Verdict: The Original Batman Films

The Original Batman Films

This week I go back over the old Batman movies because... well I got all the films on DVD and it seemed like a good idea. So lets all look at them all separately, starting with:

BATMAN:

Wow, is it just me or is the quality of Circ Du Soleil really going downhill

Tim Burton's first film was quite an interesting experience, going in I knew that I would inevitably compare the film to The Dark Knight (In a mirror of the Heath Ledger problem). But from the start my fears were immediately allayed. Batman is a very different movie to Knight, while they both are dripping with grit, Batman  does it in Tim Burton's usual fashion where it is so stylised you don't know how to take it is it so far gone in a self-knowing ironic way, or is it serious? I'm still not one hundred percent sure but I'm leaning toward the later. Anyway in this film the title character was played by Michael Keaton (an actor who I haven't seen much of) and it was a really strong performance, not quite the terminally unhinged performance Bale brings, rather it is one I found more enjoyable to watch as he moves through his times as Bruce Wayne with a self saddening glide, as though he is troubled by the unfortunate duality he leads. While as Batman he is akin to smoke, there one minute and gone from site the next, it reminded me a lot of the Batman in Arkham Asylum. And now to address the thing that concerned me the most.... The Joker. Let me explain, I think that Heath Ledgers Joker could be the single greatest character portrayal I have seen in all my experience, so I was hesitant to compare the two men, however Nicholson's Joker proved to be a different beast, rather than a self assured man who  only wants to show everyone how mad they are, Nicholson's Joker was just there for 'te LOLz' and I want to go along with it in that fun spirited sort of way. It wasn't without it's flaws though, the Joker was like the one splash of colour in the otherwise dreary city and while sometimes that could be exiliratingly funny, but there were too many occasions that it felt out of touch with the rest of the film.

BATMAN RETURNS:

hmm... I think we're doing it wrong

I feel as though I can't add much to the first tow aspects of my previous review here, Burton was still Burton and Keaton was still good. It is the change in villains that really sets this piece apart, with the superhero laws of movies demanding two villains we now get the Penguin, as a spurned freak who only wants vengeance despite the direction of Max Shreck, and Catwoman a nebish office worker turned sexual goddess thanks to some cats. Lets start by letting the cat out of the bag:

So in this film Catwoman acts as the principal love interest toying with Batman and trying to get Bruce Wayne into her Batcave. I think this character is a lot better built for Burton's trademark style as she can fit in with the darkness and the light, as reflected by her personality. The Penguin also works really well, being played to the point of grotesque by Danny DeVito (Whose back catalogue I now want to raid) once again the character fits better with the scenes he finds himself in and clashes less than the Joker. So in the end I rate Batman Returns higher than Batman, but not quite up to Nolan standard

BATMAN FOREVER:

"If I could just reach my Bat Orgasm spr.. Ahh there we go"

And now we enter Schumacher ville, I promised a friend I would enter this as I would an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. So keeping that in mind lets begin with the villains. Dressed in colourful clothes and fancy purple make-up Tommy Lee Jones is Two Face and if done right I would have nothing wrong with this, however because the film seems so determined to harp on about duality and his bloody coin I felt as though old Face was a bad choice as a villain, if they had just had him as a homicidal lunatic who determined people fate with a coins, so with out the whole DA back story I would have like it a lot more. And then the other villain is the Riddler played by Jim Carey in good old Jim Carey fashion, and I honestly thought I would never say anything like this but.... This version has killed all other versions of the Riddler as I don't think any others will work. The Riddler is the perfect villain for this campy style Batman, he is hilarious and the right level of unhinged to get it across with out clashing with the overall message of the thing. As for the directing, the world Schumacher creates is the nice blend of colour and darkness to make it interesting to watch the cinematography at least. Now if you are wondering why they mix colour with darkness, the big wigs at WB wanted the Batman series to become more family friendly and thus sent it to Schumacher to kiddy-ies so this is meant to be the easing process, with the next film being the full fledged cam version. Darkness you say? But the villains were bright colours and lights? Ahh well that's where Batman comes in, Val Kilmer isn't quite up to the same standard as Micheal Keaton and when he speaks it is like I can see the puppeteer putting his hands up his ass and making the motions, but as the Jokers colour clashed with the darkness of Batman then Batman's darkness clashes with colour of Batman Forever. And Robin was not needed, seriously Batman could have easily taken both of them out, and he pretty much did, so aside from holding a few storylines together I would have cut Robin.

BATMAN & ROBIN:

The movie a lot of people seemed to think they were watching

... Okay I don't know why this requires a review, either you've seen it and didn't mind it or you want to tie Joel Schumacher down to the railway tracks and set moustache twirling Justice on him.  So as far as I'm concerned this movie was just bland, there was nothing about it to set it out as good or memorable and nothing in there like say.... large robot testicles to make me want to hate it. So why do people hate it, well I think that rather than it being the "WRST MVIE EVAR!" it is more what it represents. This movie was the thing that killed the Burton franchise, gone was the dark and brooding Batman of the Burton days, now we had George Clooney and his crotch shots, I mean could you imagine if in the next Batman film Hippy man was made the villain, it would completely tarnish everything that has come before, including Heath Ledger's performance. No this isn't Transformers 2, so I can't hate it, but here is someone who can:

Summing up:

So the whole lot were a steady progression from above middle, top, below 1 and at the middle point, so the Verdict?

Verdict:

5 Things I learnt from: Salt

Today I look at the lady spy film Salt and attempt to rub some into a wound.

Oh please, did you really expect me to put a picture of her in her pants up? it's a PG13 blog people!

1. More underwear
Okay so it was only the opening scene, but Salt has been captured by North Korean agents as a spy and they are interrogating her... by pumping her full of liquids.... in her underwear. Again this is the only scene where she is dressed this way, but it sticks in your head. Not only because it features Angelina Jolie in her notably mentionable unmentionables but because it is the first scene, it sets the tone for the whole film, and ms Jolie in her wears says to me: "Hey this movie features a hot chick, so you should really enjoy this you sucker jawed youth".

And when one of the main man action heroes is this guy are you really surprised?

2. Male action heros love the sound of their own voice.
In Salt the main character will go large portions of time where she won't say anything, just skulk around the sides trying to put her plans into action, where as if you watch another action film with a male lead, you can barely go 10 minutes with out having either some piece of self-serving expositional dialogue or a narration of how they are thinking of taking a leak. But I don't blame the male leads I rather blame the Hollywood producers who believe that you can't get people to watch a movie unless there is a pair of breasts bouncing around on the screen, you want to know why the male heroes talk more, because they have to spoon feed the audience this romance that more often than not doesn't need to be in this movie. I mean imagine if in Romeo and Juliet Romeo had worked for the ISP (Italian Spy Peoples) do you really think with all the explosions and assassin's trying to get him he would have cared about the wet fish of a girl who was only interesting when he had nothing better to do? I think not.

This is what we in the biz call and "Indy in a fridge" Jr

3. Plot convenience is exacerbated
SO Salt manages to make it look like she killed the Russian President by shooing him full of spider venom that makes him look like he is dead and she knows this because her husband happened to be a spider studier/wrangler. How big a plot convenience is that? I mean really, in the Bourne movies aside from finding handy supplies of arms in various places it is all fairly well set up and conveniounce free.

After a male operative leaves / After a female operative leaves

4. Kill Frenzy is Fun Frenzy
So in a generic spy film, if the spy goes rouge then they kill everyone until they can get to the top guy and say 'wait don't shoot I didn't do it, see look at my smiley face'. While in Salt only the Russians get killed by Salt whilst the good pure and righteous Americans only get knocked out. I'm not saying this is better or worse, but it could be seen as a move towards avoiding a female anti-hero.


5. The Cold War is a new ideas bargin bucket

A game, a book and a movie

The Cold War escalated! The Russians were up to something! There a secret Soviets hiding in America! Why does it seem there is an out break of Cold War styled stories across all medias? Why can't we have that We Australians got mad with the Americans for some reason and tries to pull this same stunt? I would make about as much sense in this political climate.

Verdict: Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon

Another week, another verdict. This week I look at the geek overlord Joss Whedon and whether his recent catalogue matches the cult of personality.

History:
The young Joss was born to father and fellow writer Tom Whedon, he had a love of Monty Python, films and writing. After writing scripts for TV-shows such as Roseanne and Parenthood, he then moved into a brief job as a script doctor (Note: He worked on Pixar's first film Toy Story in this capacity) before returning to television to create the hit TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse. He has recently been secured as the director of Marvel comics upcoming Avengers movie.

Thoughts:
Okay because there is more than one show I am judging him on, I'm going to look at all of them separately.

The cast of Firefly... Crowned geek gods one and all

Firefly was Joss Whedon's Space Western Drama that only lasted one season. The problem with the show was a poor timeslot and mishandling by FOX. I thought the show itself was really good, it managed to make relatable and interesting characters regardless of which episode you watched as well as imbuing them with humour. The show rightly enjoys a cult status now as fans (known as "Browncoats") get together to act out elaborate staging of their own adventures in Whedon's 'Verse'. The thing about Firefly is that it is frustrating, not the Davies kind of frustrating where brilliance can be crushed under mediocrity, but the kind of frustration where something that is good goes unfulfilled. Yes I know he tied it all up with Serenity, but aside from a couple of invested character deaths I didn't feel anything for that movie. However I don't hold that against him because having that unfulfilled universe allows literary geeks (like me) to fill in the blanks ourselves (see the outbreak of RPFirefly forums)

The Doctor is on the Rise

Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog on the other hand was a piece genre smashing brilliance, taking a superhero story and not only flipping it to make the villain the protagonist, but also embedding it with some wicked humour and music! Seriously it was this on it's own  that made me like Whedon and it was Firefly and his writing experience that allayed fears for the Avengers. The fact that I not only feel empathy for the Geek who considers himself a joker with a conscious, but also laugh when the same guy breaks into song is something really rare to find on the internet. Yhea that's right, not only is it awesome but Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog has also broken away and proven to the TV fat cats that you don't need their healthy swag of money to make something profitable and well loved.

Stompity stomp stomp

Summing Up:
So, I wonder what I think of Joss? He has been a constantly stellar writer and continues to make, and be put in charge of some hot geek properties (*cough* Avengers), so yeah this one is easy.

Verdict:

The Knifing: Kinect

Today I lay the knives into the Microsoft Kinect business model.

Video time

Okay I know posting a video is kind of a cop out for content, but what do you want from me there is a lack of stuff out there. Anyway so the Proms were on last night and as usual Doctor Who (Wow I have been posting alot on Who for the past few days... I promise there will be something different next time) did a skit and Matt Smith just made a boys dreams come true.

The problem with Sarah Jane

Seriously I know the show needs kiddie-esque villains, but the last doctor got the trickster, a manipulator of time and space for the means of evil... What did Matt do to get a freaking bird as his enemy???

Well hello there children, it's time for a story, are you ready for story time?


Very good


The Sarah Jane Smith Adventures and I have an understanding, they can go off and do their own thing away from me, and I won't beat the kiddie desecration of Who with a large stick. But least year they had the episode Sarah Jane's Wedding, now while this on it's own wasn't enough to interest me the fact that it featured the first cross over appearance of the Doctor (then David Tennant) was enough to pique my interest. You see if we look back to last year we were suffering from a massive Who drought and any looks at Tennant's sexy Doctor were welcome and because I was desperate I was willing to grin and bear the kiddieness.

However it seems that the crossover must have been well watched because it's back again with the new Doctor (Matt 'Bowtie' Smith) with an enemy that looks like a cross between a vulture and a Jim Henson puppet. This raises 2 issues for the show, 1. Because the Doctor is there it breaks our pact and opens itself up to me watching it and murdering it, and 2. the episode will be written by Russell T. Davis.

There will be Blood!

Verdict: Russell T. Davies

Russell T. Davies

So I was writing on the Hugo awards last night and I touched on my views on Russell T. Davies, and I realised that while I had easily ladled him in my dislike category I had never justified the decision, so in order to make you all understand and because it is my 50th post and thus special I'll now deliver my Verdict on Russell T. Davies.


History:

Considered one of Davies better shows... supposedly

Russell was born Steven Russell Davies on 27 April 1963 in Wales, his mother suffering a reaction to a morphine drip suffered a phsycotic episode not long after his birth and was institutionalised.  With a fairly normal drama childhood the young Russell moved into writing and penned the acclaimed Series Queer as Folk, Bob & Rose and The Second Coming. He is most known for helming the revival of Doctor Who in 2005 and creating the spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. At the beginning of 2010 he left Doctor Who  in the hands of Steven Moffat, he continues to watch over and write episodes for the spin off with his new series Torchwood: New World take up a fair chunk of his time.

Thoughts:

A terrible monster from new Who and a Pepperpot.

I'm not going to claim to have any knowledge of Mr Davies non-Who related work so it is entirely possible that Queer as Folk  is the greatest series in the history of mankind and it would completely change my views on the man if I saw it, but I'm here to focus on Who so here comes the pain. Mr Davies will always have a place in my heart for reviving Doctor Who and his over-watch of the seasons has maintained a fairly enjoyable experience all round. The problem I have is that his writing can be so brilliantly frustrating, so hit and miss that I can't in good conscious look forward to anything he does. While he has written some great episodes such as Midnight and Waters of Mars that look at the subject of unseen fear and horror and the inner-most psyche of The Doctor makes me marvel at the way that the subject matter can be twisted. The problem is that for everyone of those episodes there are two Journey's End and The Last of the Time Lords, episodes where not only does science fiction gain the level of magic but he takes to wanking off his fan base with such gusto that one has to wonder if he has missed out on his perfect career. To take The Last of the Time Lords as a demonstration of the first one, where the previous season ender Doomsday set up a good solid device to allow transport between realities and a marvellous use of 3D glasses in order to clear up the massive building mess that Russell had created but in The Last of the Time Lords, The Doctor is revived from a gollum like state by the power of thought...

David Tennat's audition for the role of Doctor Manhattan... to many clothes.

WTF? I get that the arch-angel network connects the minds but how can the Doctor draw power from that? He isn't The Destructor from Ghostbusters who became the 'Stay Puff Marshmallow Man', and so as far as I know The Doctor can't just click his fingers and find a plot convenient way to get out of the situation, a way has to be properly weaved in and made available to the audience whilst staying hidden from their sight, see Amy's Choice. The other major complaint is the excessive ammounts of fan wank, take for example the End of Time Part 2. Now the End of Time Part 2 had a total running time of  71 minutes, one of the longest DW episodes ever, but about the last 20 minutes of the episode isn't needed, after the Doctor throws his tantrum and rescues Wilf he could have just limped back to the TARDIS and regenerated, but no, Davies has to go back over each and every companion this Doctor has had and give them an unbearably happy ending, Martha and Mickey get married, Donna gets married and the Doctor gives her a lot of money and Rose gets a nice smiley moment with The Doctor, and for some strange reason we go to a descendant of Nurse Redfern, remember her she was in that 2-parter 2 bloody seasons ago! But to head back to the proper companions for a moment, there will be people out there who call me a bit of a Grinch because 'Doesn't  David, have my babies, Tennant deserve to have a nice ending', and yes I would agree with that and this episode would be fine to do it... if we hadn't had the same thing one and a half years ago! Seriously Journey's End ended with the same sort of all smiles ending as the companions (except Donna) all walked off happy and fulfilled, so what was the point doing it again?

"We've reached the Journey's End, Having a laugh inside the TARDIS, thought it didn't make much sense, It's always nice to see them Daleks" - Chameleon Circuit

That last part has reminded me of a single instance reason I dislike Davies, the retcon. At the end of Doomsday Rose and The Doctor were separated by dimensions and one could assume she was beyond return, but peoples hearts all over the world broke as The Doctor was unable to tell Rose he loved her. It was sad but poionient that as much as The Doctor is a necessary force of the world you must keep your distance personally because he just causes destruction. As sad as it was I respected Davies for doing it. But then he went and made it so Rose gets her own personal human Doctor because she is the bestest companion or something. And it destoryed the message he had conveyed so well in Doomsday.

Thanks Seduff for the image

Torchwood seems to deliver a different style, where people die and tragedy strikes often, for that reason I look upon Children of Earth as a better Who finale than any of his real Who finales.

Summing Up:
So what do I think? Well he isn't a bad writer if he lays off the fan love and was more reasonable in his endings, but because of the forced smile ending he seems so determined to strong arm into everything, I have problems with him.


Verdict:

Hugo and the Doctor, 2 friends tied at the hip.

So the illustrious Hugo awards for science fiction have come and gone for another year and we at the far end of the Geek spectrum are left to awe at the winners and loser we find before us. So rather than delve into the sections on Books and fan-fiction that I know nothing about and have no interest in I'll skip to the Film and TV categories and de-construct them.



BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION - LONG FORM
Nominees:
Avatar Screenplay and Directed by James Cameron (Twentieth Century Fox)
District 9 Screenplay by Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell; Directed by Neill Blomkamp (TriStar Pictures)
Moon Screenplay by Nathan Parker; Story by Duncan Jones; Directed by Duncan Jones (Liberty Films)
Star Trek Screenplay by Robert Orci & Alex Kurtzman; Directed by J.J. Abrams (Paramount)
Up Screenplay by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter; Story by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, & Thomas McCarthy; Directed by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter (Disney/Pixar)


Winner:
Moon Screenplay by Nathan Parker; Story by Duncan Jones; Directed by Duncan Jones (Liberty Films)

So looking at the list this was a very strong group, and it would have been hard to pick a winner lets look a how it might have gone in regards to a 100 meter dash between the nominees.

Next category:





BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION - SHORT FORM
Nominees:
Doctor Who: "The Next Doctor" Written by Russell T Davies; Directed by Andy Goddard (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who: "Planet of the Dead" Written by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts; Directed by James Strong (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who: "The Waters of Mars" Written by Russell T Davies & Phil Ford; Directed by Graeme Harper (BBC Wales)
Dollhouse: "Epitaph 1" Story by Joss Whedon; Written by Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon; Directed by David Solomon (Mutant Enemy)
FlashForward: "No More Good Days" Written by Brannon Braga & David S. Goyer; Directed by David S. Goyer; based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer (ABC)

Winner:
Doctor Who: "The Waters of Mars" Written by Russell T Davies & Phil Ford; Directed by Graeme Harper (BBC Wales)

Ahh.. Russell we meet again, Now for the past 4 years Doctor Who has won 3 of these awards, with it's run only being stopped by Dr Horrible's sing-along blog (coincidentally my dictionary tells me at Horrible's isn't a word and that I should replace it with Horribleness, which I didn't think was a word... fun fact!) and while this may make you think I am unfair on Russell T and that he must be good if he won all those awards? I would like to point out to you that all the episodes that won, The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace and Blink were all written by my geek love overlord Steven Moffat and that this is in fact the first Russell T episode to win one. And considering it was up against those other 2 DW episodes there must have been a real lack of competition, while Mars was generally good as it gave us an unhinged and bordering on megalomaniac Doctor, the other 2 were poor attempts at cashing in on people mood at a particular time of year.

So there you have it, my take on the two entries I actually know something about, If you want to know the other categories and nominees follow this link.

The Knifing: Arkham City

New section time!!!

So yesterday I was having a night in and got a tad bored, so I sat down with my computer and came up with the insightful mess you see below... ENJOY!

5 things I learnt from: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

Today I look at Scott Pilgrim, and what it has taught me.

1. Realistic relationships can work in movies

Scott Pilgrim tells the tale of an indy slacker who must defeat the 7 evil ex's of the new girl he is dating called Ramona Flowers. The thing that first struck me upon watching this movie was how well rounded the characters and their interactions were. Seriously, I want you to think about any other 'romantic comedy' that has come out this year... now movies like the Bounty Hunter and She's out of my League spring to mind.These films take perfect models of people and throw them together with the only dilemma between them being that they can't seem to work out that they should be together. Scott Pilgrim raises a massive single finger salute to this and makes it's main characters all flawed douches. Seriously, Scott Pilgrim starts with the titular character going out with a teenager in order to help get over the girl who dumped him a year ago, that is until someone better in Ms Flowers comes along and he drops the teen like a dog at the pound. Ramona herself isn't immune to massive amounts of douche bag behavior, with her constant dumping of boyfriends resulting in the league of ex's, and then never bothering to mention to Scott what hen is facing, Ramona is always looking out for herself. But isn't that so much closer to real life, relationships are never just about me loving you so very huggy much. We get into relationships because we think we need that role of a companion filled by someone, but in the end we'll always look after ourselves over others.

2. Micheal Cera will never play anything else well.

I have always like Micheal Cera, despite the fact that he does play the one role but I don't hold it against him because he does it well... Oh come on you know the one: The indy slacker who had a secret heart of gold, and tries for a relationship and would get one if the women could see how good he is for them. His role in this film is the same... but slightly different:The indy slacker who wishes he had a secret heart of gold, and tries for a relationship and would get one if he was less of an emotional hurricane and a douche bag. However this is all irrelevant as I already knew this before I saw the film, so what did I learn? Well upon reflecting on Mr Cera's proformance I began to wonder whether he could become a true action hero or become one of those harmless or douchy characters in a drama, and I just couldn't see it, he is to humorous to be taken seriously in any Drama and he wouldn't work as an action hero because he is relate-able. What do I mean? Well in an action film we are looking at some one who is clever smart and built like a tank with legs, so rather than being relate-able they are more an idealised version of what we want to be. So here is my prediction, Michael Cera will get a few more miles out of his current stich and then spiral into cable comedy obscurity.

3. Edgar Wright is more than his resume has made out.

Okay so Edgar Wright may have been the director of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but they are hardly genre defining social deconstructions. So for him to come out and bring us something that effortlessly mixes comics with video games with movies, is near unbelievable. I look forward to seeing what else he can do with the money he hopefully will get to make more films like this.






4. People gets me!

I'll keep this short, This movies is like a long protracted look into the inner most depths of my psyche and I would bet many other geeks as well.

5. Canada beats America

I would like to draw everyone's attention to something, 2 of the Exs in the film are played by Chris Evans and Brandon Routh, who play Marvel's Captain America and DC's Superman respectively. So by  a contrived drawing of my extremly long bow, Scott Pilgrim is the best superhero of all time, beating both Marvel and DC's big guns.

Question: What other Graphic Novels do you want to see made into films? Or re-made like this?