easily have been pushed into a total comedy. Right. But he does it in such a way. And, okay, this is how I read that scene. And I will. And matter of fact, I watched the movie today in preparation
00:40:56
Speaker
for this. Man, I worked so hard at this research, folks. Y'all have no idea. It's a tough research I do with this podcast for you. And I watched it today. And that scene is so finely tuned that I watched it today. And even now, and I've seen this movie like about a dozen times, I'm still not sure if, as Bruce Wayne
00:41:20
Speaker
He's really that distracted, absentminded, or if, because he's in public, he's playing like that. Right, because then you contrast that with, there's a scene after that when they're still in there and he has gone down to the Batcave, and he's watching everything on the monitors, and he's got his glasses on, he's got this really pensive look on his face, and he's like. Oh, and you look in his eyes, and see, again, we go back to Michael Keaton's eyes. He's one of the few actors, you can see this cat thinking. Yeah, yeah.
00:41:51
Speaker
And I love the, and I'm sorry folks, but I just love the notion that Batman puts on glasses, you know, when he's working. There is just something, it seems like the thing, my guess is like he doesn't really need them, but it's part of like a mindset thing.
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like it puts some in a different frame of mind. Exactly. Yeah. So when he puts it on, you know, like he because there's a scene later on where Alfred and again, another scene I love because this is a delightfully low tech thing. But it plays up the fact that to me, the Nolan movies don't do except for the Dark Knight that Batman is a detective. So Alfred brings him this file.
00:42:37
Speaker
That's all about Jack Napier, played by Jack Nicholson, who becomes the Joker. And he's looking through the file. Now, he doesn't put on his glasses then. But he puts it on only when he's in the Batcave, I notice. Oh, that's a good point. You're right. Yeah, yeah. Watch the movie again. The only time he puts on those glasses when he's sitting in that, you know, he's in that little computer car, which also, again, another reason why I love this movie.
00:43:06
Speaker
He's got tech that's in the Batcave, but it's not like this huge sprawling complex we see in later movies. No, it's almost like Minimalist. It works really well. Yeah, it's just enough for him to do what he has to do. Yeah.
00:43:23
Speaker
He's got a little laboratory that's off here. He's got the computer monitors over there. He's got the cliff where he walks to bat. Boville over there, you know. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up the detective part because I watched this movie yesterday again. And that was one of the things that jumped out to me is that
00:43:41
Speaker
Most of the Batman movies, they kind of gloss over the fact that he's the world's greatest detective. I mean, there's this one a little bit in Batman Begins and then in The Dark Knight, and a little bit in Batman v Superman as well. But for the most part, a lot of them tend to just gloss over it. And they kind of look at him as like a costume James Bond almost.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I really don't like the whole notion of Batman just overpowering his opponents with superior firepower and just beating the piss out of them. Right. You know, Batman can fight. Yes, we know that he's a superb fighter. But that's just one aspect of who he is. He's also, like you said, a detective. In fact, he is the world's greatest detective.
00:44:31
Speaker
And that's one of the things I like about this movie is that they show him figuring out what the Joker's doing. He recognizes him as Jack Napier when he sees him at City Hall during the day. And then he goes back and first thing he says, Jack Napier's still alive. I need everything the police have on him.
00:44:49
Speaker
And then after he reads the file, he finds out that, you know, one of his aptitudes is chemistry. And he knows about, you know, already Joker started poisoning products. Then he says, OK, we have to go. We have to go shopping. We have to figure out how to do this. And he tests all the different compounds together to figure out what the connections are. And again.
00:45:08
Speaker
we see with Michael Keaton in that scene you mentioned because he reads the file. Like you said, then he sits back and takes a beat and we look at their minds and I said, damn, the man's thinking. Right. And he just looks at Alfred. He's like, Alfred, let's go shopping. And if you're not right, and it seems like the dialogue seems totally incongruous. It seems like he's just like this flighty eccentric billionaire where he just jumps to something completely different. But in reality, when you're looking at his eyes, you realize he's just come to a conclusion. Yeah.
00:45:37
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, Michael Keaton, I can't say enough about his performance next to Kevin Conroy.
Evolution of Batman's Voice
00:45:45
Speaker
He's my favorite Batman. You know, I mean, I'm sorry. I just feel that this guy, you know, he got internally what makes Batman and Bruce Wayne.
00:45:59
Speaker
work because, you know, you can't play the both of them as their, which I think is a problem. Like, um, a problem people had. Well, I know I had with the, uh, George Clooney when he played, he did nothing different between Batman and Bruce Wayne. He did full on Adam West where he didn't change his voice or anything like that. Right. Exactly. That's what he did. He did a full blown Adam West. Whereas, um, Michael Keaton,
00:46:27
Speaker
And was the other guy Christian Bale? Yeah. No, I don't. I don't care too much for Christian. But I do recognize that Christian Bale did understand the dichotomy that Batman and Bruce Wayne are two separate people. It's not like Superman. And OK, people tend to lump them in the same way. I said, no, no, no, no, no. It's two different things because Batman and Bruce Wayne is two separate people. Right. The two separate people, as has been said before,
00:46:57
Speaker
Batman is the real person. Bruce Wayne is the mask because Bruce Wayne actually died that night when his parents was killed. Right. And that's when Batman was born. You know, it's not like Superman who had nurturing parents and grew up and everything like that. Superman is an identity he adopts. Well, there's one there's one episode of Batman Begins that did not that many get Batman Beyond that did this really well, where
00:47:22
Speaker
Bruce Wayne is hearing, like there's some sort of mind control thing or something like that, or I can't remember all the details. But at the end, Terry McGinnis, the young Batman, is protege. He asked him, well, how did you know you weren't going crazy? And Bruce Wayne says to him, he's like, because the voice in my head referred to me as Bruce. And he's like, that's not what I call myself. And Terry's like, what do you call yourself? And he's like, oh. And he's like, but that's my name now. And then Bruce says, tell that to my subconscious.
00:47:51
Speaker
Ooh, I never saw that. So now you know, I got five. Yeah. But no, some. Yeah, exactly. That's it. Yeah. Because in his head, he doesn't call himself Bruce. He doesn't call him Bruce. Right. Because he's not Bruce. He's Batman. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Bruce Wayne is somebody who he pretends to be. Exactly. But he's actually he's actually is Batman.
00:48:14
Speaker
and uh touch touch on michael key like to bring in batman returns a little bit because they show another aspect of bruce wayne in that movie when he's in the meeting with max shrek at the beginning and you find out and like you know it's obvious shrek goes in there thinking bruce is this you know you know flighty playboy he's someone i can easily trick into helping me out and bruce is you know
00:48:37
Speaker
You know, he's flat out completely serious and he shows that he takes his business seriously and he knows what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah, I think because he takes like a full or something like that. He flings across the desk and he tells him and he tells him, listen, I'm going to fight you on this one. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, those different aspects. And then right after that, he goes out of the elevator and he meets Selena Kyle and he switches right back to a billionaire mode.
00:49:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's an it's an amazing performance, you know, because as I said, Michael Keaton, he gets what makes Batman and Bruce Wayne tick and he knows how to make both of them work. And, you know, like he said, he's in that boardroom with Max Shrek.
00:49:25
Speaker
And we see that, OK, this is the take no prisoners side of Bruce Wayne. Exactly. This is the cutthroat businessman. But then, like you said, he go he goes outside. He meets Selena. He's immediately smitten. And now he's the guy, you know, that we saw in this first movie at that party where he's sticking pins into the dip and he's he's knocking over the champagne. Yeah.
00:49:50
Speaker
it really it's it's a performance that I especially after watching it again today I I was just sitting there and I was in awe of it because I said you know something this this is really something special and I can see and I can see why this performance
00:50:08
Speaker
became such a landmark in the career of Michael Keaton. And the mythology of Batman, because like you said, he was the one who created that lower voice thing for Batman. Because Michael Keaton was like, how do I differentiate Batman and Bruce Wayne? And he had a bunch of different suggestions to Tim Burton. And he suggested different contact lenses or something like that. But then eventually, he settled on the voice.
00:50:36
Speaker
And he sells it so well, which the only other person who's really been able to do it as effectively as Kevin Conroy, because you had Christian Bale in the Nolan films, he tried, but it just didn't really work. It sounded like he had a sore throat.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah, Christian Bale never found his bat. See every actor who does Batman has to find his his own Batman voice. Yeah. And Christian Bale never found his Batman voice. No, no. Yeah. And then with and Warner Brothers got smart after that. And so when they did Batman V Superman, they decided to take a cue from Smallville and Arrow, where they had Green Arrow use a voice modulator. And yeah. And that and that works so much better. It's much easier to do. Takes a lot of pressure off him.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because as an actor, you want to protect your voice. Yeah. So you can, you know, there's only so far you could take that raspy growly voice. Right. You know, before you, you know, like you said, before you start doing some kind of damage to your voice and okay, well now I got to take a couple of days off, you know, to protect my voice. So yeah, it makes a lot more sense.
00:51:51
Speaker
In The Dark Knight, they actually did use post-production on the voice, but the problem was, because Batman talks a lot more in The Dark Knight than he did in Batman Begins, but the problem was in Begins, Bail had already established this kind of like gravely growly voice. They had to keep that in the sequel, and it just doesn't, and it just felt overdone at that point.
00:52:12
Speaker
And as a matter of fact, you know, OK, at least to me, you become distracting after a while. It does. Yeah. Whereas it's not it's not scary. It's just like, like, dude, why are you talking like that? There was a parody video after The Dark Knight came out where it was like the seat, the interrogation scene. It's like Batman grumbling all that. And the guy who's playing the Joker is like, what is that? Is that bat? Are you speaking bat to me? What is this?
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, dude, here's a lawsuit. Cheers. But Eton Duck, his voice, it's it's not it's it's lower, but it's not like loud or anything. It's just very kind of I don't really know how to describe it, but it's just like this. It's like this low intensity. It's not overbearing or anything. It's just it's almost like quiet. It's almost like a like a dark whisper type of thing.
00:53:04
Speaker
But again, just like when we were talking about in the Superman episode, which again, folks, for those of you who haven't listened to it, why haven't you? When we were talking about that the best special effect in the movie was just Christopher Reeve using his voice and his body to show us
00:53:25
Speaker
how Superman could pretend to be Clark Kent. And we saw right in front of him, well, Michael Keaton does the same thing with his voice and then he creates a whole other persona for Batman just using his voice.
00:53:40
Speaker
Keaton didn't really find his voice until after he put on the bat suit. And part of the reason was because Keaton couldn't hear anything when he was in the costume and he was claustrophobic. So he used that claustrophobia to like fuel his Batman persona. Oh, cool. And take it back, Bruce. Go ahead. Yeah. No, no, no, I'm just going to say it again. We go back to the thing where, OK, like now we've got like
00:54:11
Speaker
these big.
00:54:12
Speaker
Half a billion dollar CGI spectacles and everything like that. These guys had a little bit to work with and they made it work to their own advantage because they had to figure stuff out because they didn't have a whole team of CGI. It's not like, OK, not take away anything from Robert Downey Jr. because he was brilliant as Tony Stark. Right. You know, but he had a whole team of CGI guys to help him create Iron Man. You know, Keaton didn't have that with Batman. Right.
00:54:41
Speaker
You know he had to work with what he had and he did it and he did it in spectacular fashion. Yeah yeah what i want to mention was that the dinner scene with him and vicky vale. And they're sitting at that long table.
00:54:58
Speaker
And she has to shout across the room to get his attention. Oh yeah. And that was another one of Keaton's ideas. And he wanted to bring that, he brought his comedy background into that. And he suggested that they have this very long table. And then for him to say, actually, I don't think I've ever been in this room before.
00:55:19
Speaker
Oh, that is I love because he looks around and again, we got to go back to the eyes. Yeah. When he looks around, he convinces you. And he's like, do you like, do you like getting in here? He just like, oh, yeah, yeah. Then he just kind of takes a minute and he just looks around. He's like, actually, I don't think I've ever been in this room.
00:55:36
Speaker
And he said, you know what? I've never even been here before. Alfred, what is this rule? What are we doing? And you know, you buy it because you figure Bruce Wayne's probably a guy who he wakes up in the morning, maybe he eats in the kitchen, but then he goes right down to the back cave and he spends all his time in there. Unless there's like something like they have like the charity ball, that there's whole sections of Wayne Manor that he closes off that he never uses because there's no reason, because he never goes there. Right, yeah. Yeah, I could totally see that.
00:56:07
Speaker
And you get the feeling that that scene, when he's in there, he probably uses that dining room to kind of intimidate. She's probably not the first woman he's invited over. And he probably uses it as a way to kind of intimidate them and make them think that he's like this flighty billionaire who doesn't take anything seriously, and then he kind of gets rid of them that way. But with Vicky, there's something different going on.
00:56:36
Speaker
That brings, that's a good segue into another aspect of this movie that I like and that we're presented with a superhero who apparently and obviously has a healthy sex life. Yeah. Yeah. You get the feeling that this is not the first time he does this. Cause the next morning after they sleep together, you know, he lies about how they're going out of town. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's his first. Oh yeah. Oh no. Me and Alfred, you know, we're going out of town. We're going out of town. You know, so
00:57:05
Speaker
Yeah, you kind of get the feeling that, yeah, you know, Bruce Wayne, he doesn't have a problem, you know, getting a little when he wants to. And then he says, OK, Alfred, well, you know, just take him back to Gotham City and, you know, tell him I'll call him. Just like the beginning of the first Iron Man movie. Yeah. Yeah. But.
00:57:27
Speaker
That's a movie that we got a lot later. So we were like, kind of like expecting, you didn't expect Batman to go to bed with a girl on the first date. Right. Right. You know, you said, whoa. And I love the scene where Vicki Vio, she wakes up and he's not in the bed and she looks over and he's hanging upside down. I said, oh, well, of course, how else would Batman sleep?
00:57:54
Speaker
That's one of the things that always weirds me out about. At that point, I think you're getting too much into the bat angle when you show him sleeping upside down. Yeah. But you know what? Yeah.
00:58:08
Speaker
It pushes it a little bit over into, okay, this is obviously meant to be funny because, okay, well, he's Batman. So of course he sleeps upside down. But you know what? I'm willing to allow for that because there's so much that they get right. And I'm that type of person that if you get
00:58:31
Speaker
more stuff right than you get wrong. OK, I'll allow it when you do get something wrong or when you stray a little bit too far over into, you know, and this movie does. They're like some parts like in the scene where Bruce Wayne, he goes to confront Vicki Vale in her house and you think, you know, he's getting ready to tell her, well, I'm Batman. And then the Joker, he busts in.
00:58:58
Speaker
And they have that little back and forth and everything like that. And, you know, and then Bruce Wayne, he takes the silver tray, I guess he sticks it inside. He uses it as his body armor. Right. Now, how he knew.
00:59:15
Speaker
The Joker is going to shoot him right in that exact spot. You know, that's like shoot him in the face or something like that. Well, she's in the head. Yeah. You know, that's always like when I was watching it, I was thinking the exact same thing. That scene doesn't quite work very well. Yeah. And OK, that's a scene that you say, OK, well.
00:59:35
Speaker
But that just points up the clumsiness of how Tim Burton handles action scenes like in the scene in the Flugelheim Museum, where Batman rescued Vicki Vale. And then they had that car chase. Yeah. Well, they have the car chase. And then for apparently no reason at all, they get out of the Batmobile. Yeah. And that car chase has got to be the slowest car chase in history. Oh, my God. I can run fast in that.
01:00:08
Speaker
Yeah you know and then they get out of there they have the fight scene that's in the alley and then they get back in the Batmobile there was no reason to get out of the Batmobile. It was just an excuse to show Batman fighting him which was kind of a bad move because again like you said Burton doesn't really do action scenes all that well.
01:00:27
Speaker
No, no. I mean, the only good thing about that fight scene, and this is one reason why I think that the stiffness of the bat suit actually works because, of course, the actors and the stuntman, you know, Keaton, he always he always complained that he could never turn his head. Right. You know, when he turns that turn his whole body. I kind of like that because that means that whoever the stunt person is in there, they have to move very as an economy.
01:00:57
Speaker
Mm-hmm a movement, you know, we don't get a Batman that's fighting like Bruce Lee, right? You know when he moves is a very decisive move that ends the fight like doesn't look like he just straight-up kicks his ass in the chest bam and that's it and you know and I like that because Batman is not there to you know put on a show or you know, he did just to win the fight Yeah, the problem is like it is it but it's the way that Burton shoots those scenes because Burton likes
01:01:24
Speaker
likes long angles, right? He likes long shots. He likes pulling the camera out. And it does it when you've got Batman fighting and Batman can barely move, it takes you out of the scene, I felt. So that's one of the things I think Nolan did better, which is he tried to make up for the fact where he's like, OK, we've got this guy in this suit. He can barely move. So instead of trying to show him clumsily moving his around really slowly, we're just going to do quick rapid cuts.
01:01:54
Speaker
And actually, the best Batman fight scene on film was in Batman versus Superman. It was, yeah, the warehouse scene. That was where, like, that's one thing you got to. I got to. I hate that movie, but I got to give Snyder credit. He he really did. He really did. Well, a good job of that scene because he does. So he took it out of that scene. He he it's like it's like exactly what you'd see in the Arkham video games. Yeah, yeah.
01:02:28
Speaker
And that was great. We finally see a Batman who can actually move. So that was well done. I got to give him credit for that. He did a good job with that. And if you good people will allow me one more digression, I think it is such a shame that we are not going to see any more Batman movies with Ben Affleck.
01:02:49
Speaker
I agree with that. Yeah. Like I, you know, when he was cast, everyone was freaking out and I said, well, I give him a chance. He's been in some good stuff. You know, just he's made some bad decisions as an actor, but he's generally, he's decently, he's a pretty decent actor. So I said, let's give him a chance.
01:03:04
Speaker
And sure enough, he did a great job. Not as good as his brother. I think his, but man, you know what? I think Ben Affleck is a better director. He's definitely a better director. Yeah. And his brother can act rings around him all day long. Right. Yeah. You know, but I don't, but I don't hate him with the fire of a thousand sons. Like some people I know, you know, even in Daredevil, like I thought he did a good job in Daredevil.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he's not that bad, folks. I mean, come on, he's not that OK. He's no Sidney Poirier, but, you know, you know, schlub either. I mean, you're thinking about it like Batman doesn't require a whole lot of range. Like I love the character, but we're not talking. She's I can't even think of a good comparison. You know, OK. You don't have to be Lawrence Olivier to play. There you go. There you go. Yeah.
01:03:58
Speaker
You know, quite simply, you don't. However, let me say this. I was confident that Affleck could play Batman. I just didn't think he could play him that well. That's what it was when I said, whoa, I may have to reevaluate my thinking here.
01:04:18
Speaker
But yeah, I was willing to give him a shot right from the beginning. But we could talk about that when we ended up getting to that movie. Yeah, when we ended up getting to that adventure, because sooner or later, we're going to get to Batman versus Superman. Yes. Oh, you lucky people. And there's going to be some, I think we'll have to put on the mature tag for that one when I start letting loose on it. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Now, let's talk about the Joker, Jack Nicholson.
Jack Nicholson as the Joker
01:04:46
Speaker
Jack Nicholson.
01:04:49
Speaker
They really wanted Jack Nicholson for this part, and he hesitated. He did not seem very enthusiastic about doing it. So what they did was they decided to kind of bait him into it. So they went to Robin Williams, and they offered the part to Robin Williams. And Robin Williams, who's a comic book fan, he jumped at the chance. He's like, absolutely, I would love to do it.
01:05:13
Speaker
Then they go back to Jack Nicholson and they tell him, well, if you say no, we've already got Robin Williams willing to come on. And then Jack Nicholson said, okay, I'll do it, but I also want the, you know, like a percentage of the gross. Which made him like as of 2003, that was the single movie record for an actor's salary. Cause he ended up pulling in like around $60 million for that part. And again, and again,
01:05:43
Speaker
Folks, just let me just stick this in real quick. You gotta remember something. Okay, back then when this movie was made, that was a deal that was unheard of in Hollywood. Exactly. That was a revolutionary deal as far, no actor in the history of Hollywood before they had got that deal. Jack Nicholson was the first one to get that one. Okay. And so then, when they decided to make Batman forever, they wanted Robin Williams to play the Riddler.
01:06:12
Speaker
They went to him and they said, and they offered him the part, and Robin Williams said, I'll only do it if you apologize for using me as bait for Jack Nicholson. And Warner Brothers instead called Jim Carrey up, because they didn't want to apologize. And after that, Williams refused to be involved in any Warner Brothers productions until the studio apologized. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I, because
01:06:38
Speaker
I heard that they really did him dirty as far as the Batman, because he's a big Batman fan, and he always wanted to play the Riddler. And every time that, because at one time in Batman Returns, it was talked about, okay, they was going to use the Riddler, and Robert Williams said, you know, and because he wanted, and
01:07:00
Speaker
To me, I think that they should have, because Jim Carrey was such a disappointment as the Riddler in that movie. Tommy Lee Jones was a disappointment. Matter of fact, the villains are crap in that movie, period. I got no problem with Val Kilmer as Batman, Bruce Wayne, but the villains are for shit. I'm sorry. They are.
01:07:21
Speaker
You know, Jim Carrey just goes insane trying to ape Frank Orson. And then Tommy Lee Jones was just trying to one up Jim Carrey the whole time. And it was it just it was just a total mess. Well, you could tell from Tommy Lee Jones, first of all, he strikes me as guys never read a comic book in his life. Yeah. So so and. As a professional, I would have thought that he would have did a little bit more research.
01:07:50
Speaker
into who the character was supposed to be, as clearly he had no idea. And I knew that whoever wrote the script didn't have an idea of who Too Faced was anyway, because Too Faced flips the coin one time. Exactly. However that coin comes up, that's what he did. He doesn't keep flipping it until he gets the result he wants. That's not Too Faced. That's the complete opposite of what the coin is for. Oh my god, yeah. That's what the point of the coin is. Know who played the best Too Faced in the movies?
01:08:21
Speaker
Well, there was Tommy Lee Jones, and then there was Aaron Eckhart. Javier Bardem. Javier Bardem? What? Yeah. Remember the movie he was in? No Country for Old Men? Uh-huh. Remember the scene where he's in the shop and he's buying something, and he flips the coin to decide you guys' face? Oh, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, OK. And he gives that little speech? Mm-hmm. I said, that's two-face. Yeah, yeah.
01:08:50
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Although I think Aaron Eckhart did a really good job too. Cause there's that scene in, um, when they're in the car and you know, he flips the car, the coin for Maroney and it comes up and he says, he's like, well, it's your lucky day. He's like, you're lucky. And then he flips the coin again. He's like, but he's not. And he's like, what are you talking about? He's like your driver. And then he shoots the driver while he's still sitting in the back of the car.
01:09:11
Speaker
yeah okay see yeah that's two that's two-faced the guy that Tommy Lee Jones played that was I don't know that was two things it was like some sort of weird mesh of the Joker and the Riddler and but when I say the Riddler I mean Jim Carrey's Riddler yeah yeah it was I mean you know listen
01:09:32
Speaker
To me, it was quite apparent. And mind you, I've got no problem against anybody taking a role just for the money. I know I hear this all the time. Well, he just did that just for the money. Well, yeah, in America, usually a lot of times when people do a job, that's why they do it. They do it because of the money. You know, I mean, I've got I mean, look at this movie. I mean, Michael Keaton didn't know Jack about Batman when he said yes to take the role. I mean, so I think it's pretty obvious that he's doing it for the money to begin with.
01:10:01
Speaker
Right. But he also took time to do his research. Like he said, he said stuff, you know, it's obvious to me, Tommy Lee Jones just didn't give a shit. He just, you know, Tommy Lee Jones. Well, he took the part, as I recall, because his son was a big comic book fan. Right. Yeah, exactly.
01:10:17
Speaker
He wasn't, he was actually going to say no, but then his son said, well, they offered you two face. You've got to say yes. Then he did it for his son, basically. Right. Yeah. Which again, I have no problem with. What I have a problem with is that you didn't do your homework. And so we know what, let me at least find out who this guy is. I'm supposed to be playing and actually know something. I think that Tom Lee Jones actually had done that. He probably would have been more intrigued with the character and said, Oh, there's something to this guy that I can work with.
01:10:44
Speaker
Yeah. Now you compare it to Billy Dee Williams, who plays Harvey Dent in this first movie, and who wanted to play Two-Face. He even had a clause in his contract saying that he would play Two-Face if they used Two-Face in the movie. And then Warner Brothers had to buy out his contract. Do you know, and this is something that I found out, do you know that Billy Dee Williams is still getting paid?
01:11:11
Speaker
Because he didn't play because he didn't play. Yeah. Are you kidding me? He said no. Who else is still getting paid? Who? Marlon Wayans. No shit for Robin, for Batman, for Batman. Right. Who was the. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
01:11:36
Speaker
OK, that's for my wife. She'll pick it up upstairs. OK. No, I got an extension down here because I do have people bothering me and I and I usually have my cell phone turned off during the day because I hate telephones. Folks, for those of you who know me, you know, I'm talking about for those of you who are one of my one of my jobs, they insist on communicating by phone. And I'm just like, just send me a fucking email.
01:12:01
Speaker
Yeah. I hate the telephone. I think it's the worst invention. Oh God. I hate it. I, I don't like talking on the telephone. If you have a car, if you ever talk to me on the phone, folks, if you have a conversation that lasts more than five minutes,
01:12:17
Speaker
Believe me, we had something to talk about because usually I'll just say, OK, well, you know, because I'm not a person that goes in for like a lot of idle chit chat. Like my wife, I love that woman to death. Don't get me wrong, folks. But I've never seen anybody that can stay on the phone for two or three hours talking about absolutely nothing.
01:12:37
Speaker
I'm the same way. I can't stand it. I got family members who they always want to communicate on the phone. And I'm just like, can't we just do it through email or can't you just send me a message on Facebook or something? Because that way I can do other stuff instead of having to sit there with my attention captured for two hours, three hours.
01:12:57
Speaker
Now, I know what you people are thinking. Well, Derek, you're talking to Perry right now on Skype. And isn't that kind of like the telephone? Yes, but we are actually talking about something. We are actually discussing something. And we are not even joking. You and I never talk on the phone.
01:13:16
Speaker
No, no, no, we never talk on the phone. Exactly. Yeah. No, we don't. You know, we communicate by email. Right. Right. Yeah. Or Facebook. That's how we communicate. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, now if I had something to really talk to you about, I will call you. And in fact, if I did call you up on the phone to say, OK, listen, Perry, I got taught. You said, oh, shit, somebody must have died. Right. Something's important.
01:13:38
Speaker
Oh, OK.
Unrealized Roles: Robin and Two-Face
01:13:41
Speaker
So now we're talking about Billy Dee Williams as possibly playing two. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Marlon Wayans is still getting because I. OK, this is how I found out because my wife, who is a YouTube fanatic, she was watching some interview show and Marlon Wayans was on there because he was talking about the new Netflix movie that he has, Sex Tuplets.
01:14:10
Speaker
during the course of the conversation, they were talking about, you know, they, of course, again, they were asking him about roles that he missed and passed up on. He said, Oh, you know, I was supposed to play Batman and, you know, and he was talking about it. Right. Robin. And he said, Oh, well, you know, he said, you know, I'm still getting paid for that. And they said, what, how do you still get? And he explained about the game. He said, yeah, Billy Dee Williams has got the same deal too. They say every time somebody gets a copy of, you know, a Batman, you know,
01:14:33
Speaker
and aww.
01:14:39
Speaker
Billy D Williams, they gotta cut him a check. They gotta cut him all away as a check because they was not in Batman Returns as they had been promised. And Batman Forever, yeah. And you know, it's crazy, because I bet Tommy Lee Jones is not still getting paid for Batman Forever. So if they had just let him play Two-Face in the first point, they probably would have had to spend less money on it than casting Tommy Lee Jones to phone it in.
01:15:07
Speaker
because my understanding is that Michael Keaton was going to do Batman Forever until Tim Burton walked. Tim Burton walked and it was the beginning of the end. Michael Keaton was still interested and he spoke with Joe Schumacher and actually they cast Rene Russo to play the love interest because it was assumed that Michael Keaton would be around still. But then after meeting with Joe Schumacher, Keaton decided, okay, this isn't
01:15:37
Speaker
This isn't what it used to be. I don't think this is a good fit." And he backed out. And so then they cast Val Kilmer, and then they thought Rene Russo was too old to play his love interest, which is bullshit to begin with, but then they went with Nicole Kidman.
01:15:52
Speaker
Yeah. And Marla Wayans, you know, they went so far. There is footage of him, you know, being fitted for costumes and stuff like that. And, you know, there's still pictures of him in costume. That's right. He was supposed to be in them. And he said, yeah, to this day, he said, any time there's a Blu-ray or Batman forever, you know, so he said, I get a check.
01:16:14
Speaker
And also, in regards to that too, the reason they redesigned Robin's costume in the comics was because of Batman Returns. Because they thought Robin was going to be in it and Tim Burton didn't want that costume. So they had, I think it was, I want to say Neil Adams. They worked with Neil Adams to design a new Robin costume.
01:16:37
Speaker
And that's why if you... Alright, for anyone who was around back then, or if you look up the images online, you'll remember that when they had the Batman Returns toy line, they had a Robin figure. And the Robin figure had kind of like this kid and play type afro. And it had a darker complexion. The reason for that was because Marlon Wayans was supposed to play the character.
01:17:00
Speaker
And then when they realized Marlon Wayans wasn't going to be in the movie, they just lightened up the complexion a little bit, but then they released the character as is. And so that's why the Robin figure doesn't look anything like Tim Drake from the comics. So then they used that Robin costume for Tim Drake in the comic books instead.
01:17:23
Speaker
See all the fascinating behind the scenes stuff you get here, folks.
Jack Nicholson's Joker Performance
01:17:29
Speaker
Now, Jack Nicholson is the Joker. What do you think of this performance? Masterful. A lot of people, and I've heard this complaint, people say, oh, well, he was too old. No, I don't think he was too old. No, he wasn't too old at all. Yeah, he wasn't too old, you know, because
01:17:48
Speaker
Again, we have a guy who is adept at playing comedy and drama, and he used that to his advantage because there are scenes where the Joker does stuff that is absolutely batshit insane, but we're laughing along with him.
01:18:06
Speaker
Right, he sells the insanity thing. He really sells the insanity thing. When he does that weird dance out of Vicki Vale's apartment, when he impersonates Jack Palance, all the little quirks he does, he does a really good job with that.
01:18:23
Speaker
when he has the boardroom meeting with all of the gang bosses and he's sitting here and the guy says, well, what's with that goofy grid? And he says, life's been good to me. It cracks me up every time because I know what's coming. I said, Oh, they don't know. This is the, this is the joker. You know, this isn't the guy that they had, they were dealing with before. And then he, and then I love to see where, uh,
01:18:52
Speaker
Bob the goon brings up the pictures of Vicki Bell because he's been following her and he takes pictures.
01:18:59
Speaker
And he's looking at it, and he's cutting it up, and he says, well, she's going out with this guy called Bruce Wayne, so she's about to throw it off. Again, the way he says the lie, for some reason, it's just the way he says it cracks me up. And then the camera pulls back, and it's an overhead shot, and we see all of these pictures that he's cut up on the floor. And I remember when I saw this for the first time in the movie theater, somebody in the theater said, excuse the language folks, said, holy fuck, this guy's nuts.
01:19:30
Speaker
He also went when they talk about Batman on the TV show and that he uses the the punching glove gun on the TV and then he gets all pissed and then he says this town needs an enemy and he starts going into the noise maker. And I love the boxing glove thing because that's right from the 60 to me. That's another homage to the 1960s because that's right. I could still see the Joker from the TV series.
01:20:00
Speaker
Although you know what's weird is that all his men just wear black leather and sunglasses. And then in Batman Returns, the penguin gets the clown gang. Yeah.
01:20:14
Speaker
That struck me as a little bit odd when I was watching it yesterday. And also, then you got in Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, all the gang members, they all get the themed costumes, even in The Dark Knight, right? He's got guys in clown masks and everything. Yeah. But Joker in the first Batman movie, and despite being a more comics accurate Joker than Heath Ledger, he's got all the little
01:20:39
Speaker
all the little toy weapons and all that kind of stuff, but he doesn't have the Joker gang. Well, I think that that's why I love Nicholson so much because this is like the most comic outside of Mark Hamill and the animated one, but we're talking about live action here. Live action, this is like, okay, this is the Joker. I saw Jack Nicholson do this. Okay, this is the guy I've seen in the comics.
01:21:08
Speaker
I recognize this guy, you know, he does because see, and again, it's little goofy things that he does, like in the museum when they're defacing all of the different paintings. And again, because these little things that cracked me up, he says, oh, the one dollar bill. Yeah, yeah. And also the but that was one of the scenes where they use the Prince music perfectly in that scene. Yeah.
01:21:34
Speaker
And I mean, you got to love a bad guy that parties to Prince. I mean, oh, my God. It's just yeah. And it's little and the guys getting ready to break a statue or something like that. And he stops and says, nope, he said, I like this one. Oh, yeah, the painting. It was it was something like really like Gothic type painting. He's like, Oh, I actually like this one. And it's just like.
01:21:57
Speaker
I think that Jack Nicholson accurately got across the randomness of the Joker, because at any point in this movie, even if you've seen it before, you're still never sure what he's going to do next. What's interesting about the museum scene is that Jack Nicholson said that was the only thing he had to do as the Joker that made him uneasy, because he's a big art collector.
01:22:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you don't see that watching that scene. He looks like he's having the time of his life. Oh, yeah. Well, that's another reason why I love his book. Because all throughout this movie, yeah, he's the joke. He's having the time of his life. Yeah. Doing what he's doing, even at the end. Again, he says these what lies that for some reason, crackers were Batman. They're in the tower.
01:22:50
Speaker
And Batman is saying, yeah, well, you made me. I made you. I made you. You made me first. Yeah. Yeah. You made me first. He said, and he said, yeah, well, you know, you did drop me in a vat full of chemicals or something like that. Yeah. He said that shit was tough to get over and don't think I didn't cry. Also, after Batman says, you know, I made you, you made me first, then he says,
01:23:16
Speaker
He's like, well, how child, he's like, how childish do you have to get? You say, I say, I made you. You say you made me first. And then he takes out the glasses and he puts them on. He says you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you? I mean, he pulls out the oldest gag in the world. Oh my God. Yeah. He's just having, he's having, he's hanging off of the side of this big Gothic cathedral. And he looks into gargoyle. He said, what are you laughing at?
01:23:45
Speaker
Yeah. But even after he dies, you know, he's got the little laughing bag in his jacket where it's just like he has to have the last laugh no matter what. Yeah. Bingo. There you go. That's why, because I've heard, I've had people say to me, well, why does he have that bag? I said, cause he's the Joker. He has had the last laugh. Right. That's what that whole thing is about.
Suicide Squad Plot Deviations
01:24:06
Speaker
But I love,
01:24:08
Speaker
Matter of fact, I love any movie where the bad guy is having a good time being a bad guy. And that's exactly what Jack Nicholson as the Joker is doing here. Once he embraces who he is and he starts to enjoy his own madness, which is what he's doing. He's having fun with his own madness. He's having fun being mad because it's liberating.
01:24:31
Speaker
And he's just going through the whole movie and he's just having the time of his life. One of the things I like about this movie too is that this was before superhero movies felt like every single movie had to have some sort of end of the world type threat to it. Like it's a very small scale idea. He just wants to poison a bunch of people.
01:24:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, basically, he just wants to terrorize Gotham City. And it works, because now studios think, well, we're going to invest all this money into these movies, so it's got to be some massive threat that's going to destroy the whole city or the whole country or the whole world. But it doesn't have to be, and this movie shows that. Right, right. Yet another digression, folks. Trust me, you're going to get a lot of them if you hang around with me.
01:25:20
Speaker
Even though I liked the movie Suicide Squad, that was the thing, that was the one thing about that movie that I didn't like because it should have been had them going on a mission to some foreign country that goes horribly wrong. Instead, of course, again, we got another save the world plot. Well, you know what? You know what? I think it should have been because there if you insist on having the Joker in a Suicide Squad movie, send the Suicide Squad after the Joker.
01:25:45
Speaker
Thank you! That's what the movie should have been! Exactly. That's what I thought it was going in, and then when you get this whole thing with the Enchantress and all that, I'm like, what the fuck is this shit?
01:25:55
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, okay. Why else would you have Harley Quinn on your team? If not, because she knows the Joker. Right. Exactly. That's what I thought the movie was going to be. Okay. Have the suicide squad go after the Joker. Okay. Good. Finally a challenge. Cause he just sees them. You know what? Let me kill these suckers so I can go back to my real job of bedeviling Batman.
01:26:15
Speaker
Right. Instead, you've got this weird worries, like a side character and all that, and just it's just completely shoehorned in because they wanted the Joker. Yeah, exactly. And that's what that's what it's reduced to. Ultimately, the Joker just in there just because they wanted the Joker. Right. And that was the only reason why they wanted it on there, because yeah, once you get that whole thing, because it really doesn't say much for Amanda Waller's plan, when the first mission that you have that you have to take down your most powerful member.
01:26:44
Speaker
Right, right. It just makes her look really incompetent. Yeah, if I was the president, I would say, well, you know what, you're going to get very familiar with Bill Reid because you're going there now. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about the design of this movie, because one of the things I think they did really well was the Batmobile and just like like the bat. This is one of my favorite Batmobiles, bar none.
01:27:08
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. But they just they took it to a whole new round. Like it wasn't because even even in the comics at this point, like the Batmobiles were not like what you see now when you look at the comics. This thing in this movie is built for only two things, speed and power, right? Which is what you know.
01:27:31
Speaker
because Batman realizes he may have to outrun cops. He can definitely outrun cops in this thing. And, you know, it's like a battering ram or, you know, this and it's a very intimidating looking car. You know, I mean, you look at it, you say, oh, shit, you know, it makes you want to.
01:27:50
Speaker
and you look at this like you compare it to the tumblr in the dark knight and the batman begins and the tumblr is not a batmobile like you look at it it's just it's just a black tank but you look at this and you know it's batman's car yeah
01:28:08
Speaker
Yeah. And it's used to great effect. They have that wonderful scene where after he rescues Vicki Vale and they're driving back to the Batcave and they're going through the woods and it's got like this real spooky music playing and the leaves are flying and everything like that. That is a great scene. Oh my God. That's just so evocative. Also, the way it opens, the canopy, how it slides open just like a Harrier jet. You know why they did that?
01:28:36
Speaker
Why? Because when they showed Tim Burton's designs, Tim Burton's looking at it, and he's like, where's the door? And they realized they forgot to put doors on the damn thing. So then they had this idea of, well, let's just have the canopy slide forward. And that's become a trademark of the Batmobile ever since. Wow, cool. Yeah. But again,
01:28:59
Speaker
Since he's the only one driving the thing most of the time, he really doesn't need a door. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it does make kind of sense that, yeah, because I know if I had a car, well, now I will because I'm a little bit older. But if I were younger and I had a car like that and I was the only one driving it, you know, what do I need doors for? Nobody's getting in this except for me. But it's it's an exceptional design and
01:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, my favorite Batmobile is the one from the 1966 series. But this one is a this close. I'm pressing my palm together, folks. It's a this close runner up for my favorite. I absolutely loved it.
01:29:49
Speaker
I love the whole design of this movie, the whole look of this movie. One thing that I like doing, folks, and maybe some of y'all might want to do this. There's some movies I watch, and I will use the controls, and I will take all the color out of it and watch it as a black and white movie. I've done this with Batman. I honestly believe they should release Batman as a black and white movie. You know, they did that with Logan. They had a black and white version. Yeah. It was called Logan Knorr.
01:30:18
Speaker
Because now when you look at Batman, it looks like a German movie from the 1930s. Yeah. Yeah. And the architecture really plays that up because that's what it looks like. It looks like one of them, you know, solid movies from the 30s and stuff like that. It looks like one of those cities that was, you know, built for because the whole thing was on a soundstage anyway.
01:30:43
Speaker
Well, this goes back to something you mentioned earlier, and that's the timeless feel of it, because you've got this kind of Gothic architecture, the style of the cars, the clothes, everything.
Timeless Design of the Movie
01:30:55
Speaker
And the animated series also did the same thing, where they had these 1930s style cars, and they had the Art Deco architecture, but then they had modern technology mixing with it too, and it all just works.
01:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's why this movie doesn't look dated at all because it has that timeless quality. It has all these different elements from different, but like I said, I was watching it and then, yeah, there were things, okay, well, that's from the 1930s and that's from the 1940s and that's from the 50s and that's from the 60s. There's nothing in there that you could point to and then say, okay, well,
01:31:35
Speaker
This movie took place in 1969. No, I mean, you know, you can't say that. But now, now here's getting some of the criticism of it. Like when you're looking at Tim Burton's Gotham from a pie, it looks amazing. The problem is when you get down to the streets, because it's all on sound stages, it doesn't feel lived in.
01:31:57
Speaker
It feels very artificial. Like, even when you see people around, it's like there's only 20 people living in this city. Well, that's because we're also going by the same things over and over. I mean, like, we keep going past Gotham City Hall. We keep going past the Monarch Theater.
01:32:13
Speaker
And we keep going past the town square, you know, it's like there's only like three parts of Gotham that we really seeing this really there's only three parts of Gotham City that we really seen this movie it's not like in the sequel where we get where they open it up a little bit more and we get to see more of Gotham City and
01:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, but in the movie. But that's one of the downsides of this movie is that the Gotham City does not feel like it's a lived in city. Whereas, you know, with one of the things the Nolan films did well, which I think is I'm biased because I'm from Chicago. But in The Dark Knight, you know, it's it's all filmed in Chicago. It's filmed on location. So it feels like a real city. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And also when you take it back to
01:32:57
Speaker
Donner Superman, you know, because they filmed it on location in New York City. So it feels like a real city. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt that I like the fact that this movie Batman, it takes place in its own reality. And I think that in in some soup, OK, it all superhero movies.
01:33:18
Speaker
I think it's necessary for them, even though they take place in what is, quote unquote, the real world, it has created its own reality. Right. So when we watch a Spider-Man movie, we're watching Spider-Man's New York. We're not watching our New York, per se. We're watching Spider-Man's, and it has to be recognizable as Spider-Man's New York. Even if, OK, even when we're watching
01:33:40
Speaker
Superman, okay, we know that's New York, but it's an acceptable standard for Metropolis because in Superman's world, that's what Metropolis would look like. This movie works very hard at creating its own reality for Batman to operate in so we can accept Batman in this reality.
01:34:00
Speaker
One of the problems I have, me, you've had this discussion many times, one of the problems I have with the Nolan Batman movies is that, to me, it works too hard at putting Batman in the real world. Yeah. Yeah. Which only, to me, points out why Batman wouldn't work in the real world. In order for Batman to work, you got to put him in a world where he can work. Right. Right. If that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah, it does. What are your thoughts on the Batsuit, the way they designed it in this movie?
Design and Purpose of the Batsuit
01:34:31
Speaker
Uh, even today when I was watching it in blue, right? And there's another thing that I got to point out once I get past the suit thing. Um, you know what? It's still impressive looking. It still is. You know, I could see myself, if I saw a guy in the middle of the night coming at me in a suit like that, I'd be scared. Yeah, I would. It's a very intimidating looking suit. Yeah. Okay.
01:35:01
Speaker
especially in Blu-ray is obviously latex and, you know, rubber and stuff like that. But but however. In some ways, I find it more aesthetically pleasing than, say, the Batsuit in the Nolan movies, which to me is like
01:35:23
Speaker
To me, that suit is just too busy. You know what? I do like the Nolan suit, but one of the things I think that this movie did that they first started backing away from in Batman Forever and then they completely abandoned in Batman and Robin is that they don't
01:35:41
Speaker
keep they don't emphasize the bat symbol and then the dark the Nolan films had the same problem too where it's this the symbol is just like this raised part of the costume but it's not highlighted anyway it doesn't draw any it doesn't draw the eye at all but this one they kept the yellow oval and so then it instantly draws the eye
01:35:59
Speaker
Yeah. I'm someone who prefers just the bat silhouette on the chest. I like that look for Batman better. But the reason it works is because it's differentiated from the rest of the costume. Whereas when you have an all-black costume and there's no outline or anything, it just doesn't work.
01:36:21
Speaker
right yeah and you know what it's not dramatic enough i mean it's like superman's s when you see that s you said oh shit you know you know shit is about to get real now when you see that yellow bat symbol yeah you know shit is about to get real and for those of you listening to this who don't know who
01:36:41
Speaker
You know, because that was the thing that was going on way back there. Well, why would Batman have that big yellow thing on his head? Well, that's to give the crooks a target to shoot at because you got body or because he's wearing body armor. That's the most hard part. Yeah. And that naturally draws your eye and that when it draws your eye, it draws your attention there. So if you're right, a guy who's panicking with a gun, you're going to shoot at the first thing that draws your attention, which is the bat symbol. Right. That bright yellow.
01:37:07
Speaker
symbol as opposed to all this other black on there. Right. Going back again to Ben Affleck. He's the guy that got the best bat suit. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, he got the best bat suit. I got lots of criticism for Zack Snyder, but one thing he did right, at least in Man of Steel and Batman V Superman, was the costume designs. Justice League, that's another story. Yeah. That worked really well in that.
01:37:34
Speaker
You looked at him, that's all shit. Well, he looks just like a Frank Miller drawing. He does, he does. Looks exactly like he walked out of Dark Knight Returns. Exactly like a, yeah, looks exactly like a Frank Miller drawing. It's incredible. But what are we talking about again? We're just talking about the overall design of the costume. Okay, yeah, I
01:37:58
Speaker
Now, of course, when we have Blu-ray and everything like that, and you can see all the little design flaws and everything like that. Yeah, it's not as awe-inspiring as when I first saw it back here. But still, it works for me as a lot of this movie works for me and everything like that. And as a little side note, I was going to say the Blu-ray. When I first saw this movie,
01:38:21
Speaker
There was a lot of criticisms that was of this movie because people say, where's all the black people? You know, because except for Billy Dee Williams, you know, didn't seem like there was any black people lived in Gotham City. Right. Now, when I first got the Blu-ray and I watched it, I said, holy shit, because there's all these black people that's in the movie that I've never saw before. If you look at the crowd scenes,
01:38:47
Speaker
in Gotham city square and everything like that. There's tons of black people walking around. Oh, wow. I didn't even realize that. Well, you know what? This is the thing that always blows my mind.
01:38:59
Speaker
when I watch a movie that I may have seen umpteen times, then I get the Blu-ray and I watch it, and I'm saying, wait a minute, they must have added shit in here because all this stuff wasn't in this movie before. And I've seen this movie a dozen times. But now all of a sudden, I'm seeing things in there I never saw before. I don't know if it's because of the picture quality, you know, the resolution and everything like that. Maybe that's it why I never saw it before. But yeah, yeah, yeah, folks, they're all black people.
01:39:29
Speaker
a lot of them. So let's talk about, what do you think doesn't work with this movie?
Batman's Moral Code and Inconsistencies
01:39:36
Speaker
Like either in general or over time? Okay. The action scenes, action scenes, they don't work. I, especially when we get to the final confrontation between Batman and the Joker and okay.
01:39:57
Speaker
You got a state of the art jet fighter with rockets and machine guns. And you've even got a computer targeting thing. And yeah, I can never understand that scene. It's like, how do you fucking miss him at that moment? And OK, I understand why he did that. He did that purely for the comedic effect of the Joker pulling out this long ass gun, which also is ridiculous. But.
01:40:25
Speaker
Let me ask you a question, my good friend. If you saw that same scene in the comic book, would you buy it?
01:40:36
Speaker
I don't know. Part of me wants to say yes. Part of me wants to say no. Ah, yeah. But okay. But here's my point. There's a part of you that want, cause if you did see that in the comic book, I'm willing to bet you would go with it, which is why I'm saying that I think that's the reason why that scene is in there because it's a comic book scene because as you well know, I don't have to tell you, there's a lot of things that you see that in a comic book.
01:41:03
Speaker
that you buy, but once you replicate them on the screen, you say, oh, bullshit. Right. Right. Yeah, it's true. That's true. That's a good point. You know, but for some reason in a comic book, we'll buy it. Yeah, that's when you see this.
01:41:16
Speaker
When you see that same scene played out in real life. So I'm saying I don't like that scene. I watch that scene in our cringe, but I understand the psychology of why that scene is there because it's a comic book. Yeah. More on me. Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a good argument. It still makes me cringe, though. Oh, yeah. Me too. I watch that. Oh, shit. Here it goes.
01:41:40
Speaker
The other thing I don't like about this movie, and it's a criticism of basically all the Batman films except for Nolan, is this Batman has no problems killing.
01:41:57
Speaker
Oh, he straight up murders at least 15 people in this movie. Yeah. And it gets worse in Batman Returns because then he gets downright fucking sadistic. Like he straps the bomb to the guy's chest and he smiles right before he kicks him away. Now, mind you.
01:42:13
Speaker
I've had this argument with people, because there's a scene where the Batmobile goes into the Axis chemical plant, and there's the machine guns come out, and it goes through the door, and the bombs come out, and it blows up the place and everything like that.
01:42:31
Speaker
Now, the Batmobile comes out. Now, we see Batman is stood outside sending it by remote control. Right. So I've had people say to me, well, Batman didn't know those guys were inside, so he can't be held responsible. Yeah. But then right after that, the Joker's in the helicopter and he says to Batman, ah, you missed me. Yeah. He was he was trying to murder the fuck out of everybody in that place.
01:42:55
Speaker
thank you when he goes in you know he activates the shields and everyone all the get all the the gang members come out and start firing at the batmobile no he knew there were people in that place right so batman damn well knew there was people in there like you said he blew them the fuck up yeah yeah he didn't care yeah he didn't care yeah batman oh yeah batman was about like
01:43:18
Speaker
I estimate I've never counted them, but know something now that you said I'm going to go back. I'm going to watch this movie yet and I'm going to count how many people here. But but just off the top of my head, I believe he murders it straight up murders at least about 15 people in this moment. It's got to be at least at least like there's got to be like a dozen guys in that in that in that chemical plant to begin with. Yeah, just send the chemical plant alone. And then there's a guy that he throws down the shaft that you know, the black guy.
01:43:44
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And then in the he takes that other guy, you know, he slams his head against the fucking bell first. Yeah. And then at the beginning of the movie, when those two thieves they're talking about they're talking about the other guy, you know, not after everyone that happened to Johnny, you know, he's like he was like, oh, he got he just walked off a roof. He got he was, you know, he was insane. They're like, no, no. He's like, I heard the back out of, you know, five stories straight down. He's like, you know, back and fucking straight up through someone off a building.
01:44:14
Speaker
And, um, during the Joker's parade where he's throwing out the money, where Batman flies black. Okay. He flies down. There's about eight or nine of the Joker's men that he machine guns. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, he straight up murders the fuck out of people in this movie.
01:44:35
Speaker
I said Batman just smoked a whole bunch of dudes. So that's what I think I don't like about this movie is just like the whole thing Batman not killing that just goes right out the window in these first four movies because he does the same thing in Batman Returns and then it's so crazy because then in Batman Forever he tells he tells Dick Grayson you shouldn't kill Two-Face.
01:44:59
Speaker
And it's like, motherfucker, you've been killing people this entire series. You've been dispassionately killing people left and right. And then at the end of the movie, you know, not only does he, he gives them all that speech and then, you know, Robin decides to do the right thing and not kill Two-Face. And then Batman fucking kills Two-Face anyway.
01:45:18
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. Thank you. Then he goes, so wait a bit. So he didn't want Robin to kill him. So he is killing. Well, you know, he was my best friend. If anybody's going to kill him, it should be. I mean, come on. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Batman just what else did I like that whole ending conclusion after the bat playing crash? Oh, yeah. The whole sequence. Yeah. The whole but you know why that happened, right? Yeah, because they didn't have it. They didn't know what I had in the movie.
01:45:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. They filmed that they didn't have any good. Jack Nicholson reportedly at one point turned to Tim Burton and said, well, why am I going up this could be a Denver? I don't know. Just go up there. We'll figure it out. I'll tell you once you get up there and then because he had to figure out what they're good. Why? Yeah. That whole, that whole, except for the dialogue, I like the dialogue is great. Yeah. The dialogue is great. But the actual
01:46:11
Speaker
action that goes on up there with him doing the goofy dance with Kim passenger, who we need to talk a little bit about to. Yeah. Yeah. Um, before we wrap this up, but yeah. And then that fight with the guy, which we've already said, that's a very clumsy fight, you know, and then the way that he killed, you know, he, he shoots that bolo thing that wraps up to the gargoyle. And yeah, yeah. It's not, let me put it this way. It's not a very,
01:46:41
Speaker
Satisfying.
01:46:44
Speaker
Cuckoo, but it is redeemed because we get that magnificent scene at the end where the bat signal is unveiled. Right, right. And Alfred is waiting for Vicki Vale, and he's got the champagne on her. And he has that great line, when Mr. Wayne wanted me to inform you, he'll be late tonight. He said, yeah. And Vicki Vale said, yeah, of course he will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually, that brings me to something else that's a criticism of this movie, and that's Commissioner Gordon.
01:47:12
Speaker
where he has jack shit to do in this movie. No way man.
Minor Role of Commissioner Gordon
01:47:18
Speaker
That is one of the things I like about the Nolan movies is that they elevated Gordon because before Robin, before Nightwing, before Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon was the closest thing Batman had to a partner out in the field.
01:47:35
Speaker
And they're downplaying Commissioner Gordon's role to that much where he doesn't really do anything in this movie. That's a little disappointing. Yes, he does have something to do with this movie. He has that scene where he is us.
01:47:50
Speaker
for one moment when he's in the axis chemical plant and they're looking for Jack Napier and he's running around taking an ax to all of the, you know, chemical things like that. And Commissioner Gordon looks up and he's Batman standing on the catwalk above him. And he goes, Oh my God. The way Pat Hingle sells that because in that moment he's us.
01:48:14
Speaker
Yeah. He's seen Batman for the first time and that's all he can say is, this is the commissioner who's seen a whole bunch of shit in his time. And this is just scared the shit out of him. Yeah. Cause he's seen Batman for the first time. And yeah, okay. He downplays him in this movie.
01:48:36
Speaker
I agree with you on that. Commissioner Gordon should have a bigger role because he is Batman's ally. But I would like to present you with the argument that we are being present because obviously in this movie Batman has just begun his career because the police aren't sure who they're dealing with yet. They even have it, you know, they don't call him Batman formally. They just refer to him as, you know, the bat really mostly in this movie. They call him the bat. They don't call him Batman until later on, you know, so.
01:49:04
Speaker
He hasn't yet formed that relationship with Commissioner Gordon that he will have later on. Right, and I can understand that argument, but then in the sequels, he still doesn't do anything. And that's where I think the ball was dropped. But I think that tone was kind of set in this movie.
01:49:22
Speaker
Well, I know what, I can't argue with you on that one. You're absolutely right. No, you are. But like I said, I do love that one magnificent scene. That is a great moment, yeah. I also do like the, I never really realized it when I was younger, but the corruption angle, like I did like how it stood out a little bit more as I'm watching it in repeat viewings, where like you've got Eckhart, who's basically pre-crisis Harvey Bullock.
01:49:54
Speaker
Cause in the, cause most people, most people probably think of Harvey Bullock. They think of him from the animated series. Cause that's where most people were introduced him where he was one of the, he's a gruff, but he's a good cop. Whereas in the crisis universe though, Harvey Bullock was a corrupt cop. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Harvey Bullock was a straight up crooked cop. Yeah. And, and it, okay. This guy in this,
01:50:19
Speaker
Movie and Batman and everything but name. Yeah, he is always over both. Yeah. Yeah, he's got a different name
01:50:26
Speaker
But that's Harvey Bullock. That's who he's supposed to be. And like you said, the corruption angle, I like that scene with Pat Hingle. He's at, cause he's at the cherry ball and Alfred has interrupted Bruce Wayne and he told me, he said, Oh, well, commissioner Gordon had to leave suddenly. And then, and they had that nice little conversation about the champagne. Right. Right. Right. And then Alfred said, and then Alfred reminds him.
01:50:49
Speaker
Commissioner Gordon left early. He said, and then he goes out. What do I say? No, no, sir. You need to go out that door. Yeah. And then he goes out to the back cave and he's been recording the conversation and he's talking to the cop and they're having a whole little, like you said, discussion about the corruption, everything like that. Cause the guy said, Oh yeah. Well, you know, Bullock, he told you about, you know,
01:51:12
Speaker
He got the line from Jack Napier and he's going to get them, you know, because Carl Grissom and everything. And like it's when he goes to the Axis chemicals, he's like, you know, he's like, I want him taken alive because he wants to he wants to flip Napier. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And he says the man who shoots Jack Napier will answer to me. I'll have his back. You know, and there's little tight economical scenes like that, like
01:51:40
Speaker
We haven't talked much about it, but I want to get into it now before we wrap this up. Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale, she makes her interest and is one of the great entrances in any superhero movies because we get to see her legs.
01:51:55
Speaker
And it turns out that Alexander Knox already knows who she is because she's a famous combat photojournalist who's been through, which also, which is a nice little thing. They mentioned Corto Maltese, which if you're a DC Comics fan, you say, bam, oh shit, Corto Maltese, I know that. I know. Dark Knight Returns.
01:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, which I thought was pretty cool. You can know that they put that in there. As a matter of fact, I've heard that country being mentioned in other. It's been used in other ones. Yeah, it's been used in a lot of other stuff. It's become part of like the, it's like one of the fictional countries in DC. So now they've got that. And they used it in Arrow. That was where Malcolm took Thea to train her. But I think it's,
01:52:46
Speaker
A lot of people criticize Kim Bassinger in this movie because they say, well, she's just a damsel in distress in this movie. And I really don't think so. She's reported as following the story and she's following her instincts. Yeah, you know, get this story. But then like a lot of us, she just OK.
01:53:07
Speaker
A damsel in distress, folks. This is how I see a damsel in distress. A damsel in distress is much like a reluctant hero. They both get caught up in events that are over their heads, and they have to deal with it the best way they can. Right. And one of the things I like is the scene when they're being chased by the Joker's guys, and she's photographing the whole thing.
01:53:31
Speaker
Yeah, right. So she's still doing her job throughout the whole thing. Right. She's doing her job. She's photographing all kinds of stuff that's going on, everything like that, which also, you know, leads to the scene where Batman and then you wonder, well, what else did he do when he was.
01:53:50
Speaker
Because he's in the back cave and he said, there's one more thing from you I need. And she says, what? Then his cape goes up and the bat's a fly. And then you just see him in the bed the next day. You said, wait a minute, what did he do to her? Yeah, yeah. That's a little creepy out in retrospect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:54:12
Speaker
And you know something? I never thought of that until, like I said, today, which is why I like, and I know there are plenty of people, they say, well, I can't watch a movie over and over again. But I do, because every time I would see a movie, I see something different in it. Oh yeah, definitely. Like I said, I've seen Batman about a dozen times since it originally came out. But today was the first time that occurred to me. I said, wait a minute.
01:54:35
Speaker
What else did he do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He got, why did he put her in her bed? He's gonna lift her on the couch. I mean, we're talking about a guy that murdered 15 people, so hey, he's got lots.
01:54:51
Speaker
A lot of the things I want to mention is that Alfred Guff in this movie, as Alfred, or not Michael Guff, I didn't even call him Alfred. But he is amazing as Alfred. Like he's got that sardonic dry British wit thing for him and he plays it so well.
01:55:12
Speaker
Alfred should always be the one person that can call Bruce Wayne on his shit. Exactly, yeah. Otherwise, there's no reason for Alfred. Right. I like Michael Caine. Nothing against him. I thought he did a great job. But I think Guf really embodies Alfred a lot more. You know what the problem with Michael Caine was? Michael Caine seemed to me to be too buddy-buddy. Yeah, yeah.
01:55:42
Speaker
You know, he's like his hangout buddy, his best friend. Whereas to me, even though he's known Bruce Wayne ever since he was a boy, there should be a little bit of distance. Because, OK, bottom line is Alfred is an authority figure in Bruce's life. Like I said, he should be the one person that can always call him on his shit.
01:56:04
Speaker
And in order to do that, there's a little bit of distance he has to maintain from him. Like, he still calls him Master Bruce. He still calls him Master Bruce, even though he, even though he dipered his bare bottom. Exactly, yeah.
01:56:18
Speaker
but he still calls him master Bruce reminding him of his station in their relationship as well as Alfred station in his relationship. It's a fine line that their relationship has because he loves Alfred to death. Yeah. And Alfred loves him to death, but it's still a level that they have to maintain because if they don't,
01:56:40
Speaker
then Bruce may slip over into a darkness that Alfred can't pull him out. Right. Right. And if Alfred allows his affection for this man that he's seen grown up and seen lost, but he still has to maintain a certain dispassion and attitude so that he can say, listen, you need to stop that shit. Yeah. Yeah.
01:57:02
Speaker
Yeah, he does a really good job. The only other person I think who comes close to being as good as guff is Jeremy Irons. And again, in Batman versus Superman, there's some good things. Again, because, again, he's got that thing where he talks to him anyway.
Connecting Batman Works
01:57:17
Speaker
Listen, you know, listen. Okay. And I mean, he's got that world weariness and they have this terrific scene.
01:57:25
Speaker
And Justice League, a lot of people don't even, it must've went right past them. But I know you picked up on it when they're on the plane and they're going someplace and they actually make a reference to Batman Returns. Yeah. He says, you know, one misses the day when the biggest thing we had to worry about was wind up exploding penguins. Yeah. And I said, what? But I love that scene because when I heard, okay, when I heard him say that,
01:57:52
Speaker
I said, you know something? Yeah, I can see this as being the Michael Gao and the Michael Keaton Batman outfit 20 years later. Yeah. I can see these same guys and them. Although Jeremy Irons is much younger than that, they shorten the age difference between them, though. But other than that, in characterization, you're absolutely right.
01:58:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, he I mean, he nails it perfectly in, like I said, and I keep going back and this, uh, this movie.
01:58:28
Speaker
It establishes character very quickly. And we get to know these people and who they are and their motivations very quickly. And it does that with Alfred, too, you know? Yeah. Because he doesn't actually have a lot of lines. It's more on what he does and what he says, even though I do have a problem with him revealing
01:58:53
Speaker
Bruce's identity to Vicki Vale so cavalierly. Yeah, that's a step too far. And they even reference that in Batman Returns, right? And he's talking about when Alfred's like, you know, we have to figure out what to do with the Batmobile, but we have to be discreet about it. And then Bruce is like, discretion? Who's the one who let Vicki Vale into the Batcave? He's like, I'm sitting there working. I turn around and there she is.
01:59:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, I can see Alfred bringing her to Wayne Manor and bringing Bruce to her. I said, listen, you need to tell her. Yeah. While I'm here, you need to tell her I can see him doing that. I can't see him because that's like the holiest of holies. You know, the back. Yeah. Yeah. That that I couldn't see. I understand why he did. And again, goes back to the characterization.
01:59:39
Speaker
Michael Gallo does such a good job of characterization that I understood why he did it because of the previous conversations they've had about and they lead up to that with conversations that they have about Vicki Vale. And also they show us in the in the apartment scene that Bruce isn't really able to do it himself. Yeah.
01:59:57
Speaker
Exactly. You know, Alfred kind of takes the initiative there. He's like, all right, well, look, I know you're willing to do this, but you can't bring yourself to do it. So I'm going to do it for you.
Alfred's Relationship Dynamics with Bruce
02:00:06
Speaker
Right. Exactly. But again, like I said, I could see him inviting Vicki Vale to Wayne Manor. Yeah. And bringing Bruce in and say, go ahead and tell. He said, I'll be here with you. Don't worry about it. You know, but you need to tell her. Right. Just to just throw her into the bat cave like that. That's equivalent to pushing somebody into a tank of sharks.
02:00:27
Speaker
Right. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, yeah, OK, I get that outfit likes her and he feels that Bruce can marry her and they can have a life together. But that's a step too far. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then just one other thing, just really briefly, I want to mention was Robert Woe, who plays Knox in this movie, like, yeah, you know, I've seen this movie like a dozen times and each time I watch it, like, I like his performance more and more. He's just this really small character, but he does such a good job in that in that part.
02:00:57
Speaker
You get the feeling that Alexander Knox is a guy that all he's like one story away from that big break. You know what? He's once he's one story away from being Clark Kent. He just hasn't found that story yet. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he doesn't he doesn't just like his little his little his comic timing and it just his little quips everything. He just works really well as like this unique side character in it. I'm kind of disappointed we didn't see him in Batman Returns.
02:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, you know, and that's one thing that I always wondered about. I said, you know, one day I'm going to do some research and find out about, because I could have seen where Knott's could have been a really good supporting character in all of the Batman movies. And if I was going to do a Batman movie now, I would definitely bring him back. Oh, absolutely. You know, Knott's, because I felt, yeah, he was a very interesting character. You know, to me, he was, again, in keeping with the timeless quality,
02:01:55
Speaker
of this movie, he reminded me of those smart ass, wise cocking reporters in those 1930s newspaper movies. That's who he was, yeah.
02:02:08
Speaker
You know, if this movie had been made in 1930, he would be William Powell or Karen Grant, you know, one of those
Character Study: Alexander Knox
02:02:15
Speaker
guys that played, like I said, the wise cracking, too fisted, you know, journalists, you know, who went out to get the story with his guts and his, you know, brains and whatever his balls and everything. Yeah. You know, the guy who stays up late at night, three o'clock in the morning, he's on his typewriter, pounding out the story. He's got a bottle of scotch that's on the table and
02:02:37
Speaker
a whole pack of cigarettes that he doesn't smoke and everything like that. He gives off that vibe to me. Again, another reason why I like this movie because it's a lot of different things. It's so many things that this movie pulled together and makes it work.
02:02:54
Speaker
Yes, so well, which is why I put it on the equal footing with Superman in that, again, we would never see superhero movies the same way again after Batman, because we had never seen, yes, Superman was done seriously, but it was still very light and frothy. And you know, you walked out of it and you were like, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Whereas Batman was a little bit darker.
02:03:20
Speaker
It was dealing with you know, like a damaged personality Yeah, no dealing with a very dark villain. Oh
02:03:28
Speaker
who straight up again murders people, unlike Lex Luthor, who we. Yeah. OK, he's a bad guy, but, you know, he's not really that bad, even though he tried to blow up California. You know, but still he's like Luthor. But the Joker was downright scary. I mean, right. Exactly. Yeah, because he was in your face about killing you. You know, he was one guy that he electrocuted. He shook his head when he was in the scene with the mop bosses.
02:03:56
Speaker
He says, he's talking about taking over their businesses and the other guy, Anton, he says, what if we say no? And he says, well, nobody wants a war, so we'll just shake hands and that'll be that. And he shakes his hand and he electrocutes the guy.
02:04:10
Speaker
And again, you have so many people like Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson and Robert Wall and even Kim Bassinger have been in a few. These are people who have been in comedies. And I think that they really actually made their comedic timing, as you so accurately pointed out earlier.
02:04:28
Speaker
They've made the comedic timing work in a dramatic sense. Yeah, definitely. In this movie, because there are some scenes, especially with the Joker, like I said, that, you know, it's very funny, but there are but there are also horrible shit is happening. Right. You find yourself laughing at it and then you you start to feel guilty about laughing at it. Yeah. Yeah.
02:04:50
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, like overall, I mean, I watched it today. And a matter of fact, I was just saying on Facebook early on, I said, you know what? I'm going to watch the rest of these Batman movies tonight and tomorrow because watch it. Batman is like potato chips. You can't stop it. Just one. You got it. Now I've got to watch a wall over here, which is OK, which is OK. I haven't seen them in about two years. So I'm about to about to. Yeah.
02:05:17
Speaker
Alright, so yeah, that pretty much wraps up Batman. I think the only other thing to say is that if they ever make a Batman Beyond movie, they gotta get Michael Keaton back.
02:05:27
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know what? Because I know they're having this big crisis on Infinite Earth crossover on the CW. And I know they got Kevin Conroy or they got him. He's going to be in it. I think they should have just moved Heaven and Earth to get Michael Keaton. But you know what? He strikes me as the type of guy that would do it just for fun. He might, yeah.
02:05:53
Speaker
You know, if they came to miss it, Mike, you know, it would be nice if you would, you know, just come on and just, you know, you have to be in a whole episode just being the same, you know, that would have been nice. But if they do, I would like to see him playing an old Batman at some point. Hopefully we'll get that happen because after seeing him in in Homecoming and Birdman, I'm just like, you know what? The guy still got it.
02:06:15
Speaker
And he's at the right age now. He looks perfect for the part now. He looks more like Batman now than he did back in 1989. Yes, he did. If they did a Batman Beyond or they did a straight up adaptation of The Dark Knight, yeah. Because back then, he had kind of like the frilly hair thing going on, which doesn't strike me as a Bruce Wayne thing.
02:06:41
Speaker
Like, I think Bruce Wayne should be more of an attractive kind of guy. But, so he doesn't really have that kind of thing going for him, at least not at that, but as old Bruce Wayne, he looks like he stepped right out of the comic. Absolutely. 100%. I couldn't agree with you more.
02:06:58
Speaker
All right, so we gotta talk about what we're gonna do next. So you chose this one, so that leaves it's up to me to decide for the next movie. Yeah, we're gonna throw it back to you, my man. What you got? And now, well, I thought, because you mentioned how you wanted to touch on some of the milestone movies, but also, what's a big milestone movie that's not Marvel or DC? Hmm.
02:07:26
Speaker
There's a lot of movies that could fit in there, actually. But I know which one you're thinking of. OK, we're going to see if you're right. I'm thinking of the Crow Crow. You know me, too. Yeah, the Crow. But yeah, I figured that's because that is unless you count Robocop, which I guess you could. But that is really the first R rated superhero movie. Do I know my friends or do I know my friends?
02:07:58
Speaker
So that's the first R-rated superhero movie, unless you count Robocop, which you probably could. Or Darkman maybe came out before, I'm not sure. Yeah, Darkman, yeah. So whichever one came out first. Either way, it was a landmark movie at the time, especially because it was Brandon Lee's last performance. So I figured that would be a good one to tackle next.
02:08:22
Speaker
And actually, you know what? I'm I am glad that you picked that one because it's been about 10 years since I've seen this movie. And I actually saw this movie in the theater and I saw it then and I didn't care for it then. And then like a couple of years later, I watched it again and I still couldn't see. I said, well, what's the big deal about this movie? So I'm actually glad you picked that because it's been about 10 years since I've seen it. So I'm looking forward to seeing if maybe time has
02:08:52
Speaker
You know, change your opinion on it. Yeah. Yeah. Because I like doing that with movies. I mean, movies that I haven't seen in a while. And I find that a lot of times after I've seen them again,
02:09:03
Speaker
Again, I see things in there that I never saw before and I said, oh, okay, now I get what, you know, everybody was talking about. Well, you know, a movie that I did that with was Constantine with Keanu Reeves. Like I hated it when I saw it in the theater because it was nothing like John Constantine from the comics, from the Hellblazer comics. But then I watched it again a few years ago and I'm like, you know what? Actually, this is a pretty good movie.
02:09:27
Speaker
You know what? It's not a good constant, John Constantine. Oh god, no, it's a terrible Constantine movie. But it's a good movie. It is, yeah. And you know what? Batman Returns falls in that category as well. It's a terrible Batman movie, but it's an entertaining film otherwise.
02:09:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of like, uh, the recent, uh, Lone Ranger movie, you know, with, uh, Johnny Depp. Now I tell people, is it a good Lone Ranger movie? No, it's not. It's a, it's a bullshit Lone Ranger movie. However, it's a damn good Western. I'd have to watch that again. Cause I was, I mean, I've never been the Lone Ranger fan, but I did not really enjoy watching it the first time.
02:10:04
Speaker
Oh, OK. But I'd have to get another chance. Well, that's right. Yeah. But the point being is that, yeah, there are movies that, you know, like I know, like I watch them for whatever reason is going on. And also some of it is just because I get older. My attitudes about certain things change. My prejudices about certain things change. And then I watch a movie again a couple of years later, you know, three, four or five years later. Oh, OK.
02:10:30
Speaker
OK, now I get it. You know, not. Yeah. So let me see if the crow is one of those for you. Yeah. Yeah. Matter of fact, I'm looking forward to seeing it now. I got to go see because I'm pretty sure it's on Amazon or.
02:10:43
Speaker
Netflix or whatever, if not, I'll spring for the few bucks and just get the Blu-ray and watch it. Sounds good. And then we can talk about it, you know, and then after I see, I'll let you know I've seen it and then we can schedule for our next session. Sounds like it. Which brings me to one thing that I want to stress always, because we're getting ready to wrap this up, right? Yeah. OK, folks. By all means, if you have any suggestions,
02:11:10
Speaker
any recommendations, any movies that you would like. They got to be superhero movies, because you know the name of this podcast, the Superhero Center for House. So, you know, you know, don't ask us to talk about the Poseidon Adventure. That's not a superhero movie. Although Aquaman is, you could ask us to review Aquaman. Aquaman is a superhero. So, yeah. So, you know, throw us your suggestions and recommendations and, you know, because that's what we live for.
02:11:39
Speaker
Yeah. Also, and if you think it's kind of on the border, then, you know, try and convince us. Yeah, yeah. I could be convinced. Because there are some movies like, you know, I was saying like The Crow is one of those that's kind of on the border, I think. And maybe I also mentioned Robocop is another possibility. So, you know, if you think you got something that is a superhero movie, but you're not sure, try and convince us. See if you can win us over. I'm open for it.
02:12:09
Speaker
All right, okay, and yeah, we just put up, actually just before this recording, I put up a contact form on the website, which is live now everything. It's SuperheroCinephiles.com. We've got a Twitter account too. It's SuperCinemapod, and then also on Facebook. We do? Yeah, I just put it up. I sent you, I followed you on it, so check your Twitter.
02:12:34
Speaker
Oh, okay. Cool. Thank you. And folks, let me say publicly that all the technical stuff that's being done is being done by this man. And I cannot thank him enough because I do not have the patience or the expertise to do it. And I'm willing to publicly admit that he's done a magnificent job. So, you know, I can't thank him enough for it. And I would like to thank him publicly. And, uh, I think you guys,
02:13:01
Speaker
should thank him as well, you know, because anything that goes bad on this podcast, blame me. Anything that goes well, you give Perry all the credit for it. I'm glad to take that. And if we end up getting a Patreon or something set up, I'll make sure to keep all the money for myself as well. Listen, listen, let's not get crazy. I had a feeling that would trigger you. Let's not get carried away, son.
02:13:30
Speaker
OK, but SuperheroCinephiles.com, SuperCinephile on Twitter, SuperheroCinephiles on Facebook, and email address. You can just email us through the website. But if you want to email it directly, it's SuperheroCinephiles at Gmail.com. Drop us a line. Follow us. Hopefully, we're up on, I know we're up on TuneIn.
02:13:54
Speaker
Stitcher, but it looks like Spotify and iTunes as of this recording. They're still taking a little bit. They're still taking their sweet time. So hopefully they'll get us up there soon. Curse them. I'll park some bokeh houses. Exactly. Yeah. Come on, guys. It's been three days. But anyway, look us up on those. Try and follow us on there or anywhere else you get your podcasts or you can just go directly to the website.
02:14:20
Speaker
Derek, do you have anything to promote? Anything you want to mention before we wrap up?
02:14:26
Speaker
Oh, I'm not as yet. I probably will have a bunch of stuff the next time I'd rather save it for the next time, because I probably have about like two or three things I want to talk about. So I will save it for that. And I'll, you know, regale the public with it the next time. Because we'll probably do the Crow episode before October, right? Probably, yeah.
02:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, OK. We still haven't decided on schedule folks as to when these are going to come out. We pretty much just drink it. The first episode just came out on Wednesday, and this one I'll probably have like two weeks after that. So we're going to try like two weeks or so, just see how it goes, and then. OK. Yeah, every two weeks sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think we can manage that.
02:15:13
Speaker
Okay, so thanks again, guys. I got nothing to promote myself either. I'm just about to start a new book, because the one I was working on hit a bit of a roadblock, so I'm going to try switching gears and see how that works. The only other thing is, if you like Japanese movies, check out my other podcast, JapanOnFilm.com.
02:15:32
Speaker
Yep, I highly recommend it. Thank you, my friend. And you can listen to Derek and I talk for, what was it, like two hours or so about Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai. Yeah, you broke that up into three parts, wow. Yeah, well, because the episodes on that, they're usually about like 20, 30 minutes, so I thought it'd be better to kind of split it up a little bit. Oh, okay, cool. All right, that's all for us. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll catch you next time when we talk about the crow.
02:16:01
Speaker
Okay, thank you folks. Good night and God bless.
02:16:10
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. If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners.
02:16:37
Speaker
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 Hezlionstudios.com.