We Hate Movies - S11: Episode 521 - Batman Returns (with Jamelle Bouie)

Episode Date: December 15, 2020

On this week's WLM episode, the gang welcomes friend of the show, Jamelle Bouie back to the program to heap endless praise on one of the all-time greats, Batman Returns! Has Michelle Pfeiffer ever been better? Why did Batman have to 'scratch' the CD of the Penguin recording? How terrifying is that abandoned zoo? And has a family film ever embraced the threat of child murder more? PLUS: Oswald Cobblepot: the David Koresh of the Gotham sewer? Batman Returns stars Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny DeVito, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough, Michael Murphy, Cristi Conaway, Andrew Bryniarski, Steve Witting, Jane Hooks, Vincent Schiavelli, and Pat Hingle; directed by Tim Burton. WHM is donating 100% of our 2020 merch income to causes fighting for racial justice. For more information on how you can pitch in, head over to our website. Advertise on We Hate Movies via Gumball.fm Unlock Exclusive Content!: http://www.patreon.com/wehatemovies See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

this week on the program it's one of the all-time greats it's batman returns i'm jupin stephen sadak eric ciska chris gabin jemal bowie and we love movies Hello, everyone, welcome to the fine program. Thank you for tuning in, as always. This is week three, I believe, of our We Love Movies Month. We're so happy to welcome back our good friend, Jamel Bowie to the program. How are you, bud? I'm doing pretty good other than being confined in my house for the entire year That's everyone's life now It's kind of like this bad reflex I've had all year Where we have guests on and I'm like how you doing

And they're like how the fuck do you think I'm doing stupid It's a reasonable question Sure I know it's just we're all doing kind of shitty And hanging in the best we can right How's your room's doing today Yeah exactly The coup seems We're turning the corner on the coup, I think.

Well, in which direction? Yeah, maybe. But that's something to look forward to. Yeah, maybe. Biden will probably be president, but apparently, like, 17 states have decided if they just don't think democracy should count anymore. So, yeah. That's. Oh.

Trump's going to become shadow president. Woo. It is a weird thing. I didn't know that states could tell other states what to do. That was something I learned today. They really can't. But Texas is a bigger state, so it can bully the other states. I think that's the law they're going to argue.

Right, right, right. But we are here today to talk about a movie that has a real rigged election in it. This is Batman Returns from 1992, of course, directed by the great Tim Burton. What is Steve Sadek's favorite movies of all time? Next time you see him at a live show, ask to see that back tattoo. I do not have any tattoos, but I might. When I get divorced, not if, when. when it's finally become too much

it's then the Batman Returns tattoo will be next Is it going to be the hell here? That's actually kind of a great idea for a tattoo Chris, the neon pink like hell here Yeah, not bad. You could do it on Knuckles too. I would also assume the black cat.

Jamel, we showed you a slate of episodes and you were like, I want to be on Batman Returns. I want to know why. I mean, aside from that it's awesome. So, you know, I hadn't seen this movie, well, prior to this year, I had not seen Batman Returns since I was a kid, maybe. The only, my only memory of the movie really prior to watching it again this year was the scene where the penguin bites that guy's nose off, which is, I think sort of like a millennial sort of like cut off line is like, did that, did that like fuck up your child if it or not? I think the divide is between it was returns your first Batman

or was forever your first Batman? Right, yes, yeah. Oh, yeah, okay. But so we watched it again earlier this year and I was like, this is a masterpiece. I guess it's, I think it's easy to forget both how good the movie is. And then how, because Batman 89

really kind of inaugurated the modern superhero movie, it's easy for all of these things to blend together but you watch 89 you want to return specifically and it's so clearly this distinct vision and distinct product like it comes unmistakably from tim burton in a way that just isn't true of very many modern superhero movies like the only thing i think that really has the same level sort of like this isn't you know this isn't like the property this is this guy's movie um and he's giving him giving you giving you his distinct take on the property is Spider-Man 2, which is like

it's a Ramey movie. It's sort of, you can't watch that and not come away from thinking, this is Sam Ramey to the bone. And so when you had Batman returns on the list, I was like, I just want to watch the movie again and talk about it so, because I think it's weirdly underappreciated

as a film, as not just a superhero film, but just is like a blockbuster period. It's like a total gestalt. Like when people tell me about the things that, like, don't make sense of this movie. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't care. What are you talking about? Well, you're getting, like, so people are coming up to you on the street.

Well, like, let me tell you another thing about that Batman retains. I mean, there's plenty of YouTube content out there. And, like, Twitter battles that have waged over this very fact. Uh-oh. You think there might be a blot hole? Oh, shit, there might be a plot hole. Oh, yeah! But, like, the vision of it is so strong.

that I don't, I don't care. Yeah. The only thing I could even knock it for and it's not really even a knock because like Catwoman is also, she combines with the love interest and that's sort of there. But this is kind of the movie that sets up that like now every superhero movie needs two villains. Yes. Yeah. Yep. So it begins. Yeah.

It's like a two and a half in this movie because don't, don't discount Chris Walken even though he's not like a, you know, he's not running around. I mean, I was almost about to say he's not running around in a ridiculous costume, but he is running around in a ridiculous costume. he's got an Albert Einstein wig, like a literal wig on his head, or a Beethoven wig. It's probably closer to Beethoven because it's in the mustache. He's a crazy wig. He's like evil Doc Brown.

Yes, exactly. If Doc Brown was actually a huge financial success with his inventions and became this massive corporate villain, I can totally see that. He runs department stores now. I also think that I think Edward Enigma stole a lot of the

wardrobe from Shrek's personal office. when it was raided at the end of this like a lot of these suits look very nigma-esque. Right, right, right. Chris, I think you're right to say that whatever plot holes or flaws or whatever in the movie are just kind of

overwhelmed by how much it is just as a unified experience. That like every single element of the movie is working in concert with the other for this like singular product. Yes. I'm still amazed by this movie. I watched this again last night

This being the 25th time or something And I was still blown away That they got away with it It got away with it a hundred percent It's shocking that every So much of this movie It's genuinely shocking that it got made Obviously I think it owes up to the fact that Batman 89

It was just this massive You know cultural phenomena And Tim Burton could do whatever he wanted But still Telling Tim Burton you can do whatever and Tim Burton coming to you with like, I want to play with my German Expressionist toys. Is like letting him do that still feels, you know,

like something that shouldn't happen. That doesn't really happen ever. There's no superhero movie made. And also the other thing is this movie would not get made in 2020. But like you watch it and it's like, find me another superhero movie where you could be like, oh yeah, the cabinet of Dr. Caligari right there. I got it. Right, right.

I think it's, I mean, and also like, I think he needed to make. make Edward Cisorhands between Batman and Batman Returns to just sort of get up because I mean like so much like the penguin can and Edward Cisorhands the character himself can both exist in nightmare before Christmas and the movie wouldn't skip a beat like visually it's exactly this weird world between cartoon and reality that he loves to play with and this movie is all soundstage it's all Tim Burton dollhouse bullshit and I'm so fucking here for it so I have to say I so I saw this in theaters with my mother and my friend Mike and when I was leaving this was like a huge moment for me I was we were leaving and we were in the car and Mike in the back seat says that was fucked up like out of nowhere

like completely out of nowhere and like my mom was like yeah the movie was pretty weird right he's like no what happened to the penguin that was really fucked up what happened to the penguin and I was like yeah it was right is he using profanity in your mother's car and she's not saying a word? You know my mother. Of course she doesn't care. Well, I don't know about like a little kid just swearing in a car. This is Dirty Mike, this new character. I'll just say I'm 33 years old

and I will still be shocked by white people using curse words in front of their parents. The problem is mine uses them back at me way more. I saw this I saw this with my dad in theaters. My parents were divorced. And then for my birthday because it came out in October, the VH

came out in October. I asked for it. I had a party and we watched it with my mother. Was it a Batman party? I think there was some Batman stuff going on. You know, whatever the hell I am. And like a tablecloth or something. Yes. And two things. One, this tells you my clown problem. I could not

watch, but I saw Batman in theaters and I was too terrified of the Joker, but the penguin I really related to, obviously. And my mother, for the first time seeing that movie on VHS in my home, thought it was like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She's like, oh, my God. with what's going on with his mouth

I can't I cannot Was she pissed off being like Your father took you to see this I think there's a little of that going on as well That animal He's the penguin Stephen Your father is the penguin Your father I've seen him with bile

Coming out of his mouth Oh man And the funny thing too Watching this movie last night I was like man I wish Tim Burton also Just still made movies like this because that's a thing that doesn't happen anymore. I think the last good, I mean, and I'll watch this

in quarantine. The last great one I think is Sleepy Hollow and that's it. And then after that it's a good to okay to bad. And it was not 20 years ago. Yeah, it was. I would argue for Sweeney Todd. I really love Sweeney Todd. I took a Sweeney Nap and Sweeney Todd. It was

great. Yeah. I really like that movie. Did anyone see Dumbo? I did. I did. I did. It's fine. It's fine. It's definitely better than most, because it's it's an actual like Burton's style is there and it's a darker movie than most of these re-pitches are

I don't know what you call them like new animation I don't know what the fuck like the live action adaptations but it's not live action like it's definitely not like halfway to live action well there's way more I mean there are no human beings

in the Lion King as I was what is like there's more people in Dumbo than the Lion King but I think I think you can fairly call Dumbo live action like the lying thing it's like that's No, they aren't filming actual lions. Right. Maybe they should be. Maybe then I would have returned to that movie after my internet shut off halfway through it.

They have like the kid in the jungle book, but like movies that they're going to move more towards that I feel. Cabin, in that Dumbo movie, because both DeVito and Michael Keatner in it, right? Are we making any kind of like, oh, we're back together again? Like half a second nod at all? I'm going to be honest with you. I forget most of it. Okay. But they both eat raw fish, right?

They do that with Dumbo. It's a very cute scene. And did he also do dark shadows or am I? He did. I like dark shadows. That was fine. Yeah. I like dark shadows. Not at the level of this, but it's, Steve, I would recommend it. Yeah.

The thing I was noticing about this movie versus the first one, like obviously in the first one, you are getting to Batman immediately, right? There's like the tourist family that gets mugged or whatever and then it gets the guys on the roof like right away. There's two guys on the roof who are my favorite in, like, any movie. They're the one guy's like, he says, uh, uh, you gotta watch out for the Batman. The bet.

They are just like two disgusting pigs on the rooftop and I love it. That guy does some of the best cigarette acting. Like he's just like, there ain't no fucking brat. I heard he's everywhere. I heard he drinks blood. But this movie is like, you are waiting quite a bit before. you get to some Batman here. And all of these credits just with like the penguins,

Eerie river boat ride as a baby. Man, the fucking, the, the, a cobble pots sending him down the river like Moses to the Pharaoh's daughter that is the sewer penguins. Like, Mike,

I've never seen anything like this. For your opening credits. Paul Rubens, too. It's great to see him back in a Tim Burton movie. My question was, because he got arrested in 91. They probably made this movie in 91.

Yeah. When, like, was that part of the Tim Burton experience? Like, I want to give Paul his shot. I don't care where he was jerking off. Or was it like, hey, it's, oh, fuck, we filmed this thing with Paul Rubens. Isn't that nice? Oh, crap. He just got caught jerking off kind of a thing.

You know, I would bet that it's the him getting caught jerking off as post the filming for the movie. But you got to remember, it's like an entertainment press that was probably a thing. But if you were just like, you know, some Joe public, you have no idea that Paul Rubin's, maybe you hear some time later that it happened. So it's not, you know, there's not like a, I mean, now, now of course, you know, it would be a big deal. Paul Rubens would protect his tweets at this point, for sure. A nice little lock next to it. Also, I don't think people recognized him in this movie at all. The thin mustache.

He looks so different. Yeah, I forgot how, like, heavily under makeup he is in this movie. isn't uh mrs cobbled pot eustace cobblepot i don't know what her name is uh isn't that uh peewee's love interest yes she's in peewee's big adventure and she returned as a different character in that peewee uh holiday thing that was on netflix oh yeah yeah yeah and chris we get the names of the parents when the penguin visits the grave for some reason it's tucker tucker cobbopat and esther i think it's tucker and Esther Cobblepot, man. He's wearing a bowtie. I should have saw that coming.

Was Tucker Cowapot like like he's an alt-right spokesperson? Yeah, he definitely was. That's why he got, that's why they got rid of those son. He wasn't a good white specimen. He was working with Prescott Bush. They were having their time. Is anyone else participating in no,

not November? Whoa! Oh, man, if only Paul Rubens did. That's true. Come on. Always in November. So you have a difficult birth. You come out with a deformed child or a child with special hands.

And you put him in a cage immediately. I don't think it's the kid's fault that he eats a cat at that point. Like, you know what I mean? Like, he's in a cage. You're setting that kid up for failure, man. You absolutely are locking in the cage. I'm going to keep coming back to this. This is ostensibly a children's movie.

right so you're opening five minutes are deformed baby caged baby baby baby eats cat and then as chris notes baby goes to the the store the underground's penguin society that that maybe takes in children i mean they seem pretty used to it they're very they're very maternal to this fucking penguin from what i can see is this a closed down zoo like what is what is exactly going on that's what happened the gotham Zoo is the most Tim Burton looking thing you will ever see in your life. It's like

all of his nightmares combined into one little property that's covered in a gentle layer of snow. And it's amazing. I love the miniature work we see when we go through the whole encampment. And also like to compare this to the first movie, the first movie has that amazing

credit sequence with we're going through what is the bat signal. It takes you a while to figure it out. And then it's a bag to signal. It's a great big piece of pop art. this we're watching a mutant baby on a fucking river ride like that's that is where we're at it's that's exactly that's where we're starting but it was plausible back then you could just throw you know you can throw your kid in the river if you're right like this is supposed to be like a quasi 50s 40s I don't know when it takes place which i think Andrew you keep mentioning on the batman properties and

it is a strength yes oh it definitely is to just be like totally ambiguous about the timeline my favorite guy in this whole sequence though is the doctor doctor's puking his guts out this guy is holding the handkerchief up to his mouth like come on some composure if you please also this very rarely happens we never have parents Jamel were you worried that you were going to have a penguin baby

at any point no no it was not worried about having a penguin baby I mean, thankfully, you know, in Charlotte, we don't have a zoo in Charlottel, but it's a rich in zoo. So if we did have a penguin baby, we could just, you know, down. Well, I think it's more difficult what with, you know, Instagram and stuff.

There's a paper trail. The cobblots are just chucking that baby and not worried about it. I just imagine you going up to, like, the manager of a zoo. I'm like, boy, do I have a deal for you, little man. I love, it's a massive L.O.L. for me when the movie just goes 33, years later. So then like the penguin is supposed to be 33 years of age. Whatever you say, motion picture. The same age is Jesus Christ. You know, on the director's commentary, Burton says something to the effect of, you know, I was trying to parallel Batman and the penguin. I wanted

you to see that the lives are both born in tragedy. Like, I just, I feel like the penguin probably has it a little worse. Honestly, like Bruce Wayne knows his parents loved him at the very least. They They were tragically taken away from him. It would have been a favor to the penguin if Joe Chil killed his parents. You're totally right. You would have put a hit on him. Oh, this would be a great what-if comic. Like if Bruce Wayne's parents threw him in a crick or something.

Yeah. I mean, it's one thing like, yeah, it's bad enough to resent like street crime and have that become your obsession. Sure. But to resent your parents and the very idea of child. oldhood. That seems a little stronger. He was Bruce Wayne, you know, his parents were killed. Oh my God, it's the worst tragedy in the world. And

he was raised by his kindly old butler. He was raised by penguins in his sewer. Like, I mean, there's no comparison. There's zero. There is not. There is not. And I think, you know, the other thing I was thinking when I was watching it last night was like the penguin,

because this penguin is so just like Danny DeVito playing the penguin, you know, you cannot remove Danny DeVito from this equation, because then it's a completely different character. And I was sitting there thinking like, I'd been smoking weed

so this is why this thought came to my brain in the first place, but I was like, man, I wonder if the penguin learned to speak English, because he's raised by all these penguins from watching, like, taxi somewhere. And he just loved the Louie character so much. And he just started taking

up Danny DeVito Mandarinisms. I think it totally checks out. Well, we as we will find out this is one of the few Batman's that also really heavily references reality like with the Max Shrek stuff like yeah he references the Reichstag fire for fuck's sake man yeah and the Gulf of Tonkin yeah I love that thing where they are it's you know walkin says to him like you need your own Reichstag fire and they both like these I mean Max Shrek knowing what that is great the penguin that was shocking information They both like start laughing.

Yes, exactly. The Reichstag fire. Exactly. Oh, don't get me started on Spiro Agnew. Before we get into it, we got a comment also on just sort of like how grotesque Danny DeVito looks. Oh, yeah. It's really something. I can't imagine being his kids and like, oh man, dad's in the Batman movie.

And you go to watch this shit and you're like horrified at your father's visage. So is the idea that his. body formed like this because he was always in the baby outfit because it seems like the outfit he's wearing is just a stretched out version of the baby outfit. That thing would have been torn to shreds at that point, though. Dude, look at that ass. I mean, like, we're taking lots of leaps of logic in this one, including that catwoman has nine lives.

So, like, that doesn't, that's not so strange to me that that's the idea is that he didn't have any other clothes. He didn't have anything else. So he literally, he turned into this monster because he could not grow out of these clothes. I feel like he had to be deformed more than just like the thin hands because like he's kind of, as the baby, he's like framed like

Rosemary's baby. Yeah. You know, the way they show the carriages and all that. Yeah, you don't like see it really head on. The Antichrist was treated much better. I'm going to say that. Well, the Antichrist was born in the Dakota and presumably grew up there. You know what I mean? He's living on the

upper west side. So here's, I think specifically it's the hands and probably the nose or the deformities. The bile, I think, is just the diet. And I think the complexion is the sewer. And I just feel like in his mid-20s, he started losing his

hair. And he had to be like, come on, you got to be kidding me. That's all I have is my fucking hair. This big Bufant thing. And he's like, oh, great. Oh, this is great. But the girth, like, is he just like frying up? Some of these penguins that eat them?

Dude, you know, it's a stress-eat situation. Also, is he breeding them by the ending of this? Like, there's so many of them and they're under his spell all the time. Well, remember that he goes, like, at some point he leaves because he becomes the circus boy. Sure, yes, yes, that they find out. So, like, he leaves the penguins to come back and comes back to rule them with the Red Triangle game at some, gang at some point. Right.

To rule them, which is also very weird to go from the Joker and then go. you know, the clown prince of crime and then go to a clown gang. Yeah. That's unrelated. That's totally true. I mean, because the Joker's goons in that movie are just like, they all look like big buff cat burglars. Well, they have

like branded merchandise. They have like the purple Joker jackets. Yeah, they got like those bomber jackets or whatever. Those are pretty sharp, I have to say. But again, like this, that movie took place in some kind of reality. This is literally on Mars. You know what I mean? Like really, we're just like, you know, in the when we're worried about like the crime families and who's undercutting whom and all that stuff and this is like just totally space time you know what i mean it's simultaneously much darker

in a lot of ways and that especially with the catwoman stuff yeah and also way more cartoonish just sort of like a level of like you know wackiness that isn't really even there in that first movie and it doesn't really show up in superhero movies at all anymore no it's either like yeah it's well it's either super serious like all of the dc stuff is now or you go to the marvel stuff where like the only humor in it is that kind of like you know like you know uh what am i trying to say just like the super sarcastic in joky the glibness yeah all the glib shit you know like wow that was something wasn't it everybody and you're like okay waters weirdly nails the tone of comic book humor like like when penguin is starting to get hit

with the tomatoes and it's like, why does everybody bring tomatoes and eggs to a protest? And like, that whole thing, I'm like, that's exactly what a penguin would say in the comics. Right, right. Exactly. Like, to the T. This movie owes a little bit more to the 60s Batman than even the, the last

one was such a, uh, the 80s one was like such a, uh, what do you call it there? A clean break. It was like so, and a lot of it is from the comics and, you know, Dark Night Returns inspired and all that stuff. This is much more. I mean, it's not exactly, but like having the villains team up is very you know that that 60s

Batman movie which rules the school or and a lot of the punish stuff and a puny stuff I should say no punish oh I was like what the punny stuff is very like is very that way where it's it's just on the Chris on the on the edge of camp but it is so insane

and so dark and so grim fairy tale that it just works genuinely grotesque yes in parts like exactly the word grotesque like and I am like I think about what would have happened if they had actually had Marlon Wayans in this as the Robin?

Yeah. And I don't know how it would work. That was this movie that was supposed to happen? Was he like, because like I think Marlon Wayans is a good actor, but was he like known to be a good actor way back then? I think he was just on in Living Color like a little bit possibly. Yeah, he wasn't known that much at that point. Yeah, it would have been, I think it would have been on the strength of both in Living Color. Then the Wayans had like sort of, I mean, they were like kind of the Wu-Tang Clan, right? Every individual Waynes had their own thing. And so, Damon Waynes at the time was, like, making the jump into big blockbusters.

I think the last Boy Scout is around this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he did like, oh, you go. No, I was just wondering then, like, if, because I feel if that's the case, he would definitely be bringing way more comedy to it. Yeah. You know. Yeah, he did a costume test at least at some point.

It really went that far, huh? Well, yeah, I think they made action figures, even. Like, it went, it went pretty far. And my understanding is that Wayne's got paid for it. Like, it went far enough that he got paid for the job. He still gets residuals. He said something on Instagram about still getting residuals. Oh, really?

Good for you, dude. But, you know, I'm glad they didn't use it because it just, it would be way too over stuff. Yeah, absolutely much. It's about to burst. And it's like, perfect as is, another little piece, and up it goes. Yeah, totally right. I mean, the only way it really ever fits is that they kind of don't. there's not that much a Batman.

You get like, you get like sort of sprinkling a Batman throughout. Then at the end you get a lot more Batman. Right. But this is really like a catwoman penguin movie. And you know, I was thinking about that too, Jamel.

And because someone on Twitter was like, first of all, I saw the worst absolute take, which was like, this is one of the worst Batman's. And I was like, okay, you're muted.

And to give that person a stone cold stunner. Once this pandemic ends, Jamel, I'll be stunning everybody. But then like another person, Like on the heels of that very bad take was like, you know, well, Batman's barely in it. And I was like, well, I'm kind of okay with that in this movie, you know, because like what you get if Batman kicks ass. And I don't think, I don't think anyway, this movie carries itself like a Batman without Batman.

He's in the movie. But he's in every scene. What else could you do with him? You know, like Batman has a few modes. I feel like if they got with their wishes and it was more and more Batman and Burton stretched it and did something different with it, they would have hated it. Well, also, Keaton exudes the truth of the matter is that

like being Bruce Wayne is kind of boring. Yeah. Like he, when he's like, he's literally just sitting in a dark room thinking to himself when the fucking bat lie comes up. And then like all of a sudden he activates. Can we talk about this, this relay system he has for the fucking bad signal?

I was picturing like if someone's driving by late at night, they're like, oh, what the fuck is that? Totally. You can see that shit from the road. It's the, I do love, so the way that the bat signal gets activated, we should talk about our good friend Commissioner Gordon here, the, you know, where we meet Max Shrek, we do all this good stuff, and then the mayor is giving, Max Shrek is giving a speech, and the Red Triangle game shows up and fucks everything up. And somebody, and I mean, literally the strong guy throws a sled at a police

car that Commissioner Gordon is like, oh no, let's go Batman already. And it's like, and it's Dude, you've done no police work at this point. No, absolutely, though. He threw a sled at your car. Someone touched the car. Oh, no, someone hit my rear bumper while parking. Oh, Batman, get him. Look at their costumes.

Oh, no. If somebody wears a costume, you can still arrest them. It's not exactly... No, we can't do it. I'm sorry. We have a flat tire called Batman at once. My favorite thing about this opening, right, is that Gotham's City still has newsies.

Which also suggests that you can still buy liquid cocaine and heroin in the pharmacy. Which explains living in Gotham City very easily. Oh, sure. If I lived in Gotham, dude, I'd be fucking strung out constantly. There's no doubt about it. I love this fight sequence.

I think this might be my favorite scene of the movie just because it's so memorable for me with these dudes, with the like the skulls, with the gougly eyes on the motorcycles. The second I saw those guys this time around, I had the most tense flashback to being so frustrated with the Super Nintendo game for this. Oh, man.

It's a serious game. Oh, my God. And you're trying to knock these dudes off the motorcycles and everything. Infuriating. The blood pressure rises when I would play that game. It's an excellent game. The graphics were great on that game. It was a good looking game.

I don't remember. It's an Activision. I don't remember who made it. But it was a solid looking game. I always got I always got fucked up at the ice princess level when you're trying to save her I don't know if I even got that far dude

honestly that's where I derailed every time well like you shouldn't be able to save her dude she plummets to her death in this movie but like some on that level like I couldn't find some entrance that you had to find on that oh I see I love this dude who's the devil who's trying to burn down the toy store

which again this whole movie is I've got kids here the movie like could you not show me the devil burning down a toy store? Batman's like, oh, this guy seems to like fire, I better set him on fire. First of two definite confirmed kills

for Batman in this movie. Yes. The other one is when he fucking straps the bomb to that dude and throws him down like the storm drain. And then you see the explosion. There's no way that guy's not blown to chunks. There's no way this ends up burned to death. Yes. No, the devil guy, he's just a

crispy critter man. He's dying face down in the gutter in Gotham. That's what I like about it. it's not precious about that this Batman kills. They're not building up to it. It's not a big moment. He's like, no, I'll set a motherfucker on fire right now. On the commentary, Burton says something like, he was like, you know, people were very upset about that. But I thought it was pretty cartoonish.

You don't see what happens to him. Yeah, exactly. Well, what do you want? A six-month thing of, like, him being, like, spoon-fed food to the burnt mouth. Like, I don't want the devil guy's story. I wish Batman killed me. I'm his newest villain, burnt man. Selina Kyle, obviously.

Max Shrek, I mean, having, I mean, it is so interesting that this movie sort of needs the third villain, but it sort of does in Max Shrek. Right. As Christopher Walker. What's that? Yeah, he does. Yeah, it's excellent. And, like, he's exactly, you know, he's Selena Kyle's boss, which makes him work.

And obviously, the penguin wants him. And, like, Bruce Wayne has dealings with him. And, I mean, he's a Trumpian figure for sure. There's no two ways about it. Titan of industry that has his, like, thumb over local government. Well, that's what's so great about it, though, Steve. I would just say that he, in this movie, he needs the penguin, which is what's great. And then it winds up fucking him over.

Yes. Because he needs to get Mayor Michael Murphy, which is amazing seeing Michael Murphy. I didn't put this together any time until last night. But, like, that's Michael Murphy who's Tanner 88, the Robert Altman series. So, like, this guy, no stranger to playing politicians, which is great. but like he's trying to oust him you know so he can get this whole power plant the quote unquote power plant

up and running so it's like this great moment of like here's this dude doing a villainous thing that would make him essentially the villain of the movie except for the fact that like he hires a very famous Batman villain to like be his stooge and that villain overtakes him and fucks him over

which I just love that and it's such Max Shack has such a a comic book villain like reasoning for what he's doing he's like I'm going to store all the energy I'm going to suck the energy from Gotham City and store it in this power plant

and only me and Chip are going to use it. It's a power plant and name only it's actually like a super like conductor it's like yes like you said it's going to suck the power out of Gotham all for me none for them man he's a fucking great conservative Republican it's

it's a cartoony plot it's Mr. Burns blocking out the sun. Yes, very much so. Yeah, I mean, it's like a bond villain thing. It's like Matthew Amarique in Quantum of Salas where he's like Yeah, I'm going to steal that country's entire water supply and then sell it back to them.

But, you know, even like, walking is so good in this movie. He plays it straight the entire time. He never winks. He never, like, he never wavers in the silliness of it. He just like really believes what he's doing there. Well, because it was before, see, I feel like there is a

clear cut line of Christopher Wacken the amazing actor and then Christopher walking the cartoon character and that turning point,

that pivot moment is that Fat Boy Slim video I was just about to say it yep it's weapon of choice yes it's like it's pre weapon of choice so like he's still

I mean I think he's great and he's been in great things since this movie obviously he's great and catch me if you can things like that but like it's before he was like

you know it's kind of like Nicholas Cage is doing now like buying into the cartoon memeified persona that like the internet created pop culture created of yourself

yeah and definitely like a weapon of choice like that was a meme before there were memes yes yeah exactly he stops working with Abel Ferreira does the Fat Boy Slim video and that it's all over

creating a divergent timeline he should have just stuck with Ferrara not Spielberg as you say Michelle Pfeiffer is phenomenal in this movie she is she is so good um the same way walk in is sort of matches the tone of this movie so perfectly uh fifer just sort of it goes for it completely um on the catwoman stuff and the sly and the Kyle stuff but also just sort of like it looks effortless like you would

think that she's been in these sorts of movies a million times before um but this is sort of the only thing like this in her yeah yeah that she's done Was there something recently where she sort of got back into blockbuster stuff? Ant Man and Wals. Yeah, there it is. There it is. Yeah, I couldn't remember. But she's like when she's, even when she's Catwoman, like, she's simultaneously sympathetic, sexy, scary and funny.

All like, like, it within like beat to beat to beat to beat. And it's just like it's kind of hard to keep track almost like how quickly this character turns on a dime. Like, and immediately like when you meet her, she's already talking to herself. So you're like, something's a little off. it's totally fine to talk to yourself she's also on fire at this point in the public eye like this this this fabulous baker boys married to the mob

all sets her up to this course where then she's doing age of innocence she does dangerous minds which sucks but is a huge hit huge huge huge cultural hit but like I have missed her for so long and like Dark Shadows Amman and Wasp and French exit

Azazel Jacobs new movie I've been missing her so much and I'm so glad she's back nominated for three Oscars never won one Lovefield Fabulous Baker Boys and Dangerously Aizons which is also excellent Yes fabulous Baker Boys is amazing

The weird thing about Michelle Pfeiffer's Like movie star persona is like obviously she is maybe one of the most beautiful women ever to be in Hollywood just sort of kind of like otherworldly attractive but at the same time very relatable in this weird way

This is why marriage and the mob works so works well. You can believe her as like a struggling single mother, even though if you saw someone who looked like her on the street, you'd be like, well, obviously you're a model or you're an actor or someone's going to just hand you a bag of money. Right. Yeah, yeah. And you buy her as this, this mousy executive assistant where like, and she almost like, doesn't disappear in this scenes because she's doing so much,

but like you can almost understand why like Michael Murphy is like does that fucking Michelle Pfeiffer you know what I mean like you understand that he's just like oh that's Max Shrek's secretary whatever you know what I mean kind of a thing Also I feel like the whole Selena Kyle part of it and like this kind of Selena Kyle right

because Anne Hathaway's Selena Kyle is completely different just thinking on like live action movies Underrated she's great then movie She's very good in that I'm not saying she's bad It's just very different because she is already like exuding

that post-catwoman confidence, right? So seeing Michelle Fiverr before that happens to Selena Kyle, it could so easily just devolve into like obnoxious, shitty Cathy cartoon. You know, like you could see her walking around with a little AC bubble like above her head. But like she makes it so sympathetic and like you never doubt for a second that this is like

a real person. It's like, Fiverr is like a brilliant comedian. Like that's what married to the mob is also is that she's just been naturally funny so these lines only sing because she knows exactly where to hit them right that's right but she she's so sympathetic in this role it's also it's almost like edward scissors her hands again i guess in the way she becomes like a frank it was like Frankenstein in a way and the way how her suits all patched up with those uh well how do you sell the metal stitches yeah stitches yeah stitches everywhere it's such an interesting design of that suit i'm going to keep referring back

to the director's commentary because Tim Burton says a lot of wild stuff in it. One of the wild things he says in it is, there's a close-up later in the movie of Michelle Pfeiffer in the Catwoman suit, and he kind of like mutters to himself, I don't think she's ever looked more attractive than this. Oh, no. That is not

what you want. You know what, Tim, we're not a fucking football game here, man. Let's class it up to touch. End the commentary real quick. What do you mean that Michelle won't talk to me? Could you tell her it's Tim? It's Tim Burton on the phone for her.

Okay, costume test for Catwoman, take three. Oh, that's the one. Oh, man. What was I going to say? Oh, so, like, I'm, you know, in this age of streaming and all of these, like, services coming out and stuff. Like, I've been on a real kick in quarantine of, like, buy disc media.

Yeah. And I want to plug it again here, the 4K disc of this movie. is exquisite. And the example I want to use is that Catwoman suit because I've seen this movie 50 times, right? Last night watching it for the first time on this disc was the first time I noticed how all the times when she's getting like banged up and everything in the suit and stuff

and like, you know, fighting Batman and fighting whoever else. The suit is like getting torn and she's not fixing it. Yeah. And so you're seeing all of these like broken seams like on her arms. and, you know, the helmet and stuff. And, like, I never, ever noticed that watching this movie before. And you just see, it's, like, falling to tatters the whole time. Also, interesting contrast is that scene where Batman goes to get his suit on,

and he's got, like, 15 of them in there. Yes. And she's, like, just got that one that's rotting off the bone. Yep, that's exactly right. My favorite line in this, one of my favorite lines of this movie is that tells you everything about Christopher Walken and Selena Kyle or Max Track and Slina Kyle, where he's at this thing he forgets his speech he goes to his son Chip

who is amazing he goes remind me to take it out on what's her face later which is like remind me to berate my secretary for my own mistake later I don't want to forget to do that I need to do that I need to remind me to do that my son Zangief

yes Zangif from Street Fighter is this actor which man it is like night and day it's kind of great that's amazing I didn't know that the forgetting the notes thing Steve thank you for reminding me because this was, you want to talk about grounding this

in like some sort of weird alternate reality. When Selena runs back to the office to get, she's trying to get walk in speech and then run down. They're doing the Gotham tree lighting and he's giving a speech so she wants them to get the notes for the speech. She goes to

the office, there's a shot of the notes on the table and she runs up to it and the camera kind of just like tilts up a little bit and there's a wall of framed photographs and it's all like photos. shop like Max Schreck meeting famous people and you're talking Elvis, Sammy Davis

Jr. Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Max Frank loves Reagan. I can say that first. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, trickle down my foot. It's weird that like he I guess because back then you would think

like a piece of shit businessman I guess couldn't become like a mayor of Gotham. Like why do you run instead of Cobblepot? Why didn't his son, Chip run instead of cobbled pot? Yeah, well, because Chip was like a coaked out bearded maniac that had

weird dealings with Russia. That was that was why Chip, Chip, he's Hunter Biden. Oh my God. Oh my God, Max. A power plant that steals power. Excellent idea. We could install this in Nicaragua.

Yes, after we killed him all, of course. Is that your dark Kissinger? Yeah, that's, okay. I do, so like, whatever, mayhem, uh, great scene with Batman. Great scene with Vincent Chevelli using a machine gun. Yes.

The late great Vincent Chevelli. As a, uh, what do they call those guys? He's got a monkey and he's got a crank. Thank you. Wow. I was going to crank. I was like, what's the monkey cranker? And I'm like, what?

It's not a thing. We were just talking about make the story of the Oregon Grinders monkey. Right. All right. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And, you know, Batman saves

Pliny Kyle with this amazing Batman yet again running Running afoul of clowns. Not a fan. Not a fan of Batman. Definitely not a fan. This is also a weird moment though of like how strong is Batman supposed to be? Because this is like there's a there's this clown

He's got a gun to her head And he fires like his little grappling hook at the wall And it's the great the clown being like Hey, you missed. And he pulls it and the concrete slab from the building breaks off and hits this guy in the head. I was like, Jesus Christ. It's a strong man.

My little man. You've been working those bicep, bicep curls. That was a big trailer hit when the guy gets like, you missed. That was like a big one. We finally, Shrek goes down to the sewer, he gets kidnapped, and you finally meet Danny DeVito's the penguin, and you shit your pants.

I mean, look, if I'm Max Shrek, I'm like, please kill me. Hey, don't eat my bones. Please just kill me. I don't know where this is going, but I would rather be dead before I get there. Exactly. He's got, Danny DeVito's got the fucking, like, he's explaining to him, like, his way of, like, threatening Max Schreck, like, showing him how he knows everything about him, you know, the whole, the great gag of, like, the old co-workers, like, armor hand. Hey, Max, I'm fredged hand.

All, like, the taped up documents, all of that stuff. and his line to, like, put a cap on this whole, like, parlor scene as him being like, what you put in your toilet? I hang on my mantle. It's like, oh, God. You flush it. I flaunt it. Let me stop you there, penguin monster.

Shoot me in the head. Because that's my move, dude. Like, I don't want to know anything what this guy's up to. Hey, do one of you weird clowns have a gun? Just murder me. Tell you what? can kill my son and you get the the little the like you know seeds being planted here of like what the penguins overall motivation is because he's telling walk in basically like how he hates the people

of gotham for squandering you know everyday gifts that they've had throughout their life and he's this dude that was abandoned as a baby and had to be raised by penguins so it's like that whole thing of like I despise society for like you know taking uh taking everything they have for granted which is I love that motivation for this character because it also like he's obviously like a disgusting pig in this movie but it also just sets up how sympathetic of a villain he is and I was just going to say he's like he's like he's the villain but he's not like he's like warped and twisted but he's not like evil I don't know he's an interesting villain because He's not like, you know, you're got your killmongers who was, like, sympathetic,

but still, like, very recognizably, like, a bad guy. Right. And the penguin isn't, you know, good necessarily. He's, again, he's a monster. He, you know, he bites that guy's nose off. I'm going to cite that again and again. Yeah. And he leers at women a lot in the movie, which is always really quite a lot.

Ah, look at that tail. Oh, my God. Well, the first wall, the fact that Christopher Walken in this movie uses the term Hoontang is the most insane thing ever. I want a new movie to do that. Like, Marvel, get dirty. My question is, is the penguin a virgin or is he not a virgin? Well, you're talking about like with human beings? Yeah, I would like, all right. I'm going to draw a lot of you. of rat one day. I mean, the way the way they

respectfully guide his body to the afterlife at the end of the movie makes you think that the penguin may have married one of those penguins. That's very true.

I think you're right, dude. I think you are onto something, my friend. It is like, we are taking a family member down the river to the other side. There's like a sewer David Koresh down there.

He's got eight penguin lives. Yeah, all of his sister penguins. Max, I'd like you to meet my first wife, Roberta. Similar to David Koresh, his institution destroyed by a huge fire. True. Yeah, that's fair said. And Janet Reno, weird. Never saw coming.

I mean, it's, because Max Trek is the real villain, I guess, ultimately. Because, like, he's playing them all against, like, he's playing penguin, he's playing Catwoman. I feel Penguin ascends to like the number one spot in like the last like 20 minutes of this movie. Which is an interesting thing for a Batman movie specifically where you have an evil billionaire at the center of the spokes that is just doing horrible shit to everybody. Whereas usually it's like, oh, this guy's so great. He's a billionaire that beats up homeless people. You know what I mean? At least you're like doing something where you're playing with that trope a little bit.

I mean, obviously good billionaire be bad billionaire. There shouldn't be any. At the very least, like you're sort of, you're investigating that a little bit. It's like a gun, like a good guy with a gun. You need a good guy with a billion dollars to beat a bad guy with a billion dollars. And so, you know, we have the, this is another, like, chilling scene of walking, coming back into the office. Selina Kyle has, like, gone home, realizes she forgot the Bruce Wayne file. She has to go back to the office.

And this is where he throws her out the window. know, and it's the whole thing where she's like, you know, it's not like you can have me killed and they have the big laugh. And he's so good. And he sells this so good because he does the like step, like the step away. Like he takes like a step and a half and then turns back and

shoves her. But you're right. Eric's point, it's that, ah? It's a very king of New York kind of like wing. Yeah. Definitely King of New York vibes there for sure. I haven't seen this movie in years and years and I was watching it today. And that's the, I was laughing along with both of them. And also,

The way that it's shot and the light of her glasses, making her have the catwoman mask before she has the cap woman mask. It's just like there's so much of that little stuff where you're like, wow. Also, just an extended scene of two of the principal actors talking, like no, yeah, nothing, nothing. There's no, there's no plot that's necessarily being advanced just sort of like it's all character. Yeah. Yeah. And learning something about the two people.

Totally. It feels like a luxury. It is. Another plug for the 4K disc right here, though, the sound design of her, when she falls out the window and she's going through all of the, is it like Max Shrek's logo, this little cat thing? Yes, for his department store. Yeah, yeah. And like, she's going through all of those awnings and it's like the sound of her head going through all of them. It's brutal on the soundtrack to this disc.

It's great. And this is like perfect like timber in creation myth. like cats licking her to life now question for the comic book readers in in the group here uh is it like is catwoman naturally like you in the canon is is she brought to life by cats does she have nine lives is a supernatural cat thing no she's a jewel thief it's yeah it's much more of like a bit in the comic books like slayna kyle she's like yeah she's a cat burglar she's a jewel thief the cat thing is like her brand it's not like yeah right She doesn't have like cat powers.

I mean, it's taken to bonkers levels in that Halle Berry movie, though. Yeah, that's where it's crazy. Yeah, because it's just like the, you know, the power of cats through the ages. The power is now all in you, Hallie Barry. Like, there's even the, there's a reference to Selena Kyle in that movie. There's like a picture of her on a wall or something. Yes. They're not, they're not licking her alive, by the way.

It's every cat owners. What you do when you take. cat in your home, you're like, if I die, this thing's going to eat me immediately. These guys, it's a fucking hot meal, dudes. Just think, so Slina Cal being brought to life or, you know, being

transforming to a cat woman by cats, the penguin being physically a half penguin, half man, just, I mean, it just screams Burton and the creative team being sort of like, why would they call them the penguin in the first place? Why would they do that? Maybe he's a half, penguin, half man.

Exactly. There's like a thousand comic books. Tim, we have a hit. There's 20, 20, 30 years of comic books about this. We have clear explanations for why isn't the penguin. No, no, no, no, no. Penguin man. I'm not one for source material.

And then people get mad that Batman kills two people. You know, like, I mean, the perversion of the source material there by making it so supernatural, you'd think they'd complain about that. Look, look. You say that's a shadow. I'm saying that looks like bile coming out of his mouth. And I think I have a place to go to from here. The funny thing is you talk about Marlon Waynes.

And there was already like buzz about like, I don't know about a black robin. I'm like, this dude is the penguin and black oil is coming out of his mouth. Like, I think that's a farther departure than what race the character is. I think. I think. Also, he's a serial child killer. like you really that gets buried

I think that like he's been going town to town for what seems like years now and just stealing and assuming killing kids he's incredible I mean that's the end it's a grim fairy tale it's a gross like he's a very like

I watched a video YouTube thing because I was trying to just do some research congrats it's too thank you welcome any extra money you could kick in would be really helpful the effort that I did. No, the, it's, it's Tim Burton on the Jay Leno show, which is a nightmare.

The Jay Leno show, what are you fucking 78 years old? Wait, wait, wait, right, right. So it's not the 10 p. Because I think there was a Jay Leno show, it was called the Jay Leno show, yeah. But it was, it was him promoting Batman returns, and Jay Leno's doing his fucking best, and it's just Tim Burton. And he's like, oh, yeah, you get a little clip here from the movie.

And you want to set it up, but he's like, um, okay, it's just a bunch of people dressed like animals. acting like monsters well the clip has cat women and then they just show it it is just so perfect like he is not

ready that my man was not ready for prime time and I loved every second in this clip I wanted to show the public or the viewing public what it looked like when a troll man ate raw fish what's your greatest nightmare here it is James

so in this one peewee is going to shove a baby into a river yeah that's the clip they're using um yeah so like whatever she's now the cat woman and obviously like the the dichotomy of the two her going to apartment first and then coming back to it and like all those beats hitting over and over again and the hell here and like yeah the the really creepy uh this camp this uh perfume campaign somebody needs to talk to somebody about it. Like, this is getting a little too much. All right. You shouldn't be, if you've got to call somebody, don't tell them

to fuck their boss, okay? I've never heard of anything like this where you're just leaving answering machine messages that are advertisements. Seems illegal, actually, but yeah, you never know. Send it to happy dude. So they decide they're going to engineer this whole thing

where the penguin saves quote unquote the mayor's baby. because a clown, a clown who has all the time in the world to be fucking apprehended by authorities steals this mayor's baby at a press conference. It's so funny because the mayor's doing this whole thing, like, and there will be no more crime or whatever his baby's immediately stolen. Well, they're doing this thing where the mayor has to come out tough against clown violence. You guys are like, you know, that circus thing was a real mistake, blah, blah, blah.

And then like, obviously, at the worst possible time, his baby is, stolen by a clown. Today we are banning all copies of Stephen King's itts from the Gotham-Waldon books. They would ban comedy. They would ban. These guys, like, it's

enough. This is the city that will never laugh again. I was about to say, like, if you have, you know, the joke, mass murdering clown and the Joker, then like a roaming clown gang. It's just like a tough on, a tough on clowns like a platform. I think that, yeah.

he won't even say radical clown violence okay my opponent ladies and gentlemen will not come out against clowns in that way see that's what this movie doesn't get to is a debate scene between oh my god

and the current mayor of gotham because that would truly be something if you want to keep the people of gotham safe we have to have stopping fresh from clouds red noses hey no I see over there clown I didn't say stop and flip i said stop and frisk you fucking weird acrobat um this is my child yeah he's got

pain on his face doesn't he oh yeah face paint is being banned i think in gotham city Halloween is outlawed oh you have it has to be we have you have you can't you just can't and to defy the authorities you just put like a little like the vampire blood smear on your fucking chin just a little trail the tiniest little trail I know I'm just a lot I'm just laughing at the idea of like a bunch of people trying to get out of train and one guy's a clowns like, why are you stopping me? Why are you stopping me? What the fuck? What's going on?

You didn't stop that lady over there. You just stop that guy. That guy's a big guy. You could cause him, oh yeah, because I'm a clown. Okay, all right. Listen, it's a high holy day for clowns. This is my religious gar. I am going to worship the greatest show on earth if you will excuse me now. I can't take off the rainbow

wig. Bozo will turn his back on me. I love the whole thing. So the penguin, like, you know, the clown jumps in the sewer and there's a phony like, oh no, it's the penguin of the sewer. Yeah. And then, you know, he rises up, saves the baby and everything. And walking gets right in there.

And there's an amazing thing where there is this one reporter character that they give a couple of lines to in this movie. And I feel like this guy is kind of like the God-given, bless it all replacement for Arliss being in this movie again. Yes. what's his name Robert Wall because it's a guy who kind of looks like Robert Wall but is a little more handsome and he's got this one line where he's like what's the deal Mr. Shrek is the penguin a personal friend and he just have walk and being like yes he's a personal friend which is just the best line he goes on to say that he's a friend of the whole city you know oh sure yeah because this is the moment right this is like the thing that is going to you know shoot this guy in his path to the I was a Gracie Mansion whatever the bad Batman version of the mayor's mansion is. Gauthie mansion. Gauthie mansion, sure. I do love, I mean, also you got to figure out this is a sequel to the first movie

wherein a clown killed all these people. That's what got the fake Ed Kachemeyer written out on a rail. That guy is out. Obviously, Michael Murphy was like, no, that's never going to happen again. And oops, my baby just got stolen. He can get recalled. You know what else is out? Not just clowns, parades.

Oh, do you know, Lose and parades out. Never again. Maybe they'll do it. You know what, Cabin? Maybe they would do it like they did the Macy's parade this year. It's like nobody can fucking watch. It's like a block and a half long. You know, it's everything is the street is shut down entirely.

And part of this, though, I feel is also on the citizens of Gotham here. Because like this clown drops down or does like a backflip like from to right behind the mayor. And nobody says shit. Like the mayor is giving this speech and like this guy's back flipping up to him. And I'm like, somebody point out. that there's a clown right there. Somebody say something. That's Doug Jones, by the way.

I just as thin clown. Yeah. He has a great bit of physical comedy at the end when the penguins like looking around for the allies and Doug Jones has been operating a machine gun and then the penguin looks at him and he's like nope. He's kind of like runs out and abandons him.

So the penguin, you know, sets out in this whole thing you know, I'm I will be your freak no more. He's like giving an elephant man's type speech here and he says, you know, he just wants to find out who his parents were, which is the bluff to get, you know, the names of all the firstborn children. Yeah. They cut,

they cut to back to Wayne Manor and he's watching it on TV and the first thought I had is like Bruce Wayne must be a sucker for those like family reunion reality TV jokes. Oh my God, yeah. Like nonstop

always watching that shit. Like just like with a little handkerchief. It's a good Keaton performance here because he's like genuinely moved by it. He's just like, Alper's like, oh, he's tried to be snotty. He's like, oh, you want to change the channel? So I was like, huh, I hope you find his parents. It's like, it's a

really like, it's a really like a nice emotional moment there. It's a, it's a weird thing where like, you know, the first movie obviously is like the duality of Batman and the Joker and everything and two sides of a similar is coin, I guess. Um, and this is like you sort of see that like

you know, this, you know, relationship between the two of them, but it kind of falls apart way quicker. like they don't they don't waste too much time on it because he's also like immediately suspicious of him you know he's like yeah alfred i think that fucking weird guy knows who his parents are i think he already knows i was just going to say he's suspicious because the guy looks different all right yeah yeah no he's not no silver spoon here kind of i'm not gonna hold this one against bruce way

The guy's literally a monster The literal monster From your point of view From your point of view You're a monster You're all monsters Alfred is that a Is that a onesie he's wearing

Looks like a baby's onesie Yeah I mean that's the thing dude Like you get the penguin in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans Now we're talking He would look like any American Stephen. I don't think that this exists. And any other fans of Batman the animated series weigh in on my memory problems here. Is there an episode of that cartoon where there's like a penguin on the vacation and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt? No, I don't believe so. Damn it. If there is, it's like new Batman adventures. Yeah. It's like back half. Yeah, yeah, totally. It's not the good shit that we grew up with. Since you mentioned the animated series, it's worth saying how much of that series,

the aesthetic of this movie is like the basis for that series. This movie specifically not the first Batman, it's there, but this movie, it's so much the statues and the weird, and the weird, you literally don't know what year it is. You have no idea.

Again, like Eric said, this newsies walking around. It's just, it's very bizarre. Well, also, like, the city logic didn't make much sense in the first one, but now it makes absolutely no sense. Yes.

as far as, like, cutting around where these buildings are. Oh, I mean, yeah. I mean, that's kind of the great thing about it being all sets. It's like it's just, it's artificial at every turn. There's not a real street shot in the whole thing. Oh, there was talk about the Gotham Square. We keep going back to Gotham Square. We get sort of that geography.

Yeah, they do sort of make where they're doing the tree lighting, like, pseudo-30 rock kind of a thing. Yeah, definitely. But I love, there is the shot of Batman, like, slowly driving by the Hall of Records and, like, spying on the Penguin doing this research, like, laid into the night kind of a thing. It's just, like, slowly driving by. Oh, it's so great. You know, the buildings always get a lot of, like, notes that, like, that's very Langian, but, like, the shot of Penguin with the Monocle writing in that ledger like that, that is so Langian. And it kills, it honestly kills me when I, when I watched it this time. Are you okay? Yeah.

I'm surviving now. I took some band-aids and I took some Tylenol. For the folks at home, you're talking about Fritz Lang. Yes. Yes. I mean, like, Scott Lang. No, not. No, Chris, you took some band-aids.

Where did you take them? Did you swallow them? I swallowed them. And then like they, they, don't they heal your tum-tum? Yes. They will close up any internal. hemorrhaging you might be having. That's what I was hoping. I love the line

Walken has when the press is like trying to get in on the penguins, whatever, and the Hall of Records like, hey, that's a, you know, that's a violation, it's a public building. And Christopher Walken says, it's Christmas. Give the Constitution arrest, which is just such a, it is such a rich guy thing.

Yeah, can we give this whole Constitution thing arrest please? Christmas. He wins, he winds up winning over the hearts of the citizens even more when he, this great scene of him in this like disgusting graveyard where he goes and I love

just Danny DeVito dropping to his knees in this big weird weble man fat suit is the funniest thing you'll ever see. At least at this point though he's like a little better dressed. Did everybody clock the weird Muhammad Ali joke that Shrek makes where he calls himself Muhammad

Shrek? Yeah, that's right. And he starts going like this. You want to go a couple rounds with Muhammad Shrek? I'm like What? Yeah, I noticed that until this viewing, actually. I have no memory of this. In the movie with the penguin man that's fucking spewing bile, that was the thing that stopped me dead. Where does that, does that happen here at the graveyard scene?

No, it's when it's him and Bruce Wayne. When Bruce Wayne's like, I'm not going to pay for your crooked power plan. Oh, way back that. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Selena Kyle comes in, which is great. I mean, and again, like her being like evil Selena Kyle on this. where she's trying to still pretend to be old

Selena Kyle, it's just like the layers of that performance and then talking about like, oh yeah, I remember no, yeah, I don't remember the skiing trip, I remember a boy who noticed that I didn't have underwear in grade school he's dead now. Like the way she says

he's dead now, it's like, yes. Did she kill him? It's like so good. That whole thing is, I mean, well, that whole story is like because he's like, oh, you're back from your skiing trip and I think it's a thing I don't think that's a real person, Steve. I think she's like, this dude

that fucked with me, he's dead now. Like, I'm coming for you, Meg Shrek. Was that the voicemail guy that the whole like Christmas trip, I'm going by myself now? Was that skiing? Do you know who that is? That's Tim Burton. He did that. He loved

that message. This is the only time that I can pretend I'm dating Michelle Pfeiffer. I'm going to pretend I have an analyst. I don't think we mentioned it, but when she, like, destroys her room, like, Charles Foster Cain is pretty amazing. I mean, I had a note about her pulling a Charles Foster Cain in that scene. Yeah.

It's one of the best Tim Burton sequences ever. Literally her, with the dolls going in the garbage disposal. Oh, my God. All those poor stuff to animals. I mean, just when she entered, I mean, like, it's kind of amazing. Because we talked about this a little bit, but she, you know, when you first see her in her room, she enters and, she's sort of like, you know, she's checking the phone. She's very frazzled.

When she enters this time, she grabs that carton of milk and then sort of like haphagely pours it for a cat that takes a swig. I love that. It's just like a, it's such a fun, you know, tell you immediately how this character has changed. Yeah, it's a power move now. Like, at first she's like me giving the cat, whatever. Now it's like, it's for me, not for you.

Yeah, here's a little bit, you know. And by the way, the chugging of milk. Oh, I thought I was watching the jackass show. something. Yeah, that's got to be. This is also a banger of a Danny Elfman's score. And this, with this scene specifically, because she doesn't say, like, she's kind of

yelling and, like, ripping things off, but she's not saying it. It's all the music doing this big grand, like, weaving back and forth. It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. It's one of his best, if not the, because the choral stuff and, like, the, it's tremendous. The opening with the penguin is also, like, the big march

towards it. It's incredible. Yes. Oh, the, the march, specifically right there is so great because it's when like the camera is following you know the bassinet and it's like get ready for this Batman movie kids like strap in here it comes. It's interesting they went so orchestral this time from going from Prince to that I mean I know they had both last time but it's kind of like no pop music

whatsoever only one a Shushi and the Banshee song yes which only plays at the end of the movie or is it in the film itself? It's in the ballroom yeah it's in the ballroom dance Oh, the costume party? Oh, okay. Yeah. Is it after the rendition of Super Freak? Oh, yes.

That's right. Chazzy Super Freak? I don't think Super Freak was meant to be played on a saxophone, ladies and gentlemen. I just wanted to put that out there. I love, so this is Jamel's favorite scene because it's traumatizing, where in the Penguin is now, he's got image consultants. One is Jan, uh, Jen Hooks. The great Jan Hooks. The other.

And this is, me as a little kid watching this movie, this guy was prominent in the Hogan family. He was like the nerdy guy in the Hogan family. He was like the family friend or something. Yeah. He was like, the next door nerdy neighbor. I was like, oh, that guy's in a movie. That's cool. And then it's like, he's really going places. And it's like, at least my nose is a gushing blood.

And it is so good. Actually, we have the movie playing right now. And we actually just got to the scene. Yes. The thing about the scene, because it's not just the nose biting. It's sort of the entire sequence. It's the fact that it's like this close-up of DeVito, and he's, like, looking at the camera, and he's turning back and forth, but each shot of him of his face is, like, he looks the most grotesque. Like, he's, like, covered in, like, fish guts.

His teeth have, like, black bile over them, and he has this big, terrifying smile. And then the other guy has this sort of clueless look on his face. And that's what makes it so disturbing, because it's... sort of like for you and for him the other guy you don't know what's going to happen and then all of a sudden he turns and bites his nose up and it's not just it's not like a it's not like a it's a gushing of yes i mean you see that stream of blood in 4k especially and it's truly disturbing because like if you ask somebody like you know is are there any like bloody moments in batman returns like you'll obviously come back with a no

then it's like, uh-uh, uh, the scene at the campaign headquarters, holy shit, is it from like a Freddie Krueger movie? And for the rest of the scene, DeVito has the blood all over him. It goes on for a while. It goes on for so long after that. And the greatest, like the greatest thing ever, right? These like soulless people that will work on a political campaign. Like, it happens and the room doesn't immediately vacate.

well this whole scam isn't immediately over with right there it's kind of it's kind of like actually legitimately striking to watch the seat in like 2020 and you're just like like at the time it's like oh it's you're watching this in 92 you're like well of course they would they all quit but now it's like no probably not you know totally is he gonna is you gonna promise the right judges because if so then I guess they're just there for the ride and again like he goes from biting this dude's nose and then going to like max track and be like, I can show him my French flipper trick. And again, covered in

fish guts, covered in... Oh, yes. Yes, this is actually the scene where we get the, uh, the Poon-Tang line. I mean, he's so horny for Jan Hooks in this movie and like, I get it. I watched around Saturday Night Live. I totally understand. But like he's being just like, and like

the breathing, like he... DeVito, I mean, you want to talk about like shit that should have been nominated for an Academy Award. Like, just, he's, like, breathing like an animal. What is the dick like, is my question? Do you write for the New York Times. What do you think the dick is like?

You know, in our orientation, we obviously got a lot of material in penguin dicks. And I have no idea. I guess, I'm guessing, I don't know. Is it a mess down there? Does it work? It's a nub. Yeah, I think it might be a nub. I think it might be a nub.

Because again, he's running around in raw sewage and toxic waste and the rest of it. I just can't imagine he's got a fucking full-on hog. But you know what, dude, his pubs immaculately trimmed. Although, Steve, to your thing, though, about when you were like, or maybe this was Eric, one of you perverts was like, you know, is the penguin a virgin? Well, like, how does he know that he's got his own French flipper trick there? you know what I mean? Yeah, that's true. I mean, yeah, maybe, yeah, that's true. A penguin taught him.

The sexiest penguin in the sewer. He's been around the circus people. Maybe. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. Carnies. Definitely carnies. Yeah.

Oh, that's what I want. HBO, you know what, HBO? You're doing this dumb-ass thing of rebooting true blood. How about you go back to one of the best shows of the last 20 years, Carnival, and now Oswald Cobble Pot. I like it. joins the circus, him and Clancy Brown teaming up for evil? A torrid romance between Oswald Cobble Pot and the Wolf Girl.

Yes, totally. I'm there for it. I love it. I mean, yes, he decides to be married because he, again, all he really, it's about sex for him, which is an amazing character motivation for a children's movie. But it is like, I can have sex with women if I have power. I can't stress it enough. He is bothered.

So Christopher Walken, when he gets him to do this whole. scene. He interrupts his planning of mass child murder in a attic room that looks like it smells like death, like actual corpses. It's disgusting

up there. And he's like, okay, fine, fine, fine. I'll stop my child murder to be your mayor. Well, because what is the weird thing? Like, you see it on the wall, there's schematics and he's like, yeah, we're working on this plan to turn the Batmobile into an H-bomb. And Christopher Walken's like, maybe instead we run you for mayor

I think Catwoman has a line in that when she sees the plans there and says that he could he shouldn't be a martyr that we have to turn Batman into one of us like right yeah this the whole campaign quarters scene

headquartered scene here ends with you this is the this is the thing where he's like you know we need our own Reichstag fire moment you know and you know he agrees to do it and he's So I'm going to get my piece of shit associates, you know, to do this whole thing and, you know, start the madness. And this is the fucking, oh, man, it's, I love it. I actually rewound it.

Just the burn baby burn. Like, oh my God. Like, you know, fly my pretties. Go do it. Dustin Hoffman is not pulling that shit off. No, that I was surprised as hell to learn that today. You guys told me that he was supposed to be the penguin. Their first choice, insanity.

What a show you that movie? That's Dustin Hoffman. absolute insanity I mean also like the Danny DeVito thing like you forget he was a fucking movie star that dude was a full on

movie star you know what I mean like he's not TV for so long but he's at this point he's a huge movie star I mean just romancing the stone and like he

was in everything after that after that became a head it's actually wild to think about right this like 4 foot 11 you know like swarthy guy was a massive movie star.

He was a draw. He was like, yeah. I mean, like, Nicholson was like, dude, you should do this Batman movie. It was how they were buddies or whatever. And like, yeah, I'll do it. And it's just amazing that like, I don't know, like, Danny DeVito movie star is just bizarre to me. I mean, it's really, it's great.

And we should have that again. I mean, nowadays, someone like Danny DeVito would just be doing like unboxing videos on YouTube. But the talent might be there. it's just ignored or like third bike on a podcast and he's a comic book expert like what are those kinds of things is what he would be

yeah so you know this is I think Eric you like the last red triangle gang attack I love this one more they really start going crazy throughout the city here

this is like we're talking like rocket launcher attacks from various clowns there is a bazooka clown which is very important I think I like the first one more just because like there's more at the motorcycle guys and the dude being set on fire

I think is what the devil being incinerated is pretty sweet I'll give you that but this scene has like Batman gets in there like right away and starts fighting all these people and everything and there is a I never saw this and again man 4K I don't know you know make me

a salesperson here somebody Sony somebody like the shot of Batman there's a circus person that's a sword swallower yes Batman rips the sword out of this dude's mouth and you can see this like trail of spit just go flying it's disgusting

also that man um keaton does I mean best Batman whatever we don't have to have that nerdy conversation but I think he does the best acting with the bottom third of his face out of anyone who's ever had that role when he puts that bomb on that dude he's got this mischievous terrifying smile that's like

I don't know about that this guy. I am not sure about this dude in particular. That smiles like, this is the only way I can get hard. Exactly. Totally. Alfred, get my little black book out. Call somebody. It's happening in the night.

As far as keeping good, it's his lips, man. He has just like, there's very full, luscious lips. And the sensuality works for this movie, especially when he gets to do it with Catwoman. He has some really horny, like, mouths going on as Batman. There is

some incredible open mouth kissing in this movie, I have to say. This is also where she's so Catwoman's like getting involved in this also, but she starts by like going into this department store and this is the awesome like she's whipping the heads off those mannequins and everything.

Oh, that's so fucking great. Her doing the backflip, which was the Jay Leno clip by the way, her doing the back clip and then just saying meow after. And it's just this perfect scene where the penguin and Batman and Catwoman Meet together. Yes.

Her seeing meow and standing there in front of that explosion is tremendous looking. It looks so good. And that's right after there's the line, one of them says things change. You know what I mean? Because I feel like that's also like this is not the previous film. You know what I mean? The biggest, I mean, the biggest trailer line. You don't really think you'll win, do you?

Yeah. Yeah. So in that sequence, she is, she has like the whip and she's sort of like, you know, swinging in it and jump roping on the director's commentary, Tim Burton, commenting on the whip says, you know, Michelle really did all that stuff herself. It's very difficult to use a whip like that. I should know. There's, I mean, that whole, the meeting of the minds there is great. And then like, there's this whole shot sequence that I love where it's like this is where the penguin. reveals his little, like, helicopter umbrella. And so he flies off. And so the camera, like, you know, tilts up and we're following the penguin.

And then you see Catwoman scaling the building. And then we get to the roof. And there's a cut. And it just cuts to Batman using the ladder like a sucker. And it's like, dude, you have all sorts of gadgets and shit. Come on, man. And he gets his ass kind of kicked right there because he's just climbing up the ladder like a schmuck. There's also that weird shot of Michelle Pfeiffer.

being ecstatic over the fact that he has a flying umbrella she's just on the thing and go like oh man I wish people could see this we're doing this one on video just for us and that was an amazing performance Chris Cabin thank you very much

but it's yeah the fight here is great and it does sort of they do an interesting job of like you know it would be very uncomfortable to watch Batman fight Catwoman they they play with it just enough she gets on way more hits than he does Doesn't he throw some lube on her or something?

It's like it's acid or something because that's what later in the movie when they're making out at his house. Yeah. And he goes to like, he puts his hand like upper arm and you see that scar. Okay. Yeah. Bubbly skin. Because she says something about, because she has some line like a blink and you miss a thing about like he burned me and he like something else. I thought because like her claws couldn't.

latch onto the roof because of it, I was like, oh, so that was just K-Y jelly, got it. And apparently it was acid. And I love the kitty litter truck. And if you didn't know, Caton was insane, she's thrilled to be in that truck on top of a mountain of

kiddie litter. Do you think she took a shit in there? Yeah, probably for sure. Well, while I'm here, boys, a long drive home. But this also makes it more cartoony, just seeing a giant open kitty litter truck. Yes, exactly. So Keaton's Batman must be the most okay with violets because you're just hanging out, throwing like balls of acid at people?

Yes. Oh, for sure. Who else is this for it? Like, you didn't have that with the Joker. Maybe he learned his lesson. That could be. Yeah. I don't know.

Well, there also, when the fight here, there is the great thing where, and again, like, showing that she can most definitely get the upper hand with Batman is like, she falls over and, you know, she's like, you know, what are you doing hitting a woman? And Batman's like, oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, you know, he like, leans down. And then she's like, you fucking moron and starts, like, kicking the shit out of him again. Love it. Also, is there a, because she, this is the moment, too, where she, like, jabs him with one of those claws. Yeah. And you kind of think, though, she's fucking going for that D for a second.

Yeah, you think it's going to be a hand job, but that's thankfully not where this movie goes. No, no, definitely not. Jamel was out in the director's comedy. There's originally going to be a hand job, but. Warner Bros. made me cut the hand job. No, no, he wasn't that hoarding on the commentary. Look, they all think that the weakness in the armor is near the balls. It's the ribs, honey, it's the ribs.

By the way, Andrew, in that clown fight you loved so much, I appreciate that they had, he uses the batterang and, like, programs to who to hit. This thing that looks like one of those old, like, handheld tiger toys. Yes. is amazing. And, you know, it doesn't hit the lady at the end because the little doggy grabs it out of the air. And I appreciate that they bring back that batterang to set him up later in the movie. Because you would just be like, oh, you know, they just got something from Batman. But no, they specifically show them getting it.

And also, that's an interesting moment, too, that you're talking about right there because the bat, the dog catches the batterang. And Batman looks at the circus woman who's like partnered with this poodle throughout the whole. whole movie and like she just walks away right like Batman makes no it's like all right lady get the hell out of here you know she walks no attempt to like yeah yeah no attempt to like stop her or anything like that and also one of the clowns in that sequence so now I'm like agreeing with you that this might be the better secret there's a Wilhelm scream used in that clown fight oh was there really yeah I love it nice I love it um so this is uh you know right around where the penguin is visited

by Catwoman at his disgusting campaign headquarters It's so gross She could shit in here too It's disgusting this place It looks like you're about to fall through the floor The penguin's about to ask her to Honestly

Well the penguin dude I feel like in this moment Is Oswald Kappelpott realizing Like he would be totally fine getting like fucking destroyed by some dominatrix You know what I mean? yeah like this is like way they can do that too whoa yeah I mean that that that that Dom energy in this movie is like you read about parents taking their kids to this in 92 and being like I hate you Warner Brothers like the movie didn't do as well as the first one like gross like quite a bit less and I can totally I can easily imagine a parent taking it mommy mommy can I go see Batman And, you know, the whole family goes and, you know, mom puts her hand over her husband's eyes.

Half the movie. One hand over the husband's eyes, the other hand over the kid's eyes. Until you get a generation of Steve Sadex, man. You cannot show this to a child. Oh, man. But this is, this was the scene where I noticed that, like, her outfit is, like, totally torn from that last fight. Yeah. And just like a little, like a little, a little thread popped off.

Yeah, yeah. It's so fucking good looking, though. I love it so much. So, uh, let me ask you something here. Is it? Do you know anything about killing children? I just need a little help killing more children is what I need. This is where Michelle Pfeiffer actually put this bird in her mouth apparently. That's crazy. I mean, you, and you can see like it's, it's a crazy shot for no. Was it just like for the exit though? Yeah. Like the exit shot. Yeah. Like at least a puppet bird going in. But to put a real live bird in your mouth, even for that exit shot, you've got to hold it in there for like at least a few seconds, right?

I mean, this is nuts. You know, God bless that bird actor who did not, you know, I don't know if you got hazard pay or what, but I mean, you know, he had to learn this incredible stunt. What's that means, Steve? So, like, you're like, if you're getting hazard pay as a bird thespian, that's like a larger, like, seed bell or something. For sure, you know. No, that's too big. Oh, Michelle was a total professional. Didn't wriggle the tongue once.

Not once I tell you. Oh, Michelle, if you don't bite down, I won't put my claws on your tongue, Michelle. I'm a bird. Let me tell you about the time I, a bird, had a sex scene with Michelle Fiber. I love that this bird is apparently being voiced by Sir Richard Attenborough, by the way. Oh, yes, yes. I was to be the lead in the John Frankenheimer rebecca. remake of the birds, but

that project collapsed, of course. She opened her mouth and I was safe for now. I mean, all I thought about in that scene was there's a story. I wasn't on a commentary. I don't know where the hell I

read this, but Daniel Stern was talking about Home Alone 2. And if you remember the end of that movie is like the pigeon lady throws a bunch of bird seed all over. Daniel Stern and the pigeons all come or whatever and like Daniel Stern actually did that like this guy I mean what a glutton for punishment the first movie with that you know tarantula on his face and then that movie is all the pigeons on him and he definitely confirmed that a bird shit in his mouth when they were filming that movie and you got to think to yourself man like was home alone too lost in New York worth it I say yes what you see they were working with non-professionals on that set I would never do such a a thing to Michelle. No, I would never shit in her mouth.

Unless asked, right? Well, sure. That's all consensual. That was only once when I was working on a John Waters picture. Or Sylvester Stallone's birthday party. That's gross. I wasn't going to say something about, oh,

so like this is where they hatched their whole partnership, right? And she is the one who comes up with the idea of like he cannot be martyred. We got to make him like us. We got to frame him. And this scene ends so spectacularly In like the most bizarre fashion of her just being like Maybe I'll just give myself a bath right here

And just starts doing it And then he's there on the bed And then that's the end of the scene And you're like, did that escalate? I bet he was like flipping off watch it Yeah The thing is that what's amazing And I mean the movie does do

You know the guy Daniel Waters Who wrote it was a wrote Heather's and stuff So, like, he is. And, like, so much of this movie is about her just being sexualized by everyone. And even this month, like, she's trying to be a villain. And the guy, like, the deal is like, okay. And she makes a deal with Penguin. Like, it's for both of our self-interest. It's like, yeah, but then you're going to fuck me, right? Like, that's his kind of. Right. And that's what sets her off. And it's a really interesting kind of limitation for her. Yeah. But she, in her previous life as the secretary, no one gave her any notice. Like even the boy, not even a boyfriend would want to sleep with her on this vacation. And so it's interesting that it's also like her sexual awakening because when she's first visiting her apartment visiting while going home for the day before she goes back to Shrek's office, she's asking the cat about their sexual escapades because she doesn't have any. Yeah, because she's saying stuff like, you know, she's got to go to work to keep, you know, pay the bills, keep the lights on.

She's like, not like you do anything around here to help out. You're too busy stepping out. She's like, call this cat easy. But now she's empowered in this superhero visage sexually. And then, like, you find yourself a sexy billionaire who's total maniac. You got to hold on for dear life, Selena Kyle. You know what? Like, throw away the catwoman thing.

Get married. Get divorced. You're coming out on top. You know what I mean? Like, this guy is definitely prey for a quick marriage because he's just, like, way into her immediately. And you could ask for Max Shrek's head for you. you're like for your wedding gift.

You absolutely could do that. Yeah. And like, you know, maybe Bruce Wayne finds a way to like ruin this guy financially or something. That would work. Bring them right down. They both know that they're going to have to go because there's a tree lighting ceremony. Batman, Bruce Wayne knows like,

shit's going to go down. Cowwoman is involved and they're both like, you'll do an early dinner at my house? Okay, sure. Like five o'clock. We can do five o'clock. There's two great things. They have a little like,

uh, Sorkonian walk and talk here where they, he's like oh selina and they kind of you know they're walking by the tree and she's like are you going he says no and they walk by like a newspaper stand and there's the great headline of batman blows it which is so fucking great that's my other thing my favorite thing is this scene the the thing that happens is that this short little piece of shit this menace challenges the mayor to a relight the christmas tree it's like fucking like Lauren Michaels challenging Bill de Blasio to light the fucking Rockefeller Center back up.

You know, Bill, do you like to be called Bill? You know, those clowns took down the tree lighting ceremony. And I think you're a fucking coward, sir, if you don't relight the Christmas tree. Lauren Michaels also, do say. He also breathes like a 300-pound bird. Yes, absolutely. It's just crazy to be like, okay. Okay, so a terrorist attack happened at the last Christmas tree lighting.

We're going to do it again. Yeah. And then it happens again. I think that is like, okay, this mayor is definitely out of here now. There is a moment in this scene, though, that I just wanted to touch on because it's so out of character for this character is like Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle walking and talking. It's the whole, you know, all right, let's have dinner at my place, early dinner, 5 p.m., 6 p.m., whatever.

Alfred Pennyworth laying on the horn to tell Bruce Wayne to get his ass moving. I don't know, man. You're fucking playing with fire, sir. No one honks the horn of Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne's not going to fire, Alfred. He's like starved to death a week later. My dinner's not coming out to me. Oh, wait.

Master Wayne broke a couple fingers. Wait, wait, you have to cook eggs? Uh-oh. My favorite thing is the fishy swassine. Cool. It's a great. It's cool. It's supposed to be you uncouth fuck

They wind up having a nice dinner at Bruce's house And they want to fuck in front of this fire They want to fuck in front of this fire Well dude you know what if you're sitting in front of a fireplace That is so big you have to be burning four whole trees At the same time You see these logs that's got in there It's insane

It's like Xana dude. Sorry to bring up Citizen Kane so much But we watched it recently And it is a citizen game Fireplace. It absolutely is. Also featured in the film The Haunting when it decapitates Owen Wilson. Yes, the 99 remake. This is also, yeah, go ahead.

Steve. Oh, no, just a great little character moment where both of them are trying to, are getting like, it is interesting, like, again, like, it's not a Batman movie. It is, though, because this is him the closest you can find somebody that's like him, you know what I mean? And like when they're feeling each other out and

her battle wounds match his battle wounds because of the same battle wounds it kind of works in that world and like it does it is this weird like you know emotional limitation for both of them you know it's a rad moment though because I don't believe that they like reach

the final conclusion just yet on the couch and it's a great like you know she goes to like touch his you know wound there and he's like oh fuck and moves her hand and then he's trying to move up the sleeve and she's like oh fuck and like move you know what I mean like It's just, this scene is way funnier than I think people, you know, give a credit for sometimes. And then like when they realize this whole thing is totally fucked up, the whole comedy here of like, I don't know, Alfred, fucking say I had a big meeting. I had to run out of town. And then she's like, I don't know, like, tell him, I wrote him this sonnet or whatever she says. Like, you know, and then Alfred's like, okay, my day is done. A dirty limerick. Yeah. Oh, dirty limerick. That's what it is.

one springs to mind right now. Of course it does that filthy old fucker. There was a man from Nantucket. Goodbye. Also, it's weird in this scene. They evoke Selina Kyle, or excuse me, Vicky Vale. Yes. She's mentioned twice in this movie.

And this is the, you know, the first time, not by name, you know, but she's like, she makes some crack about like what her profession could have been. And he's like, actually, she was a photojournalist. was she a stewardess or a cocktail because her name is vicky it's like oh sure yeah that honestly feels like a studio note because the rest of the movie is so disconnected from the previous movie that like i have to imagine some exact was like well how do we know this is a sequel what happened what happened to vicky veil it's not like a guy it's not like a guy like this would just dump a girlfriend oh wait yeah he probably killed her and alfred helped cover it up well there is apparently in the original see like she was in the movie and like she was like going to get proposed to and all this garbage

and they just they had to cut around it and be like that's not because Burton didn't again Burton didn't want to make a sequel he just wanted to make another Batman right which is what this is you know what it's it's so weird in those moments where the this movie makes you think of the last movie because like we've been saying like there's a fucking

clown gang and at no point is anybody like you remember that like other clown that dressed all in purple and loved prince like none of that so like when the like batman's lady friend gets mentioned you're just like oh yeah all right yeah no there is another batman movie i know but i'm thinking about this batman movie right now i mean and also the movie's all the better for it sort of disinteresting continuity like you can imagine this movie

being written now and they'd have to have something to explain another clown gang should of like oh yeah they were inspired by the joker yes instead of just like leaving it be like oh yeah this is gotham city there are clown gangs i don't know what to tell you there are several ones the mad hatter has a bunch of clowns the riddler has a bunch of clowns well visually you're so stunned the entire time this kind of stuff doesn't really register in your brain when you're watching the movie you know what afterwards obviously you're parsing it but like i just every scene it's just so good looking you're just sort of like okay i'm here it's all iconography is there something um sort of along those lines in dark night rises with like hoodlum that also are dressed like sort of like clowns and it's kind of like vague references. It's been a while. Like the leftovers of that gang or whatever.

Yeah, I don't remember. I haven't watched those. Although I will say those three movies also make immaculate 4K disc pickups, by the way. Let's put that out there. It's me playing salesman for this entire episode. Do you have like a case with you?

Can I put in an order? No, but you know, I guess part of it though, dude. You know, honestly, that, da, da, da, da, da. Today's episode is brought to you by 4K disc media. No, I'm so concerned that, you know, and eventually I guess it will probably happen. Like, we stop making discs.

And like I don't, you know, because like that stream, streams can look okay, but they cannot look like these discs. I don't think this you're going to go away. I think there's always going to be sort of like a niche market. It's never going to be profitable, but it'd always be like a small market. And what they'll do instead of sort of not make discs, they'll just make like very fancy, expensive discs. Like the steel book is the future, right?

Collectors edition. Right. People who buy these things will spend 50 bucks for a collector edition. Yeah. No, I hope you're right because like I will still be that guy buying those discs and everything. I watched this on Blu-ray today and it was a little lackluster. I think I got one of those like first Blu-ray's type. So I'm very excited about your 4K

sale here and I would like to sign up. I do love, so there's an awful, like, the violence of this movie is all off screen, but it's, I mean, most of it's off screen. When the penguin whips this ice princess with the batterang, and it's just all sold by Danny, Danny DeVito's performance, I'm going, and like, and, like, you just throws it at her, and it's like, ew, that sucks to be terrible. Then later we hear, they found the batterang, like, covered in her blood, and it's just like, whoa. Yeah, what happened there? Here's the thing about finding that battering and everything. like there is a shot of like a news reporter being like so commissioner gordon what can you tell us about the kidnapping of the ice princess and he's like well here in this ziplock bag is a battering and i'm like

maybe you just give the standard police shit of like this is an open investigation he's with when he when he knocks her out with the battery he's in there with uh the poodle lady yes and you just know that when like she he knocks her out and he's he's like, eh, maybe like a little bit of my flipper. And then the public, like, no, Depp, that's on the prize. Eyes on the prize, Oswald.

Yeah, that's, that's in Tim Burton's fucking R-rated cut, dude. That's when it gets way more fucking king in New York than you wanted to be. But he shed unlimited Poon King. I still can't believe that's in this movie. I mean, that's an auto five

stars. Speaking of lines, I think the absolute worst, in this movie. It's always driving during me nuts. It's just so cheesy. Eat floor high in fiber. It's just like, come on. That's an Arnold line. That is an Arnold line. That's like a shitty cop line. Eat pavement. Yeah, you're totally right. It's, there were two moments in this movie that I still feel is a five star in letterboxed film. Don't worry about it. But I was docking like very, very tiny percentages of points for two things. One, that line, because it's totally from fucking Arnold or Stallone's of, you know,

it's not here. Get this out of my Batman movie, but also Man, oh man, I mean, we're not quite there yet, but just when he's like screwing the penguin over and playing the audio and Batman is scratching the CD player. Like a record. Damn, that's dumb.

That's so dumb. That just opened up like, that that's a Pandora's box because I'm like, so he has the Batman logo on his CD player. Is it on all the appliances in the house? Does he have the poster oven with the Batman logo on it? But also

everyone drives 1950s automobiles and they have Walkman. Oh, it's so great. So this is also the cool thing of Batman Parks' car. He puts the Batman Club on it, which is the whole like shield. And then the clowns come out and they

have, and I love you don't they don't try and it doesn't matter because it's a comic book movie. like they don't try to explain how this clown gang is so technologically proficient in what they do doesn't matter I don't give a shit if the clowns like working on this car

whatever I feel like it's set up in the way because there's the schematics and they were going to put it the H-bomb in there so they they at least know their way around it's set up a bit for they were funded by a very young Elon Musk oh Mr. Zero Cases

by April that fucking idiot No, but I totally get what you're saying, but like, if I was looking at those schematics, I can't manipulate the Batmobile, you know what I mean? Well, you didn't go to Clown College. Oh, that is correct. But I love this moment, though, because it's a real like, hey, Batman, they're fucking with your car, dude. It's like when you get to warm up your car in the morning in the winter and you're always looking back to make sure someone, no, someone only took it. But here, Batman, clowns got it, man. you got to

I like the idea of Batman having to warm up the Batmobile too it's winter Alfred Alfred get out there Oh no The clowns have taken my car Wait so how many are in the car now

Listen Alfred is 20 below out there And I just I don't want to spend 20 minutes inside the car Waiting for to warm up Oh he's losing my keys To the goddamn car I gotta get Fox on this A fob

Master Wayne can I take tea There are lives at stake, Alfred. Get out there right now. Master Wayne, may I suggest you invest in an autostarter? No, no. Those devalue your car when you put them in, Alfred. I love the Ice Princess going to her doom. It's awesome with all the bats.

Laud dart! Laudart is fantastic. Dude, what a fucking cruel way to go. I love it. And this is, here's the thing, though, Steve. you're talking about you know and I think you're right you know mostly you do not

see shots of violence in that way but the ice princess falls on the like you know like the what do you call this thing the plunger that has to go down to light the tree she falls on that whole mechanism and you see that impact shot it's brutal and meanwhile the Johnny

Resnick and the Google dolls are like oh should we keep playing it's so it's a smart setup too because The lawn guard had bats in it, so she felt her at death with bats. He's up there, and someone down in the crowd's like, Hey, Batman killed the ice prince.

That's a plant. That's a penguin plant. All right. When that happens, take a clown makeup off. Look respectable. Go out of it. I think that's Batman killing the ice prince. Better movie if it were a penguin yelling it.

Oh, my God. That's horrible. Oh, that talking dog. That talking coyote was. just that talking penguin. I do love, and also Batman doesn't do himself a favor here because he escapes by using the really cool

hand glider. Right. And he's like flying amongst the bat. It's like now you really look like you did it. Like you know what I mean? Like before you could have maybe talked around it. Exactly. Now you're like, yes, these bats are my people. Good job, bats. Yes, I've done this. Between this and

the rampage in the car in a minute or two, you're really, you've got change, you've either got to change cities, you're going to Metropolis, or now you're Ninja Man. You know what I mean? Like you're, you got Batman is dead, Ninja Man now rules and you know, whatever it is.

You just got to rebrand at this point. No one's going to trust him. Oh, my car's got a flat tire. Put up the Ninja star side. Yeah. So like the penguin, there's a great moment when they're on the rooftop here and the penguin's like celebrating the fact that they've now like made Batman

a, you know, a public facing criminal or whatever. And he's just got this bottle of champagne just on this rooftop just ready to cheers, just out in the middle of this, it's kind of snowing or whatever. And there's a great thing here where the, it's another great moment like to

make Catwoman more of a fuller character because she's like, hey, you totally promise me that that Ice Princess would be fine. Yeah. And you wouldn't do anything. And he's like, yeah, well, you know and this is the line I think where he goes uh you lousy minks

I should have had you spade the only line I can imagine Dustin Hoffman nailing yeah that's true oh you lousy minks I should have had you spade said that a lot IRL I do love his also line of like

go to heaven it's just such a weird little like Danny Vitoism of her flying away she flies into the house great Michelle Pfeiffer scream here oh yeah the the the goat just the goat yeah yeah the scream that like blasts all these windows in the greenhouse which is awesome then batman uh gets to his car oops the penguin is controlling it and and like him in this little

i mean they do so much interesting stuff with the size of danny de vito specifically and and like to chris's point like the babyness of it like it's one thing if he's just controlling it but he has to be in like in front of a uh grocery store a little ride along thing i mean like on when he when he jumps in he even does like a whole like you know moves around yes yeah you know boss we could make you something more like the cruising USA type of situation

it doesn't have to look like you're in front of Kmart and we're left alone it's a fucking grocery store rocket ship do you understand me and it's I mean it's it fits because he's so like infantile and gross and just like him writing around

in it and obviously and he's ecstatic like that's like he doesn't downplays it all he doesn't downplay it at all I'm ruining this man's life I'm doing this he is so happy to be like almost killing people at this point I love it I absolutely love it what's incredible about when you realize like where he is doing this right so he's in this like Oswald Cobblepot for mayor Winnebago that they purchased and I feel like if Max Shrek is the financial backer for this political campaign. You're getting something a little sleeker

than this boxy-ass Winnebago. Well, that's what James Carville, who's also running on the campaign, wanted. You wanted a Winnebago. You're going to have to get yourself sitting in one of those old-fashioned Winnebagoes. You don't want something too expensive now. You've got to look like a man

of the people. We're going to like that penguin down. We're going to like that penguin. I'm not going to attempt to do it. I'm not even going to attempt to do it. please do not you'll wind up like me I was going to say it does

those Oswald Cobbop for mayor signs go up like overnight like they're just like yeah those are rad too because they're all like drawings of him like from the comic yeah yeah I love the campaign buttons people are wearing throughout this movie too because some of them are just ginormous

yeah yeah oh that's a great thing where he's like he's in it's you know I don't remember where it's sometime in we've passed it in our discussion but when there's like that like sexy co-ed that's at the campaign he's like have a button

he's like putting it on her sweater you would think that at the time you'd be like obviously this this political figure can't win an election but like I don't know the president basically gropes people all the time of course exactly good good call because he's running on law and order

yeah one of the buttons in that in the Winnebago it says Oswald means order. Yeah. Oh, God. Make Gotham great again, everybody. He's got the guts to call it radical clown terrorism. He will do it.

I do love it. It is still, and you know, Jamel's studio notes, this is definitely a studio note, like, can we have something with the Batmobile where we could sell a new Batmobile? Oh, yeah. You have the thing. We are still selling toys here, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, absolutely.

Because why on earth would anybody be like, you know, know what my car should be able to shed parts of itself to become a thinner car like there's no way you would plan for this situation we're not going to sell a penguin doll with blackbile we can't do that fcc won't let us do that so you got to give us something i remember being very disappointed because i want i was again i literally like the penguin as a kid And I got the penguin toy, and it was literally just a repaint of an older, like a, of a, of a, you know, a monocle penguin from like the 80s. Oh, they just devouted it out a little.

No, they just put it in black. It was blue, and he was wearing a black tuxy. Oh, really? That's all there was to it. Yeah. Fuck that. I am not selling children of black gunked months. I think they made McDonald's pull the toys for this.

They did. Of course they did. But I had the, because I had the little. one, too, I think. The penguin in the little rotating umbrella car. I had that. Oh, shit. Yes, I do remember that.

I also had, did anybody have the, like, multi-scene play set thing where, like, it was like a little, like, you know, briefcase looking thing. I remember this. And you could open it. So you had, like, the front of Wayne Manor. And then you had, like, the Batcave. And then there was another part that I don't remember what the, the penguin's layer, quotation marks.

Yeah, yeah. I, man. you had a thing where you could like zip line Batman like down oh my god it was so much fun that sounds amazing i had sticks and rocks were they fun there sneaky ones but i straightened it i so you know he he escapes you know the huge rampage but he he records the penguin this is the the famous speech scene where uh he and you know speaking to what we're talking about it's kind of amazing to watch a outsider nightmarish politician that wants to burn

everything down actually fail by a hot mic. You know what I mean? Usually a hot mic just doesn't it just rolls off these people. No, I was joking. I was being sarcastic. That's the problem. If he had just gone through it, if he had just let it happen and let it go instead of trying to kill everybody

with his umbrella gun. Shooting the audience. Hard from hell. That's locker room talk. Yes, exactly. I've never been in one of those. What with me being a man penguin. But as I understand it, that's how you talk in a men's locker. Low energy, Jim Gordon doesn't know what this country needs.

Batman is a low IQ individual. Yeah, he gets pelted, and this is when everyone's favorite line is, I'm not a man, I'm an animal. Yes. There is some great cinematography here in the scene. that I wanted to point out. When he gets to the podium to start the speech, they don't give him like a little booster step.

Yeah. So it's just short Danny DeVito at this like normal size podium. And all of the microphone stands are framing his face. So he looks like he's in like a birdcage kind of thing. Oh yeah. Or jail. Or I mean, yeah, or jail. You know, it was just like it was such a great

just moment there. And then again, this has nothing to do with the 4K disc. I just happened to notice it this time. I love, and I love like the, the body language of Max Shrek, giving him like a shoulder shrug of like, well, you're done. You know what I'm saying? Well, that was fun. We tried it.

Yeah. I'll get someone else to help me open my power plant or whatever. Him barreling his weird body into the crowd is just very disturbing to look at. Now I'm going to crowd surf. And then him throwing himself into the same river that he was tossed.

Because he does try to shoot the crowd. That is his fatal flaw. If Donald Trump did actually take out a Tommy gun during one of these meetings and fire on the crowd, maybe that would have been enough. He'd be fine. Trust me, he'd be fine. No, he'd just get Cory Lewandowski to do it.

There's like a third part to that human being animal line though, which is great. Just cold blooded. Yeah. It's so awesome. This is when he's like, you know what? Let's go back to our basics. Let's kill some kids. You know what? I wanted to run on the

Killing Kids platform to begin with. Shrek totally got me off course. Let's get back to killing kids. And this is one of the funniest. This is like the darkest comedy in the movie is the one clown being like, Penguin, should we really be, I don't know, murdering kids? And he just fucking shoots this fat clown in the heart and lets him just drop into the water, man.

Oh, my God. We're what, like five election cycles away from, you know, President Tom Cotton Kill all the firstborn sons Like we're not far off from that, are we? Five, five is optimistic. See, look, I'm an optimist by nature, okay? So we got that, yeah, back to basics.

We're going to kill these kids. This is Max Shrek's big Christmas. Is it a Christmas Eve situation he's having this Halloween ball? It's a masquerade. Masquerade. My annual masquerade, which is great. I think it's, it's fun. that Selena Kyle and Bruce

Wayne are the only people that show up without costumes since they're the ones usually in costume. Right. Well, it's the thing where it's like in in these both of these characters, right? Which is the real dominant personality, right? Like is Batman pretending to be Bruce Wayne

you know, his catwoman pretending to be Selena Kyle? So it's this thing where like them looking at like looking just without masks is them wearing a mask. Yeah, perfect. You got it right there. I mean, in the way that this is blocked and shot and the way the camera moves and like

the script just kind of like do we have to start fighting now that whole like all these weird little realizations and Pfeiffer is just on fucking fire this entire movie it's a toucher it's a great scene like it's just sort of like it's it's a serious

like emotionally mature scene of the kind that you again you don't really see these kinds of movies of two adults just trying to figure something out. Right. Yes. Yes.

Like let's, can we talk this through, you know? Selina, Sina, wait, wait, wait, is that is that super freak on the sex? That's amazing. I can, just, do they have cover? Do they have a cover record? I would love to hear more jazz as funk disco.

And it's just great. They're literally about to go talk to each other and have what would be another great scene, but the penguin obviously crashes the part. Wait a second But she fucking, she's packing heat, dude. She pulls a piece out. Yeah, she wants, oh, that's right.

Because she's like, oh, you and Max. And she does this insane, terrifying laugh. Yeah. And it's like this and Max and it's a gun. And it's, yeah, it's, I mean, like, again, like, this is one of those scenes where, like, you don't need the rest of the movie. Like, this scene could exist on its own and it's totally great.

Like, that's it. If you were, if you were to take that scene, like, obviously when the floor explodes, the penguin comes out, just like that lob that off. and just have like the scene of them dancing at the ball and like talking and just showed it to someone with with no context about what the film was they would never guess it's a bad man movie yes totally that was this like an early version of mr and mrs smith there's that great line with the mistletoe talk and it's a call back to the previous thing where what she says like missile toll can be deadly

if eaten which is something he said before and he responds where the kiss can be even deadlier so they, and this is where they realize each other's identities. Yeah. It's so awesome. I mean, yeah, and obviously the penguin shows up, you didn't invite me, but I crashed. And it's like, uh, Hey, save yourself!

The best part about this is on the duck, there are two little penguins with like rocket, rocket packs on. Yeah, totally. This is bodyguards. There had to have been a trial and error period. Oh, yeah. Arming penguins with rocket launchers, right?

No, the Gotham penguins are very smart. They just, they got it. They got it all the way down. Wow, this is amazing. They're great. They're fantastic. You lost more clowns than we didn't penguins. Well, you're forgetting that dark chapter of American history when the CIA was trying to kill Castro with penguin bombs.

Wow, these penguins are taken to these rocket launches like ducks to, well, you know, water. But the penguins are talking about it. Penguins like to ice. I don't know. I give up. And it's kind of wild because like the movie, when Oswald Cobbopat like fizzles out of this campaign, you know, in that last scene and runs back to the sewer, part of the movie almost feels like it's over. Yeah. And, you know, there's this big stretch of like, you know, there is parts where he's like back in the back cave and Alfred's like, oh, you got invited to this masquerade ball and he has him tear it up. And then he's like, well, say, my lady friend might be there. And Alfred's like so fucking pissed that he tore up the RSVP.

There's all this stuff that happened. So there's a lot of time where it sort of feels like you're in this weird epilogue. But then like the penguin like explodes back into the movie. And it doesn't feel like there's extra stuff. You're not like, man, this movie's still going on. Like you know in this moment like, oh, fuck, now it's like the final battle of this movie, which is great. The third act really announced itself for sure. So you can dress up like jerks get juiced and day.

Badly. He's so great right here. And then in the duck, he kidnaps Christopher Walken. He's going to kidnap Chip, which is fantastic. Save yourself. Because of the first born son angle.

Right, right, right. Then Christopher Walken convinces him to kidnap him. And it's a great moment, too, because he's like, you make it a good point. But the penguin's whole plan here is so, like the method by which he's also planning.

I mean, like, the murder of a child anyway, obviously, is terrible. But, like, he's like, so what we're going to do is kidnap them all. And then I'm going to drown him in your fucking sewage, Max Shrek. And you're just like, Jesus Christ, this is brutal. And it's a industrial byproduct, and then you're going to join them. He has the umbrella with the mobile. And he's like, come on, we'll do the penguin, whatever the pied penguin routine. And he's like, leading them into their doom theoretically.

I'm like, you don't see it because the movie doesn't show it. you see it because he's doing it and it's like this is literally as pitch black as you can get you can picture vincent chevelli just driving this child kidnapper train like right into all the goop you know what i mean i love how like it's conspicuous that is to have a fucking carnival train with cages full of young children just going through the middle of the city i mean it just I mean, I know you see Trump everywhere now, but like literal kids in cages being drowned out of the street. I'm like, Jesus.

My favorite movie Batman Returns. I learned so much from Oswald Cobbott. Great local politician, Gaffin. I do love, um, apparently Burton, they were thinking about shooting, um, actually abducting the children. You only see them getting put in the cages. But then somebody was like,

we cannot. Like you cannot have, like these kids are having nightmares. You can't have like a little kid safe in his bed and then like clowns stealing him. Dude, a big fat clown kicking the door open? Like somebody had to be like absolutely not.

Vincent Chevelli and his monkey are taking a young Anna Paquin out of her bed. Exactly. Like you know what? My kids need to sleep tonight and I am not getting a lawsuit on my hand. We let you have the black bar. We let you have the child murder. We're giving you a lot of leeway with this one.

But you can't have the kids taken from the beds. But it's the whole movie. I need it. Okay. But then can I keep in the scenes where we drown them in the suit? No, no, Tim. We can't do that either, okay? It's one or the other or I walk. Tim, we're already pushed up against a PG-13 here.

it's a hard fucking PG-13 guys absolutely this rating is hanging on by a thread you don't want to know go ahead he beats up Vincent Jevelli he saves you do kind of want Batman to beat the shit out of Vincent Chenevelli though this next moment almost feels like maybe it's something out of the animated series which I've seen

a handful of but not as much the fact that Batman sends the monkey with a note and then it's like this stationary that from Batman yes dear penguin the children regret they are unable to attend Batman apparently two stories one the monkey was definitely freaked out by Danny DeVito's makeup

like everyone else was sure yep and I think it was on the Graham Norton show or something this is apocryphal it's on IMDB trivia it went after his nuts because he was so afraid of him and like he was like obviously it was the suit or whatever so he's fine but I could just look at that thing and a monkey doesn't know A monkey doesn't understand what makeup is. Dude, this monkey's trying to, like, tear at this fat suit. There's got to be a photo, like a secret photo somewhere of Danny DeVito being like,

look at there's monkeys on my balls. The monkey's been listening to, like, right in his ear for weeks. Yeah. They have to euthanize that monkey after. Yeah, that was this dude's last performance. I love Danny DeVito also here he's doing like a patent reference with all these penguins getting them all juiced up ready to go destroy the city

which is great. That's plan B is like you know what if I can't steal all the first board we'll just kill everybody and there's a fun going to kill all the kids now. They wouldn't put me on a pedestal so I'm going to put them on a slab. Oh that's a great line that's also kind of straight out of a gangster movie. Not just a patent reference but a reference to the trial scene in M. Yes. Oh yes. totally fuck i didn't even get that i'm due for a rewatch on that movie that's been a long time

yeah m's great the best and they say something about like the with the the firepower that these penguins are packing they're going to like the center of the said they're going back to gotham square to like do this thing and he's saying that there's going to be a hundred thousand people that are killed which is quite an achievement for a gotham villain i have to say yeah they're only not that ambitious no like joker's happy if he gets like a couple people with that weird, like, smile, you know? Yeah, totally. I mean, I would be really, I guess I would feel okay if my family was vaporized by a rocket

if a penguin launched it. Like, it would be kind of cute. It would be just a little cute, you know what I mean? We're all going to look back on this and laugh when the penguins killed grandma. That's how you'll get everybody okay with, you know, nuclear Armageddon. Make sure a puppy pushes the button. adorable he's so cute

or have a grogo do it and then a brand ambassador ship that's what yeah go ahead Steve well Batman just waits it's classic Batman it's the last second

to jam the signal and like turn them around yeah which is so yeah he's directing the penguins like go back towards the zoo or whatever this is in the the bats ski at this point everything like all conflict

in this movie is remedied by frequency jam I mean, that's how he got the speech, and that's how he gets this. It's even the same little graphic on the monitor, like, frequency jam. And Alfred's, like, got the headset on, like, he's back in his old World War two days, you know, jamming frequencies. Mixing some beats up. He's getting ready for it. I mean, so Penguin has Christopher Walken in a bird cage. He's sitting on, like, what is, I can only call a throne, chowing on fish waiting for these children to die. And, you know, is this when the bat boat, like, speeds in?

Yeah, because, well, this is like, you know, there's something coming. It's, it's very big, very fast or whatever. So he decides after the signal jam that he's going to get in his little duck car. And there's the hilarious, like this duck car trying to drive up these stairs. And you see, like, Danny DeVito in this thing, like getting whiplash going up all these stairs. And it's so great because Batman, I think at this point is like, I'll offer to like a close enough to the signal or whatever and he's like I don't know fuck it and just

rams the bat ski like into the duck boat and just causes this huge car accident it's so awesome and this is my babies there's a small fight here but I think Tim Burton was smart because you can't have Michael Keaton just wail on the penguin

because then it turns into LA confidential and everyone's really uncomfortable when fucking Russell Crow is beating him in a chair it's like that's like kind of hitting a kid like he's so small like he you know in this movie he gets him a little bit he like maybe like

head butts him or something but that's it oh bad if you're gonna hit me like that you better keep it hush hush on the QT Batman we had a deal right yeah all they do is wait like what another like five years and then you get

that incredible scene but yeah like the whole zoo gets fucked up right all the penguins start launching these rockets at the zoo. The thing about, like, the penguin putting up a fight here, which is kind of great, is the, the umbrella that he has in this moment is, like, the sword one. And he's trying to slash Batman, like, right in the face. And they do a great job with, like, the sound design here, like the, you know, sounds of the

sword blade and everything. It's menacing, for sure. And it's creepy as all fuck, you know. But that's what's great. It's like, they're smart to think, like, he's got something in his hand there. Because you're right, Steve. I was thinking about that, too. Like, obviously Batman would beat the shit out of this guy.

But not if there's a sword on his throat, kind of a thing. Great, more explosions of the zoo, just fantastic looking explosions of a set. Dude, this fucking polar bear falls like a statue of Saddam Hussein. Did you see this thing go down? It's incredible. Amongst all the flames and everything. Like a giraffe should run by on fire or something.

Oh, God, yeah. Say what you will about that polar bear. You could, like, shops could stay open until 10 p.m. When that was happy, walk around the streets. God. There's also the creepy thing. This is where what who fall? Oh, this is walking falls in the, yeah, Christopher Walken falls in the water here. And it's still freaked me out. Like, I remember getting freaked out more this particular moment in this movie as a kid than any other moment. With the water? Walkin drops to the bottom of the pool. And the dead clown is just still down there, just fucking rotting.

Like eyes wide open. Yes. Oh my God. It's so fucking unsettling. Hard of this movie that freaked me out as a kid was surprisingly not that or the nose bite was the, once we find Max Shrek's body coming up and you see the crispy critter really quick and it's like, whoa. Yeah, that was rough.

The face with the little eyes and a tongue, it's like, it's like, yeah. It's like they, they ref, you know, they remembered what the Joker does to that gangster in the first movie. They were like, let's up that a little more. It's a little hot under the collar. Well, that guy's like child's play

compared to this shit. Yeah. Well, if I can't drown more kids, then we're going to show him a body. You got to keep Tim interested, guys, all right? Tim is going to walk. All right, we don't want Tim to walk. All right, let me do the skull.

The dead clown is that there's no blood in the water, but he's just down there and his eyes are open, so maybe he's swimming. Look, I abandoned the two-faced idea. You gave me stress over the Poon-Tang when I said it needs to happen. What else do you want? from me, Warner. New from Kenner, the penguin

play set complete with dead clown at the bottom of the lake. You know, it's not actually that weird. Bottom of my pool has a dead clown. It's not that weird actually. It's like a fake ceramic thing I had, but like it's tied to the bottom. You can't move it. It's pretty

neat. Kind of an installation. I like it. You know, so Catwoman shows up here, of course, and this is the great, you know, Batman's trying to explain to her. Like, We're the same person, Selena. Like, you don't have to do this kind of a thing. This is the hilarious.

I'm just going to rip this Play-Doh cowl off my head. It is funny because obviously, like, the way the bat suit works is he has to paint black over his eyes. And there's that one quick shot of him without, you can see the peach around his eyes. And it's striking. Really unsettling. Yes. There was one moment where Shrek is pleading with Selena Kyle of, I'll get you anything. Money, Jules, a very big ball of string.

That's the only line that a man who already knows he has a gun can say. You're totally right. If he's feeling comfortable enough to throw in a quick joke right there during the pleading, yes. Great line of Bruce Wayne, why are you dressed up like Batman? Because he is Batman, you moron, which is like you always. He kind of like, yeah, was, which is awesome. But, like, that's a great moment. I feel like that was a great theater moment for all the people that ever wanted to tell off their boss. It's like, call them a fucking moron.

Like, she's doing it. And then, you know, I love all the shooting. Four, five, still alive. I mean, I love this scene. I mean, Keaton, this is a real acting moment for fucking Keaton when he's like, we're the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

It was very effective. I still, to this day, I find him. I mean, like, I don't know how he got this role. But I'm so happy he did. Yeah. I mean, what are, I mean, you know, that's the, the convo for the Batman 89 episode. But, like, you are taking a risk hiring a comedian to play a superhero such as Batman. Like, hiring Paul Rudd to play Ant Man.

Yeah, I get that, you know, for like what that movie kind of is, right? But, like, he was just a comedian. And he was like a former stand-up, you know, before he started making comedy films. Yeah, that guy was in the, Paul Rosen fucking knocked up. Like, he was in clean and sober. I mean, it's a great movie and all, but, like, eh? The thing that Keaton does with the role that, like, no one else has really ever quite gotten again, is that, like, Keaton just plays him like an alien.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, he plays him like a guy just does not know how human beings interact with each other. Which is kind of great, because that's what billionaires are. Right. I don't understand how people function. I mean, I love that. There's one scene where he's sitting, he's like, I'll forget the back teen, will you?

and he's dressed as Batman fully he's got a catwoman you know claw in his side he takes it out and like again with that fucking bottom of his mouth he's just like licks it he goes

yeah and it's like this weird like it's for me moment and like again it is just so sexual their connection is so sexually charged and like and at the end like yeah it is resonant that they are

too like he sees himself in her in all the worst ways he's this broken fucking nightmare she's a broken nightmare maybe we'll be one big complete nightmare together but i think also like you know um you don't have robin in this movie so like the whole idea of trying to protect someone from becoming exactly like he is also kind of falls on his relationship with catwoman here you know and it's like if we can just kind of be together and you can kind of like hang in my mansion and you know i can sort of make sure you don't go

full on fucking terrible like I am kind of a thing, which he fails at, but yeah. He keeps shooting her and she does the thing with the stun gun and the live wire. Let's have a kiss. I want to save another lie for next Christmas. Great line. Great line. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why she has to kiss him in that moment, though. It's a, you know, it's a... Wouldn't the electrical thing still just work? Otherwise. Yeah, but it's like it's a powerful. It's a power move. Yeah. Sure. She's still finding herself. After all this, she's still got to find herself.

Meanwhile, poor Penguin has fallen through the ceiling there, and he comes up at this point. And this is the whole, like, oh, man, a cool drink of ice water. And this is like, kill you momentarily. He pulls the wrong umbrella. He pulls out, he goes, toy umbrella. Yes, okay. Now, Bruce, bring out the really big bile pouch for Danny. He's going to need it coming right down the chin.

And as if, I mean, like, you know, like, maybe, I just, I imagine there's one guy who's like, oh, I like Batman movies and he went to go see this movie. And, like, and, you know, he gets to the whole thing. But when the penguin pallbearers come out, he left the theater. Like, you know what, fuck you. I sat through this whole fucking thing. I wanted to leave three or four times, but this is it. I have to say, when I watched this earlier in the year before, before for this show, show. I had completely

forgotten about the penguin fall bearers and I lost my mind. Of course, it's insane. And when you look how this is getting pulled off, I was really kind of like watching these penguin thespians in this moment. And like, they're just, they're not even like

touching Danny DeVio. Like, he's just being pushed along or whatever. And the face plant, by the way, is pretty brutal. Oh, yeah. It's a bad one. You just see this fucking potato fall over. face first and then what they're doing too I hadn't really thought about it until last night

but like as he's getting you know moved along by these penguin pallbearers his face is just scraping this concrete like god damn one undignified end and you know again Tim Burton is looking at all these fats he's like well the ass has to be flatter the ass has to be like his disgusting penguin ass is not not all right it's the fat

it's the flattest fat ass you have ever seen, which is amazing. You want a badonk there. Listen here, Wardrow person. Look, he usually wipes, is the thing. That's what I... He usually wipes, but sometimes he

misses a little bit. That's what the look we're looking for here. He's so relatable. And this final moment, man, you know, where like it's Christmas and Alfred's driving him along. and he sees, you know, the shadow of catwoman, you know, kind of climbing up a ladder and he gets out of the car. And he finds this little black cat there.

She turned into a cat. Oh, my God. It's a magician. I've got her, Alfred. She'll live in my mansion after all. Is she my familiar now? Oh, man. Yeah, totally.

But it's great because, like, at least he was able to give one cat a good home. You know what I mean? You know, Bruce, now, dude, now that's like the richest cat in the world. Well, this cat is losing his shit. in this scene. I took a... The catfespian, you mean? These catthespian, like, his eyes are darting like, fuck this, fuck this. His eyes are just everywhere. It's amazing. I'm going to kill this guy

that's holding me. I would watch a movie called The Richest Cat in the World. You should. But I also, it is so quiet and so nice. I've just like, Merry Christmas Master Wayne. You know, Merry Christmas, Alfred, and goodwill towards men and women. It gives

that ending gives the whole thing or feel sort of like, oh, this is secretly a Christmas parable. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, the fact that, like, this movie starts and ends, you know, starts at Christmas time, ends on Christmas. There is no argument here for this being a Christmas movie, my friends. No doubt in my mind. It is. It absolutely is. And we're fucking saying Merry Christmas. You know, I mean, come on. Christmas movie, definitely. Yeah. Even though it released in June. And again, that one Warner's executive is like, oh, fuck. Can we just, it's a June movie to him. It's a June movie. Well, Alfred, happy 4th of July.

Sure glad we beat those aliens that came down to Gotham. Another hot dog, Master Wayne. Okay, okay. Now, we can set it in summer, but that just means that the penguin's going to have to be sweating a lot. Lots of sweating. So we're going to get this more damp, a damp penguin. Jesus Christ, that sounds like a nightmare.

It definitely, yeah. And I want, you know what, it's going to be hot out. I want smell of vision cards. you'll scratch and sniff. It's just dead fish on everyone. Batman returned except everyone's as sweaty as they are in like a time to kill. That's pretty sweaty. I have two words for you.

Flipper feet. Come on. You want to see this in flip-flops? And then I love, I think I said this on Twitter, ate some shit, others agreed with me. I think this is the best shot in the best Batman movie of the bat signal coming up. and you just see Catwoman's head coming up looking at it. Man, is it great? Oh, it's good.

They added that in post. Catwoman was such a big deal after all. They were like, yeah, she can't be dead. Oh, yeah. See, I knew she turned into a cat. Yep. That's what happened right there. Well, do you think that that was a thing, Chris, where it was like, if we do another one of these bring Catwoman back? It was setting up a sequel that they never could pay off.

I would just fine. I would just fine. Again, I think that's fine because the movie has happened, that character had that whole arc. It's kind of a wink as opposed to like, no, we'll do it in the next movie. You know what I mean? There's a huge difference between doing a whole movie and then winking versus not doing

stuff and not setting it up and blah blah. I'm like, we'll do it in the next one. It's fine. You're not going to believe this, you know? Exactly. And also, I mean, I think we brought this up in the Catwoman episode we did, but like they were trying to get the Catwoman movie made for a long-ass time. And It was first Pfeiffer, then Ashley Judd, and then it went dormant,

and then suddenly Hallie Berry and the guy from the cell did it. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Judd might have been good. Sure. Yeah. Oh, Judd would have been good, yeah. Pfeiffer or Judd would have been great. But that is the end of this motion picture, my friends. And obviously, we've said now that, you know, we're doing these for We Love Movies,

so yes, they obviously hold up. But I'm just curious, any new observations or appreciations, We will start with you. Jamel is the guest for this week. Nothing new. This is a terrific movie. Like I think I said at the top, they don't make them like this anymore. You know, for as much as these two movies, Batman and Batman Returns, probably heralded all the worst trends of Blockbuster movie making today.

They still stand as like these completely unique products and they're great. I mean, we didn't talk about it too much. but like these returns especially you could watch this as basically like an intro to german expressionism yes totally every the entire movie is filled with these little shots that closing shot is like straight from metropolis like it's just everywhere right and i think that's so cool it's such it's such a neat thing to have in a batman film of all things totally Steve say that comic book expert yeah i mean i love this movie and again like there is this i mean like I do think that there's

there's fidelity to the material and then there's also like hey let's just run with something and make the weirdest movie possible hey nobody's looking let's make the weirdest movie possible and that's kind of what this movie is and I mean like as much as I'm a sucker for it I love the fidelity

in the latter movies and like the you know some of the Marvel stuff is like oh that's the thing that I know oh they're finally doing this they're finally doing that I kind of wish there was a world in which both these things could exist wherein you could just have a movie where it's just like, here's a huge director, here's a great cast, and like, it's got this literal tent bowl of a structure of a character that you're supposed to love, but let

him do whatever, him or her, do whatever the fuck they want with it. And that's what this is, and that's why it's so staggeringly good. Right. Chris Cabin? Oh, yeah, I absolutely love this movie. It is my favorite superhero movie, totally, out of all of them. I don't, the thing is, is that you just don't see many. personal connections between

the directors and these kinds of movies anymore. The closest thing you had was something like Black Panther or Iron Man 3 where you saw a direct connection between what the material was and what those directors had been through. You could see that there was a good...

Other than those and this and I guess Donner isn't much of a stylist, the first Superman doesn't really feel like that. But like, it's so incredible to watch, like, to see somebody get away with it, and, like, just know that it can't happen again. Right. Like, they literally had those one chance to do something like this. They did it, and it will never happen again. Uh, so it's, to me, it is something to be in awe of. Totally,

man. Eric Siska. Yeah. I think I always loved Batman 1989 more. And I always viewed this as like a fine, like this is an okay movie. But like, rewatching it today, totally reassess that and I think it's fucking on par with 89 and I love the sexuality of it. I love those weird moments of saying that well that PT expression

so yeah I mean I love it. It holds up it holds up better than I thought it did. Yeah totally. I've always gone back and forth like you know favorite superhero movie it's either this or 89 and now I'm back on this and it's interesting you bring up the sexuality dude

because it's something we've talked about on the show before but like how so many modern American movies are like totally sexless and you look at these Marvel movies and it's like yeah they mention things here and there and like yeah Tony Stark's a ladies man and this that the other thing but like these characters

in this movie are horny as fuck and it is like permeating the screen you know you cannot escape the horniness of this movie you know whoever like either it's sexy catwoman and Bruce Wayne or the disgusting penguin everyone's ready to go and the movie's like not

trying to hide it. So I think that's, it's great. It's a kids movie that's totally for adults only, which I think is awesome. So that's going to wrap up our discussion on Batman Trends. This was so much fun. Jamel, thanks for hanging out. As always, we love having you here. You know, quick, quick plug, what do you got going on, serial reviews, your time stuff? Yeah, I'll plug that. My college at the New York Times. My Instagram is at J. Bowie. And then also for Serious Eats, I do these cereal reviews. I review bad cereals. I don't know how I got roped in doing it, but here we are.

It's delightful, by the way. I should people need to check those out. There's one more. I still got one more to do for the year for something I'm genuinely dreading. So stay tuned. I'm excited for that. Are they penguin o's? I can tell you what they are.

It'll be the Korea-only Czech's green onion cereal. Oh, I'm excited. saw something about this. I've seen this mentioned on like Twitter or something. I'm very excited. Did you do one, am I just hallucinating this? Did you do one on cinnamon toast churros? I believe I did, yeah. Okay, yeah.

Because I bought a box of that because I was like, Jamel did a review of that one and I want to check it out. And they are, they're quite good. But thanks for hanging out, buddy. This is always so much fun having you here. Anytime you want to come back. As always, here on We Hate Movies, more content over on

Patreon.com slash we hate movies. We We dropped our huge-ass three-hour-plus episode on Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring last week. That's a massively good time that we love doing. And very soon we will or we will drop or will have dropped our Batman Mask of the Fantasms. So there's more Batman if you're a Batman head on the Patreon. And speaking of Christmas movies or maybe there's the diehard commentary track coming soon. Absolutely. That'll be out before the holidays.

I think that's going to drop on like the 18th or something like that. We'll figure out the dates. We'll let you know, of course. But we are going to roll on here on We Love Movies Month. Steve Sadek next Tuesday, we got a brand new We Love Ep hanging out. What are we going to be talking about? A Muppet Christmas Carol. It'll be our like Christmasy episode there.

Yes. I'm very excited about this. You know, the thing about it is I just heard. I read a thing that they were talking, Brian Henson was saying they're doing like a 4K remastering of the movie and they're putting the Love is Gone number back in it that got cut out from the film. see Steve Sadek not a huge phantom up at Christmas Carol I don't think because you don't know what I'm fucking talking about

There was a song that it's Scrooge Looking back on his young life Oh right I come over that The love is gone yeah It got cut from theatrical And everybody

You know After theatrical or whatever You can't if you have it on like DVD Like it doesn't exist Okay And he said they found the footage To put it back into this new scan And I was like

Oh we go. I cannot wait for that as a massive fan of this movie. So next week, Muppet Christmas Carol, one of the all-time great Christmas movies. We're going to have a blast talking about that. But until then, I'm Andrew Jupin. Even said, Eric Sisker, Chris Cabin. I'm Jamal Bowie. Take it easy. That was a HeadGum podcast.