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NOT OT: My Favorite Comic Book Movies of All Time

posted a year ago by ecarle (14979)
42 replies | jump to latest

Nope. Not OT, for the most part.

I've been contemplating something for some time now: we have this rather "generally accepted woe" about how comic book movies in general have taken over "the movies" of the early 21st Century. Marvel Movies are more plentiful and prolific, but the "classic" DC brands (Superman, Batman et all) give them competition. It has been a certain pleasure of mine to read viewers much younger than me debating the merits of the MCU versus the DCU.

And then I gave it some more thought. And I realized something:

Two of my favorite movies of a given year were...comic book movies. I mean, each of them got my Number One slot. And I was not a kid when I saw them.

And other than those "Big Two," I have seen quite a few OTHER comic book movies and really, really LIKED them. I'd say a few of them maybe came in at Number Two or Number Three for the year.

But here's a big one. Given my older age, hey, I actually saw Superman on its first release at Christmas of 1978. I was THERE. Pretty much at the beginning of the "comic book movie craze."

Funny thing though. Back then the "comic book movie craze" took a LONG time to get going. Traditional Hollywood simply didn't trust the comic book movie. The longhaired auteurs raised on Eurofilm had no respect for comic book movies, and studio heads didn't feel they were worth making too often.

I mean, even with Superman as the biggest hit of 1978 into 1979, it took ELEVEN MORE YEARS for Warners to make the first "Batman," all the way at the end of 80's in 1989.

And then it took THIRTEEN YEARS after Batman to get Spiderman on screen in 2002.

It was a long, slow methodical haul to get comic book movies so "acceptable" that suddenly there was a flood of them, a guaranteed yearly supply of them..where we are now.

Sidebar: I'm going to call these "comic book movies" rather than "superhero movies" because..Batman aint' got no superpowers. And I'm not going to call them "comic book hero" movies either. Because...hey, as everywhere, its the villains that make it happen.

I offer this as the most important starting point IMHO:

Superman was considered so important that it had to cast "the greatest actor of his era" to star in it: Marlon Brando. (Well, it was a 20 minute cameo, but casting him is what mattered.)

Batman was considered so important that it had to cast "ONE of the greatest actors of his era" to star in it: Jack Nicholson. And Jack may well have been THE biggest "prestige superstar" of 1988/1989 when agreed to play the Joker. Al Pacino had been on hiatus and Robert DeNiro was only starting to get bankable. Dustin Hoffman was still big(Best Actor for Rain Man in 1988) but Jack was just more...ungettable.

So Brando and Nicholson to announce the bonafides of the comic book movie; that's pretty high level(and they sure got paid good to do it.)

The Batman franchise had more "villain slots" than the Superman franchise and so Big Jack was followed by such superstars as Jim Carrey(The Riddler) and Arnold Schwarzenegger(Mr. Freeze) at these costume parties, though interestingly, Carrey and Arnold ended up in the worst Batman movies ever made.

It was with the Spiderman franchise that somebody figured out: "Hey, why give 1/3 of the gross to a superstar when these movies sell themselves now?" So, out with Jack and Jim and Arnold -- in with Willem Dafoe(Green Goblin), Alfred Molina(Doc Ock), Thomas Hayden Church(Sandman.) And from then on, whether or not a really major star HAD to play the villain was...optional.

That said, the Marvel universe in particular has always had room for a few major stars in a few roles in each movie. Samuel L. Jackson. Michael Douglas. Michelle Pffeiffer. Natalie Portman. Anthony Hopkins.

My favorite of all was: Robert Redford. I mean he was BIG in the 1970s and so handsome and so "major." And there he is in the second Captain America. SPOILER: Quintessential good guy Redford -- now rather mottled of face but still with his vocal charm and great smile -- turns heel here. He actually kills the Mexican maid who overhears his evil plotting.

And I think the very first Ironman got it exactly right for hero(Robert Downey Jr. --RDJ; cast when Tom Cruise balked) villain(Jeff Bridges) and heroine(Gwyneth Paltrow.) The entire Marvel universe "launched and re-launched" there, and with very personable personages.

So that's some generalities. As for the "on topic" nature of this, I think we might be surprised how often Hitchcock in general and Psycho in particular "inform" some of these best comic book movies.

I'm not going to play coy here and "start low with Number Ten and work my way up to Number One." My list isn't really that structured; I'm not sure if its only ten. It may be less than10.And after say the top four or five, the rest of them don't really occur to me in any particular order.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

But I'm very sure about my Number One. And very sure about Number Two. They were my favorite movies of 1989 and 2008. And I like the memory of the entire YEAR leading to my Number One almost as much as I like the movie itself. Even if it got a few "two star' reviews.

Number One: Batman(1989.) Reading comic books as a kid, I always liked Batman better than Superman. I think a lot of us did. Jack Nicholson turned down playing Lex Luthor with no explanation in Superman 1978, but he said one reason he TOOK the Joker in Batman was "I like that purply night sky mood of the Batman comics." Let's face it: Batman was HIP. Cool. A creature of the night, with a Goth edge on the one hand. But he was also kind of "James Bond in a cowl." The gadgets. The car. The plane. The fighting skills.

There was always one problem with Batman. He had Robin. This turned the 1966 era Batman TV show into more of a kiddie show than it should have been ("Holy underwear, Batman!") and led to other problems over time as the potential gay undertones of the Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson relationship manifested. It was meant to be father/son or older brother/younger brother, but thanks to things like Saturday Night Live's "Ambiguously Gay Duo" cartoons, the joke came out into the open and THAT was a problem because..you're not supposed to make fun of that.

And so the best Batman movies made the decision: No Robin. There's no Robin in Batman, Batman Returns or The Dark Knight. There is KIND of a Robin in The Dark Knight Rises, but he was well written to be yet ANOTHER Batman for the future. Not a sidekick.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

And the worst Batmans? Batman Forever(with Robin.) Batman and Robin. (Hoo boy, that did it.) That these two films were made by an openly gay director brought THAT into the mix again. I don't think is is a homophobic issue. It is an issue of the expression of the maker. Unfortunately, these films were not of the quality of Brokeback Mountain so "that issue" never had to come up. Besides, Robin is really "just a pesky kid" in Batman and Robin: "Why can't I take the car out tonight?"
Bottom line: the writing and acting and directing is just so bad in those "Robin Batmans" that any undertones weren't even up for discussion.

Which brings me back to Batman. The movie. The first movie of 1989, which evidently took Warner Brothers 11 years to decide on making after the big success of Superman in 1978.

In the meantime, Superman got a GREAT (better) Superman II in 1981, and then frittered away THAT franchise through the 80's. Superman III(with superhot Richard Pryor) wasn't good; Superman IV was a Cannon movie. Hollywood simply crapped on its own treasure there.

When Batman was finally announced for production in 1988, things became clear: First, It had a genuine "auteur" director in the newly crowned Tim Burton, whose movies "Pee Wees' Big Adventure" and "Beetlejuice" had announced a new, eccentric, quirky and SUCCESSFUL director. (The second Pee Wee movie, without Burton directing, flopped hard, which only made Tim Burton look better.)

I suppose had Tim Burton not "arrived" at the right time, Batman might have been offered to Spielberg or to one of his protogees(Robert Zemeckis or Joe Dante) or some other director for hire. After all Richard Donner got Superman only after a suprise hit , MEDIOCRE horror movie(The Omen) of 1976. Donner was a TV director before that. A journeyman. Tim Burton was a bigger deal than Richard Donner, with a more specific vision.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

And Tim Burton brought along HIS Batman -- Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice himself.) Oh, were there protests from the fans. Where was the macho, muscled Bruce Wayne/Batman we deserved? But the movie proved that THIS Batman would be wearing such an impressive black plastic body armor suit that, as one wag wrote " Pee Wee Herman would look like a muscleman in this get up." (Hmm..Pee Wee again.)

There were further benefits to Michael Keaton in the role. Actorly, he had comic timing and an eccentric performance style(he'd been somewhat a Jokerish villain in Beetlejuice.) Phyiscally, he had distinctive arching eyebrows that gave off the look of...a bat. Speaking of eyebrows, as arched as Keaton's were, they would be matched and surpassed by the eyebrows of the superstar courted to play the Joker: Jack.

The absolute key to the entire Batman experience of 1989 was Jack Nicholson's willingness to take the role. I always find that to be perhaps the most difficult thing to express about why a LOT of us suddenly found the movie to be something special , an event.

For Nicholson was something special: an Oscar-winning "prestige actor"(in movies like Reds and Ironwood) who was also a great big bankable (and FUN) movie star. Also: Jack was very, very picky about his roles. Even his "entertainments" were "important"(The Shining, Terms of Endearment, The Witches of Eastwick) and when he got serious, he got serious.

Nicholson was famous for a big run of star-making, important movies from 1969 though 1975: Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, The Last Detail, Chinatown, Cuckoo's Nest." NOBODY had that career in that period. He hit his peak. in the years thereafter - as other 70's stars crashed and burned(Elliott Gould, George Segal, Jon Voight) Nicholson managed to save slumps(Goin' South, The Border) with comebacks and Oscars(The Shining, Reds,Terms of Endearment.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Nicholson also famously refused to make blockbusters, whether they came out at Christmas or summer alike. He turned down The Sting(Redford role), Close Encounters(Dreyfuss role), Superman(Lex Luthor.) He said he "didn't want to fight special effects."

All of this -- plus two Oscars by the time Batman came along -- made Jack Nicholson "the white whale" the ungettable get ...to play The Joker. After all, he had just played The Devil in "The Witches of Eastwick" (proving that an actor of his now paunchy girth could use his stereophonic voice and seductive manner to STILL be a sex star) and there were elements of Joker madness in Jack Torrance in The Shining.

As a PERSONAL matter, Jack Nicholson was my favorite star at the time, I was well aware of his careful, pickiy career management, and I was VERY excited at the prospect that he'd be the Joker in the first real Batman movie(the 1966 movie version of the TV show doesn't really count.)

And then something happened. Press reports were that Jack Nicholson was balking and would NOT play the Joker and now the role was being pitched to ..Robin Williams. I dunno about others, but to me that was just not the same kind of star at all, with any of the same history as Jack. I remember it was like a light switch getting turned on(Jack Nicholson will play the Joker!) and OFF (Robin Williams will play the Joker. Meh.) The Nicholson and Williams names were switched so often in 1988 that it got tiring. I came to believe that if Williams was being mentioned at all..Jack must be out.

But then Jack went IN. And the excitement clock started ticking.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

You know, Jack NEEDED Batman to get reestablished after a few years of fighting for his stardom. Here was his chance to get a whole new generation of young fans (this happened to William Holden when he made The Wild Bunch.) I think Jack figured that out, and also realized that both "Batman" and the Joker role were on course to be hip and cool and the right thing for Jack Nicholson to do.

I was not a kid then, or even a teenager, but something about "Batman" (with its history in the comic books and 1966 TV show of my childhood) being LINKED to Jack Nicholson's prestige sensibilities filled me with "young excitement" perhaps past my age. No matter. We know that Star Trek fans dress up well into their fifties and the key to movies from Hitchcock to Spielberg to Burton to Cameron has been to "retain the fantasies of youth in grown up garb.) I could not WAIT for Batman with Jack Nicholson.

No major internet then, so we had to wait for clues in different ways. First an article in Newsweek around December of 1988 that showed Nicholson as the Joker(ALRIGHT! Fully committed to the make-up and costume) and Keaton as Batman(yeah -- the days of Adam West wearing a gray nylon suit that made him look flabby...are over.)

And then came a trailer in early 1989. No music on it -- which made it cool and edgy. It played some theaters, but I saw it on a cable TV "trailer show" . Nicholson. Keaton. A very beautiful Kim Basinger ("And what do you do for a living?" she asks Bruce Wayne.) Basinger is important to this for reasons I'll mention later.

The trailer gave us Nicholson both "pre-Joker" as gangster Jack Napier with his regular face ("Nice outfit, he says to Batman) and in full Joker look ("Winged freak terrorizes...wait'll they get a load of ME." ) And the trailer ended with his Joker laugh.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

The hype built and built and built. Posters started appearing in theaters with just the Batman logo, nothing else(looked at wrong, it looked like TEETH.) A longer trailer came out with more footage and, crucially, music by Danny Elfman.

Danny Elfman. He had been a rock star with Oingo Boingo, then scored Tim Burton's two first big hits and he had a symphonic, bouncy, whimsical tone to his music which he could switch to Bernard Herrmann on a dime.

Note in passing: A director often "brings along his friends' to make movie history. Example: Francis Coppola brought James Caan and Robert Duvall to "The Godfather" because they had worked with him on the little know movie "The Rain People" and he wanted to work with good actors who were also protective friends.

Here, Tim Burton "brought along" Michael Keaton and Danny Elfman. Keaton would be a great resource, but Elfman...even better. Elfman would score most Tim Burton movies for DECADES to come, Johnny Depp movies in the main.

As the summer of 1989 approached, my Batman fever grew. And I had a job and a relationship and other "adult" concerns. No matter. This did NOT feel like a "kiddie movie" to me. I actually pushed for the rescheduling of a group camping trip to a weekend OTHER than Batman opening weekend. And I waited in a very long line to see Batman. Yes, there were a few Batmans and Jokers in makeup and costume on the line. Not me. But I was akin.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

The experience did not disappoint except for this little thing: the big summer movies of 1987(The Untouchables) and 1988(Die Hard) seemed to have a lot more action than 1989's Batman, and better staged. Tim Burton didn't really seem to have an action director's talent. But the movie more than made up for that with everything else: the look, the acting, the dialogue, the music, the "epic sweep" of the tale. And above all: Jack. In slightly overweight middle age, he got the job done with his VOICE. How he hit "T" "It can truly be said that I have a baTT in my belfry." And he hissed all his "S's."

It was fun hearing Nicholson SOUND like Nicholson as he cornered Kim Basinger at the art gallery. "They say this is pretty, this is not...well, that's all over for ME," even as he barely LOOKED like Jack Nicholson under than make-up(but he did, enough.)

Ever notice this?:

Early on Nicholson and Keaton get one scene where Nicholson looks "normal"(his face hasn't been burned yet) and Keaton is dressed like Batman("Nice outfit.")

Much later on, Nicholson enters Basinger's flat in full Joker face...and Keaton looks "normal"(as Bruce Wayne.)

But everywhere else...particularly at the climax...we get Nicholson as the Joker looking at Keaton as Batman: full icons. (On the bell tower set for the climax between takes, Keaton looked at NIcholson and said "we are two grown men and look how we look.")

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

And now the moment why I reveal why this post is "on topic." Oh it very much is. For "Batman" and for other comic book movies as well. But maybe I'll got up and put OT on it anyway. We'll see.

The influence of Hitchcock and Psycho on "Batman."

The Gotham City of Burton's Batman is pretty much a fantastical mashup of soundstage sets, models and matte paintings. But it has a certain Gothic angular look and the art director who worked on Batman said:

"I think that the greatest special effect in movie history is the house in Psycho."

Hmm..an interesting consideration...is the house REALLY a "special effect"? Well, it IS rather fake and stylized. Only the front and left side of the house exteriors were really BUILT. And it is almost always viewed "up and to the left" of our vision from the hotel, up on its hill spookily looking down on us with its window eyes. Sometimes with fake clouds matted in(a special effect!) Fair enough. The greatest special effect in movie history.

And the art director of Batman made up Gotham City and Wayne Manor and all structures "in the Psycho manner."

A shift to the climax. I"ve mentioned this before, but it is REAL important now, in this discussion.

The climax of Tim Burton's Batman takes place in a bell tower that looks like "the Vertigo bell tower on steroids." Which is to say: about four times bigger than the bell tower in Vertigo. With a much bigger stairwell and a much longer climb to the top, and a much bigger bell to be rung up there. This is great "giganticism" in the Batman climax, pleasing to the eye and exciting at the same time.

And what climax does Burton STAGE at the top of that bell tower? Well, the Mount Rushmore climax from North by Northwest:

North by Northwest: Cary Grant hangs from a high place, holding Eva Marie Saint with one hand while Martin Landau grinds on Grant's other hand with his foot.

Batman: Michael Keaton hangs from a high place, holding Kim Basinger with one hand while Jack Nicholson grinds on Keaton's other hand with his foot.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

This could not be accidental -- the North by Northwest climax staged in a supersized Vertigo bell tower. In a movie with a vision inspired by the house in Psycho.

Everybody loved Batman for various reasons in 1989...but it you were a Hitchcock buff, it was extra satisfying to catch all those references. And OTHER comic book movies would take up Psycho even more directly. But that's for later...

I will add that Burton's Hitchcock-insprired, great looking nighttime climax for Batman was a big improvement on the rather rushed and chintzy looking climax for Richard Donner's Superman from 11 years earlier.

I recall how Superman began with a soaring John Williams score over "The Biggest, Longest Credit Seqwuence Ever Filmed" moved on to an overlong but involving "origin story" on Krypton and then earth, hit a funny and exciting second act with Superman FINALLY springing into action about mid-film(its great -- the helicopter rescue of Lois Lane) and then...started meandering on and on and on until SUDDENLY trying to wrap everything up with a rushed climax of destruction marked by water buckets flooding model houses and a sudden collapse in special effects and storytelling. Not good.

11 years later, Tim Burton guided a more focussed, paced and expressive climax for Batman. I'm betting that Jack Nicholson's personal participation in that climax practically COMPELLED a better climax to be written and staged. Brando was long gone from Superman once the climax for that movie was filmed.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Great final soaring musical notes from Danny Elfman. A great final shot of Batman against the moon atop a skyscraper(a mural of this shot graced Tower Video for years)...Batman delivered. With the right star playing the right villain at the right time and...for me...giving me a "year's build up of excitement" that has never been matched in the comic book film genre or my life. (I mean, Heath Ledger surprised me, but its not like I was waiting with baited breath for Heath Ledger to be the Joker, and it got sad when he died so young so far ahead of the release and, I was older and...well, it just wasn't the same.)

More later.

CONT

[–] swanstep (2616) a year ago

This could not be accidental -- the North by Northwest climax staged in a supersized Vertigo bell tower. In a movie with a vision inspired by the house in Psycho.

Perfect!

[–] swanstep (2616) a year ago

Here's the LA Times's piece on the box office situation the Tuesday after Batman (1989) opened:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-06-27-ca-4489-story.html
It's a reminder that when a film got as hot and pre-hyped as Batman was, it actually used to lift the *whole* box-office. Not only would overflow crowds settle for, I dunno, a decent dram for young people likeDead Poet's Society if Batman was sold out, but also people end up just get psyched about 'going to movies' as a social experience and so end up coming back to check out other films soon after. I'm not sure that things happen this way anymore in part because the biggest movies open on twice as many screens in the US as they did in 1989 so maybe overflow crowds can't happen in teh same way, but mostly because media is so dispersed now. In 1989 it really did feel like Batman had just splattered marketing over every available medium for months (including Bat-symbol t-shirt marketing for almost a year before the movie opened - I remember lots of pro-sportsmen, NBA players etc. wearing those t-shirts at press-conferences because they looked cool providing free marketing for the movie for months!).

Batman (1989) benefited from breakthroughs in comic books that had happened through the '80s. Darker, middle-aged, embittered Batmans had arrived in comics like 'The Dark Knight' and truly frightening rapist Jokers had too in things like 'The Killing Joke'. People were ready in 1989 for a much darker/grimmer Batman movie, and Batman (1989) in fact only flirted with that at a few points. The hard-core bat-fans I knew were all dissapointed with Batman (1989). Effectively those guys got their wish with how Batman has developed since under Nolan and in Joker and The Batman (not to mention some very dark animated series). Batman (1989) now looks like a still kid-friendly first step towards what Batman has become.

[–] swanstep (2616) a year ago

Note that The LA Times piece ends with mentioning that Do The Right Thing opens the Friday after Batman. I saw *that* with a friend opening weekend. We were the only white people in the cinema and it was quite a little bit like going to a gospel church experience: lots of people throughout talking back to the screen. It drove me bananas but had to put up with it. Anyhow, even on first viewing it was clear that DTRT was a real breakthrough film (it's up to #24 these days on sight and sounds poll (and #29 on directors poll), right next to Night of the Hunter at #25, which DTRT quotes, and no one complains. It *is* that good and important. Note that the song from DTRT's climax, Public Enemy's 'Fight The Power' became a legendary cornerstone of hiphop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmo3HFa2vjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvCOsQwpzw8
whereas Prince's goofy soundtrack for Batman is now forgotten and even at the time it was quite the career misstep for him.

Note that Spike Lee was evidently taking notes about Batman (1989)'s marketing and he tried the same t-shirt-driven strategy for his Malcolm X (1992). It didn't quite work, proving that the marketing coups that Batman (1989) pulled off weren't easily transferrable to other properties.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Here's the LA Times's piece on the box office situation the Tuesday after Batman (1989) opened:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-06-27-ca-4489-story.html
It's a reminder that when a film got as hot and pre-hyped as Batman was, it actually used to lift the *whole* box-office.

---

Such memories in that column. First of all about how much of a event Batman was. (And all that MERCHANDISE. Nicholson got a cut of that!) But also about how stacked and packed that summer was:

Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade.
Ghostbusters II.
Honey I Shrunk the Kids(FOR kids, and famlies.)

There was a weird "piggybacking effect" over the summers of the 80's:

1981: Superman II is great but "old goods."
(Indiana Jones and the) Raiders of the Lost Ark is the "shinny new thing."

1984: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is great but "old goods."
Ghostbusters is the "shiny new thing."

1989: Indiana Jones is great but "old goods again."
Ghostbusters is not so great AND "old goods."
Batman is the shiny new thing.

But there was also this: in 1975, Jaws was "the only game in town" as a summer blockbuster, no competition. in 1977, Star Wars was the only game in town as a summer blockbuster, no competition -- no wait, James Bond came back with The Spy Who Loved Me, but that was it.

Speaking of Bond: there he was in the summer of 1989 with License to Kill -- but he was swamped and would go away for 6 years before Golden Eye brought him back. James Bond never really regained his primacy after that Connery run of blockbusters in the 60's, he was a "familiar also-ran."

Anyway, in 1989, you had one, two , three blockbuster entries and plenty of other stuff earning.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Not only would overflow crowds settle for, I dunno, a decent drama for young people likeDead Poet's Society if Batman was sold out,

---

Ah, a reminder that the "coulda been Joker," Robin Williams, had himself a summer hit in Dead Poet's Society, albeit a quieter one and less big an earner.

Williams seemed to make a career "splitting" between his famous over-coked motormouth improv nutcase on the one hand...and a totally "drained" quiet little man on the other.(Awakenings.) Though eventually -- as in Dead Poet's Society -- he would do the "quiet little man" and suddenly pull out the improv wild man for a quick bit and then tuck him away again. I can't say I liked either persona, he was as much NOT one of my favorites as Jack Nicholson WAS. To each their own.

But this: I wonder. Would have Batman been the same juggernaut in 1989 if Robin Williams HAD played the Joker? My guess is: yes, sure , it was the property that was blockbuster and Williams DID have his fans. Plus: the very next summer in 1990, Nicholson starred in The Two Jakes and it didn't make a dime.

But Nicholson gave Batman the chance to matter BEYOND its blockbusterhood, to be a REALLY GOOD movie, with a really GREAT star performance. And Nicholson got me there on that Thursday night "preview showing." I was with those millions who saw that movie as soon as it was available, first showing at 11:00 pm.

What a funny bit of negotiation Jack Nicholson pulled off for Batman: he made the studio struggle and beg and plead to put Nicholson in a movie that was going to carry HIM with its blockbuster success, and he made $60 miliion for the honors of being "dragged into a hit." I love Hollywood negotiations -- and Jack was one of the best.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

NIcholson had a great line once -- "I'm always about Number Three on the top actors box office list. It gives me all the power I need." He knew that Number One and Two were usually folks like Stallone and Arnold and Cruise...Nicholson at Number Three was the "prestige star."

Nicholson also bragged (in a nice way) about how the producers who paid him big bucks for only three scenes in "A Few Good Men" -- "spent their money well, didn't they?" Its true. The movie is fairly hackneyed and dull when he is not in it. We desperately wait for him to return and when he does...fireworks.

My favorite use of Nicholson was in "Terms of Endearment." Its really a very soppy "chick flick" most of the time, with very annoying female characters, but there's Jack showing up at intervals to be funny, or to be caring, or to be loving. And every time we think he's leaving the movie -- "this must be his final scene" -- he surprises us by showing up yet AGAIN -- right up to the very last scene in the movie, where the movie KNOWINGLY has him pop out of some bushes to make all the crying people feel a little bit better. Give the man an Oscar and money. Again.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

I'm not sure that things happen this way anymore in part because the biggest movies open on twice as many screens in the US as they did in 1989 so maybe overflow crowds can't happen in teh same way,

---

I recall in 1974 driving over to "Westwood Village" near UCLA every couple weeks and the "Exorcist line" ran for blocks and ran for WEEKS. Warner Brothers and director William Friedkin simply refused to put it on many more screens in the Los Angeles area(maybe five? counting Orange County?) so that line just became part of the landscape.

It was a great ploy for showmanship but...once somebody out there said "just put the damn movie in 1000 theaters...2000 theater...3000s theaters"...that all went away. Of course, there was a risk there: 3,000 prints. Keeping 3,000 theaters in business. Etc.

---

but mostly because media is so dispersed now.

---

"And then came streaming." And Hollywood stars and movie makers have rather lost the ability to "brag."

It used to be: "The Exorcist has made $100 million!" (back when that was a lot and domestic only mattered in the US.)

It used to be: "The Birds is the highest rated movie to be shown on TV in history."

But neither box office grosses nor TV ratings can be used to tell us how movies like The Irishman on Netflix REALLY earned or how many people watched.

Sure, box office grosses can still be used for Avatar 2(which I haven't seen yet, no real interest) or Top Gun...but its rare.

Meanwhile: I have Amazon Prime and "Licorice Pizza" sits on the menu screen somewhere practically any day on turn it on and look at the menu. As a movie in theaters, it earned about $30 million. But now I suppose it will attract fans at a low level 'forever." Or maybe not!

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

In 1989 it really did feel like Batman had just splattered marketing over every available medium for months (including Bat-symbol t-shirt marketing for almost a year before the movie opened - I remember lots of pro-sportsmen, NBA players etc. wearing those t-shirts at press-conferences because they looked cool providing free marketing for the movie for months!).

---

The Superman "S" got its time in the sun...and still does, they still make Superman movies today but hell -- that damn bat symbol is just the cooler logo, yes? And it is usually printed "Gold on Black" and black is cool.

Sidebar: I always liked that Jerry Seinfeld on Seinfeld was a SUPERMAN fan, not Batman. Made him...special? Not following the crowd? Less cool?

And: in the summer of 1989, they ran a TV commercial a few weeks into the Batman run:

Footage of beaches -- empty.
Footage of a baseball stadium -- empty.
Footage of freeways -- empty.

Why? Intoned the announcer...

And the screen filled with the Batman logo and a burst of Elfman's score. The End.

Cool.

I didn't escape myself. I worked in an office and extolled my interest in Batman and Nicholson in particular. I was gifted by my co-workers with a poster from the movie: Jack in Joker garb sitting on fake "projected beach" with two zombie faced swimsuit models. Its a scene from the movie, and it made for a fairly cool poster.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Batman (1989) benefited from breakthroughs in comic books that had happened through the '80s. Darker, middle-aged, embittered Batmans had arrived in comics like 'The Dark Knight' and truly frightening rapist Jokers had too in things like 'The Killing Joke'. People were ready in 1989 for a much darker/grimmer Batman movie, and Batman (1989) in fact only flirted with that at a few points. The hard-core bat-fans I knew were all dissapointed with Batman (1989).

---

Burton's Batman at once embraced SOME of that darkness(I mean, all it had to counteract was that campy 60's kid show) while of course being unable to embrace it fully. No blockbuster then.

That said, I think it is a fairly gruesome scene when Jack's Joker shakes the hand of a gangster with a 10,000 volt joy buzzer in his hand and fries the guy into a smoking Mrs. Bates skull face corpse. Its how Jack won't let go so as to make sure the gangster dies. Its how Jack laughs while doing it. Its Jack's nutcase "conversation" with the skull faced corpse. Creepy enough at the time.

----

Effectively those guys got their wish with how Batman has developed since under Nolan and in Joker and The Batman (not to mention some very dark animated series). Batman (1989) now looks like a still kid-friendly first step towards what Batman has become.

---

That's right. Tim Burton noted that he got kicked off the Batman franchise because his second one(Batman Returns) was too "dark and grim" and "NOW look at them today!"

Indeed, I tracked the Batman movies to hitting a hard-R adults-only vibe last year with The Batman when the Riddler(a serial killer in this one) clamped one victim's head in a small cage filled with rats and let the rats eat away at his face. That's Batman in a "Saw" or "Se7en" mode but hey...why not. We got plenty of OTHER comic book franchises to stay PG.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Note that The LA Times piece ends with mentioning that Do The Right Thing opens the Friday after Batman. I saw *that* with a friend opening weekend. We were the only white people in the cinema and it was quite a little bit like going to a gospel church experience: lots of people throughout talking back to the screen. It drove me bananas but had to put up with it

---

Heh. Well, different crowds react different ways.

In his new non-fiction book , Quentin Tarantino notes that he saw the MAJORITY of movies as the only white person in black theaters, in Los Angeles in his youth.
His mother was white but dated many black men who took QT to the movies to get in good with mom. QT thus had black audiences as a gauge and black men as father figures. One of them was an NFL player.

We know this 'informed" pretty much every QT movie EXCEPT the all-white "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and "Reservoir Dogs" early on. There is even a black character in Occupied France in Inglorious Basterds.

---

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Anyhow, even on first viewing it was clear that DTRT was a real breakthrough film (it's up to #24 these days on sight and sounds poll (and #29 on directors poll), right next to Night of the Hunter at #25, which DTRT quotes, and no one complains. It *is* that good and important.

---

There was a "Batman"/DTRT crossover at the Oscars in 1990 for 1989 films. Kim "Batman" Basinger took the stage(with Alec Baldwin, then? I can't remember) and before she presented she yelled out something like "C'mon! We all know that Do the Right Thing was the REAL best movie of 1989, right?"

Was it even nominated?

Kim got appplause but I don't remember if she got invited back for awhile.

---

Whatever nomination Spike Lee got that night was lost to "Driving Miss Daisy" a racial film of another stripe. Years alter, Spike lost to "Green Book," about a white man driving a black concert pianist to concerts in the South. Spike quipped "It seems everytime I'm nominated, I lose to somebody driving somebody."

--- Note that the song from DTRT's climax, Public Enemy's 'Fight The Power' became a legendary cornerstone of hiphop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmo3HFa2vjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvCOsQwpzw8
whereas Prince's goofy soundtrack for Batman is now forgotten and even at the time it was quite the career misstep for him.

--

Yeah, the Prince songs simply didn't work. That "Party Man" thing while the Joker trashed the art museum was catchy but not quite Classic Prince and...as for the rest of the movie, I don't REMEMBER any Prince music. Oh, something over the end credits, but that don't count.

However, there was a Prince "Batman mash-up song" on the radio that summer which intercut his songs with things like Jack saying "You ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?"

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

1989: Indiana Jones is great but "old goods again."
Ghostbusters is not so great AND "old goods."
Batman is the shiny new thing.

--

Speaking of "80s summer blockbuster seasons," our on-topic friend Psycho DID matter in one of them:

Psycho II came out in the summer of 1983 and was pretty well-hyped and did...better than OK. I think it was a small hit...probably did better than, say, Frenzy.

The battleship of the summer of 1983 was Return of the Jedi, the "end"(ha) of the Star Wars saga. Psycho II couldn't come close to that, but sat comfortably a few tiers down in earnings. I suppose Psycho II benefitted from the fact that that summer, there weren't many other "big" summer sequels in play. It was not a Star TREK summer, or an Indy Jones summer. It was not a Spielberg summer. It WAS a James Bond summer, but Octopussy wasn't a big deal. I think WarGames did better than Psycho II.

Still, then and now, Psycho II simply didn't feel as BIG or as major as other summer hits of the 80's. On the other hand, a great acheivement: Psycho WAS a 1960 summer blockbuster before the term was coined and it DID get to flourish again in the 80's. (Before making Psycho II, Universal said they did polling on the movie Psycho and found it had like 90% recognition in 1982.)

Universal rolled out Psycho III on the Fourth of July in Summer 1986(Top Gun was the leader)...but the juice was gone. Not a hit. Too bad. Better than Psycho II and Tony Perkins proved a really creative film director.

[–] swanstep (2616) a year ago

Was it even nominated?

Checking now, DTRT got two noms: Lee for original screenplay (lost to Dead Poets) and Aiello for supporting actor (lost to Denzel in Glory, who was great).

On one level, DTRT did well just to get those two noms. The Oscars in the 1980s simply were not in the business of finding and championing outsider films of any kind. Witness that Sex Lies and Videotape, which beat DTRT at Cannes, and made about the same box office as DTRT and had been in its way a think-piece-attracting, zeitgesity sensation in 1989 quite comparable to DTRT, only got a single Oscar nom (just Soderbergh for Original Screenplay). And think of David Lynch: Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr oth got only single noms (just a heroic Director nod for Lynch himself each time). It was kind of the way of things at the time.

On another level though, 9 noms and 4 wins for such a tepid thing as Driving Miss Daisy was just pathetic. It's given Spike Lee a great joke/punchline ever after though, and honestly, I think DMD is now remembered mainly as 'that film with insipid racial themes that DTRT (and also things like Glory and Sex Lies and Vids) lost to' than for itself. It's funny though, notwithstanding all the changes to both the Academy and to voting procedures, dreadful Oscar successes entirely comparable to Driving Miss Daisy's still happen: Green Book and Coda being just two recent examples. Hell, if The Fabelmans (which I liked more than most I think, I just didn't think it was interesting or urgent enough to be much of an Awards contender) somehow manages to win a bunch of major awards this years, the guffawing from the likes of me will break out again. The maddening awfulness of the Oscars (and moaning about them) is part of the ritual I suppose.

[–] swanstep (2616) a year ago

that damn bat symbol is just the cooler logo, yes?

Burton had one shot in his movie that pandered directly to people's enthusiasm for the logo/symbol: the bat-plane soars high above both the city and a cloud layer, silhouetting itself against the full moon to make the logo, then arcs back down through the clouds to continue the fight with the Joker's forces. People cheered (IIRC a few people in my audience even *stood up* and cheered) at that 'logo' moment. Amazing.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Was it even nominated?

Checking now, DTRT got two noms: Lee for original screenplay (lost to Dead Poets) and Aiello for supporting actor (lost to Denzel in Glory, who was great).

---

Hmm...well then Spike's joke about "somebody driving somebody" doesn't quite take the first time. DTRT wasn't nominated for Best Picture(hence Kim Basinger's upbeat outrage) and lost original screenplay to Dead Poets Society("Carpe Diem!")

On the other hand, Spike COULD have meant: Driving Miss Daisy, not Do the Right Thing was an Oscar movie about race in 1989.

---

On one level, DTRT did well just to get those two noms. The Oscars in the 1980s simply were not in the business of finding and championing outsider films of any kind.

---

This is important, I think. The Oscars were meant to award STUDIO movies. Indie film eventually got the "Independent Spirit Awards." It was the same with the Emmys. The Emmys were meant to award NETWORK BROADCAST TV, which is why it took awhile for The Sopranos (from HBO) to win Emmys.

Spielberg wanted Netflix movies to only be nominated for Emmys, but now he's got The Fabelmans -- a total bomb in theaters, a "Netflix movie" of a different type(on other streaming.) He's gotten quiet on that Oscar thing.

Back to that STUDIO emphasis on the Oscar show. Back in the 60's, columnists like Hedda Hopper decried all those British(foreign) movies winning Oscars but I think those movies got AMERICAN studios to release them(like Columbia for Lawrence of Arabia ) or the studios set up foreign offices to make British movies for themselves(Paramount made Alfie, yes? And even Hitchcock's Frenzy was made under the auspices of Universal's British offices, using Pinewood Studios.

Parasite isn't the first foreign film to win Best Picture(how about Slumdog Millionaire?) but is it the first to win BOTH Best Picture AND Best Foreign Film? Seems unfair to me.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

On another level though, 9 noms and 4 wins for such a tepid thing as Driving Miss Daisy was just pathetic.

---

Well...an Oscar type of movie and it had some "built ins": everybody loved Jessica Tandy(hello, Mrs. Brenner from The Birds) and there were some Broadway connections, always strong at the Oscars. Morgan Freeman was certainly a good actor on the rise(in Glory the same year, yes?).

It was also a big hit. Not Batman big, but pretty big. At the end of the 1980s, the two highest grossing stars were Harrison Ford and Dan Ackroyd. Ford did it with Star Wars and Indy(and other things). Ackroyd did it with OTHER funnier co-stars -- The Blues Brothers(Belushi), Trading Places(Murphy), Ghostbusters(Murray.) But all by himself, Ackroyd took a part in Driving Miss Daisy for a percentage and ...got more rich still. And an Oscar nom.

I carried around two "joke lines" from Driving Miss Daisy(heard on TV sketches.)
One was Tandy's "Drive me on down to the Piggly Wiggly." Always found that funny and I visited some Southern States later and drove myself on down to the Piggly Wiggly where those markets are found.

The other was Morgan Freeman's defiant and argumentative declaration to Miss Daisy that he was going to stop driving so he could walk into the bushes and urinate. But he said "Miss Daisy, now I got to go and make water, now, and I'm gonna MAKE WATER."

I used that line(without crediting it) and seemed to get laughs every time. "I got to go make water."

So those are my Driving Miss Daisy memories.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Hell, if The Fabelmans (which I liked more than most I think, I just didn't think it was interesting or urgent enough to be much of an Awards contender) somehow manages to win a bunch of major awards this years, the guffawing from the likes of me will break out again.

---

Well, you know I liked it less than you(but I'll give it another try, I've changed my mind on other movies) but I'm glad you see that its rise to prime Oscar contender is...just kind of wrong. Spielberg being the director and it being the telling of his life story just makes it...wronger. A vanity Oscar for a vanity movie?

---The maddening awfulness of the Oscars (and moaning about them) is part of the ritual I suppose

--

Ever and ever but weirder these days...trying to argue over movies nobody sees and nobody remembers later.

Its like some of the satisfying wins are almost accidental: Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, for instance. A great character to play, a great performance and...paid his dues in Hollywood, beloved by many(despite his romantic woes), etc.

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

that damn bat symbol is just the cooler logo, yes?

Burton had one shot in his movie that pandered directly to people's enthusiasm for the logo/symbol: the bat-plane soars high above both the city and a cloud layer, silhouetting itself against the full moon to make the logo, then arcs back down through the clouds to continue the fight with the Joker's forces. People cheered (IIRC a few people in my audience even *stood up* and cheered) at that 'logo' moment. Amazing.

--

Indeed amazing. Happened at my theater too, and that image became the cover of the "Batman Danny Elfman score" album(not the Prince album), which I bought just to learn the musical cues.

One big cheer/applause bit came very early in Batman and I remember it well.

Jack Nicholson isn't the Joker yet, he has his real(slightly heavy) face and he is gangster Jack Napier. His mistress(ililcit, she's the BOSS's girlfriend) Jerry Hall, walks over to watch Nicholson straighten his tie in the mirror. These lines:

Jerry Hall: You look FINE.
Nicholson(pauses, turns in contempt, raises eyebrow) ...I didn't ASK.

Whoops, cheers, applause -- let's face it, mainly from MALES...because Jack is already proving a badass who doesn't much care what even his LADY thinks.

And I don't think Robin Williams could have played that scene at all.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

A little bit more history(as I try to leave it around here) on something that Batman 1989 did in movie history, or in this case VHS history.

By 1989, DVDs weren't yet the "go to" movie capture; we still had VHS tapes.

In the early 80s, it would cost you $100 to BUY any movie on VHS. Even Psycho -- which I didn't buy and instead taped off of TV ASAP(I took the commercials out with the pause button.) The idea was to milk the VHS RENTAL market and keep movies hard to buy.

The 80's went on, VHS prices went down. I bought Psycho for about $20.

But BIG hit movies were not put up for VHS sale for a FEW YEARS after release. Example: You couldn't buy 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark on VHS until 1985. You couldn't buy 1980's Empire Strikes back until 1984. Etc.

But after Batman hit big in the summer of 1989, Warner Brothers announced: "We will have Batman on VHS for sale by December 1989."

The same YEAR. The summer blockbuster could be a Christmas present about 6 months after it was in theaters.

This was considered a big risk. Why let people buy Batman for $20 bucks without re-releases or a multi-year wait?

Well, Batman broke all VHS sales records, that's why. (More money in Jack's pockets.) And now we barely have 2 month windows from theater to streaming, if that.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Indeed, when the Batman VHS hit stores at Christmas time 1989 I remember being on vacay in San Francisco and I went to Ghiardelli Square and some store there was showing Batman on every TV. I felt "man, the movies have changed again. This only came out last SUMMER." It felt historic.

Before leaving Batman 1989, this: Danny Elfman made his name with Tim Burton and most bigly with Batman. Elfman would score almost all Burton movies(they had a fight and he skipped Ed Wood before returning) and then OTHER movies. Like Sam Raimi's Spiderman.

But in 1998, Danny Elfman accepted a big challenge: to reorchestrate Bernard Herrmann's score -- start to finish -- for Van Sant's Psycho. I was amazed by what Elfman did, first of all because I don't understand the miracle of movie scoring at all but MAINLY because I knew that Herrmann score by HEART, and Van Sant would cut shots out or shorten scenes and you could HEAR Elfman "covering" by cutting the score a bit, or stretching it out a bit if Van Sant added a shot. An amazing acheivement.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

NUMBER TWO: The Dark Knight(2008.)
I'm starting to reveal here a preference for the Batman films; I think Warners has enough box office history now to know that Batman, not Superman is their DC "leader," and that generally(but now always) a Joker film beats the the others. And so a large share of folks who are NOT into all things comic book, or all things Marvel...at least show up for Batman. He's a James Bond alternative equipped with a tragic backstory , dark night playground and what has proven a rogue's gallery over two TV seasons and many movies of villains upon whom to make war.

It is a measure of living a long time that "time collapses." When The Dark Knight came out in 2008 with a new Joker, my first impulse..."but didn't we just HAVE a Joker... a few years ago?' Eh, no...more like 19 years ago which begs another question: Warners couldn't wait on a 2009 release to make it an even 20 after the Nicholson?

Universal did a similar screwup with the Van Sant Psycho. In 1998 when there really WAS a Friday December 11...Universal chose to open the movie just a week EARLIER(December 5) thus denying first night audiences the opportunity to watch a movie with the first credit "Friday December 11" ON Friday December 11. EW even printed an interviewer where a Universal spokesperson listed to that December 11 pitch and responded: "That's a good idea." But they didn't do it.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

The Batman movies after Batman 1989 rather followed the cycle of Superman movies after 1978: one good second film followed by a descent into worse and worse third and fourth ones. The Superman flops were in the 80s; the Batman flops were in the 90s.

Actually, I'm not sure that Batman Forever(with Jim Carrey as the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face) and Batman and Robin(with Arnold as Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy) WERE bombs. I thought they were OK as kids movies(I saw them WITH kids; not so with Batman 89, which I saw with a woman) , and Carrey surely had a pre-teen boy following at the time.

But the two movies "ruined the brand" and Warners knew it. The second one arguably killed the careers of Arnold and of Uma Thurman(without Kill Bill she would have been gone) and wounded George Clooney early on. Stars would now be wary of signing on.

A next Schumaker sequel with The Scarecrow as villain(Travolta and Spacey in the running) was cancelled; a few years were taken off; promising thriller artiste Christopher Nolan was hired and a new take was undertaken: a "serious, realistic, adult Batman."

The results were "Batman Begins" (2005), an "Batman origin story" which, interestingly, opened a year before "Casino Royale" -- a "serious, realistic adult James Bond" with an origin story! (he doesn't even care how he gets his martinis.) Great minds think alike.

Roger Ebert loved "Batman Begins." FINALLY, he wrote, a Batman movie that takes the project seriously. Fair enough

This little guy here saw Batman Begins and thought: "OK..the last ones went too far over the line into camp, this one is going over the line to so much realism its barely a Batman movie."

Take The Scarecrow. I think he was gonna be another "full make up job and costume" guy originally, but under Nolan, he became....just a guy in a suit(Cillian Murphy, not a star) , who occasionally pulls a burlap bag over his head. Kind of like The Unknown Comic. Realism.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

The other villain was a "bait and switch" . Supposedly Ken Watanabe(handsome, newly star minted in American) but really Liam Neeson. I tell you, in 2005, getting Liam Neeson as your primary villain in a Batman movie was...pretty weak toast. He was very available, not in the NIcholson range at all. But he was servicable in this "serious" piece as "Ra'a Al Ghul" -- an actual Batman villain from the comics who proves I'm not familiar with the comics at all. (Harder name to pronounce than Joker.) Ol Ra's came equipped with a back story about a supervillain organization called The League of Shadows and that gave the whole Batman series a new mythic lease on life.

But kind of dull.

Here's an interesting fact: Nolan's Joker film The Dark Knight (HIS Batman 2) "made more money than Batman Begins entire domestic run in only six days of release."

Think about that. About the nuclear power a Joker Batman had versus a Ras Al Ghul. Here's my guess: Nolan KNEW a Joker film would be giant, but THIS time, he did not WANT to lead with the Joker. His plan was sound(paraphrased): "Let me make a Batman origin story that finally focusses on Bruce Wayne and moves the villains way down in priority. Let me set up a great cast to play Alfred and Gordon and a new guy to be Bruce's inventor mentor. Let me set a realistic tone that mixes the gangster genre with knightly myth. THEN I'll give you the Joker next time and we'll all make more money but with the series properly launched."

Fair enough. And "Batman Begins" worked as far as it went(unfortunately to an elevated train climax the year after Spiderman 2 already did that, oops.)

But everybody who saw Batman Begins in a theater remembers this: at the very end of Batman Begins, "cop Gordon"(not Commissioner yet) shows Batman evidence of a new criminal in town: a Joker playing card.

And the whole theater went nuts. "Hang in there folks -- the Joker is coming!"

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Three years wasn't THAT long. I remember thinking that as much as Chris Nolan seemed to arrive with a personality cult fully intact and great praise for "saving Batman," there was still something "reduced" to this realistic take, something that took the Batman out of Batman. All three of his films got reviews that suggested he had brought the "crime film gravitas" of Heat or LA Confidential to the Batman series and I say: no , these films were still bound by their comic traditions and could not "dig in" on issues(including racial issues) as those two great films could. Still The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises ARE great films on their own terms, and The Dark Knight revealed its surprising secret weapon: Heath Ledger -- "pullling it off" --- and expertly different from Jack -- magnificently as the Joker.

Folks who thought Jack was miscast, too old, and too fat to play the Joker got all their wishes granted with Heath Ledger. Ledger won an Oscar for the role, Jack did not. Lots of folks think Heath is a better Joker than Jack. Fine. I like that two generations have two great Jokers, each a different type of Joker each in a different type of film.

But of course something tragic and unforeseeable and "universe alterating" happened before the release of The Dark Knight in summer 2008: Heath Ledger DIED. Accidental medication overdose. 27. As someone noted, Ledger might have had 50 more years of life, easy. But life is not guaranteed. Sad. Mr. Ledger rather joined James Dean in the "died too young, left us a few classics" category.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

But I think this: it doesn't really MATTER to The Dark Knight that Heath Ledger died. He's THERE, like all screen actors, alive on the screen forever, entertaining us at exactly whatever age he was when he made the movie.

Whenever I watch North by Northwest, I see Cary Grant. Alive. At a great age 55. I see Tony Perkins alive in Psycho -- 27! He peaked at 27 even though he lived a long time more(but only to 60.)

In a particular bit of trickiness for hetero guys, we can watch movies with Marilyn Monroe(dead) and Sophia Loren(real old now) from the 50s and hey -- its lust! But for who they were back then. The movies do that for sexy actresses. One or two actors have actually been quoted as saying they got into the movie business "to be remembered on screen after I die."

What's interesting about the rather minor and dull(but NOT bad) Batman Begins is how it sets up all sorts of characters and plot points that pay off BIG in the two Dark Knight movies that follow it. Nolan planned a trilogy here and he got one.

For instance Ras Al Ghul isn't much in this Joker movie, but he'll pay off in the next movie.

Meanwhile, one thing that was cheery about Batman Begins was seeing Michael frigging CAINE as Alfred. He'd been serviceable 50/60s actor Michael Gough(Konga) in the Burton films. And then getting Morgan friggin' FREEMAN as (a new character to me) in Bruce's OTHER mentor, inventor Lucius Fox. With Caine and Freeman, Batman now had not only two of the best character stars in the business -- it had two of the best VOICES. In damn "supporting roles" and not even villains.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

Maybe best of all was the conversion of grizzled old Commissioner Gordon into a much younger, more sympathetic and active "Cop Gordon" who becomes the commissioner over time. In the Burtons, old Gordon was played by yet another reliable 50s/60s character guy --the rather flat faced and heavyset Pat Hingle , a Clint Eastwood sidekick and Nick Nolte soundalike. It was nice to see Hingle get work long after his other character peers had died or retired, and he hung on into the Schmachers. But he was reduced a bit part, saying things like "There's a new villain in town, Batman...Mr. Freeze!" And it was 1966 all over again.

Chris Nolan and company gave us a younger and more dynamic Gordon, a "cop on the streets" but surprised us by giving us Gary Oldman in a surprising performance: ENDEARING. A bit of an absent-minded professor, fumbling about even as he performed brave cop feats, his moustache giving him a rather tweedy effect. You just wanted to hug him, and Batman trusted him with everything.

With Caine, Freeman, and Oldman -- ultimately Oscar winners all -- The Dark Knight had a ridiculously overqualifed support squad for Christian Bale's OK Bruce Wayne/Batman. Everything was perfectly set up for Ledger's Joker to show up and take the movie up to a billiion worldwide.

But, unfortunately, this: The Dark Knight ends up matching Batman 1989 almost exactly in one key way: the movie comes to life when the Joker is in a scene...and gets dull whenever he is not. Its unavoidable.

I liked Michael Keaton in Batman, but his scenes with Kim Basinger, or Basinger's scenes with Robert Wuhl, or the scenes with the Mayor and Harvey Dent were..ignorable when Jack wasn't on.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

The same thing almost happens in The Dark Knight. Heath comes on, the movie lights up. Scenes with Aaron Eckhardt, Maggie Gyllenhaal, even ol' Christian Bale, just can't compete. The Dark Knight does better when Bale has scenes with Caine, Freeman and Oldman, of course. And Freeman has two great standalone "cool guy" verbal attacks on adversaries: "Let me get this straight: You are aware of a man who spends his evenings beating other men to a pulp...and you are going to BLACKMAIL this man? (Smiles.) Good luck with that!"

But still, its Ledger's show.

The funny thing of course is that, unlike Batman 89, THIS Joker movie has ANOTHER villain: Harvey Dent (Eckhardt) eventually becomes Two-Face, but he matters too late.

There are two classic "film critic cliche lines":

"There is either too little of Two-Face or too much" and
"Two-Face looks like he walked in off another movie" and they BOTH fit this movie.

It must have been a boost to Jack Nicholson's ego to realize that he was in the only movie that had only ONE villain. After his 1989 turn, Warners kept giving each movie two: Penguin/Catwoman; Riddler/Two Face; Mr. Freeze/Poison Ivy and...here

..Joker/Two-Face (as the series has revved up again, the same cards are being dealt in new hands.)

No matter. Heath Ledger made his mark powerfully every scene. The opening robbery scene( he does it with a clown mask on and saying nothing but his MOVEMENTS are nuts and precise); his great first meeting with the mob(a match to a scene in the Nicholson, which was more cartoony but equally fun and scary) ; his invasion of a Bruce Wayne skyscraper party (Batman meets Die Hard) and...

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

...especially his interrogation cell tauntings of Batman, Gordon and others, including a cop with whom THIS Joker has a key conversation along these lines:

"You want me to tell you which of your cop friends were cowards?.....I like to use a knife to kill them because only with a knife can you twist it and watch the terror and pain in their eyes as life leaves them..."

Sick stuff. And an announcement: Batman isn't for kids anymore (or maybe it is; today's old-too early kids who know the cruelties of life from an early age via media.)

The Joker's description of killing matches what we see Hitchcock's worst killer -- Bob Rusk -- DO. But with a necktie. Hitchcock's WORST is a Batman baseline now.

Which reminds me: the "villain runs the movie" sure happens with a few Hitchcock movies:

Robert Walker runs Strangers on a Train. All other scenes are dull.

Barry Foster runs Frenzy. All other scenes are dull or the Oxford dinners.

Ray Milland runs Dial M. Bob Cummings scenes: dull.

It ALMOST happens with Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt, but Young Charlie is too pained and involved a leading lady.

It ALMOST happens with Norman Bates in Psycho(the Sam and Lila scenes) but Marion Crane runs her part of the movie just fine and both Marion and Arbogast get duets with Norman.

Anyway, there does seem quite a line from Hitchcock's psychos through the Batman villains, the villains run the movie and in Batman Begins(where the villains don't), the whole movie is kind of dull.

But wait, its time for Norman in a very explicit way..

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

From Batman Returns(1992) Bruce Wayne(Batman) talks to Selina Kyle(Catwoman):

Selina: Do you have a ...difficulty with duality?

Bruce: If I say yes, you might think I'm a Norman Bates/ Ted Bundy type.

That's the movie...only two in. that makes manifest not only the connection of Norman Bates/Mrs. Bates to Bruce Wayne/Batman..but establishes a "duality theme" that runs though many(though not all) of the Batman villains themselves. Like Selina Kyle/Catwoman here and...

like "Two-Face" in two Batmans.

On evidence here in The Dark Knight, it is Two-Face, not the Joker, who is our Norman referent. Two-Face is always switching from "good guy" to "bad guy" and always making decisions with a coin toss (hello Anton Chigurh!)

I suppose villains like The Joker and The Penguin and The Riddler aren't really Normanish(though the Ridder hides his identity a lot.) But Bruce Wayne is major enough for the connection to hold, as are Catwoman(in some versions) and Two-Face in all.

Which begs another question(begged before): its not ONLY Norman Bates who is a two-face. There's the wolf man( a nice man who turns into a monster under the full moon) and Dr Jekyll who turns into the monstrous Mr. Hyde from a formula(eh, the first time.)

But one might suggest that Norman is our most famous MODERN DAY two-face and with his explict mention in Batman Returns...he's in the series for good.

And in The Dark Knight via Aaron Eckhardt's Harvey Dent/Two-Face whose famous line here is: "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

A bit more on The Dark Knight.

If I give The Dark Knight the Number Two slot(right behind 1989's Batman) as my favorite comic book movie, the reasons are two fold: Batman(without Robin) is my favorite comic book hero in terms of everything else about him(Gotham City, the corruption, the nightscape, the nightmare) and...at the movies at least, The Joker has proved one of the greatest movie villains of all time. Well, twice at least. Some other times -- he was a real bust...and they gave one of those failures an OSCAR. Figures.

As I've noted before, if, with no further description one was shown footage of Jack Nicholson (talking) as the Joker versus Heath Ledger(talking) as the Joker, one would say:

(Jack) Oh, hey, that's Jack Nicholson!

(Heath): Hey, that guy's great as the Joker! Who IS that?

Jack gave us the superstar version, with a voice as famous as John Wayne's and a face as famous as...Jack Nicholson's.

But Heath got to "start from scratch." We didn't have a real "take" on his face and voice yet(as Cary Grant said, that can take ten movies for some actors to develop) so we "went with the flow" and let Ledger surprise us. With his Joker voice(there's a strong strain of Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" on SNL, especially in the hospital room scene with TwoFace but-- there are other, more snarling strains to the voice as well.) With his Joker face -- following Nolan's dictates of "realism" THIS Joker is, we are told, "wearing warpaint" on purpose.

Some of the greatness of Ledger's Joker may well be of the writers(the Nolan Brothers and David Giler, one of the writers of Alien.) Who came up with his catchphrase "Why so serious?" for instance. And who came up with the idea of the slashes at each side of his mouth -- and an ever-changing story(from the Joker himself) as to how the slashes got there?

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

As a matter of writing just as Nicholson was written his own series of nutty avant-garde lines, THIS Joker was given more of a gangster's patter and a psychopath's desire to terrorize(loving to kill slowly with a knife to watch the victim expire, etc.)

Though matters didn't go as far as they would with The Batman last year(a man's head put in a cage filled with rats) Ledger's Joker continued the trajectory of Batman away from the rest of the comic book crowd and into adult thriller territory.

And ALL of Ledger's scenes are great ones. The opening robbery(his face only appears at the end). The meeting with the mob. Crashing the society party. And everything he does with Batman AND the cops in the interrogation cell. And his hospital room meeting with Two-Face.

Ledger only seems to "lose steam" in his final upside down trapped confrontation with Batman. Despite Warners' assurances that Ledger completed all work on the movie before his early death -- it seems a little unfinished to me.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) a year ago

With Ledger's Joker guaranteeing great scenes all through The Dark Knight, the rest of the movie just rather falls into place around him: the handsome wide-screen IMAX imagery(with a side trip to China); the sterling support of Caine, Freeman, and Oldman; Batman himself(pretty cool as Bruce Wayne; a bit too much with that whispery voice as Batman -- advantage Keaton.)

But hey, the movie has a casting flaw. A big one. And its the female lead. Maggie Gyllenhaal. We will be told time and again that she has an "unconventional beauty" and she played SM sex well in "Secretary" but...she just doesn't have the kind of perfect pretty face that Kim Basinger, or Michelle Pfeiffer, or Nicole Kidman as previous Batman women had. Its miscasting, pure and simple. THIS is the woman who has both ultra-rich Bruce Wayne and dynamic DA Harvey Dent pursuing her hand in matrimony? And whom the Joker calls "beautiful"(an embarrassing moment.) Well, so sue me. These women get paid a lot of money when they get these roles. She should have been cast better. But here's the thing: it didn't matter. Rachel Dratch could have played Rachel and it wouldn't matter. The Dark Knight made a billion anyway. Joker dollars. And Maggie leaves the movie early anyway.