Episode 218 Topics Include:
- Beached
- A desperate plea for money
- A lesson in pronunciation
- What Rian's been reading and watching
- Featured Review: Batman (1989)
Running Time: 1 hour, 41 minutes
Episode Songs:
Retro City - Adventure Club
Do I See Color - Adventure Club
This Podcast May Include Some Explicit Language
...It Also Most Likely Contains Some Spoilers
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your sister sounds like she might need some help, Rian. scary. :\
ReplyDeletei disagree that Batman 1989 gets by on nostalgia alone, because i love both Burton Batman movies and i have zero nostalgic sentiment for them. i don't recall if i saw Batman when it first came out since i was 9 years old at the time, but i do remember seeing it eventually and that i didn't like it that much, i didn't like Batman Returns at all when i was 12, i never got into those movies or Batman, period. i saw them a couple more times on video over the years, still didn't click. but then just a few years ago for some reason i gave the movies another shot and they totally clicked for me and now i think they're both great for different reasons. i don't give a shit about Batman as a character or franchise, i've only read like 4 Batman comics in my life and they were stupid and i never liked the Bruce Timm animated series that much except for Batman Beyond, and i think maybe that's part of why i like the Michael Keaton/Burton Batman flicks so much, because i can just approach them as their own movies with no baggage. they're not masterpieces, they're both kind of messes in their own ways and i agree with most of the criticisms you guys make, and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense like how did Penguin get the Batmobile schematics or how did the Joker goons get to the top of the tower when it had no stairs, how come despite the Joker letting everyone know he's throwing a parade the police don't show up, and other inconsistent characterization stuff with characters changing motivations between scenes, but what brings the movies home for me is the tone. for me tone and execution are everything, and sometimes i fault a film for a similar thing that i accept or even love in another film, and i think the tone in Burton's two Batman movies is good enough and interesting enough that i embrace the stupid problems and dumb parts as part of the whole package.
i don't much like the Christopher Nolan Batman movies and not a fan of the Dark Knight, but i think Ledger's Joker does feel like a more complete character than Nicholson's, like you're saying, Rian. Nicholson's Joker, while i do love it, does come off like Nicholson just going bonkers because it's fun, which for me has its own sort of charms. but on the other hand i'm not sure Nicholson creating a concrete, complete character would have worked for the movie, i don't know if it would have fit. i think i like the posh, rich, bourgeosie Joker better than Ledger's greasy homeless Joker, but they're both cool.
and Catwoman is the best ever. Batman Returns also has, in my opinion, the best Batman design ever. even though he can't turn his head, that costume rocks.
i also love Batman killing bad guys, gunning down those goons in cold blood in the first movie, shooting them down in the streets like dogs with Batwing-mounted gatling guns, haha. a common defense i've seen for that is that Batman did actually use a gun and kill people in the very first Detective Comics, saying shit like "a fitting end for his kind!" after killing a dude, but i don't think Batman 1989 needs that defense. it's just a different interpretation of the character, this version of Batman kills guys, the end.
i wish we could've gotten third Burton Batman movie where Billy Dee Williams is Two-Face.
I agree with what you said about letting certain films get by based on tone, which is largely why I think I like Batman Returns so much. I really don't dig the tone of the first film, though. I just find it so boring. If I had to choose a word to describe the tone of that film, it would be "blah".
DeleteI wouldn't say that Heath Ledger's Joker is "a more complete character". In fact, I believe I mentioned during the episode how little we actually know about him. His character is all about screen presence and bravado performance. In contrast to that, we get Jack Napier's back story and origin story in Burton's Batman, which makes him the more "complete character" of the two. I just think that Nicholson turned in a lackluster performance. That can probably be blamed partially on the script and Burton's direction, but whatever the case, I find his Joker pretty dull and uninteresting.
Catwoman IS the best.
I couldn't really say that I remember anything notable about the way Batman looks in either of the Burton films. Is his costume in Returns that much better than the '89 film?
People can say that Burton's Batman films are a different take on Batman as much as they want, but Batman doesn't kill. I get that he used to carry a gun back in 1989, but he also wore purple gloves. That character was a mere rough draft of what he would become, and, at least to me, one of the major parts of Batman's character is that he doesn't kill people. That aspect of the films obviously doesn't make or break them for me, but it's a startling and perplexing choice to me to have Batman flat-out killing people in Burton's movies.
I believe I mentioned this in the show too, but I really do wish that there were more Burton films in the same vein as Batman Returns. I want more Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman, too.
oh i could've sworn you said in the podcast that Ledger's Joker felt like a more complete character. i still agree with that statement whether you said it or not, heh. even though Nicholson Joker has the backstory and all that stuff, he's still inconsistent as a character, his motivations sometimes seem to change from scene to scene (it IS the Joker after all but still), while Ledger's Joker has a clear MO and philosophy, and in that i think he's more complete because he feels more real as opposed to Nicholson's Joker which seems more like a bunch of "crazy" elements cobbled together. first he's a mobster, then a homicidal maniac, then a homicidal chemist, then he's an evil artist or something..? hehheh.
Deleteno, i'm agreeing with you on the early Batman being a rough draft, i'm saying that's NOT a defense for Batman killing in 1989, it was definitely a rough draft and he's changed so much since then, that's just the usual defense i've seen people using and i wasn't going to use it. but i guess i can overlook the Batman doesn't kill thing because i don't really like that element of the character and i don't care about the integrity of the character across various media, so take me with a grain of salt on that one. ;) i'm taking the Burton movies in and of themselves and leaving the rest.
For all I know I did say that on the show. I'm a rambling man when that mic is in front of me. Nicholson's Joker definitely is all over the place. I was confused by the whole art angle too, though in real life Nicholson is a big art nut and has a super-valuable collection of paintings, which makes me wonder if that's where that aspect of the character came from.
DeleteSorry, I thought you were USING that gun defense. I guess you can look at any of the films as a kind of "Elseworlds" version of Batman. I wonder if I'm such a stickler for the no killing thing because 98% of my exposure to Batman as a kid was Batman The Animated Series. I feel like they pushed that message a lot in that show. I still have a great appreciation for the animated series, but I'm afraid to go back and watch it now because I don't want to pull back the curtain and realize that it's not as good as I remember it being, which always happens when I watch old cartoons. That's why I haven't bought that huge boxed set of the entire Real Ghostbusters series. I don't want to ruin my fond memories of the show.