Blank Check with Griffin & David - Batman with K. Austin Collins

Episode Date: January 6, 2019

Blank Check continues it’s mini series covering the films of director Tim Burton with the genre defining 1989 superhero movie, Batman. What was this film's impact on the industry for years to come? What other actors were in the running to play the Joker? Should Bruce Wayne wear jeans and turtlenecks? Joined by K. Austin Collins (Vanity Fair) together they examine the performances of Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton, the history of the iconic character's intellectual property in film and television, how Prince came to be involved in the project and so much more!

tell me something my friend ever podcast with the devil in the pale moonlight sure right never podcast another man's rhubarb yeah jack you are my number one podcast did he just that's all improv that's what it seems like it's him mocking jack palance which feels a little mean within the same movie. Like, is Palance picture rap? Can I just dunk on him on camera now? That weird, breathy old man. Palance is gonna beat the shit out of Nicholson

if he sees this. Palance is, like, even at this old age, so physically intimidating. I know everyone likes him. Well, also, he lived for another 15 years. That's the crazy part. And people talk about, like, the one-arm push-ups thing, but you just watch him in this and you're like, God, I wouldn't want to be punched by him.

He just seems like a real angry guy. What did he do for the next 15 years? Well, he does, like... Two City Slickers. City Slickers pretty much right after this, right? That's 90? And he wins his Oscar, 91. Oh, you're talking about that old guy?

Yeah, that old guy. That old guy. Curly. That old guy is Curly. How much... And Curly's brother. How much is he in Curly, like, City Stalkers 2? A lot.

Because he plays a different character or something? He plays Curly's brother. Right, right, right. That was... It's one of those dumb things where they were like, fuck the magic. Fuck, we killed off the good character in the first one, right? The thing that really, like, popped in this movie was the interaction. So then they have to be like, I'm Curly's brother.

He never talked about.... I got the exact same energy as Curly. So they're searching for Curly's goal. That's what, right? It's called The Legend of Curly's Goal. I've never seen that. I haven't seen that one either. Curly's brother is like, of course, I've heard a lot about you. Three guys that Curly spent four

days with across his 80 years. And you're the only people who can help me. He also did that movie with Chevy Chase, Cops and Robbersons. I think one of Ben's favorite movies, right? Another, yeah, great film. Also never seen that one. It's a holiday film. It's very fun. That's

sort of the end of it for him, but it was like, this was sort of his late career revival. Burn putting him in this felt kind of kitschy and then he has City Slickers, which is like his kitschy and then he has City Slickers which is like his career peak and then he does like

a couple shitty comedies and then he's also in Tango and Cash around now oh because he played like the chief or something he's like the third lead in that

I've never seen it I bet he's like the chief or the bad guy or something right sure yeah and look he's my number one guy

that's right welcome to Palance cast I don't know why are we talking so much Palance he's my number one guy that's right welcome to Palance cast I don't know why are we talking so much Palance he's in two scenes yeah

they're good scenes they are good scenes I always I used to watch this movie with my dad because it would be on a lot I guess and he wouldn't let me

watch the nasty scenes because I was very little we're talking when I'm like five or six years old yeah so he would not let me watch the handshake buzzer.

Right. Which is very upset and nasty. I think it's upsetting though. It's weird. It's one of those things. It's not weird if you've seen a cartoon. Fair enough. And he wouldn't let me watch the Jack Pounce getting murdered scene,

which is not bad at all. Which is not at all. He's just shot to death. Right. And there was some other, I guess something to do with the smile X probably. Some weird, you know, anything sort of nightmarish what did he do with the kinky stuff in Batman Returns

no I was unaware of Batman Returns that one was not on my radar until a little later that one is weird I mean that one is the penguin biting the guy's nose we'll talk about this next week but that was the one where parents protested how could you put this next week, but that was the one where like parents protested.

Right. Like that movie caused like controversy. That was my first movie in the theaters. Really? Returns? Yeah. I guess my parents weren't invited to the protest. I remember wanting to see it so badly

because I was three or four when it came out. Why see it so badly and being like so simultaneously revulsed and entranced by the poster that that the bat the cat the penguin poster yeah was just like this is upsetting and appealing to me i was young enough when that movie was being was out yeah that i would see the posters all the times but i didn't know much about like movie stars yet so i just assumed they were the three biggest movie stars of all time right The Bat, the Cat, the Penguin. No, but no, no.

The one where it's like Michelle, Michael, Danny DeVito, Michelle. I'm like, they must be, for them to be on top of this poster, they must be the best actors ever. It was Keaton, Pfeiffer, DeVito, right? They did Last Name's Only. But I'm saying it wasn't. No, no, no. It's their full names.

There's one I feel like that is just last name. Well, the Batman poster is Nicholson, Keaton. Right. Just the logo, just the, uh... Yeah. You know, that. You know.

Uh, yes. Amazing poster. Really, really smart poster. I get angry sometimes about how good that poster is. Oh, you get angry? I'll tell you why.

You're getting angry too much. I'm furious. We just did our ad reads. Get ready for those. He's gonna scream at you the whole time. Spoiler alert, I just got a text message that my Brooklyn delivery is on the way.

This, of course, is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin Newman. David Sims. Podcast about filmography. He's director. So, massive success early on in their career to give them a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. The first one was just the logo. This is what I'm going to talk about in one second when I'm done with the intro. This, of course,

is a main series on the films of Tim Burton. It's called Podward Scissor Cast. And this is the definition of massive success early on in your career that gives you a series of blank checks to make whatever the hell you want. He's still cashing this check. When Disney's like, do Dumbo for us,

they're still like, you're the guy who did Batman and it was good. He's had massive successes since, but he also could be downing out just on Batman for the rest of time. Because this movie essentially invents the modern blockbuster. You know you go there are these like paradigm shift moments where it's like you have like Jaws and

Star Wars in the 70s. And then I feel like this is a big shift this movie. And then Dark Knight and Iron Man in 2008. But essentially from 89 to 2008, this is the template that everyone's working off of. Star-driven, big brand movies. What were you just reacting to, Iron Man or Dark Knight?

Just cinema today. I like both of those movies, but where it's led us. Most people have taken the wrong lessons from both of those movies there was a thing even to bad movies in the wake of Batman where the thing they were really latching on to was this sense of an event like a cultural event

and that's why that poster makes me angry it makes me angry because this movie came out when I was 4 months old and I didn't live through this but if I had seen this movie came out when I was four months old, and I didn't live through this, but if I had seen this at any age where I was alert and aware and interested about cinema, I would have been like, no one's ever going to top that. Because you had

this thing where it was like, Batman is culturally omnipresent. Everyone knows what Batman is. He's existed for decades in different permutations. That logo is so universally recognized. I mean, I remember hearing this stat once

that Batman and Superman have 99% global awareness. 99% of the population of the planet Earth. Right, right, right. You could show them the logo and they'd know. And the fact that they were like,

we're making a serious Batman movie, all they had to do was just put the logo on a poster with the date and it was sold. And there's like nothing else you can really do that with. Like when people try to do similarly minimalist teaser posters now.

Here's the poster for The Shadow. The 1993 or 4 Alec Baldwin film The Shadow based on the famous radio play where the poster is just a carbon copy right? It's like

a cool image a tagline nothing else no actor no name but they're like you get it right? And of course

no one got it or no one cared right? You know like it's difficult to replicate. People tried to do this like a lot after this. I mean I feel like

the Batman Forever teaser poster is just the question mark with the date with no title. I think the Alien 3 poster is similarly maybe it's some version of an egg or a chestburster but it's kind of oblique. Like everyone tried to

do this and Batman was like the one instance where that totally fucking worked. They could have done the same thing with the original Christopher Reeve Superman poster and they didn't and the fact that they had the confidence with Batman just like put it up in a fucking bus shelter. What is the Superman poster actually? Superman is great.

But it's got a lot of text on it. It's a great poster. Well, it has a great tagline though. You'll believe a man can fly. I mean, that's good. It's not as good. I think it's a very good poster. I just love the audacity of like we don't need to say anything else.

At this point, we don't need to tell them who's in the movie. It's just the logo and a date and everyone would go, oh, fuck, there's a Batman movie. Our guest today is K. Austin Collins. Hi. From Vanity Fair. Hey, Cam. How you doing? Hi, everyone.

How's it going? So you go by K. Austin on Twitter. I mean, professionally. In my byline, professionally. In your byline. Because David was saying, oh, Cam's interested in being on the show. And I was like, I've never heard of Cam Collins. Oh, it's true.

People get confused. And then I've been reading your stuff for years, and I follow you on Twitter, and I just, I didn't know. I didn't know. It's almost like you have a Batman and a Bruce Wayne. Well, I was going to say, I mean, it is very, this hasn't happened yet, but I'm waiting for it to happen where someone's like talking shit about me,

and they don't know that it's me. Right. Oh, they're like, this Kate Austin Collins guy. You want someone to be roaming through your mansion making fun of all the suits of armor you have from all your international travels and I will sneak up behind them

and steal the girl fuck you Arliss Arliss kind of vanishes from this movie but he's so memorable sure he's supposed to die oh sure you know there's that weird shot at the end of the Joker parade when she hits him

with the car and then you see him lying on a pile of trash that was supposed to be his death and apparently like John Peters and

Peter Gruber were like fucking wool you're popping in this movie we need you for the sequel we can't kill you all like one of those stories

like they saved Jeff Goldblum because he was like connecting too hard sure right except they didn't bring him back right no one cares

there's no room for him in like the kinky universe of Catwoman no and that also that feels like that character feels like this is the thing

I find so fascinating about this movie I think Batman Returns is a superior film because Batman Returns is just like pure, uncut,

Burton, like no strings attached, he can do whatever the fuck he wants. And this movie is fascinating because it's like a really clear

Burton vision but him having to like reckon with the demands of like tentpole filmmaking and the things they think they need to sell the movie and the things that are like,

you know, popular cliches of the action films of that time and somehow it still works. Like the Robert Wool character shouldn't work in a Tim Burton movie.

He feels like he's from a shittier Batman directed by like, you know, a shittier journeyman director. And the Prince songs, like Prince fucking rules, but Prince is an entirely

different vibe. The Prince songs are an interesting addition to this movie. Could you hum one of those songs off the top of your head? I feel like I've seen this movie. And I trust. I know. Yeah, that's the one, right? And the other one.

Party man. I owned the soundtrack. I still own present tense. Yeah, right. I own it. I mean, I guess I still own it. It's on CD, wherever my CD is. But I remember when I was a kid buying it and being like,

wait a second, there's not like the theme song. Right. Right. It was a big deal. This movie had two separate soundtracks that both of them, both of them like gangbusters. Right.

But this is like, these are the things that make this movie insane. People are like, Oh yeah. Prince wrote a couple songs for that Batman movie. No. Prince wrote a Batman album. You were like nine songs. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's insane. People are like, oh yeah, Prince wrote a couple songs for that Batman movie. No, Prince wrote a Batman album. Yeah, there were like nine songs. That's what's insane, and we don't talk about the other six. They were very inspired by

the Adam West Batman, like the old cartoonish Batman. But also, one of the songs, the one that I think is the banger of the album, Vicky Waiting, is just about Batman ghosting Vicky Vale. Like, it's a song very much inspired by the plot of 1989's Batman. And it's about Vicky waiting by the phone.

And you're like, he sat down and was like, what's my Vicky Vale song? You know, like he had to like, a guy who always followed his own muses, like Prince, like no one can reign him in. No one could tell him what to do. They were like, write nine songs about Batman. He was like, cool, write on it. How did that happen actually? Do you know?

Yeah. What's the, I don't know how they talked him into it. I understand. I'm guessing it was tied to all his movies were Warner Brothers at that time. Oh, you're right. You know?

So like post purple rain, he did three more films. Yeah. So maybe it's like, let's do cross media. Let's, let's, let's have a Batman everything.

Right. And maybe he liked Batman. Let's have a Batman everything. Right. And maybe he liked Batman. It was designed by Warner Brothers. He's a Warner Brothers stablemate. Right. He was on their record label. His talent. It was recorded in six weeks.

Electric Chair, Scandalous, and Vicky Waiting are old songs. Vicky Waiting used to be called Anna Waiting. Oh, okay. About his then-girlfriend. That's crazy because it tracks so well. Right, and obviously he, like, well, fucks with us. I like that Prince was like...

He's Prince. I'm a serious millionaire. I also like that Prince was like, I gotta write a song about how frustrating it is to be Batman's girlfriend. Oh, I'll use that song about being Prince's girlfriend. He once said... Same difference.

He once said in an interview, I feel like Prince would... It's the exact same thing. Prince would just say shit sometimes said difference he once said in an interview i feel like it's the exact same thing prince would just say shit sometimes but he once said in an interview say shit like i'm batman uh that it was supposed to be a collaboration between himself and michael jackson okay where michael jackson was going to be the batman of the album and he was going to be the joker right i think that's too much uh yeah so like jackson would come in and do like a heroic ballad and then prince would come in and do like a heroic ballad and then Prince would come in and do like a weird funk villain song that literally that is what I'm reading.

That album would also like shatter glasses in a like cartoon opera singer way. If it's just both Prince and Jackson in their upper register singing about batarangs. Uh, each songs accredited to a character. So the future is scandalous are for Batman. Electric chair,

party man, and the trust are for the Joker. Vicky waiting is sung from the perspective of Bruce Wayne while lemon crush comes from Vicky Vale.

Bob the Goon. Oh, okay. Weird. He threw out 27 songs that were all about Bob the Goon. I just like that he went for it. He did. He did.

I don't think of any song as tied to Batman though or really even Vicky. It really is just like the Joker went for it. He did. He did. I don't think of any song as tied to Batman, though, or really even Vicky. It really is just like the Joker. Only the Joker would have Prince songs. The only two they play within the body of the film are the two Joker, like, I'm going to have fun. It's him at the parade, and it's him in the museum, and it's very much like, this is Joker's getting into trouble anthems. And it's classic. Right. And then they play— Jack Nichol trouble anthems. And it's classic. Right.

And then they play... I mean, Jack Nicholson really... Oh, yeah. He moves. He does. I do love, though, this feels like... I miss dancing villains. Yeah, me too.

Totally. This does feel to me like the holiday, though, where the songs weren't written when they filmed it and Nicholson is just like... Right, they're just like, just jam it. I'm going to dance at a rhythm that you could set anything into. Like, he's just doing a of like flailing and pointing at people and he's got a lot of props like he looks like he's having a great time he does look like he's having it's

why the movie works because he's just like it's kind of like meryl streep and mama mia or whatever this serious person is being so silly and like totally happy about it where they're just like they're just welcoming you into the movie you know just it's fine it's fun we're all having fun here i would argue that his casting alone changes hollywood forever sure the fact that he signs on to this movie changes hollywood and it's also just yeah it's crazy thing right when you're making this movie you need nicholson to give your movie credibility whereas now it's like these people you know big famous actors they'll they'll play the fifth lead in fucking Aquaman or whatever. Like, what?

You know, sure. Like, sign me up. Right. It's true, though, right? Wait, did Dick Tracy come before this or after this? Dick Tracy's a year after? Dick Tracy's after this. I love that movie.

Because that's one of my favorite things. There's so many. That's 1990, yes. The year after. There's so many things that, like, cultural artifacts and, like, trends and weird, like, movements that come out of this movie but one of them is that everyone misinterpreted the success of this movie and rather than making

more superhero films Right. They do like 30s gangster movies. For the next eight years they do. Because the shadow is that. They do the shadow.

They do the phantom. The saint. Like it's all like these like kind of noir-ish. Yes. There's another big one I'm forgetting. What was the one with Billy Zane?

That's the Phantom. That's the Phantom. Yes. Slam Evil. Which another big one I'm forgetting. What was the one with Billy Zane? That's The Phantom. That's The Phantom. Yes, Slam Evil. Which, you know, the great story about The Phantom is that Joe Dante was supposed to direct it and he wrote it as a comedy

that was sort of like a very Joe Dante like matinee style like loving look at the old serials. Sounds amazing. And then they had like production delays

and he I would love to see that movie. Dropped off the project because he was supposed to make something else and they hired a new director who worked off of the script that Joe Dante developed, but no one told him it was a comedy. Oh, no. And he was like, I went to the screening and I assumed they had thrown out most of my stuff.

And I was like, no, they just misinterpreted everything. The director of Free Willy. Russell McKay? No. Simon Wincer. Russell McKay, he did The Shadow. Okay. I don't think I he did The Shadow. Okay. I don't think I've seen The Shadow.

I never saw it. It's weird. Alec Baldwin? Yes, well, that's... Maybe he did. The funniest thing about The Shadow is that, like, you go 1987, Tim Burton, okay, we're going to let you make Batman. Who do you want to play Batman?

He's like, oh, my God, I just worked with this actor on Beetlejuice who'd be perfect for Batman. He has the voice. He has the steely intensity. The smoldering McKee's one. They're like, great, we already have Baldwin on the phone. He's like, hang up. I'm talking Keaton.

You know that guy with the kind of puffy hair that's a little receding already? Okay, so I have like a thousand things to talk about in this episode. But like my pin tweet. I know, I'm kind of letting you talk. My pin tweet. My pin tweet has been for years. I think it's from 2015, 14. I tweeted while re-watching this movie late one night,

Michael Keaton's hair in Batman gives me a hope that I might be able to play a superhero someday. Because I remember just watching this and being like, this guy looks so fucking unconventional in this movie. He doesn't fit into the archetype. No abs. All of this. And I was just like, it's not ever going to happen.

But I watched this and wonder if maybe there's a window through which I could sneak. And then once I got cast on the tick, I immediately pinned that tweet. Yeah, I know. Of course. Like, Babe Ruth, call my shot. Like, I fucking did it. My hair is also so much puffier in season two. I was like full Keaton.

Puff it up. Right. His hair is so puffy. Give me the flip in the back. Just all I was thinking the whole time was like, how did they let this hair be on screen? It's so weird. And especially because every like interpretation of Bruce Wayne is like so clean cut. Like so traditional, generically handsome matinee idol.

And Keaton's a handsome guy, but he's a weird kind of handsome. Like he's got weird features. He's just a marquee idol guy. He doesn't have like angular features at all. No, he's got 45 degree eyebrows. But he does have mysterious lips. Right. He's got really mysterious lips.

Mysterious lips work. Those deep crevices on the sides of his mouth. And then that weird pointy nose. Like it's like he's got a really bizarre face that is so compelling to watch. It's extremely compelling with a mask on. It is a little weird when he takes the mask off. A little bit. You're right.

He looks really good with the mask on. The purse lips thing is really good. Right. It's the lips. It's because you're just looking right at his lips. Whereas Bale doesn't have that. Bale's got eyes. He's got, you know, very weird, intense eyes. So that's a performance that screams overcompensation

for what Michael Keaton has that he doesn't. When you're watching this again, where he just picks him and he's like, I'm Batman. Like, rather than, I'm Batman. There's the one thing that I think Bale does better than Keaton, and I think it's mostly because they don't ask Keaton to do it. Which Bale is really good at. I think this is the whole

reason they cast him as Batman. Playing the role of billionaire playboy. He's very heightened. He's very silly. Because that's like the Patrick Bateman like that's why you cast him. He's a really good Bruce Wayne. He's sort of traditional. Right. But Keaton knows that this guy

is a lunatic. Okay I'm going to get to all this. So can I speed around this shit? Especially in Batman Returns, which we'll talk about. But even in this one, you're like, he's so bored when he's Bruce Wayne. I'm going to speed around this shit as much as I can. He just feels distracted. Like when someone's talking, he's just like, oh, yeah, whatever. Yeah. He is kind of a space cadet, but that's what's so appealing.

Yeah, I think that's better than or not but i like that version of bruce wayne versus the like oh he's just doing a performance i like the with this this guy can't wait to be batman like i can't have a gung-ho batman against fucking goofball right yeah sure you know yeah joker songs yeah crimes are will be a parade i can't have like a gung-ho no one ever right no one ever says to the Joker, think of the people you've killed. No one's ever trying to reason with it. It's like, I fucking date models.

Shut up. Mick Jagger's wife. Yeah. Jerry Hall. Yes. All right, go ahead. Speed round this shit. Because the hopping on this,

I'm going to start with this and then go back to the beginning. Okay, okay. I do think in terms of how well Keaton's face fits that mask, how much it transforms and his mouth and his eyes have all these power, it's framed by that cow. A, I think the cow is really well designed, and I think I picked up on watching this time.

I'm holding in a burp, sorry. I'm like looking at him like, are you the throw up? I took a massive toke. You know, I'm constantly dubbing on this show. I took a massive toke. You know, I'm constantly dubbing on this show. They actually sent out an email about all the vaping

you've been doing in the studio. I've been vaping like crazy. It is a problem. You should be in trouble. Yeah, I hotbox the studio every week and these mics smell like dang kush. Which is hard to do with a vape. I know.

Right. Well, I light it on fire. So why did you guys discontinue the week that I'm here Oh Come on Ben Get out of here The building cracked down

Ben's got his jaunty Christmas light necklace on right now though Yeah It's pretty cool Ben's getting ready for the holiday party Is that plugged in somewhere

Nope No Oh It's flashing more now It's running off Ben's Christmas spirit It's plugged straight Ben's Christmas spirit. It's plugged straight into his heart.

What do you want to talk about? Here are a couple things I'm going to say. One, I think the way the mask transforms him, A, it has to do with like, and I picked up on this time, but the angle of the eyebrows on the mask are the same as Keaton's eyebrows. They are. Whereas like Bale's mask has like a furrowed brow, lots of wrinkles. Like his is just very simple. And the Adam West and a lot of the comics of like the 70s.

Adam West has the weird curled eyebrow. The painted curl ones, but they look more sort of inquisitive. And these ones are like very arch angry eyebrows. But even the way his mouth transforms, it reminds me of Robocop where like you look at Peter Waller and you're like, oh, Peter Waller, cool cool and then when you put that helmet on him suddenly you're like this guy has the most beautiful lips in the world yeah no totally it's this very specific kind of vision that like Verhoeven and Burton both clearly had of like I see the elements of his face that are really gonna pop when we put him in this mask in this costume in a way a generically handsome man

wouldn't necessarily George Clooney for example example, is not a good Batman mask. No, not at all. Right, right, right. At all. It's just sort of formless, weirdly. Right. Like an attractive guy. The same thing with Affleck where you're like, he's got a good chin.

Like he looks like Batman, but it's not interesting. Affleck's such a meathead Batman. It's so weird. Like Batman used to have a jaw, you know? Yes. What happened? Yes. Well, Affleck's jaw is so specific.

And then with the lips, I will shout out Val Kilmer has great lips and I'm more of a fan of his Batman than you are he's my least favorite Batman Clooney is horrendous I love George Clooney he was done dirty by the movie

Clooney could have been a good Batman maybe one day we're going to rewatch the movie he's mostly Bruce Wayne in that movie you know what i mean like no no cluny like you know he's got like this turtleneck on like half the movie and he's kind of just like sitting by the fire wondering if he should marry l mcpherson bobbing his head yeah bobbing his head right yeah it's like i don't remember a single thing he does like as batman in that movie he just kind of stands around robin al Alfred's dying.

He's not sick, he's dying. He stands out the way for Chris O'Donnell to be hot as Robin. Chris O'Donnell, peak. Yes. Okay, speed round stuff. I'll cycle back around to this because the real moment

this movie comes together is the casting choice of Michael Keaton, but you guys talking about the weird haunted quality. Burton goes to Keaton and goes, look, they're letting me direct Batman. I want you to be Batman. Right.

And Keaton goes, that's a stupid idea. They won't let you do it. I'm not a good choice and I wouldn't want to do it. Uh-huh. And he goes, just read the script. He gives like a Sherman-esque statement, like I won't do it

and I will not run if asked. Right. And he's like, read the script, tell me what you think. And he reads it and by Keaton's account, he says, I read it, and I had a very specific take on it. There was one thing that jumped out to me, and I met up with Tim, and I went, look, I got one thing from this script. But I don't think it's what you want out of this character, and I don't think they'd let me do it. And he goes, what's the thing you got?

And he goes, this guy's insane. This guy has not been able to process his trauma. He's like on the verge of a mental breakdown. He seems like a kind of normal, boring guy. But the only way he can prevent himself from having a full psychotic break is to dress up as a bat. This is his weird, insane

coping mechanism and he's so lonely and he's so haunted. Where's the lie? And Tim Burton was like, yeah, that's the movie I want to make. Right. And they were like okay cool then let's do it. If you think you can sell them on that that's what I want to do. Which is the smartest interpretation that anyone's had into this character. Right. That Batman is this

coping mechanism. And that's the thing that really blossoms with Batman Returns where it's like three people dealing with acts of cruelty by creating these like disassociative personas. And also Batman Returns is the one where he's just sitting in his chair looking out the window waiting for the Bat-Saber. My background on my phone, my favorite moment of all time. It is.

It is so funny. My background on my phone is... I just think that moment is so funny where he's just like bored. Right. It's the moment where he looks over and sees... Yeah. It's the moment where he looks over his knees. So, in the 1970s, there was a man named Michael Uslan,

who is one of the luckiest people in the history of Hollywood. He did a couple really smart things, but the amount of money he's made off of decisions he made in the 70s, I cannot even begin to calculate. He gains notoriety for being the person who, in the 1970s, starts fighting for comic books to be viewed as a legitimate medium. Sure. Oh, Satan.

Yes. His name was Lord of Darkness. From looking at him, he looks like a big nerd. He's like a nerd from Bayonne, New Jersey. Okay. Oh, totally from Bayonne, New Jersey. He's a nerd from Bayonne, New Jersey. He liked comic books. He liked comic books. He collected them? Yes. And he's the guy who's

like, if you read the old Batman, it's like this is a dark character. It's not the Adam West thing. He had this irritation. He was the guy who'd correct people and go like, actually, and his what he said, the bane of his existence was every time anyone wrote about Batman, they'd put the words like pow or bang within the same sentence.

Because the association was so much. The Adam West TV show had just dominated. Which I think people have now come around to loving the Adam West show for what it is. But there was a period of time where people were like. That was a comedy. Like that was written and performed as a comedy. Right. And the Batman comic books were always meant for kids.

But they were based in sort of the psychological trauma of this guy, and they removed that whole spine from, you know, it's just a detective show with a fun guy beating fun villains who aren't really threatening. And we associate Pau with Mark Maron shitting his pants. Right, of course now.

Uh-huh. That is the association. He stole Pau from Batman, and we stole it from him. What goes around comes around. So Uslan started a comic book class in his college. As the professor? As a student, they had a thing at his college where you could start an accredited class.

You have to make a case and get approval from a faculty member. And he went to the folklore guy, and he gave him this whole pitch about the professor was like, I liked funny books when I was a kid, but come on, grow up. And he was like, look, what's the story of Superman? What's the story of Moses? And he was like, oh, they send the child down the river.

Oh my God, you're right. It is the same as the Bible. Fucking folklore guy. Right. Joseph Gamble. you know opportunistic uh young nerd from new jersey yep uh got a lot of press for this class because this was this drum he really wanted to bang yes and he's right he called in the the local radio stations and newspapers and was like you hear they're teaching a comic book class what's this world coming to so that they would cover it

and it would bring more attention to it. And that led to him sort of becoming a preeminent figure and sort of being brought onto panel shows and talk about these things and eventually being brought into DC to write comics for them. So he's writing like low level sort of side DC titles. But he gets really into the idea of

we need to make like real DC movies. This is the 70s. Superman's already started, but no one else is trying to make any other superhero movies. And Superman was seen as an anomaly. Well, they got a couple really good actors in it. Richard Donner's like a pro.

Superman is so iconic. But it was still like any of these characters that originated in serials. There was still this separation of church and state where it's like TV is shittier than film. Genre things aren't real movies. All this sort of stuff. So he makes a deal with

DC for the rights to Swamp Thing for like no money. He's like, I'd like to try to make a Swamp Thing movie which he eventually gets Wes Craven to do. And they're like, no one else is asking for Swamp Thing so you can do it. And he has a friend whose

dad is a film producer named Meneker. Okay. And he goes like, I really think there's money in trying to make a Batman movie. Right. So he gets that guy to put up the money, and they get... Benjamin Meneker. Benjamin Meneker. Melnicker. Melnicker, excuse me. Right. They have

credits on every Batman movie that's ever happened. They, from DC, work out a deal where they license the rights to Batman in perpetuity in any movie. Also, including any other characters created within the Batman universe. Wow. Yeah, like he's a producer on the Halle Berry Catwoman movie. Yes. That we all remember very well. So this record is spotless.

Exactly. He's a producer on any TV show, like the cartoons. The only thing they didn't get was TV. They didn't get, yes. They didn't get TV, but it does cover animation. So he gets from the Lego movie. Melnicker died

at 104 a couple years ago. Useland's still going strong. The checks just rolled in. And that's like the lifetime of payment he gets for pushing this thing up a hill for a decade.

Sure. Because no one wanted to fucking make it. Why Batman? Because that was his favorite. Because that was his favorite. He loved it. And he was like,

Batman's good. This is a reclamation project. Right. And he was like, after Superman, Batman's the next logical one. I'm going to get to it before anyone else

and I assume everyone will want to make it. And I have a real take on how to do it. And his thing from the get-go was bring it back, take away the West associations, make it dark and haunted, and all this sort of stuff. And at the same time in the 80s, the Batman comics are getting more dark again, and Alan Moore is writing the killing joke and things like that. Because at this point, it's 1979.

They pitch it to literally every studio, and everyone passes. CBS wanted to produce a film called Batman in Outer Space. Did you know that? These are the things that were getting thrown around. Or like,

Ivan Reitman was like, I'd love to do Batman with Bill Murray and it's like a parody of Of the Adam West shit, right. Right. You know, it's like us doing

like a parody of a square jawed serial movie. I would watch that. I mean, all these things would be interesting. I think that's what Lost in Translation was.

On their own. That's what that was about. Yeah, it was Scarlett Johansson as Vicki Vale. Right. I mean, Vicki Vale. But he's, like, really adamant about, like, this is the way you bring back Batman. And they can't get it going anywhere. They eventually go to Peter Guber, Casablanca's record producer, film producer.

He signs on to it. So now they're shopping it around. and Goober very quickly is like, Warner Brothers is going to want this back. New head of Warner Brothers comes in, goes like, you licensed Batman out to whom? And there is a variety story. It's the front page of variety, but it's like the six story down, like reams below like abc dips and thursday night ratings right is warner brothers

licenses batman rights sure from melnicker and useland so they signed some deal that must have been the best contract of all time because you know if there was any wiggle room for them to get out of that they would have by now but these these guys still get money for every Batman movie because they had set up the Batman film company. And technically Warner Brothers is licensing the characters from the Batman film company. These guys are geniuses. It's amazing. One day he will die.

Yes. And then I don't know what happens. I don't know if it goes on to his children or if they have it written out that it ends at that point. Have children just to have them. Just to be queens from Batman. He should adopt everybody. Their first words will be, this stays in the family. Right.

Do whatever you want. I don't care. The most precious bloodline of all time. That's amazing. I mean, this mistake could never have been made again, right? I'm sure these studios are smart after this. That's what I'm saying. There's so many cases where they find ways to fuck people over with deals that should work like that right and the fact that this guy with like almost no other status like he created the cartoon show dino saucers and he has like maybe

three non-batman non-swamp thing credits in his entire career the spirit uh yes that constantine i think you produce like there's a couple of the comic book things. That was because he liked the spirit so much. He was originally developing The Shadow with Sam Raimi when Raimi was trying to make that movie. This was the guy who

fixed Batman, so people were trying to bring him on for that sort of thing. Raimi would be perfect for The Spirit. Brad Bird should have made The spirit. Raimi should have made the shadow. Raimi's a big shadow. Whatever, whatever. Brad Bird should do

a Spider-Man movie. I mean, Brad Bird would be ideal for a movie like that. Or Fantastic Four. Also someone should do a Spider-Man movie where he's finally gay

because, hello, he's so gay. He's fairly, well, I mean, okay, well actually, no, he's a homosexual. I want to hear the take. Carry on.

Give me the take. It's just an instinct. I don't have any science. It's a spider-man he's like a queen I'm looking at things with Mary Jane

and I'm like because he's gay he's just pinging for you yeah and she's gay but we don't have to go there we don't want to out him or anything

whereas like I feel like Batman like many a superhero is fairly asexual Batman especially though because Batman's relationship with women is always sort of like

well except for my favorite Batman moment moment which is in batman forever when nicole kidman when she summons signal summons him to her roof yes yes yeah it just shows up in like a negligence like so batman's like what the fuck an insane character dridian. The IMDb trivia page says, like, fun fact, the name Dr. Chase Meridian is a play on the fact that she is chasing Batman. Yes, she is.

And she's a... I mean, it sounds like a geometry book name, but it's fun. It's good. It's hot. She's great. She's great.

She's awesome in that movie. Remember when superhero movies were about sex appeal? Yes. It was a long time ago. She's the only girlfriend character who ever got billing in those first four movies. You know what I mean?

Like Elle Macpherson. I guess Basinger is... Basinger is above the title. But not in the posters and stuff. Yes, right. But she does get... Basinger is pretty high-fived. Yes.

And I guess Catwoman... Catwoman kind of counts. Yeah. We'll get to that next episode. Yeah, I can't wait. But they're just pushing this uphill, uphill. No one's buying it. No one's getting it.

People go, what if you did this instead? What if you did the Bill Murray version? What about this? Yeah. And they're like, we need a vision. We need someone who can sell this. Sure. And this executive at Warner Brothers, whose name I'm forgetting, was the one who saw Tim

Burton's short films and brought him into Warner Brothers and was like, you're a fucking director. And Burton has said, not even as a joke, it was more difficult for me getting hired to like restaurant jobs in high school than it was getting films because this woman was such a champion in me early on. That she was like, we want you here. You clearly have a voice and a vision and all of this. So he makes Pee Wee.

And then after Pee Wee, she recommends to Goober and Uslan and Melnicker and all these people, you should check out this Burton kid. So he's already sort of talking about Batman before Beetlejuice. The movie doesn't get greenlit until after Beetlejuice does well. Batman being made was conditional on Beetlejuice performing

well because they had so little faith in a Batman movie that they were like, we need to make sure the director has a good track record. Right. Okay. I mean, well, I'm glad that I mean,

Beetlejuice is another classic. Man, I'm the, you're really clear about Burton. Yeah. I was just about to say, I was just about to say, it's really clarifying for me the extent to which he owned my childhood.

Really? So between, between the two Batmans, Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. Yeah, that was, yeah. You a peewee guy?

Not as much. My mom had weird feelings about peewee that panned out a little bit. Sure, she was suspicious of peewees. She had a feeling, so she kept me away from that. But that was literally, she didn't keep me away from like Batman Returns

and the kink stuff. She literally was just like a vibe about peewee. Well, to be fair also, the penguin never got caught masturbating in a kid. So your mother's predictions bore her. It's true. No, she had a good instinct. But yeah, Tim Burton really owned my life as a kid.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, he was like the guy. And there's something to the fact that he kind of hit so like fully formed, which I think only happens when there is sort of like a guardian angel figure like this, like an executive who's like, you weird bird, come into my nest. Yeah. I will like shield you.

Right. And that he like, it built in just the right way. Like each film got a little bigger, but it is crazy that this is his third movie. And I had always gone like, wait, so how did he get hired on Batman when it's actually the reverse, which is like, they were so skittish about the idea of making a Batman movie that it wasn't until they had a director with the reverse which is like they were so skittish about the idea

of making a Batman movie that it wasn't until they had a director with such a clear voice that they were like okay I think I can see what it is we can figure this out now

right so then he comes in with yeah right you know just Batman Scissorhands is three years

like I know it's not 89, 90 yeah can Scorsese top that I don't think so well how do you feel about Burton now

do you just sort of ignore him at this point? So the other thing I was thinking was, how am I going to explain to my kids why I was obsessed with Tim Burton? Yeah. Because if you're looking at his track record, the majority of the output, I would say,

is not great for me. Right. But also still weird. I don't know. Like the Alice in Wonderland movies are... He only did the first one. He only did the first one. Yes, but I feel like

they all sort of took what he did and ran with it. They're a crime, but there's no one else doing that. I agree with that. Like I hate those movies

and they feel like being stabbed in the eyes, but also they're not generic halfway. They're not generic at all how do you feel about uh your your big eyes you know the the smaller burton efforts your sweeney todd who are your eyes if if tim burton's ever in the oscar conversation i don't think i'm interested big eyes that was sort of so you don't want to see prestige burton i don't want to see prestige

from anyone good point particularly. Particularly, no. That's a great line. Not from Edward Scissorhands. Sure. I mean, ideally, right, these sort of judging bodies would see what's worthwhile in those movies as they are. You want your Burton off the leash. You don't want to see him restrained. Johnny Depp should definitely have gotten an Oscar nomination for Edward Scissorhands.

No one else is doing any shit like that. Well, that is indisputable. I mean, again, those are all in. Up to Ed Wood. Ed Wood, yes. Pretty perfect. Ed Wood is such a perfect taking

what he's great at and taking his personal passions and making a prestige-friendly movie, but still making a weird fucking movie. A weird movie and a celebration of two... And a celebration of things that Hollywood does not care about. No, and to call my shot for my take on the Ed Wood episode that you'll listen to

in a couple of weeks, I think the kinship he feels in Ed Wood is like a lot of the choices he's making in Batman are like as insane as the choices Ed Wood makes, except they actually work. Yeah. Like the key distinction is like they're both guys just, like, following their instincts and their passion

and their own, like, muses, except somehow Burton's sensibilities line up with the culture and connect. Because, like, hiring Michael Keaton as Batman is similar to hiring, like, the chiropractor who you think could double for Bela Lugosi. Sure. And that's his whole thing, is he just goes, like, Beetlejuice,

this is my guy. The eyes. And they announce that Keaton's playing Batman and everyone flips the fuck out. It's the front page of the Wall Street Journal is Batman fans fear the jokes on them.

And it was this piece of they hadn't started production. Not a bad headline. Not a bad headline. That's pretty good. Like you could see the Gotham Globe publishing that.

Right. Pretty good. And Michael Uslan who was like leading the charge for like we're gonna bring back the legitimacy of Batman, is now being met with like a bunch of fans

saying like, great, it's another Adam West situation. Sure. Uslan said when they pitched it to him, he thought it was a joke. Because his reputation is

he's a stand-up. He's Mr. Moss. Right. Right. He's Night Shift. He's kind of glib. I mean, what's kind of good about Batman

though is that it's not not Adam West. Right. It's just gothic. It's just Tim Burton right and that's the lane that this one's in and then right when we get to the Schumacher movies the whatever you the tones aren't matching as well anymore I do I do I do like Batman Forever I have to say Batman Forever is fantastic I love that movie Oscar nominated film Batman Forever

best cinematography I know right sometimes they're really onto something beautifully costumes got robbed but that's all right. It was not made for Best Dry Ice, of course. It was not made for Best Dry Ice. Best McDonald's. Best use of dry ice. Best McDonald's cups. I love those.

Those cups were great. I will say, that's the best thing that came out of the movie. Absolutely. The cups and the soundtrack. Commercials and that Batmobile. And the Danny Elfman score for Batman is extremely good and iconic

and it's a perfect superhero theme song. Remember theme songs? Exactly. The Ellie Goldenthal themes are really good too. But the Ellie Goldenthal Batman Forever soundtrack is insane and wonderful. And it's just basically like screaming horns. Oh my God.

And he's also a weird choice because he didn't do movies like that ever again. He was like a weird opera guy, like basically. But it was the same thing where Elfman was like, that doesn't seem like a guy who's in line to be a superhero. But then he became that guy. Elfman becomes the sort of like, give Elfman a call, he'll figure it out.

Sort of like, if John Williams is unavailable, Elfman will write you a superhero theme. But that feels like another Gonzo choice for Burton, which is like, okay, I know you liked Oingo Boingo and you hired him to do the scores for your two comedy pictures. You're like weird outsider comedy pictures. Like is the Beetlejuice the da-da-da-da?

You know, this sort of weird music does not suggest. But he's so good at writing for a music that sounds like a thing, a person. That's what we've said, right. That these sound like the characters' souls. Like they're not just like here's the theme to this movie. Here's like what Batman sounds like musically. And it's gothic in the way you're talking about it. It is.

Like silly gothic. Like it's perfect for it. But you imagine they were like, okay, ha ha, very funny. Let's call Alan Silvestri. Like you're not hiring Elfman for this.

The buck stops here. Right. And then Elfman just discovered, like he, he delivers this thing that's like, right, that's Batman. That's Batman's song.

And even like, um, you know, that they reuse the theme for Batman, the animated series, but the score, the original score that is so influenced by the the Elfman score

right because Joanna was like why do I know this music so well and I was like because you watched the cartoon right because then he used it in Justice League which was so weird really weird because he was scoring Justice League so he had every right to bring back his Batman theme and he's like it's like crescendoing as like Ben Affleck is stomping around

and you're like this is so strange because it's like an echo of an echo. Like we're so far removed. Right. If you made this movie now, yes. Batman fans, all those nerds would revolt. They would be like,

this is too silly and weird. You know what I mean? You can't make this movie after nine 11. Yeah. You can't. Nine 11 is just sort of, sort of like the point at which you can't have fun. Right.

I mean, but that's what's crazy about the whole pitch being like, we're going to make it really fucking dark. And now, like, you know, Nolan stans derisively go like none of that fucking cartoony, like, Nicholson clowning around. It's funny because when I, I mean, I think last, like, two years ago I watched Dark Knight and I was like, oh oh Nolan actually did try to have some campy shit in here it just doesn't land in the way that it does in the Tim Burton universe

but it's here he didn't divorce himself from it there are a lot of story parallels between this and Dark Knight oh yes like there were a bunch

of things I was noticing like tracked on we're two sides of the same coin we kind of like we're kind of like each other's best friend in a weird way

and like the Joker art gallery the museum scene feels a lot. My favorite scene. But that feels like Ledger Joker breaking into the fundraiser party. Both of them end with hanging off the side of the spire. There is all that conversation of them coming head to head. Absolutely.

There's so many verbal confrontations. There's sort of a woman between them that the Joker is. Maggie Joan Ha dies in both. Right. Yes. That's true. Just keeps dying. Yeah. She's one of the Smiley Alex murder Maggie Gyllenhaal dies in both right yes just keeps dying yeah she's one of the smiling

I can't believe Christopher Nolan did that like between Christopher Nolan killing Maggie Gyllenhaal and Catherine Bigelow killing Jennifer Ely

in Zero Dark Thirty just two of the worst decisions that directors have made I think oh god Jennifer Ely's so good in Zero Dark Thirty why do you blow

Jennifer Ely up I don't care if terrorists did it you just don't do that you just don't do that. You just don't do that. It is the hardest hit. Burton's gotten the movie to the green light.

He's gotten Keaton on. But then they go like, look, the big thing would be if you could get Jack Nicholson. That's the obvious casting choice. But if you can get him, like this is really like the air of legitimacy this movie needs. And the idea was it's the same kind of credibility that like Marlon Brando lent to Superman the movie except he's really going to be in this movie it's not just like a little cameo

where he's reading off a cue cards for two days you know as Marlon was known to do because I apparently Tim Burton's first choice

unsurprisingly for Tim Burton was he wanted Tim Curry and Tim Curry passed because he was like I've done too many things like this Lithgow was considered James Woods, people who

play villains. Right. But I think Warner said, let's go for the brass ring and see if we can get Nicholson. Burton also argued for Brad Dourif and the studio was like, no thank you. But this is like a lot of guys who have gotten Best Supporting Actor nominations or Hollywood creeps

but they were like, what if we could get a legitimate movie star and that makes us a totally different type of movie and Nicholson is apparently like the thing they say about him is like it's all about the director with him if you trust the director he'll do anything and he sits down with Burton even though he's this weird introverted

like 33 year old man he's like kids got a vision and he's like I'll do it I'll do whatever the fuck this kid wants. I'll be the Joker. For the low, low price of $6 million and a huge cut of the profit. He ends up for a long time and maybe still adjusted for inflation. It was the most money any actor.

$90 million is what he made on this movie pre-inflation. Right. Yeah. None of it went to waste. The big thing he got was he got a percentage of any merchandise sold with the Joker on it or in it. Wow. And what's crazy about that is none of the Joker stuff really looked like him. Like it was more, it looked like the patch

on the jacket. The classic sort of thin-faced Joker. Right. It's just sort of smiling, green-haired guy. It wasn't really accurate to him, but he made so much fucking money off of it. Everyone was making good business decisions for this movie.'s true i mean it's happened it's like star wars where it's like the studio learns the lesson and it never happens again it's the same thing right where the studio this time is like i don't know batman is that even gonna work right and then for the

shadow they're like you sign on for four sequels right here and we get all the merchandise like you know like or whatever but you have Sam Ham writes the script that I feel like one of the things I really keyed into watching it this time is like you can watch this movie and imagine the very conventional version of this script because it hits very traditional sort of like 80s 90s

blockbuster beats and it's like this movie could have looked like Lethal Weapon 2 like there's no reason it's not baked into the script that it has this aesthetic and this vibe. For sure, because it's mostly just set in, like, alleyways and a, you know, plant. Yeah, yeah. And William Skerrin, who wrote Beetlejuice. Lawrence Skerrin, sorry.

Warren. Warren Skerrin. Thank God. They brought on mostly to rewrite the third act, is what they said. And then he really kind of dug into the psychology of the whole thing. But you have the elements, like, the Robert Wohl character, who feels like he's traditional comic relief in Beverly Hills Cop or whatever. Like, he's the guy in the whole thing. But you have the elements like the Robert Wohl character who feels like he's traditional comic relief and Beverly Hills Cop

or whatever. Like he's the guy in the office. But they kind of let Burton to his own devices. Now after all this battle to get the movie up and running and everything it was the most expensive movie Warner Brothers has ever made. It was like the largest sets that had ever been built. They filmed the whole thing

in London. They got top of the line my first shot with the big map painting of like Gotham and the street is such a like you know here's what we're doing like such a great announcement for the whole vibe they really smartly reuse a couple sets where you're like they made like

four massive pieces of Gotham there's that big like Gotham Square set that they keep going back to there's the staircase where all the press conferences happen. There's sort of the one alleyway. That staircase is so cool. But they're so fucking big, and he shoots them in a way with a sense of grandeur. I mean, he also, you know,

he embellishes them with like matte paintings and with model transitions and things like that. But you see people standing on these wide shots, and you're like, this feels like a real fucking city. It doesn't look realistic, but it feels fully imagined because of the scope of it and the size of it and the amount of extras you have and the amount of fog you have. It's kind of an ideal little movie universe, which is something that superhero movies don't have right now, to be honest. Marvel movies kind of take place in the real world. Yes.

I mean, and even just like the Gotham of today it's just not I mean it's Chicago or whatever it's like not yeah you're right it's not gothic

that's kind of Nolan's play which we've talked about that's right let's just make it a city which is fine I mean again and of course

he's responding to this movie and like other people will respond to Nolan's movie and like these things always sort of swing back and forth I mean he was responding to Schumacher as well he's responding to a gotham where like every road is being supported by like an atlas statue right right yeah but like

i'll meet you on atlas highway yeah the subway station's in like a revolving globe oh absolutely um no but there is the thing like you look at like all three thor movies struggle to make uh uh why am i fucking forgetting the name uh uh what's what's thor's home called uh asgard yeah they struggle to make asgard feel like any real society yes yeah Asgard feels like a town in Thor, which is a trouble when you get to the third Thor movie and Asgard gets destroyed and you're like, oh, what are the Asgardians going to do? And it's like, were they on a planet?

How seismic is this? Because it always just seemed like a big palace in a little town. They only kind of established three parts of it and you don't really understand the infrastructure of the city and you're like, are they all gods? Are they all gods?

Do they have jobs? Like what if you're a god but right, you have to like be a sanitation worker or like an accountant or something. And it's not like I want script

like explaining this. Like I don't want dialogue scenes. World building. You just want world building which you can do sort of subtextually just through like,

you know, art dressing and all that sort of stuff. Like a you are here map? I would love one of those that came when you bought your ticket. You got to open it up and see the layout of it like a mall. Ping your location, Thor. Tell me where we are.

But even I think the biggest like comparison point is like Wakanda is the closest that anyone's come to doing this in the modern era because Nolan's Gotham is so much riffing on real American cities. Sure. That Wakanda feels like the most fully realized like totally its own place. But I think it is hamstrung by some degree

to the fact that it is so much like CGI augmented back lots in Atlanta. That's always the problem. You know? It's good if you have a location. You can always tell

they're in a parking lot in Atlanta. That museum that Michael B. Jordan robs, that's like the Museum of Great Britain, is like some Atlanta museum. Anyone who lives in Atlanta knows that museum. I think that movie is unbelievably well designed.

And I do think that's one where you watch it and you're like, I get how Wakanda works. In that movie, it looks good. The problem is more when you're in a nowhere location that's been embellished. Like the waterfall location is great. But what I was gonna say is the waterfall is all a set and when they cut to the other side facing over sort of the cliff right then it's all cgi goop and it does fall apart a little bit those scenes are excellent but in this movie like you see one side and it's a massive wall and then when they cut to the reverse it's another fucking massive wall

and you're like this just feels whole and this movie has one of my favorite psych out openings ever where I just love oh where you think

it's gonna be the Batman origin cause the guy's robbing I love when a movie can be like make you think that you're smarter than the movie

and then pull the wool out from under you where it's like you make the whole audience get cocky and you're like right okay that's the movie and then pull the wool out from under you where it's like you make the whole audience get cocky and you're like right okay that's a Batman origin story here's a couple they're going into the dark alley there's a kid yeah right

kind of ruined every rendition of that story right you don't need to do it ever again because like the first one was a joke so the rest of them right have to be earnest they do do it again and but right it's much more in this movie like it's just not played operatically. Like, when so many other things in this movie are,

the robbery scene with, like, the young Jack Nicholson guy who's weird, that guy's face is fucking frightening. He looks more like Bob Geldof. Sure. And it's tough when you have an actor who has been famous for that long and we know exactly what Jack Nicholson looked and sounded like at that age. I don't think it's a problem

because I think he's sort of transfixing to look at, but yeah, certainly you know what Jack Nicholson looks like as a kid though. I thought that was his face.

The problem is that Nicholson's head is so goddamn square. Yeah, Nicholson's got a weird head. But when that, you know, that scene's upsetting. The parents get shot or whatever, but it's also kind of, the pearls, right, but then that, yeah nicholson's got a weird head um but uh when that's you know that seems upsetting the parents

get shot or whatever it is it's also kind of the pearls right but then that you know he grabs the pearls right and then by the time you get to the snyder movie it's like the gun gets like caught on the pearls and like the cartridge ejects and the pearls go everywhere it's fucking sexual what the pearls look like from above i don't know know. You tell me. Looking down. Remember the shot? It's like moving all around the camera. Uh-huh. That matters. Yeah.

When Ben and I saw Batman v Superman 4DX. Oh, that's right. I saw 4DX, so it really stuck with me. We saw it in 4DX, and for all the canted angles of that crazy, the chair would match the canted angles. Are you serious? Oh, my God. Wow. So it would shift to the canted angle of the pearls falling off. I couldn't. Are you serious? Oh my god. Wow.

So it would shift to the canted angle of like the pearls falling off. I couldn't do that for two and a half hours. It was rough. I had back problems by the end of it

because it's like every time Batman and Superman punched each other the chair would punch you. I don't like that. We've already litigated this on a previous episode.

40X is a little bit but I'm sure we'll do it again The chair gives you an option if you want it wet or not. This is always my thing when anyone's like

we've fixed movies. And I'm like, didn't need fixing. I just sit in a chair and look at it. That's fine. You say that, but you haven't seen Ben is Back and 40X. And that thing really, it makes the movie sing. And when I read all these like sort of apathetic pans of Ben is Back, I'm like, but you haven't really seen the movie. No, I agree.

Matches by the C40X was great. It was great. You could feel Michelle Williams slobbering on you. For the listener at home. There's a snot, no snot button. For the listener at home, David just mimed the seat compressing. Yeah, what if that's it?

Is just that your seat just slowly deflates. Slope the movie. Slope shoulders. Then you're in case the officer goes, I can't do it. I just can't do it.

And that's it. You gotta go. I can't beat this. I can't beat this. I can't do it. I just can't do it. And that's it. You gotta go. I can't beat this. I can't beat this. I can't beat this. Batman. It'd be weird if he was Batman. Yeah.

He would be a Robin. Yeah, he could be a Robin. He would. Or he could be, like, the Riddler or whatever. So, you get the psych out, which then leads to, like, one of the things I love about this movie is, like, you set up this weird, like, retrofuturistic. Like, it's not quite steampunk, but it's, like, this modern, like, 1920s Art Deco New York. Yeah. But, like, the.

Wait, come on. What's the guy's name? First? Anton First. Right. The production designer. Who won an Oscar. Right. Unbelievable work on this uh yes wow sometimes sometimes they get it right yeah no

i think it was one of those things where it was kind of undeniable who are they gonna vote for uh and he's sort of weird and tragic right because he's like an amazing he did the company in uh the neil jordan movie uh the company of, which is like a beautiful and strange looking thing. I understand that. He did Full Metal Jacket. He did this. And then he died of like an overdose, like by mistake. Like, you know, he like took some sleeping pill. Yeah.

And like that was that. And they think Bo Welch does Returns. Is that right? I believe that's right. Right. Because Bo Welch starts with Scissorhands. Right. Right.

I believe. Right. Anyway. But it's such an amazing production design job. Because Bo Welch did Beetlejuice too. But I believe Bo Welch starts with scissor hands. Right, right. I believe. Anyway. But it's such an amazing production design job. Because Bo Welch is, of course, did Beetlejuice too. But I believe Bo Welch did. Sure, but whatever. But first has the idea of what Gotham looks like here.

He's the sort of leader. Great career, I have to say. He does kind of get the budget that no one in his position had ever gotten before. Right, sure. Because once they were committed to making this movie, they were like, we're going to go all out and it's going to feel like the biggest movie ever made. Which part of that was the marketing

and all the merchandising, the tie-ins and prints and all of that, but part of it was just the scope of the thing itself. Which is strange if you watch it today because movies are so, this is how big my nuts are about everything right now. Right, right. This actually seems very intimate.

The story, the script is very intimate. There's basically five now. Right, right. This actually seems like very intimate. That's the story. The script is very intimate. There's basically five characters. Right. And the stakes are pretty low. It's got like

two action sequences. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of dialogue. And a parade. It's got a parade. Right. One of the biggest sequences

is paint getting thrown onto like Rembrandt. Right? Right? But that's one of the things is that every small piece of it looks so big. It's invested with so much time

and money and energy and artistry and all of that. This is a place that I want to come back to in movies. This is a Gotham. There's always going to be some fuck shit in Gotham based on this movie. Which I think when this movie came out and was the biggest film in years and years and years,

even the critics who didn't like it were like, the script's pretty generic, were like, I can't recommend seeing this thing in theaters enough. Who didn't like it? What did Ebert say?

Like, Ebert didn't like it. Ebert didn't like it, but he was like, Ebert liked Crash. Love him. RIP. But he also, I think,

took a minute to sort of come around to this kind of a movie. Yes, he did. I feel like he was just kind of resistant to yeah this stuff his line was i don't understand the character i think the movie's half-baked i think the script is nothing to write home about but i cannot recommend this movie in theater strongly enough because gotham is one of the greatest creations in the history of cinema yeah i believe that was his exact line. You're right. It's all about the architecture. He also,

he lavishes a fair amount of praise on Nicholson. Oh, good. But he, then he's like, but they're caricatures. I don't care about their relationship. You know, he just complains about like,

they're thinly sketched. You know, he gave it like two stars. I mean, that's like. Two? Yeah. Roger,

come on, man. He was big on like, accusing Tim Burton of like, like chocolate Easter bunny syndrome. It was like, it looks great, it tastes great. There's nothing inside of it. Wow. You know, man. He was big on accusing Tim Burton of chocolate Easter bunny syndrome. It was like, it looks great, it tastes great, there's nothing inside of it. You know, he'd be like, this guy is just, I just coined that. This is a Kinder Egg. You know what I mean?

There is something inside of it. That's what I'm saying. Chocolate Easter bunnies are amazing. They are. They're great. What is he talking about? They're made of chocolate. Right.

Literally what needs to be inside of it. Exactly. I coined that. That's not his chocolate. Right. Literally what needs to be inside of it. Exactly. I coined that. That's not his slam. Okay. But I would say I don't think that's a bad thing. First of all, I think if a thing looks that good and tastes that good, it has its own value even if it doesn't have deeper meaning. But I also do think this movie is a kinder egg and there is some stuff inside.

Yeah, there's some stuff inside. Yeah. And it's not banging you over the head with it, I think. It's fun. Or maybe are we just like, are we so beaten down by everything that's happened since then? I was gonna say, is this just the blues of like, I've seen Justice League,

I've seen Suicide Squad. 100%. Watching this movie now is right. It's just sort of, it's like a wonderful little curio. It's just so streamlined. Like, Suicide Squad is just like, who the fuck are these people? It's brand management. It's just not a movie. Yes. And this is a movie that's's like largely just concerned with this one movie yeah and it's like this is we're gonna get batman and the joker correct on screen what happens after this who

knows you know and it's good yeah i mean as i can i say this is like sort of like a tangent but can i just say that as a child yes one of the most horrifying things that i ever seen in a movie or anything and I was terrified by a lot of things like Thriller, et cetera, but the reverse application of makeup on the Joker,

the idea that he had to put on skin color, fucked me up. Really fucked me. Somehow, freakier looking without, quote unquote,

with the regular, right, without the white makeup and the green hair. He looks weird when he's just grinning like that. I just found that so uncanny as a child. It is. And just as a concept.

It's like so simple. There is the thing that Tim Burton taps into, which is like, you know. Fear of clowns. Fear of clowns, which he taps into a lot over and over again. No, but I do think there's the thing that like many smarter people have written about this. I can't think of anyone to specifically quote here but the notion that like uh movies are uh closer to dreams than any other art form in terms of how we watch them and the way you're able to play with sort of logic gaps

you know rather than a play which is by like definition pretty like literal and linear because you're seeing it on a stage. You can sort of mess with the sound and the structure and the rhythms and all these sorts of things with movies and create this dreamlike logic. And while not being as ultra as David Lynch, there are things in Burton movies, especially like this one, that are really small where you're like, I don't know why that's so upsetting.

Yes. But something about it really kind of fucks with you. And it's like when you wake up in the morning and you're trying to's so upsetting. Yes. But something about it really kind of fucks with you. And it's like when you wake up in the morning, you're trying to explain to someone. Yes. And you're like, the makeup was backwards? Yeah, it's just weird. It's just weird.

And there's like one, there are a thousand things in this movie that sort of stick in my mind. I mean, I didn't see this movie until after I'd started getting deep into Burton, which was like post-Mars attacks. Oh, wow. Okay. Another wow. Okay.

Another classic. Right. And because my parents were like, we don't let Griff see action movies. Like anything... But they knew you liked fucking comic books. I didn't yet. That's the thing.

Let me let you start with Mars Attacks. I know. Because I've told this story, I will tell this story, and the Mars Attacks episode, my dad really wanted to see Mars Attacks. So he was like, I got the kids you know

he had to sort of rope Griffin in almost because he was like he cut school to see that movie I was just not going to have it any other way

I was going to leave school or I was going to be allowed to leave school thank god I mean that trailer was just oh yeah no my dad

my dad worked a lot my mom was more hands on during the week and so the weekends would be like you gotta do stuff with the boys yes and so sometimes there would be the like my dad wants to see this movie so he'll be like it's fine you won't be freaked out by it yeah and i had that weird sort of like response to mars attacks and then started going deep into all of his movies and batman was something i hadn't been allowed to see. I guess Batman and Robin is the year after Mars Attacks? Batman and Robin is 97, yes.

Right. But I didn't see Batman or Batman Returns until after I'd seen Batman and Robin. Oh, wow. So I loved Batman and Robin because I was like, oh, a Batman movie. This is great. Yeah, Forever was the first Batman movie I saw in theaters. But no, I had seen Batman. Yeah, I'd seen this.

But my parents didn't let me read comic books or watch superhero shows when I was growing up because they were like too violent. My mom specifically was the one. So it was like that was sort of my activation moment where like at that age where other kids are starting to phase out of it, I started going really deep into it, which was really good for my social life. I have to say Batman and Robin killed Batman for me. That's the thing. It did that for everyone else. And that was my entry point. And did he ever come back for you?

Or by the time Nolan's bringing him around, do you care? By the dark night. Because I actually didn't really warm to the first Nolan movie. If you grow up on the Tim Burton ones, the first Nolan, Batman Begins, there's just not much color there. I have the exact opposite thing. Yeah, it's like, I was just, I was like, I needed,

I actually like, by that time, I was like, all right, I could use a little poison ivy, actually, making out with people to kill them. I could actually use some of that

in this movie. But, you know, Burton is wild to me because you're right, there are always these details that sort of fuck with you. Yeah. Like, even just,

I remember when Edward Scissorhands came out, like, there was that moment, I remember thinking this as Iorhands came out, like there was that moment I remember thinking this as I watched it the first time. Yeah. Where it was like,

so his hands are scissors so whatever he touches he's gonna cut. Right. So and now he has a girlfriend. What's this gonna do? The first time I saw that movie I was like so fucking nervous

the entire time. Yeah. Because it was just like, this is like wet, like dynamite. Like what, like something's gonna go fucking wrong. And there's something so primal about these things that he comes up with.

I think it is very keyed into him being an animator. Yes. And that he sort of has that sort of track of imagination where he thinks of the imagery first and then figures out how to commit it to camera. Yeah. commit it to camera. But I also look at this movie and it's like this is very much a film directed by an animator in that the shot sequencing is very deliberate.

It's not fast cutting. The only time the fast cutting comes into play is during Batman hand-to-hand combat scenes because they have to cut around the fact that he can't move. Which I think he does really well by mixing up the angles. His physicality is kind of amazing though. Where you're like, oh the fact that he can't move. Which I think he does really well by mixing up the angles. His physicality is kind of amazing though, right? Where you're like, oh my God,

he can't fucking turn one part of his body without turning the whole body. Because he just becomes like an Easter Island head or something. He's in a vulcanized suit. There's no joints. The power becomes from how still he is. And then the fight scenes are so sort of abstract. But the fight scenes are so basic of abstract. But the fight scenes

are so basic in this. And that's not a complaint. It's weird how it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter. He just drops in, kind of kicks you, that's it.

You know the bit where the sort of ninja goon comes in and does all the martial arts? Yes, right. That's like a fight. Batman was supposed to do like, you know,

shot for shot, like, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's some of that. But they got to set and they were like, he can't move. So that one becomes the guy has to run all the way up to him, and then they, like, really pop in for, like, the impacts. But he can't, like, walk forward and fight.

And they had, like, specific guys where they were like, this is our kicking Batman. This is our punching Batman. This is our flying Batman. Because, like, the suit was so difficult that they had to train guys specifically. You just need to figure out how to do this one thing and make it look fluid. Keaton is literally lit Batman. Yes.

He's lit Batman. Pretty much. That's his job. Right. And the suit was a fucking nightmare. I bet. Gave me a migraine all the time. I'm super claustrophobic.

And he said the thing that Nicholson said to him in the chair when they were both getting made up is like, this is great. We don't even have to act at all. The costume does it all for us. And it was easy for you to say. But Keaton had this breakthrough. That's just so funny though

because Nicholson's doing so much beyond the costume. That's what's crazy about him being like, I don't have to do anything. Sure. I could have stayed home. He really was having the time of his life. He looks like he's having so much fun. It's perfect.

It never looks like there's a gun pointed at him or he's walking off set and being like, where's my money? A lot of the stuff I'm pulling from the context, when they, like, the peak of special edition DVDs in like the mid-2000s, before the Nolan came out. Maybe it's 2004. They did, like, special editions of all four of these original, the Michael Guff Batman quadrilogy, right?

Right. The Pat Hengel Michael Guff films. So, Pat Hengel, he's in the Grifters the next year, which he's so scary in. Which feels like the role he's made for. No, and that's the thing. He's like a Chicago heavy kind of guy, right?

He's good in this. He's so good in this, but it's so funny to think how straight-faced he is in this one. It's a great interpretation of Gordon, too. Right, right.

But then, like, he's playing Gordon in Batman and Robin where he's like, oh, Poison Ivy, and he's like horny. Like, you know, it's the same actor. And he was just like, when do Poison Ivy, and he's like horny. Like, you know, it's like, it's the same actor.

And he was just like, when do you need me to be there? Still pays 200 grand. Those are the only two through lines for these four films, but it kind of makes them a loose like chronology. Even though the world

like transforms like crazy. But what was the thing I was saying? Oh, when they released all four of them, they did this like 10-part documentary where there were like two parts on each of the movies. Maybe there are three or four on the first one and then two on the following ones called like Shadows of the Bat. And they do all these interviews. And they got everyone to come back. And like Nicholson sat down in 2004 and did a bunch of DVD interviews, which feels like the kind of thing you wouldn't expect him to do.

Sure. But he's always surprising us like that. Right. And he's, like, excited about random things. And he likes Burton. I mean, he did more than tax, you know. He's wearing a Batman pin and a purple shirt. I love him.

And he's talking about how much he loved the Joker. Right. And he was like, they offered me this part. And I said, it's a slam dunk. And he was, like, went to his whole theory about how he like realized from when he was like a struggling actor and he would do like children's theater and stuff how much kids liked

being scared and how much the more scared they are the more fun they have and he really liked the idea of like being able to use Joker as a vehicle for that and he was like Joker is just the greatest character of all time I mean just that name the Joker and he like won't stop talking about how just jazzed he was to do this but then the crazy thing was he came to them and he was like i will so do it beef up my part i'll do

anything i'm gonna be so committed to this here are my two things a you have to give me all the money in the world right which is usually how nicholson plays it. I'm happy to do it for lots of money. Other crazy thing is Jack Nicholson is really allergic to spirit gum. Okay. Which especially at this point in time is like. That's how you get shit on their faces. The key ingredient for aesthetic makeup jobs. And they had to like completely rewrite all the rules of makeup for this.

They were just like, I don't know if it could be done. What did they do? They just did crazy shit. Like, it's stuff that, like, no one replicated ever again because it's, like, so much more risky. But they just came up with all these new alternative, like, adhesives and different types of,

you know, like, he couldn't, they couldn't use any of the materials they usually use. And they found workarounds, and there are all these designs you see where they were like, we came up with the most extreme version of it looking like the comic. We came up with the version

that looks most like Jack Nicholson. And we started, you know, at the bottom and went as far as we could go until you started losing Jack. And that's kind of the key to this performance is like, he's really in it, but he's still Jack Nicholson. And he's riding this perfect line where it's like a movie star performance. He's doing but he's still jack nicholson and he's writing this perfect

line where it's like a movie star performance he's doing everything you like about jack nicholson especially at the beginning when he's jack napier and this is just like classic scumbag jack nicholson and so few lines right yeah but it's like right i didn't know yeah i used to say that as a kid his shit with the cards i didn't ask that's where I learned that from you oh my god you were so cheeky that's another way of putting it yeah sure

but it's like him in like a Chinatown -esque milieu but he's playing like a five easy pieces type of asshole yeah he's an asshole like it's combining

these different types of things you know and then once he goes into Joker it doesn't feel like he's being too protective of his brand but he's also bringing everything

you want out of the idea Jack Nicholson is the Joker this movie is very well constructed all you need, he falls into the vat of Joker chemicals whatever, all you need is the surgery scene you don't even see his face the laughter, the way that's staged another thing that super creeped me out

you don't see his face for so long of course course that scene is phenomenal like right you know and at no point does he need to give any more monologues

or to explain anything about why he suddenly is buying a lot of like punching gloves this is like stunt casting done right the characterization

is acid flowers he's Jack Nicholson like the movie starts and Jack Nicholson's being an asshole and you go like cool I know everything I need to know about this no totally it's Jack Nicholson. The movie starts and Jack Nicholson's being an asshole and you go like, cool, I know everything I need to know about this movie.

No, totally. It's Jack Nicholson and Batman? Cool, got it. So when he turns into the Joker you're like, I understand the things that are being mutated by this. I do kind of love, like people complained when this movie came out that they gave the Joker too much of like a clear backstory,

an alter ego and original identity because they've always been vague about that in the comic books. This is adapted from a comic book, though. Yes. There are lots of old Batmans where they'd be like, and that's the origin of the Joker. They'd always change it. Five years later, someone else would be like,

I want to do one, and he would write a Joker origin story. There's just a lot of them. Yeah, and Killing Joke gets into his backstory, which was apparently a big touchstone for this. Burton really liked that. Right. I forgot to say, those are the other two things over the 10 years of development is when killing joke happened and when dark knight returns happened they were able to like go into studios with those books

with tim burton and his previous films and go like can you see how this would all fit together um but i also like that because every different take on jokerwrites his backstory, it becomes like the bit in Dark Knight where he keeps on rewriting his own backstory. Where like none of them have any claim to being definitive. And they just all become these different versions of like what could have produced a guy like this. But yeah, I mean, it's very simple. You know, he gets thrown in the vat like in the first 20 minutes. Also, Batman's not really in the first 20 minutes that much no you see him she shows up one time and says I'm Batman

right which is an incredible sequence because up until the point where he like drops in the background you think you've watched Bruce Wayne's childhood and that's the moment of the turn those thugs who are like weirdly kind of like meth-y feel very modern.

They are more than a little. Messed up. Messed up, but they're very like 80s gutter punk messed up. Well, right, and also they have like a whole like bait and switch that they do. They've got a whole routine, right, where they're like leading him down this alleyway. Yeah, and then like Keaton lands and like comes into frame and just like

fucking owns it. Yeah. Did you guys, I rewatched this like four times last night. That's an exaggeration. I rewatched this like eight times last night. Do you remember Michael Keaton's monologue from when he hosted SNL the last time for Birdman? No. No.

It's really good. It's one of my favorite SNL monologues in the modern era, but it's Taron Killam and Bobby Moynihan who are like, you're my childhood favorite actor singing a song trying to convince Michael Keaton to play Batman with them. Like they're like, this is our childhood dream. And then the second verse is Moynihan trying to convince him to play Beetlejuice with them. Oh, I love it.

And they're just trying to get him to like say the hits and he won't do it. And you see like the two of them as like joker and penguin and then the two of them all right what's going on here but at the end like the song's building and they have the whole cast come out as a chorus and nicholson just goes like enough or keaton goes like enough and shuts it down and the music cuts out and he turns to the one camera that's in a perfect close-up and he just clicks right back into it and says i'm bat Batman. Love it. It's like chills. Cool. Because it's like, oh, it's been 30 years,

and he just turns his head, and he's right in. The eyes are there. He squints in the right way. The face is there. And then he turns back to the other camera, and he does it showtime. And there's something elemental about his understanding of his body language and the energy he's got.

Where just from that moment when he grabs the guy and says I'm Batman and the voice isn't like too showy I'm Batman. Right and he the thing he said when he was so freaked out by the suit at first was he just realized I gotta work this suit. Right. Like everything that is restrictive about the suit I have to

use as an asset and it becomes that he's like so totemic. Like everything about him feels like so otherworldly and i love the idea in this movie that people don't know if he's human or not sure when those thugs find him in the alley and they're like what is it's a suit right so he is human yeah that you're right yeah it's like body armor they don't get that robert wool when he's like trying to report on they're holding up the up the pictures of what's literally a Nosferatu creature. A Batman. Right.

He's just so bizarre in this. And then he doesn't really come in as Bruce Wayne until the 15 minute mark when they go to the party. Right. And when he comes in, Vicki Vale's like, where's Bruce Wayne? He's like, whatever. He's not uncharismatic,

but he seems so incredibly detached from human interaction it's also a weird thing this movie does where it's the only um movie in the entire batman cinematic universe all the different interpretations i would argue that doesn't make bruce wayne hyper infamous the fact that someone could come up to his party not know what he looks like like robert rule is like i don't know who went that what he looks right they don't know his backstory like she has to research through the files right yeah he pulls out the wayne file from the right the big library right like he's not howard hughes he's like some anonymous he's a local rich guy he's a local rich guy weirdo yeah right he's like a name like oh right he donates

a lot of money to things um that scene it sneaks up on you much like his performance where then he follows them in and then he starts throwing out the line and Keaton coming in with the oddball charm. And then he and Vicki Baylor hooking up. That's true. Not long after that. Yeah. And Alfred's like, hey, hey, hey. Invite her into your life. Poor Alfred.

I do feel like that is sort of the failing with this movie. And I don't blame the movie for this, but it's like the thing that I think makes Returns really sing is I'm watching this and I'm like, I don't want to see Batman with like a real person. Yeah. Like, especially because Keaton's interpretation is so damaged that you're like, I don't think he can like to a human who isn't disassociated in this way.

Sure. Who isn't this traumatized. What is Vicki Vale? I don't know this. What is Vicki Vale's life in the comics? She was a reporter who's a love interest sometimes. She's just like a Lois Laney. Batman doesn't really have.

Yeah, but she's like a sub Lois Lane. She's not that crucial to the Batman universe. The key difference is that Superman has Lois Lane and Batman has like 10 or 12 characters like that over the history of the comics. Right. Batman's real girlfriend is Alfred.

You need Alfred. His girlfriend, his mother, his father. Exactly. It's on the whole package. And they've gotten so much juice. Makes him dinner, gives him a back massage, like whatever package. And they've gotten so much juice. Makes him dinner, gives him a back massage, like whatever he needs. They've gotten so much juice off the Catwoman will they won't they

for decades because that's the one person where you're like that could maybe work. Right. That's maybe sustainable. But every other one of these relationships

is going to end in flames. He's fucking Batman. Tough to date. He's like psychotic. Yeah. And all these like classic Gemini. I need this thread to be brought He's like psychotic. Yeah. And all these like classic Gemini. I need this thread

to be brought back into the Batman universe. Really? Like dating? Well, how do they do it? I don't know. I mean, just why is there no one

in these movies who wants to sleep with superheroes? Well, that's what the Nicole Kim, right. Yeah. That's what's so fascinating about Chase Moranian.

Right. She's the only realistic non-hero in these movies to me because she's like, yeah, these are sex symbols. Right. She's like, Chris Evans is Captain America these movies to me. These are sex symbols. Chris Evans is Captain America and nobody is trying to fuck Chris Evans. Fucking Emily Van Camp is.

He likes the Winter Soldier. She knows he's gay. Spider-Man, Captain America. A lot of their love interests are also people they knew before they became superpowers right

yeah someone they've got some like childhood reminiscence with like Katie Holmes and slash Maggie Gyllenhaal um yeah I forgot about Katie Holmes

Katie Holmes she's in it she's like all over that movie yeah yeah she angrily tases um

Killian Murphy yeah in her face right no you're right her big set piece. No, I forgot about her. But that's the

Vicki Vale thing is you go like they had like two different actresses play Rachel Dawes and neither of them totally worked. Like you just don't

want him to end up with a Rachel Dawes is also not a good name. No, it's a bad name. Not a particularly compelling name. Vicki Vale.

I know that name. Vicki Vale. There's another Chase Meridian. Chase Meridian. There's another big one from the comics I'm forgetting

who's like an amazing name. From the Batman comics? Yeah, one of the Batman love interests where the name is like fucking incredible. I will look it up as we're talking about this. But, you know, yes, Ben made this joke before we record, but a complaint about this movie is it's kind of more of a Joker movie than a Batman movie. Certainly. The movie does get a little warped by the fact that you have a supernova playing the villain,

and so it has to teeter onto him. But it does feel like there's a good kind of cat and mouse back and forth. Yeah. And because of the psychological approach to it and the fact that you see the guy before, and Burton's making this argument that he was always always just kind of a fucked up sadistic guy. And this just gave him the permission to go completely off the handle. And go out at night and brutalize criminals. What I like about Burton though is that he's both like the most grotesque of these directors and also the least dependent on like it's Freudian.

Like here's your backstory. Here's all the psychoanalytic theory you need to understand. Like for example, Skyfall is a movie that I could watch any day of the week. But the mommy issues, I'm like, I don't know. It's a little basic. Right, like I don't need that.

When Burton had said like he was never a huge fan of the comic books, he wasn't a comic book kid. The thing he latched onto was like the way Batman just feels like odd and sad and dark is how he felt in like bourbon california he's running around in a costume right it's like a rich kid in a mansion who's like why am i so miserable sure like why am i drawn to go out into the like the dark alleys of the world and alfred's like look vicky vale beautiful accomplished and batman's like yeah i'm

gonna like lie to her about being busy and put on my rubber suit again that's my move I think it's nice that it isn't overstated which is a weird thing about like Batman Forever where Valkyrie's like so I had this whole dream there's literally a bat in it yes right like a huge fuzzy huge fuzzy bat flapping at the screen yep

and then I went crazy and that's why I do what I do Silver St. Cloud is the love interest I was thinking of she's a classic in Batman Forever right his parents death is this like meatloaf video where it's like there's the like spinning book that he stops

it's like his father's diary and stuff meatloaf video is exactly that it really is astonishing falling into a pit I fucking love Batman Forever. I do too. It's so good. It's so good.

God damn it. It's so good. Tommy Lee Jones. I find it really boring. No, it's like the one, and I love Batman. I love Batman Returns, but I'd always sort of understood those to be good movies, but Batman Forever was the one where I rewatched it as an adult, and I was like, oh, this is like a movie.

This is like a, there's stuff happening in this movie. It's an actual piece of filmmaking. I agree. It is an actual piece of filmmaking. I will give it that

and it also is. He's giving it that, folks. It's bizarre how much of a left turn it is from all the aesthetics that Schumacher had built up until that point. Sure, yes.

Because then that becomes everyone's association with Schumacher and it's like he was doing like Grissom thrillers yeah before that right yes yes he did a time to go he built a movie that could contain that jim carrey performance somehow my right my favorite thing just in general about the narrative is right like you know batman returns was too weird for the studio so they turned to schumacher to give him just kind of like more of a kid friendly basic thing it's like batman forever is weird in an all entirely different way.

Okay. First of all, he had never made a kid friendly film up until that point. You don't like, yeah, you don't call him. So of course he kills Robin's whole family. Right. He's like, right. With like Tommy guns. But it's like Schumacher's filmography was like Lost Boys, Sadam's Flyers.

It's true. These things that like don't show like down the middle like populist filmmaker and then the other thing is they gave him the job and they were like maybe he'll do something

like a little more conventional because look, like Time to Kill was like pretty prestigious. Yeah, he did the client as well. And he like reverted back to all his old like window dresser sensibilities

where what he was not Macy's or Bloomingdale's. He was the guy who designed the holiday window displays at Bloomingdale's. I'm pretty sure you designed the holiday window displays at Bloomingdale's. I didn't know that, but that adds up. That's what Batman Forever is.

He's like, cool, I'm going to make a whole movie that's the windows. That explains Two-Face's whole lair. He goes from that to being a screenwriter. He does like DC, or he writes Car Wash, and he writes The Wiz. Right. He wrote Car Wash. Right. And he wrote The Wiz.

Like him trying to get his foot into Hollywood. And then once he started directing, it was like, okay, I'm not going to do that like shopping store window thing. I got to show them I can make like a real movie. And then once I gave him Batman, he was like, all bets are off. Yeah. I'm back in the window, baby. He talks about in those oral histories of those movies that are really good where he was like,

we just assumed it was gonna flop. And when they got the call where it's like, biggest opening weekend of all time, make another one. He was like, really? I did not see that coming at all. And also they had more masters to serve because at that point that's when toy addict becomes a term where they're just like we need more characters. We need more different costumes.

We need more gadgets. You know we've been talking for a good 90 minutes and we haven't really talked about the plot of this movie. We kind of have I guess. We kind of have. And we talked around it. I mean the scheme is so fucking simple. He puts poison in the chemicals. He becomes obsessed with trying to make everyone as fucked up as he is right so he's like great right he's mauling jerry hall

who i think is pretty engaging in this i know i wish she could have had a film career shot of her yeah her head is tilted and she's got the weird mask on is so unsettling haunted my childhood again one of those like burton mask it's one of those things and a really well-timed cut where the mask comes off. Right? Fuck, that's so weird. I know. But where he holds off on showing you her face for a while so it really builds up

in your mind. But she has a really engaging screen presence in this and she didn't really do more movies after that. I agree. In Britain, she was such a big deal because she was Mick Jagger's partner for like two decades and so she was always in the tabloids and she did like

The Graduate on stage she played the Anne Begg role so people who weren't three years old when this came out would watch this and be like oh whereas for me it was like she was a pretty famous supermodel I think that yeah she was a pretty famous deal she's a pretty famous supermodel yeah

right so yeah they i think that yeah she was pretty well known but as an actor obviously she was mostly not yeah yeah okay supermodel who's willing to go ugly for a movie that's true but but her the whole the whole game in this movie is smilex what were you gonna say we haven't talked about billy d williams well i'm saving that oh he's in this movie i'm saving that you're saving that for what or what let's talk about in a second okay the hook of this movie is the smilex thing yeah i do like without them like it being written into the script the world's greatest detective thing keaton plays that really well like you have so many sequences of him just sitting behind the monitors looking really intently. But like there's not

much mystery to be solved. He's yeah he's good at that. But you get the sense of him really trying to put the puzzle pieces together. The other thing

I was taken aback with watching this movie is it is so fucking dark literally. Yes. Like so often it is almost monochromatic or like sepia toned.

Yes. Where like his suit is just black unlike the later suits which become glossy. This one's really matte. Yes. Where like his suit is just black. Unlike the later suits which become glossy. This one's really matte. Yeah. So it's not even reflective.

The Batmobile is also solid black. Right. Like other than when the Joker comes in. The Schumacher Batmobile is like sort of neon influenced. Like, you know,

it's got a little, yeah. And the lightest that Gotham City gets. I do like this too. Yes. The lightest that Gotham City gets is like a dull gray.

Yeah. Or like a murky diarrhea brown. The sun is never up. It's very municipal. Yeah. No. Yes. The lightest that Gotham City gets is like a dull gray or like a murky diarrhea brown. The sun is never up. It's very municipal. No, right. It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, yes, you're right.

It looks half like an industrial plant. Everyone's outfits, I mean, they're dressed in like almost like black and white sort of like noir outfits. Yeah. So that when the Joker comes in, the color is like really striking,

which is one of the reasons I think it works that the Joker is that stylized in this movie. The contrast of it but like those scenes where he's in the Batcave you're just like oh they just painted everything black. Like he's got all these monitors and the chair and the walls

and it's all just like straight matte black. No sun lamp. No you know Alfred really just has so much to do for this guy. I know. There's one moment I love where he's at the back computer and it's the one

scene where you're like, all right, this film was made in the 80s and Keaton is wearing a black turtleneck tucked into like really light denim.

He loves those turtlenecks. Yes. But there's one scene where Batman's wearing jeans and you're like, this doesn't feel correct. It's just like Batman and dad jeans.

You know, Val Kilmer also wears a turtleneck. Does George Clooney? Yes. Clooney has a turtleneck for sure. So really, Nolan killed that. I guess so.

Nolan killed the turtleneck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was really the Bruce Wayne thing. Yeah, I think that was a mistake. Right, well, because by the time it's Bale. Because Ben Affleck definitely is not wearing a turtleneck.

Right, Bale is either crisp suits or like, you know, military grade, like carbon. Well, he's like a defense contractor. He's like so,

he's so different. That's what he's like. He's a defense contractor. I actually, which is not uninteresting. No. It's a, it's a post 9-11 take.

As I was about to say, 9-11 really like made everything less fun. But that's the stuff he's interesting in doing is that side those sides of Bruce Wayne like Bale really

bites into the shit that was left untouched by Keaton yes and then the Keaton stuff he can't touch right and even like

no one's ever gonna get to do that again no you'll never see a guy like that cast in one of these because even when Chris Pratt is cast

as a superhero he buffs up he turns into like you know where he smuggles the turkey thighs underneath his clothes you know what I mean like where he's just like everything is so even though Keaton's more I think I think of Keaton in Batman as more of a sex symbol than Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy

even though Chris Pratt has that sort of shirtless scene in the prison in the first one where it's like yeah you're hot we're gonna in the prison in the first one where it's like, yeah, you're hot. We're going to slow everything down to see your body, but it's like,

no, first of all, you were better as a chubby guy in Parks and Rec. And second of all, it's like, it's weirdly not hot, whereas like Keaton

was just his lips. Well, I also think, I agree that we should be focusing on the lips. You're right. Not to tiptoe around hot water again. Marvel movies

are rarely hot. Correct. Right. Even though people crush on... And when they pick these people, so you're right not to tiptoe around hot water again Marvel movies are really hot correct right even though people crush on and when they pick these people they try to make them conventionally

like handsome and sexy in a way where it's just like oh we all agree like Chris Evans good looking guy good body but I do feel like there is a weird

sort of sexual activation thing with Keaton in this movie that is similar to animated Robin Hood where people are like am I the only one getting turned on by this which is similar to animated Robin Hood where people are like, am I the only one getting turned on by this?

Sure. Which is why I think it sticks in people's craw and I think Street Boys have a similar thing as well with Catwoman. Sure. Where they're like,

there's something weird going on here and I don't know if I'm supposed to find this sexy but I'm getting excited. No, I learned so much from, you mean Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman? Yeah.

Yeah, I learned a lot from her. Yeah, and Batman's daddy. About like, right. Penguin is daddy. Yeah. I mean a lot from her. Yeah, and Batman's daddy. About like, right. Penguin is daddy. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. Christopher Walken in Batman Returns. Oh.

Max Shrek. Max Shrek. That's who he's called. Yeah, that's his name. Max, Max Shrek. Can we talk about Billy Dee Williams, please? Yeah. So what I find interesting is that Billy Dee Williams

is the one part of this movie that was like franchise. What? Hey, Pam, first of all, I made it clear this movie that was like franchise movie what hey Pam first of all I made it clear this movie loves black might not love African American but it loves black

oh boy um no I didn't sorry I didn't think that's where you were going it's the one part of this movie

that's sort of forward thinking in terms of franchise building right right let's tease him for the sequel this character

who could just be a generic like day player. There's that Mayer character. All he does is say like, I'm not worried about the Batman. I'll see you later. He doesn't do anything in the movie at all.

He just speaks to the press several times. And in comparison to Jack Palance, it's like, okay, that's like getting a big legendary person to come do a couple scenes to sort of set the tone for the movie. But that's all it is. It's stunt casting. This, it's like,

you wouldn't hire Billy Dee Williams to just do this. He was signed to a multi-picture contract. Burton had this big idea. We've talked about this, but like he wanted Sammy Davis Jr. to play Beetlejuice. Right.

And he was like very into like the people of like his childhood, you know? Right. Coming back and playing these sort of iconic roles and being able to like sort of twist them in that way um but the character does so little yeah there's the mayor character who looks kind of like ed koch we're growing up i thought that was ed koch but he's played by the guy who plays the mayor in the best movie of all time the taking a pellum one two three he plays the mayor in both movies and his take on the mayor in one two three is is a beam the mayor of the

time like yeah but yes he does look a lot like ed koch it's weird but he puts his big chip down Sure. Okay. And his take on the mayor in 1, 2, 3 is a beam, the mayor of the time. Like, yeah, but yes, he does look a lot like Ed Koch. It's weird. But he puts his big chip down on like, I want to get Billy Dee Williams to do this. This part's going to seem below him, but it's the promise of- Lee Wallace. Lee Wallace. You're going to get an arc from this. You're going to get a three movie arc.

That was the one piece Warner Brothers bought Billy Dee Williams out of his contract because they didn't want a black two-face. Is that really? It was as simple as that? Yeah, that's 100%. Was he supposed to be in Returns? Yes. He was supposed to be Max Shrek.

Max Shrek is supposed to be Harvey Dent. Right, right, right. And the end of Batman Returns is supposed to be because Catwoman kills him by tasing his face. That was supposed to be the moment that makes him Two-Face. Right, right. That was the idea was Two was going to be when you saw his sort of corrupt side. It was going to be that exact character, and she was his assistant rather than being a sort of businessman. He was a politician.

And at the end of the movie, he becomes Two-Face, and that was the third film. And Warner Brothers, they wrote the script that way, and Warner Brothers said, we don't want a black Two-Face, and they paid Billy Dee Williams a ton of money to not be in future Batman movies. And then O.J. Simpson swooped in and said, I'll give you a black two-face and they paid billy d williams a ton of money to not be in future batman movies and then oj simpson swooped in and said i'll give you a black two-face yeah yeah except it was more like one face or like you forgot the duality i didn't realize that that's interesting my felt right because i thought that it was by the time they were ready for two-face in the 90s like billy d williams was like old news and they were yeah we're buying you out of this deal think like oh that was like

an early like it's a little easter egg fan service thing but they didn't actually have no i know that they planned i know that they had bought him out of the contract that was the exact line of thinking shrek was written to be uh and what's funny is also that shrek the ogre was written to be billy d williams originally they bought him out of that contract too. I didn't know that. He swam in a lake of Colt 45. Hey, come on. What?

He used to advertise Colt 45? I know. It was the face of it. I know. And then the other crazy version of this is Robin was written

into one scene of this movie. They decided it was too much. There was going to be one scene where it's one of the Batmobile chases where then

Robin comes in the tunnel and starts fighting. And they were like, this is too overstuffed. So they saved him for two. And two, the premise was it was like, they were going to sort of do the Joseph Gordon-Levitt, like, oh, my middle name is Robin thing. Where he, like, got a street kid to, like,

fix the Batmobile sure who started like living and that was Marlon Wayans right Marlon Wayans was cast they built the suit for him they made an action figure

and then they caught him and he got paid a ton of money to not be in it so like the two Burton Batman movies are like the two times he tried to hire

black actors and big roles and then never attempted to do it ever again how do I get paid to not be in a movie I I mean, that's the thing. They figured it out in a way. To be honest. Yeah, they kind of beat the system.

I, can I just say, that's a trope that I don't like. It's like, the kid who's influenced to become a hero. Like, which Star Wars movie recently was it? Was it Last Jedi? Where it was like little kid with a broom. You don't like broom kid? He's got a broom though. It's fine. You're just not into the kids He's got a broom though. It's fine.

You're just not into the kids. Broomy Janubi? That's probably his name, right? Sam Bernoubi? You know what child Jedi mom and I like? When, what's his name? When Anakin slaughters

the room of children? Of course you do. When he cleans out. Give me some edge. You're twisted. You don't need to see it. I just need to see the carcasses sure

like yeah fuck yeah sure Jedi murder Master Anakin right that's the kids I'm Master I'm Master

what's going on Master hey buddy how you doing I'm giving Ben a pat on the shoulder are there other things we need to talk about I like the ending a lot

I like the church I like to you know I do I like how exactly but that does feel like the final showdown in dark knight does it not sort of for sure of them being this elevation but it's just it's just a nice completion of the whole gothic theme right like that like we're not and also

again we're talking about superhero movies now where they all end with like a vortex to another dimension and this is just like joker gets Batman's girl, brings her to the top of a steeple. And Batman shoves him off the steeple and he dies and that's it. And the journey to the top is extremely memorable.

It is. It is great. Yes. It's good action that's not too complicated. It is. No, it's very simple. It is kind of incredible

how well done the action is in this movie considering the limitations they had in all senses. It's also kind of incredible that they have the guts to kill the Joker. They've got this huge actor, and they're like, yeah, he dies.

That's it. You see his dead body. And then that weirdly sends a template where then people think that supervillains need to die in the first movie. The only exception to that becomes Magneto. Where he runs throughout the series, but other than that, it's like... Magneto is right.

He's basically... He's such a crucial part of the whole X-Men thing. But like Gene Hackman, they had him signed to multiple films. They were reusing footage for the later ones. Of course you got to keep Lex Luthor in these things. But it's like, yeah, Batman doesn't kill the Joker. That doesn't happen to you. Yeah, right.

You knock him off a cliff, but then you don't find his body. But they're like, no, he's dead. There he is. Dead. End of movie. Laugh. I laugh i was gonna say a little machine i'll tell you the other that freaked me out that freaked me out because i was just like what does this mean what the fuck's going on you have a dance with the devil um moonlight the the thing that uh sticks uh with me the most that's one of my favorite scene i think i don't know if i've said this on

a different episode but when i was like 10 years old and we had to do like an independent research project in school, I chose to do mine on Tim Burton. And I literally rented every Tim Burton VHS from the video store across the street, Couch Potato Video, and I hooked two VCRs up to each other and I copied, I made my own Burton mixtape. Oh, of like your favorite scenes? Wow, what a sophisticated child. I made my own Burton mixtape of like your favorite scenes I spent like a weekend doing that because I was like I want people to see the scenes that like mean the most to me and I would take like the opening title card directed by Tim Burton card and then

the scene I liked the most and it would be like a super cut of like seven of the movies or whatever. Did you invent super cuts? I maybe invented super cuts and then I narrated it over it. I said, you can see every frame here is a painting. But one of those things where I'm just like, Jesus Christ, that was like quite a commitment for like.

When you're a kid, you can go all in on something like that. And what else was there to do back then? There's nothing to do. You're like writing God knows what in your little journals. But I tried to pick these scenes that I was like, these for me really represent a showcase, show pieces of Tim Burton as a director as opposed to the other things. And I think it was the, I used the Martian spy girl scene from Mars Attacks.

I weirdly, because it had just come out, used the scene in Sleepy Hollow where he's walking around all the old men talking about them all being decapitated which I thought was so fucking funny at the time for some reason.

No, I think it was. I don't remember what the other, maybe I used the Shakespeare, but I used my favorite scene

in the movie, the one that I find both the funniest, the most sort of stunning as like a showcase and the most upsetting is the news broadcast. Yeah.

Which is basically this hard cut to. Where you're just doing this hard cut to new characters you don't know in a totally unknown world and it feels like broadcast news for a second. You just got some guy in the booth

like throwing out the commands. Action news. Yeah, and they keep on using those shots of like the grid of the monitors where you see the cameras on the guy

reading his copy and her off to the side just shuffling her papers and trying to stifle the laughs. No laughing matter. I like how he's trying to vamp. And then the interruption when you have like,

there's something, I've talked about this in other episodes, but I find so freaky that you don't have anymore when video quality used to be different. So in a movie,

someone watching something on a TV screen had an otherworldly quality because it was a lower resolution than the film you're watching. The Joker breaking in is so scary. And his weird supermarket ad, and he's

using the models they had said had just been murdered, which is so morbid. He's just a good, he's always funny, and always scary, and you never have a problem with either part of it. His patter is so funny, the parade His patter's so funny. The parade, he's so funny.

Anything Nicholson is adding to it is funny and yet you're always just a little troubled by it. But that was Nicholson's thing he said. He keyed into it when he was doing Children's Theater. These things are not fighting with each other. The funnier I am, the scarier I am. Both things, they're not canceling each other out. And then there's

that great thing later when he interrupts the press conference from the mayor where he comes on the other screens and he literally pushes them off the other monitors. That shit's so weird. And then the other one that I always get freaked out by is the quiet

invasion of the mines. Oh my god. That's so good. That shit is wild. It takes so long. It's such a slow burn. Yeah. Yeah. All that shit's so weird.

Like the old mobsters with the like what's your problem joke and they're all just like fat Italian mobster stereotypes. And then Tracy Walter as Bob the Goon who was like a guy

that Jonathan Demme would use as like William Hootkins as well we should shout him out as Eckhart you know Porkins from Star Wars oh fuck I never put that together but Tracy Walter is like

I'm gonna be on that IMDB more often and make these connections Tracy Walter is like the hotel desk man in like Something Wild where he was just like a weird character actor and then Burton asked Leota to be Batman because of Something Wild and Leota was like

no I don't get it and the studio had their list of like oh they wanted like Kevin Kline they wanted like all the guys who were like

sort of on the rise conventional leader man they wanted Charm Machine like anyone who's like a hot 80s star who are these losers yeah but he wanted Leota

Leota passed yeah he loved Leota he wanted Curry Curry passed they were his first Yeah, he loved Leota and something wild. He wanted Curry. Curry passed. They were his first choices. He talked to Brosnan and Brosnan was like,

I don't want to make a comic book movie. Curry as Batman? Curry as the Joker. Okay. I mean, he got the right people. It's like, it's perfect. And then the two key moments

that I just think are so beautiful and credit to the script for putting them in or Burton for having the idea or whatever it is. But the first dinner scene where they're having the conversation where they can't hear each other across the table. Oh, yes. Sets them up really well to be like, oh, I don't resent this character for being like a spoiled rich guy anymore.

I see how uncomfortable he is with all of this excess, which makes him a little more human. And then when she wakes up in the middle of the night, he's hanging upside down. excess, which makes him a little more human. And then when she wakes up in the middle of the night, he's hanging upside down. You know, I feel like every time I see a scene at like a huge table like that,

it's a trope. And every time I see it, I just think the back to this movie actually. I haven't thought about that, but that's probably the origin of this trope for me. That just punchline of like, do you eat here often? He's like,

yeah, no, I like this room. I like this room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually,

I don't think I've ever. And then it cuts to them like in the sort of kitchen. In the kitchen and Alfred's saying like, oh, this kid was so cute. He's non-elitist. He's kind of a

light-hearted millionaire asshole. Yeah. I also like... If he gives Knox the grant... That's right. He's pretty like

generous, you know? I also like... He seems uncomfortable with his mom. I also like that Joker takes down Batman's Batplane with a big gun.

Yes. I mean, that's the fucking moment too where you just go like... Yes. And they do with his mind that um that joker takes down batman's batplane with a big gun yes i mean that's the fucking moment too where you just go like yes and they do the same thing with his extendo glove and his antenna on the remote but these are all things that like the future movies just like they're like let's take that and magnify by a thousand right like even i have to admit like schumacher's thing of like mr freeze lives in an ice palace with Eskimo guards. Ice palace that looks like Saran Wrap. It probably is. But Returns is definitely maximizing.

It is. The big rubber ducky and all that weird shit. If I had to pinpoint... I'm sorry. I was going to say, I had a lot of questions from my mom about the death kiss at the end of Returns. The making out. I remember... You were like, what's going on here? What is going on? Why is he dying? I don't get it. The death of at the end of Returns like the making out I remember what was supposed to be the death of

why is he dying I don't get it the death of Dent the birth of Two-Fish yeah I didn't get that I didn't get that until I was older

the moment to me that just solidifies it where it's like fuck Burton let him do whatever the fuck he wants like he's tapped into something primal here yeah

and I just imagine seeing this opening day and the audience just flipping the fuck out and it's such an animation idea with him having the notion of like, how do you build a visual setup to like a perfect sublime

visual payoff is just the Batplane on the moon. Yes. That thing is just like rapturous. Yeah, but it's so elegant. It doesn't feel too clever, too self-implied. But you're right. I think it's the animator instinct that I think is really what he has that a lot of directors who do superhero movies

don't have. Right, that design sense of like, is it funny if the character's silhouette is like this, you know? But like seeing, even just seeing like the bat signal from some like back alley somewhere and like a cat scrambles by and it's like a bear in the sky. He tries to get as much as he can out of every shot at this point, you know, either

with an interesting design idea or even like a bit of physicality in the way an animator would be as he can out of every shot at this point. You know, either with an interesting design idea or even like a bit of physicality in the way an animator would be like, how do I spice this up? The first Wayne Manor scene when he keeps on

leaving the drinks behind and Alfred just has to follow him. Like, he's just so, he's packing everything full. Yeah. But the key is that

the script is so streamlined that the movie doesn't become. Right. It doesn't feel like exposition all the time it just feels like personality but if I had seen that in theaters

with the Batplane in the moon turning into the Bat-Signal I would have just come all over the place I agree let's play the box office game that's enough that's the moment that I think makes the movie

I love that moment so this rewrote all That's the moment that I think makes the movie. Yeah, no, I love that moment. So this rewrote all the rules of the box office. It was the biggest release, widest release. The first time that something was this kind of front-loaded to, like, let's blow out the opening weekend. Yes. And it broke the records.

Batman. It does 45 the opening weekend? 40. Which at the time was unheard of. Is equivalent to, like, doing 200 today or something. It broke the opening weekend record that had been set one week prior by number three at the box office lethal weapon no but it is a top two nope uh fuck the record was 29 busters to ghostbusters to adjust the record for opening weekend with 29 million and batman makes 40 so much bigger

right a huge jump um no at that point it was like five years of anticipation for like bill murray's at the sore bone when's he gonna get off his butt and make a fucking bust damn movie again which ghostbusters movie is the one that has a painting painting no the parade the like there's a ghostbusters parade that's two yeah yeah okay this explains my childhood because i do remember they ride the statue of liberty with the slime and they put it on a parade action demon parades yeah parades were the set piece of this era they're good we bring that back they're a good set piece number two though is a just a horror movie for producer bent just the worst kind of movie possible he's he's freaking out

right now just thinking about it are they okay are the things very small and dry so small it's dry is not an issue honey i shrunk the kids honey i shrunk but we've talked about this same weekend okay we've talked about i know when they're small things look big like the cheerio looks i know but i still know that it's small. So it throws me off. They do get wet in a big old bowl of milk. I remember that part. Ant saliva. Number four.

So we are seeing in this like the dawn of this kind of franchise-y. Because yeah, like number four is another sequel, a third movie in a franchise. So Ghostbusters is number three? That's right. Yeah. See, look. I mean, this is just like franchise, franchise, franchise. Okay.

Number four is, you said, another sequel? Yeah, the third in a series. Final? Nope. Horror? Nope. It's not a horror franchise. No, like big superhero, yeah, not superhero, but a big action franchise.

And it's not Lethal Weapon 3? No. It's not a Death Wish movie? No, huge, huge, like, family-friendly, like, beloved movie. Family-friendly action? Not my favorite, but people really like this. I don't know. You like this guy.

We've discussed this director. The director. Many times. Many times. I like him. This is the third one. Did he direct all? Oh, oh, oh, it's Last Crusade?

Yes. Yeah, right. She and the Jones in the Last Crusade. Yeah, like, this is like a modern blockbuster top five. Yeah. And then number five. Not a bad set of movies. No, no, not at all. No, this is like a modern blockbuster top five. Yeah. And then number five. Not a bad set of movies. No, no, not at all.

No, this is a good group of movies. Number five, I do not like. Another very big director. This was a big Oscar player. Very sappy, sort of inspirational movie. Did it win any Oscars?

I think it won screenplay. But it was nominated for like picture, actor. You know, it's, I had no was it just like I think it won screenplay but it was nominated for like picture actor you know it's it's I had no idea it was a summer movie

it really feels like a fall movie it's on Dead Poets Society it is Dead Poets Society you're not a fan of Dead Poets Society not really

I love Peter Weir but I haven't seen it in years but I remember I've never seen it finding the like kid drama so irritating in that that's true no that's true um but i i probably last saw it when i was 14 like i you know i can't remember

the last time i saw it i feel like it's probably worse now probably i love i love again i love peter weir i'd love him to make another movie like i forgot that that was even him i don't think of that as yeah let's see he didn't write it or anything, but you know, it was sort of his. The last he did. Uh, yeah. The, the Colin Farrell movie. Yeah.

Where's he been? I don't know. I mean, he always takes forever to make a movie, especially now, but like still I would. Russell Crowe keeps hinting that they're talking about doing another Captain Aubrey movie, which I cannot imagine.

Master and Commander is one of my favorite movies. I watch it all the time. I watch it to relax. What? It would only work if it was a movie about the time. I watch it to relax. What? It would only work if it was a movie about the time that Captain Aubrey

ate a ship. Poor Russell. I don't want to be mean, but we've talked about, I don't think I've talked about this on Mike, but the fact that like Russell Crowe's

in one of those phases where he's like, I read the script and I just decided I had to bulk up for this part. He's doing his Orson Welles. He keeps on acting

like it's a choice though. It's just, it's actually just, Orson Well bulk up for this part. He's doing his Orson Welles. He keeps on acting like it's a choice, though. It's actually just... Orson Welles is a good example. It's unusual for a big star. Especially someone who is that kind of sexy. Right, who is like a really... Right, a sexy marquee idol of some moment to really just kind of be like, yeah, totally.

Orson Welles could get it. You know, to just sort of like... And then touch of evil. You know, Boy Erased, as you said, we were talking one time, his eyes are fat in that movie. That's Griffin's joke. I forgot how good that joke was. It's a good joke. That's a good...

Can I give myself five comedy points because David's the one who ruined it? Please, please. You know, and now he's like, what should I play? And someone's like, do you want to play Roger Ailes? And he's like, yes, I will play Roger Ailes? And he's like, yes, I will play Roger Ailes. Hand me those Pop-Tarts.

He looks for real life people who are husky, to be generous, so that he can maintain his body type or they're like, hey, how would you like to play Robin Hood? And he's like,

my tech on Robin Hood is beefy. But even, it's true that even in Gladiator, he was beefy, but he was, he's a beefy guy. He's a naturally beefy guy. I mean, Robin Hood's a bad example because I think that's the last time he was in shape he was beefy but he was he's a beefy guy he's naturally beefy i mean robin hunt's a bad example because i think that's the last time he was in shape

pretty much but i mean like yeah in the mummy like it's like oh russell crowe lost 15 pounds and sort of like looks a little more limber whereas right in a boy a race it's like oh russell crowe put on 20 pounds yeah yeah his eyes look fat right and he lost 15 from like 250 like he wasn't at no I know I'm a husky guy too I love Russell Crowe I love an actor

who just pursues roles that require eating that is my kind of I do too yeah it's yeah Viggo Mortensen

had the time of his life in Green Book oh boy eating that pizza yeah I'll give that movie that yeah he got to eat that pizza

Christian Bale just wants to be fat. We should let him stay fat. Uh, Bale? Yeah. I think he's into like the Dismoranian. He likes,

right. He likes the up and down. He likes the challenge. You're right. I'll say when he dies, he's going to die so fucking hard. Oh my God. They're going to cut him up and be like,

you're worms. You're worms. He's the boogeyman from Nightmare Before Christmas? Your eyes are in your butt? What's going on here? Did you see Vice Cam? You must have seen Vice. I didn't.

Not even. And everyone's sterling reviews of the movie really make me want to see it. I want to see Tyler Perry in it though. Yeah, you know,

when I saw that he was in it, I was like, that rules, but he doesn't really give much to do. Gone Girl star. Does he just not have much to do? Is he good, though? How does he not have much to do, though? Isn't Colin Powell a little bit

important? Because the movie just shifts into full-on recap mode in the last half, and so everyone just kind of drops in and is like, Colin Powell's like, I'm just not comfortable with this. That's the thing, right, like, Colin Powell's the one guy with a bit of integrity, which means McKay isn't interested in talking about him because he just wants to point and say how evil they are.

Lisa Gay Hamilton plays Condi. She doesn't do anything. It's like no one does anything. Carell as Rumsfeld is a bigger part, but that's because Rumsfeld is present throughout his career. But anyway. I don't know.

Maybe we'll see it. I don't know. I already made my top 10 list. What's number one? Batman? Oh, no. What's number one? Batman? Oh, no. It's a good choice. I would love for a Batman movie to come out that I could, like, stand for.

Sink your teeth into. Yeah. All right, we're done. Can I do a tiny merchandise spotlight? Mm-hmm. And it's not the type of merchandise spotlight I usually do. Once again, because no one, like, realized how much potential this movie had until it was too late the company that got the rights

to make the toys for this movie which were you know a lot of Batman a lot of Joker because you only really have like two toyetic characters in this movie I think they changed later no one's going to buy like a Knox dolls or anything later they're like let's have two to three heroes and two to three villains per movie they did make a Bob the Goon Tracy

Walter action figure with kicking action which I think was like a big like 1989 like oh shitty christmas all i got was a bob the goon the rest were sold out ben's looking up video games but ben the batman returns video game we got to talk about the first batman video game is the one where he's purple right yeah we're like in order to make the sprite stand out from the batman batman returns was like a good side scrolling beat him up kind of super nintendo game i had that where like in order to make the sprite stand out from the background Batman Returns was like a good side scrolling beat em up

kind of Super Nintendo game I had that it was awesome it was good it was hard I think I was too busy on my Crash Bandicoot hustle sure

fair enough I've got Crash Bandicoot on my Switch now that guy rules I would love to play Crash Bandicoot Crash Bandicoot slaps he's cool yeah

I made a Crash Bandicoot joke in my Mowgli review does that age us though does that date us do the kids know who Crash Bandicoot slaps. He's cool. Yeah. I made a Crash Bandicoot joke in my Mowgli review. Does that age us though? Does that date us? Sure. Do the kids know who Crash Bandicoot is? No, he's back now

because they remastered them. They sort of brought him back. They remastered the original games and it was like one of the top selling titles. Yeah, that's what I have

on my Switch. And now it's on every console because he used to just be PlayStation. Now it's on Xbox. It's on Switch. Kids love that. I just don't like

that democratization actually. Who's the villain? He's like a floating head. Dr. Now it's on Xbox. It's on Switch. Kids love that thing. I just don't like that democratization, actually. Who's the villain? He's like a floating head. Dr. Neal Cortez? Yes. I used to love Crash Bandicoot. Are you talking about Komodo Joe? Sure.

Ripper Roo? I can go all day on this, baby. I love that I know what you're talking about. For once, like a video game conversation that I get. That was your guy. Crash Bandicoot has big dick energy. Crash Bandicoot is the best. He does. His like touchdown dance. Are you kidding me? Yeah. He pulls off shorts. He was your guy. Crash Bandicoot has big dick energy. Crash Bandicoot is the best. He does.

His like touchdown dance. Are you kidding me? Yeah. He pulls off shorts. He was a sex symbol. The thing I was going to say is that the toy company that got the rights, you will find this interesting, was a little company just trying to get their foothold called Toy Biz. Owned by Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad who off of the success of the Batman toys which were

then sold to a bigger company were able to convince Marvel to give them the rights to X-Men where they made so much money that they were the ones who bought Marvel out of bankruptcy coming up on our Patreon James Seamus calling Ike Perlmutter a fascist

coming up right tie in in a few days from now yeah but I just find it interesting that the success of the first Batman movie and by proxy it's merchandise

which then buys Marvel which saves Marvel right the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn't happen without I know well there you go this is the beginning of everything pretty

interesting I know Batman really like raised a lot of tides right yeah yeah Batman was that bitch Batman was that bitch Batman was that bitch I can't think of a better way

to end this episode Kim thank you for being here yeah it was just fun people should follow you on Twitter read your your bylines of Andy Ferrer

to hear me call Spider-Man gay every day every day is that a promise will you say that will you make that promise to our listeners

don't make that promise. On air that you will call Spider-Man gay. Spider-Verse is about to come out and get ready for some homophobic Spider-Man takes. No, I'm just kidding. I support Spider-Man being gay.

I just want him to come out. Yeah, sure. Spider-Verse is great. I feel like if your first instinct for casting a superhero is Tobey Maguire, it's gay. And your second instinct

was Jake Gyllenhaal. Let's be clear. Come on, let's not forget. Yeah. All right. Do your thing. Come on. and your second instinct was Jake Gyllenhaal let's be clear come on let's not forget yeah alright do your thing come on okay

don't rush me yeah don't rush him I just had to be at a holiday party Ben is angry it's five o'clock Ben yeah oh the timer said

we did it we did it aha aha a minute over I just want people to know that for the entire two hour episode. Ben's like, we have a hard out. And then when I get in here, he's wearing the Christmas lights. I want to go drink and have fun.

We're going to go. We're going to go. You are literally five steps away from this party. You have to open a door and then you're there. Or at a bar restaurant. Oh, really? Yeah. A bar restaurant?

It's both. That's so decadent. Combo. Bar and restaurant. In this economy? I know. Humble brag. Oh boy.

I just want to say before I do our wrap up. I love how Ben is extending the episode. Fuck. I mean it's a Alright. What do you want to say?

I want to say before we end the episode. The finger foods are not going to be there anymore. Excuse me Ben. I'm trying to end the episode. And I just want to say before I do, for the listener at home,

Ben's necklace has been going off this entire episode. The whole time. For two hours, he's had a Christmas lights necklace that flashes between different colored lights. He's changed the intensity. He's walking out of the studio. Bye. He looks great.

He's kind of dressed like Batman. He's all in black. That's true. With Christmas lights. Merry Christmas to you both. And a Merry Christmas to you all. This episode, of dressed like Batman. He's all in black. It's true. With Christmas lights. Merry Christmas to you both. And a Merry Christmas to you all. This episode, of course, is coming out in early January. Thank you all for listening.

Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Andrew for Gudo for our social media. Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. Thanks to Liam Montgomery for our theme song. Go to TeePublic for all your nerdy merch. Go to Reddit. Blankies.reddit.com for all your nerdy merch. Go to Reddit, Blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. And as always, Crash Bandicoot has big dick energy. I agree.