criterionforum.org

Let's be a little contrarian and say that Batman 89 is still the best of the series.
Let's count the ways:
For one, no stupid Bat voice. Thats annoying as hell.
A real climactic finale, not some exercise in game theory 101 cross-cut with a completely lack-luster confrontation between the bat and the joker.
Many more....

King Prendergast wrote:Let's be a little contrarian and say that Batman 89 is still the best of the series.
Let's count the ways:
For one, no stupid Bat voice. Thats annoying as hell.
A real climactic finale, not some exercise in game theory 101 cross-cut with a completely lack-luster confrontation between the bat and the joker.
Many more....

Well, there are things working against Burton's Batman film:

- Prince songs
- Jack Nicholson basically playing himself
- The Joker taking down the Bat Plane with a hand gun (?!)
- Kim Basinger

I'm sympathetic towards this film. When I think of it I don't consider it material from a comic book-- maybe that's what I have against Nolan's take. Get rid of the pretense in batman begins, and in spite of all the so called gritty realism, you have a ridiculous story. Just imagine if there was no Batman character before that film. Burton's however is completely wrapped up in itself, even if it is something of a time capsule of the early 90s; Batman doesn't stand out as an anomaly, it's once again Burton's world like in BeetleJuice. And the film is more "believable" than Nolan's, if that has to be an issue. Nolan takes great liberties with his editing, whenever an action would seem implausible to show he simply cuts to the result of that action-- it's deceptive. I don't think Burton pandered to his audience.

And what's with this who played the better joker? I haven't seen this new one, but is this joker a historical gangster from time past? I thought this was a forum that respected the vision of filmmakers.

Everything considered (King and Fletch are right on about the pros and cons of this film in particular), Michael Keaton did a hell of a job as Bruce/Batman. He internalized his need for revenge against the Jacker for killing his parents, right until that climactic scene at the end.

King Prendergast wrote:Let's be a little contrarian and say that Batman 89 is still the best of the series.
Let's count the ways:
For one, no stupid Bat voice. Thats annoying as hell.

Him not changing his voice is about as insulting to the audience's intelligence as believing people can't tell the difference between Clark Kent/Superman b/c of a pair of glasses.

A real climactic finale

There was a climactic finale in Batman '89? It was pretty boring, I must not have seen the same one. The one I saw had a buff man who had trained most of his life and was in terrific physical shape and had throughout the film beat up several thugs at one time, only to be somehow challenged by an average guy in clown makeup.

not some exercise in game theory 101 cross-cut with a completely lack-luster confrontation between the bat and the joker.

I found the confrontation believable and therefore more exciting and enticing. The Joker is Batman's equal in intelligence, not strength.

That said, I love '89, but it loses in almost every way.

It's not even the best Tim Burton Batman film for me. The whole film is so dramatically inert, it feels about 3 hours long.

Greathinker wrote:I'm sympathetic towards this film. When I think of it I don't consider it material from a comic book-- maybe that's what I have against Nolan's take. Get rid of the pretense in batman begins, and in spite of all the so called gritty realism, you have a ridiculous story. Just imagine if there was no Batman character before that film. Burton's however is completely wrapped up in itself, even if it is something of a time capsule of the early 90s; Batman doesn't stand out as an anomaly, it's once again Burton's world like in BeetleJuice. And the film is more "believable" than Nolan's, if that has to be an issue. Nolan takes great liberties with his editing, whenever an action would seem implausible to show he simply cuts to the result of that action-- it's deceptive. I don't think Burton pandered to his audience.

I do like Burton's take and I dig what you're saying but it is the fact that it is "Burton's world" is what takes me out of the film, at times. Like, the shooting down of the Batplane with a handgun. Things like that. I do think that the casting of Michael Keaton was excellent and until Christian Bale, he was the best Bruce Wayne (really, everybody looks pretty much the same in the Batman outfit), IMO. He gave little, off-kilter touches to his performance as Bruce in the first Batman film that are so interesting to watch.

Altho, I do disagree with you about Burton's film being more "believable" than the one in Nolan's film. I like that Burton took the Joker's origin from The Killing Joke but I think that I prefer the look and feel of Batman Begins that is influenced from Frank Miller's Batman Year One.

Fletch wrote:Like, the shooting down of the Batplane with a handgun.

Ok, the barrel of the thing was like a meter long and the recoil nearly knocked the Joker off his feet. The film is not asking you to believe he shot down a plane with a regular .33 handgun.

I for years thought that Batman 89 was the best out of the first 4 films, but over the years I've came around to Returns being the best of the set. I hated Returns when it came out because it felt like Burton just let his freak flag fly. Now viewing it years latter and reading many of the Batman comics, for the time it was made it was more in tune with the comics than the first one. And yea it's Jack playing himself in Joker makeup, but there are two moments where the man does shine and we do for a second get The Joker from the comics, and thats the buzzer scene and when he kills Bob.

I couldn't stop laughing when I would hear Bale do the Bat voice, it felt like Will Arnett was in the costume. I kept hoping one of the bad guy's names would be Michael.

Out of the ones I've seen - haven't seen Knight, don't really want to since I tend to hate superhero movies in general - I like the movie with Adam West, I don't know if this counts though. To me trying to give any realism to this story is kinda funny since it's some weirdo running around with pointy ears who knows martial arts. If I had never heard of Batman and had seen someone doing the same stuff as the superhero, well, that would just about make my day.

The 89 version is fun though. I love at the end when they first show the bat signal.
"How do we call him?"
"He gave us this"
I just think of Batman renting a U-Haul to bring that thing to the commissioner.

True, funny but embarrassing personal story - I was 9 years old when this came out. I was so impressed, I bet my older brother $10 that I would, by the age of 20, grow up one day to actually become Batman.

Needless to say - I paid my brother $10 on my 20th birthday, with much laughter.

I did go as far as working on making a villian-safe cardboard Batcave in one section of my room. I also fried my portable radio when trying to make my first Bat-device out of it (by wiring it into an old Commodore computer, which was going to be my Bat-computer).

Ah... my childhood in the 80's. I haven't seen this film in about 15 years.

This is definetly one of my all time favourite films... probably because I was 5 when I first saw it and it had a tremendous impact on me, as did the Making of book. Has some outrageous plot holes, mind you.

Michael Keaton on Late Night with David Letterman in 1989 and 1992 to promote the first two Batman films. Pretty fun to watch them when they were still upstarts and not-yet old. In the first appearance, Keaton also casually and knowingly spoils the movie, which is very funny - I guess that was less of a big deal before the internet. The clip also includes the original TV commercial for the first movie (presumably broadcast during the show), and it's amazing how bare and crude it feels compared to present-day ads - no additional music and minimal additional sound, it's just brief clips spliced together.

hearthesilence wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 1:43 amKeaton also casually and knowingly spoils the movie, which is very funny - I guess that was less of a big deal before the internet.

I still remember a hysterical bit Letterman did in 98 about (the real response of) how audiences were upset that the theatrical trailer for the Negotiator gave too much away. He then showed a fake version of the trailer where his announcer outlined the entire plot of the film from beginning to end, including all twists, for like five minutes. One of the funniest things I’d ever seen at the time

Jeff Daniels gave away the big twist to Blood Work while promoting it, I think on Conan.

I haven’t seen the interview but I read that when Ryan Reynolds was promoting RIPD on The Colbert Report, Stephen was all but trying to get him to say the movie ripped off Ghostbusters, in hilarious fashion.

Orlac wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 3:33 pm This is definetly one of my all time favourite films... probably because I was 5 when I first saw it and it had a tremendous impact on me, as did the Making of book. Has some outrageous plot holes, mind you.

And here's the trailer for the first time I saw it, 30 Christmases ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPmDsSz_c9w

6pm is very early for such a dark (in both senses of the word!) movie!

The BBC changed their logo for the screening too.

It was a wonderfully dark Christmas all around that year, as on Christmas Eve BBC1 premiered Scrooged at 3:20 p.m.! (Plus Michael Jackson's Moonwalker on New Years, which gets surprisingly disturbing at times itself!) I suppose you could say that they are keeping up that tradition this year with that nightmarish Worzel Gummidge series.

I vividly remember that Christmas showing too Orlac! Not least because my father had broken his leg in a motorbike accident at the time, so we had to have the family Christmas in the bedroom where he was laid up instead that year! That was the first time I saw the film (I also remember there being a bit of a fuss about the first Batman film coming out as a 12 in the cinema but a 15 rating on video, because it was that period when the 12 certificate had not yet arrived on the home video scene yet. As a 9 year old at the time, that put it beyond my grasp until that Christmas screening! I think it was still going on when Batman Returns arrived, as I got taken to the cinema to see that one since it was rated 12, but it was a 15 on VHS) but it had been a big thing in the school playground during its theatrical release. I seem to remember lots of Batman themed sticker albums and kids swapping the duplicates with each other, as was the style at the time!

My parents were weirdly inconsistent with stuff they would let me watch that was a higher age rating. I remember they baulked at Batman but for my 10th birthday they rented out Gremlins 2 and for my 11th they did the same with Terminator 2! Maybe it just came down to my birthday coinciding with what they wanted to watch themselves! I also seem to remember my dad sitting me down and getting me to watch the (18 rated) Commando and first two Lethal Weapon films around that time too. And for Christmas 1993 they gave me the whole set (at that time) of Alien films on VHS, which pretty much kicked off my love of films, and seeing films in their correct aspect ratio as just by complete chance my mum had picked up the widescreen edition of Alien in that "Widescreen Collection" series! That was also luckily the series in which the original, untampered with, Star Wars films came out in widescreen too.

On the film itself, I know that Joel Schumacher bears some responsibility too, but I do sometimes wonder how much the 'dark and gritty' Warren Beatty version of Dick Tracy (that seemed highly influenced by what Burton did with that first Batman film) affected the ability of films to do much in the same vein afterwards?

Oh yes,I remember that Moonwalker screening too! And it scared me as well! I think Flash Gordon was on the same day...

I think it was the gnashing teeth in that "Leave Me Alone" video in Moonwalker that most disturbed me at the time, plus the scary Claymation puppets in the "Speed Demon" video. Although the moment of Michael turning into an invulnerable metal robot, whilst probably meant to be awesome and uber-cool (although the prime example of Jacko's enormous ego and pre-emptive need for lots of protective armour against whatever the outside world threw at him), just gave me traumatic flashbacks to the sequence that terrified me the most as a kid of the lady getting transformed into a robot in Superman III!

I will have to go back and watch it some time, but I remember that entire film feeling like a weird fever-dream even when it was new. Goodness knows what it would be like now!

Definetly the robot for me!

BATMAN RETURNS related, but...

'Batman Allegory Disturbing' Jews and Christians column of The Gainsville Sun, 1992 - https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid= ... 84,2131409

It’s just like opening up Twitter in 2024, complete with adjacent commentary on ableism, abortion, and LGBT “extremists.” Plus ça change…

Matt wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2024 8:03 pm It’s just like opening up Twitter in 2024, complete with adjacent commentary on ableism, abortion, and LGBT “extremists.” Plus ça change…

And another Batman film on the way too!