Jim Hegarty (Talljim)

Batman Returns (1992)

Second on my list of Batman movies to blog (or live blog in a way) is 1992’s Batman Returns. The movie stars Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Devito and Christopher Walken. 

My initial thoughts: This always struck me as a Tim Burton movie that Batman happened to be a character in. I like it more than I did other Batman movies, but it was cause those were terrible. Let’s get to it.

• Paul ‘Pee Wee Herman’ Reubens is the first face we see as the father of a hideous baby not worth keeping. Great start to a movie, this could actually be used as the opening scene for the movie The Goonies, and have the baby found by the Fratellis instead of a bunch of penguins.
• Sure, have a drink, then toss your kid into the river, it’s not like you didn’t just give birth. It’s already eating cats, that baby is the devil for sure.
• This is a lot of floating by a wicker baby carriage.

• Shh there is a tree lighting. 
• Hi Alfred, it is good that you are skeptical of such tabloid trash, but there is a flipper man below you and a meglo-maniacal business man high above you. 
• Max Shrek is looking to build a ridiculous ‘power plant’ and politics is his game.
• Michelle Pfeiffer is good at bumbling and awkward, but the glasses and hair pulled back aren’t hiding anything. 
• Tim Burton movies are never sure what time period their characters are supposed to dress in. 

• Bet those presents that Max just threw are empty boxes. 
• Oh no, Max forgot his speech. Time to see if those improv classes were worth all that money. 
• What is going on with that giant present? What’s inside? Mayhem? Yes. 

• Turn on the Bat signal of course. 
• Bruce Wayne is of course sitting alone in his study waiting for the signal, as any good crime fighter would do. At least a half hour outside the city.

• Chip Shreck is honorable, but an idiot.
• Setting a teddy bear on fire, good call random henchman.
• Batman won’t shoot anyone, but he will set them on fire with the jet engine in his car?

• ‘You missed’. That was in one of the commercials I believe. Took the fun out of that scene. 
• Now Selina Kyle is left to deal with an unconscious hoodlum. So she tasers him of course.
• Why is Batman just walking through the street talking with the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon?
• Good thing Max Shrek stood right on that specific spot to catch his breath or The Penguin would never have gotten him into the sewers.

• Cut to : THE ZOO. This I am bored with in movies, where the hideout has to be an overblown setting that is somehow connected to the villian’s theme. 
• Oh, Danny Devito looks awful. 
• Some people look at hipsters just like Max is currently looking at all of The Penguin’s gang. 
• God this scene is long, it is trying to cover so much ground. Give us the Penguin’s backstory or Max Shrek’s, but not both. 
• Do they have a deal? Of course, otherwise it would be a very short movie.

• An all pink apartment, they are trying really hard to make me not want to have sex with Michelle Pfeiffer yet, not hard enough though. Still super hot. 
• Lowly assistant. 
• Who is that guy who turns her down? You are an idiot sir.
• What the hell does Gotham Lady perfume have to do with anything?
• P.S. Selina, you forgot the Bruce Wayne file at work.

• Shrek kills Kyle, I now hate him. Oh wait she is weird and sexy now? All is forgiven.
• ‘It’s not like you can just kill me’. Now you put the idea in his head. 
• This is a pretty lame origin. Cats lick her while she is unconscious? Bet they hid a lot of fish on Ms. Pfeiffer to get them to hang around.
• I am ready for hot Selina. But first a seizure.

• You look a mess. Definitely a concussion. Minimum.
• You’re spilling milk everywhere. Your mom sounds overbearing. 
• Here comes a stuffed animal massacre. 
• Good thing she just happened to have black spray paint.
• Note to anyone who pushes someone out the window: They don’t usually get sexier. They end up with headaches and vision problems.

• Here comes a criminal to steal the mayor’s baby. Good thing ‘The hideous Penguin man’ was there to stop the guy who clearly looks to be in cahoots with him.
• Batman once again sitting around his house, not fighting crime. Be a little proactive Bruce. 
• He is suspect of The Penguin, nay Oswald Cobblepot. Understandable, the guy is a first class weirdo. That speech by Max Shreck about ignoring the Constitution and the right to find your parents annoys me. 
• Shiny flipper talk. Must everything be shot on a set in this movie. I haven’t seen anything that is outside since I sat down to watch this movie.

• Catwoman stops a rape, then backflips away.  Top that.
• Max Shreck and Bruce Wayne meet, clearly Wayne is suspect of Shreck. May I just call him Donald Trump for the rest of this blog? Please, I keep wanting to.
• Selina’s back and she is sassier than before. Wayne wants to stick it to her. 
• Let some cats lick you and rich billionaires will want to have sex with. That is the moral of this movie. 
• So Cobblepot’s gang just sits in the corner while he works? I want that gig. I doubt there are benefits, but I don’t want to have to apply myself.

• Oswald is reacting to that fish like Bruce Wayne was just reacting to Selina Kyle.
• Cobblepot is the Newt Gingrich of Gotham politics.
• Hey look, it’s Jan Hooks. Things are looking up for this mov- Oh damn, he just bit that guys nose.
• Batman is street fighting messed up circus performers. 
• That bat-a-rang was up by everyone’s face, how did that dog jump up and get it. Calling bullshit.
• ‘I don’t know whether to open fire, or fall in love’. Mistake. Bye bye rent-a-cops, you were present.
• Once again, Batman won’t use guns. But he will strap a bomb on a guy and toss him down a sewer hole.
• Enter Catwoman. MEOW! KABOOM!
• It’s ok to punch a woman Batman. Learn that quick.
• Check with your city, see how often trucks full of kitty litter drive open topped through your town and see how much that scene was BS.
• Catwoman shows up and wants to destroy the Batman. How does The Penguin has blueprints for the Batmobile? Explain it or I’m checking out. 
• Don’t eat his bird, he won’t kill your cat. Deal?
• She actually gives herself a bath, that part just weirds me out. She isn’t actually a cat, she probably has a brain injury.

• Bruce and Selina just want to fuck each other, but they are both too messed up to make a good couple. 
• Bruce just invited her his house to watch TV. This Batman watches too much TV.
• That is the dumbest woman in the world that thought that Bat-A-Rang was a camera. She probably would have went willingly. You don’t need to throw it at her.

• That was the laziest explanation of why Vicki Vale isn’t around for the sequel. She didn’t understand that he was Batman. She got sick of you being a weirdo Bruce. 
• And now they are making out. That was pretty quick. 
• They have to hide their injuries from each other. 
• Alfred comes to the rescue and they are off to dress up like crazy people. 

• Batman is in Gotham doing what, I am not sure. But they do get that chance to rewire his car. 
• Gotta go, girl talk. This script is heavy on bad dialogue. That is what all the Batman movies have in spades, terrible dialogue.
• I am going to greatly skip over commenting on this section. The beauty queen falls to her death which switches on the lights. Nuf said.
• Batman’s ride is all jacked up now. It is being controlled by The Penguin in a children’s ride that would sit outside of a supermarket. His ultimate goal with this is to potentially run over pedestrian, specifically an old woman. Criminal mastermind. 
• To escape, the Batmobile must jettison most of itself and turn into a bobsled. It angers me that someone paid these people to write horrible action and plot. 

• Didn’t even lose bladder control? I am sure Batman has pissed himself in that suit once or twice.
• Thanks for pointing out who’s the villain of the movie Alfred. You are an indispensable resource. You want to take the Iron Maiden to the Batcave, or the stairs like always? Stairs it is.
• Time to mess with some audio. Good thing they have a Bat CD player.
• He just scratched a CD like it was a record player. Losing faith humanity.
• Who brought rotten fruit? Oh good, he thought the same thing. 
• Pissed off the mob, time to jump into the river. 
• I like to refer to this as ‘Penguin gets back to his roots’.
• Hey fat clown, bet you’re thinking twice about asking if ‘killing sleeping children’ was a bad idea. Fat clown was sent to a watery grave.

• The only two people at this ball not wearing masks usually wear masks. Clever twist I guess.
• Batman and Catwoman are dancing around the issue, while dancing. Get it. 
• Yikes, a gun. Things just got a lot more serious. Two seconds ago they were going to fuck each other over in bedding.
• Mistletoe line. Oh no, now they have to start fighting. But first, let’s have the floor explode.
• Here comes the Penguin, kind of being a dick about things. 
• Why is he telling all these people his plans? He needs to shut up. 
• The mayor is dressed up like a guy stabbed in the back. I like that little touch.
• Get in the duck Max. While no one does anything to help you. Kind of makes you realize that you are not liked, you are just rich.

• Batman has to put all of those children back. That will probably take him a while. Time for Penguin to make a speech to a bunch of Penguins, animals that don’t know what the hell he is saying. Once again, terrible writing.
• FYI Batman has armored penguin tracking technology.
• That woman making the announcements sounds like a drab bitch. 
• Almost time to jam frequency. Hold. Hold. Hold. There we go. Frequency Jammed.
• Back to the zoo.

• The timing of that collision is what I find a bit iffy. Chopped it’s head clean off. Reminds me of when the batwing crashed in the last movie. 
• Penguins fire at The Penguin. How poetic.
• If I wanted to see miniatures explode I would get firecrackers and set them off in my sister’s doll house. This just looks fake. 
• Max Shrek tricked that monkey. I bet he is pretty proud of himself. 
• Oh, no header into the gross water. Look, it’s fat clown from before. 
• Selina looks like a mess. Not her brightest moment. Bruce still wants to be with her. It’s cause they haven’t fucked yet. It’s all speculative right now. 
• She’s fired? Then you shoot her. 
• You are telling me she actually has 9 lives? Nope, not buying it. 
• Now she is gone and she left behind the charred skeleton from the first Batman movie with a Max Shrek wig on it. 

• Pretty sure The Penguin just said ‘Shit. I picked the cute one.’
• Penguin procession about to happen. Sad, if he wasn’t a complete douche bag. And those clearly weren’t children in those suits.
• Alfred is there to console Bruce. Sorry pal, women be crazy. 
• ‘Catwoman ruined my life and all I got was this stupid cat’. 
• So no other cars drive around Gotham at night, just Alfred Pennyworth at the wheel?

Still just how I remember it. Not terrible, but definitely embedded in Tim Burton’s world and the early 90’s. Dialogue was especially irritating. The Batcave was better, though shoot at least a frame or two outside during the day for pete’s sake.

Batman (1989)

• Let’s be honest, that opening title sequence, was way too long. Must have been in Danny Elfman’s contract that ‘the audience will have to listen to my score all the way through before they even see one frame of the real movie’. 

• This father lost in the city is being an idiot. You’re going to get your family killed.
• “Hey mister, give me a dollar.” 
• I thought that was Bruce Willis for a second. 
• That woman waits two seconds and then screams her fucking head off. Did you not hear the bum?
• Johnny Gobbs was my friend. Show some respect.
• I used to have Batman trading cards and there was one where Batman is holding that guy out over the ledge and the card was just called ‘I’m Batman’. Kind of ruined that part of the movie for me as a kid.
• No Batman, watch out. It’s a long way down. 

• Harvey Dent is ready to make this city safe and decent. 
• ‘Decent people shouldn’t live here’, good point Jack.
• Nice introduction for Jack Napier, not a worrier and is most definitely a narcissist. The thing that baffled me about this portrayal of The Joker is that his vanity is what drives him to insanity. When he loses his good looks he goes bonkers. Really? Is that why Gotham city is under siege? Flimsy premise.

• ‘Christ, Knox’. Two words and you know all you need to know about Alexander Knox. Intrepid reporter, a nuisance to people who are apathetic about their jobs. 
• Eckhart is a shitty cop, kind of a shitty actor too. That voice is so droning and forced I look forward to later when he’s told to ‘think about his future’.

• Sidenote: It was posited that this is a present day movie set in a gothic town. But they can’t decide whether people dress like it’s the 80’s or the 40’s. 

• ‘Hello legs’. This part made me feel stuff as a 9 year old. Those glasses are too much those. She looks like Taylor Swift (or TS looks like her, I never know how those things work). Either way it works for her. And Knox is a fumbling erection from the get go. Either way, VICKI VALE!!!
• There is a Popeye parade balloon in the background of this shot. Maybe the most subtle SPOILER ALERT of all time.

• Jack Palance is playing this ridiculously over the top. What does it say about you as a crime boss if your number two guy is wearing a purple suit and you hyperventilate trying to say simple sentences?

• Wayne Manor, great. Too many people in it though. 
• Michael Gough (Alfred) was always a great consistent character in all of the Batman movies. When Knox throws the dollar on the tray, that look is great. 
• Vale and Knox go to Bruce Wayne’s house and don’t know what Bruce Wayne looks like? I am going to call bullshit.
• Nice of Vale to find a wedding dress on such short notice.
• Number of black guys smoking cigars in the craps scene: 2
• Number of white guys smoking cigars in the craps scene: 0

• They don’t know Bruce Wayne, but he knows them. That is creepy.
• I kind of wish that Albert Brooks had been given the role of Alexander Knox. 
• I wonder if Knox ever got that grant.

• First shot of the Batcave, That’s not a computer, that is just a bunch of TVs. He really likes the surveillance of his home. Technology has gotten so much smaller.

• No one seems to shoot anyone in Axis chemicals. They just make for a lot of leaky pipes and sparks flying.
• The cleaning crew should be fired, that place is disgusting. I do enjoy all of the cartoon gun fire and ricochet sounds though.
• Hey, where’d Batman go? / Eckhart, think about the future./ Jack go splash./Batman disappears in a smoke cloud. 

• How do you kill a guy and then have a date the very next night? How do you sleep at night?

• Patience Jack, let the doctor take off the bandages. 

• Vicki Vale is a little drunk.

• Here it comes, the reveal of The Joker. Circus music to kill off Carl Grissom. That scene was fun when I was a kid and now I can only think of gun safety and how anything after the first two bullet is just a waste.

• Bruce Wayne hanging upside down like a bat, fuck you. He doesn’t think he is a bat Tim Burton. This was one of the glaring problems with this movie. 

• I am not a fan of the crime boss scene. A down to the bones skeleton just from a electric joy buzzer? Jack Nicholson is so over the top that I can’t enjoy it. 

• Knox is getting needy. Just cause Bruce Wayne is sticking it to Vale doesn’t mean he needs to get standoffish to her. Have some respect for yourself man.

• Once again, they are giving backstory to Bruce Wayne which should be known. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire in Gotham, and they act like he is some anonymous nobody. 

• Ever want to see Jack Nicholson kill a guy with a pen while dressed as a fat clown at a British wedding? Here’s your chance.

• The Joker had a boxing glove on a whatever that is at the ready. He was just looking for a reason to punch his television from a distance.

• This town needs a enema. He said it, let’s move on.

• Bob returns with the photos. First question ‘Who’s that loss?’ ‘It’s Knox’. You know, the guy you asked Bob to go follow and take photos of. Try and keep up Jack.
• ‘Stop the press who is that?’ That’s Vicki Vale. Everyone in the movie so far has wanted to get horizontal with her, we will add you to the list.
• She’s dating some guy named Wayne. HOW THE FUCK DOES NO ONE KNOW WHO BRUCE WAYNE IS IN THIS MOVIE?

• Oh shit, people are starting to die on air. Why do those models have creepy joker smiles? This news program scares the audience about as much as an ordinary news program does these days.

• Uh oh, the art museum scene. I gotta go get some pretzels, hope I don’t miss anything. 
• I one day will ask someone out and then send a gas mask to the table. It will be a test to see if she gets my sense of humor. 
• Time for some Prince and graffiti. Party Man, what an entrance.
• He hits play on a TAPE PLAYER!!!!
• If you want to make a good impression on a new girl, don’t show off your mutilated other girlfriend.
• Squirting acid is a big no-no too. 
• Bye Bye Flugelheim Museum. Dumb name by the way.

• This is a pretty lazy car chase. Especially when you consider the way they heightened the scene was to have them get out of the car. 
• You weight more than 108. Yeah, no shit. You just learned a very important lesson about women today Batman. 
• This asshole with the swords. That was the equivalent of the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene where Indy shoots the guy with the large sword.

• Welcome Backcave. (That is short for Welcome back Batcave)
• Pay attention Miss Vale, the protagonist is explaining important information. 
• Here comes the sexual assault. (She wakes up at home and the thing she hid between her boobs is gone? It at least warrants an investigation)

• The Joker goes through a lot of TVs. (Though shooting a tv is ripping off Elvis IMO)

• Bruce Wayne is about to tell Vicki that he is Batman. But the Joker chooses now to - THAT FUCKING APARTMENT IS HUGE!!. I mean HUGE!!!!  How much does a photographer make?
• Bruce Wayne is a bully. Pushed her down and told her to shut up. Is that the kind of relationship you want? 
• ‘Oh my god, you’re married’ HOW DOES EVERYONE IN GOTHAM KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BRUCE WAYNE. THIS IS PISSING ME OFF.
• Just say ‘I am Batman’, this is really long winded. She should have at least guessed that you are gay by now.
• ‘You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? I always ask that of all my prey.’ YOU HAVE KILLED LIKE 5 PEOPLE SO FAR IN THIS MOVIE AND HAVEN’T SAID IT UNTIL NOW.
• Dead flowers in a mannequin’s hand in a box. Classic.

• Bi-Centennial Gala postponed? FUCK THAT. 
• The officials are looking to their left as if they are looking at the TV we are looking at. That is so fucking stupid.

• Flashback time!!!! (I have to pee)
• It’s like a mugging by two Wall Street bankers.
• What’s Vicki Vale doing here? NO WOMEN IN THE MAN CAVE, I MEAN BATCAVE.
• I gotta go to work.

• One grenade next to the Batmobile blows up a whole chemical company yet leaves the car untouched. I call bullshit. 

• More Prince. Not complaining. 
• Hit mute while Nicholson is mugging for the camera on the float. It’s a 1000x funnier.
• They never mention that on the money they are throwing out is The Joker’s face on the $1 bill. It’s a call back to earlier in the movie at the art museum. That fact was in the novelization but didn’t make the movie. Missed opportunity.

• Batwing time. As with every airborne Bat vehicle it will be in the air for a few minutes and then crash to the ground. 
• SMILEX gas, he’s gonna kill everybody. Those money hungry idiots deserve what is coming to them.
• I wonder how long that henchman is going to hang on to that baby balloon. Oh, there he goes.
• I don’t have the patience to explain why that batwing grabbing all the balloons things doesn’t even logically work. It happened, we are moving on. 
• Joke just shot Bob - Hold on, making the bat symbol with the moon.- and we are back. Why’d he shoot Bob? Bob seemed like a cool guy.
• That pistol is a metaphor for his dick, right?
• One bullet? That’s all it takes to take down your multimillion dollar bat jet? The death star got nothing on you Batman. 
• Shit sparks too much in movies. You know how often I see stuff spark, almost never.

• Time to wrap it all up in the cathedral. 
• Batman still takes the stairs, he has a grappling hook. Doesn’t make sense.
• Two squirts of acid and that bell falls? Kind of makes me question the old world craftsmanship of that bell.
• Here come three henchman who I guess were just hanging out in the bell tower. 
• One down, almost too easy. 
• Second one, fell through the floor. 
• Third one is a bit of a problem, even wearing sunglasses at night. He is a guy who is not fucking around. Still does his best falling bell impersonation.
• ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ line. Raging narcissist until the very end. Brazen attitude for a man wearing plaid pants.
• Haha, The Joker has a ‘Hot damn, I am about to get a blow job’ face right before Batman punches him. 
• Fake teeth, hit a man with glasses, lend you a hand’. Pulling out all the stops.
• Batman and Vicki hanging from the cathedral, things have taken a turn. 
• The falling of the Joker is some pretty bad special effects. So is Batman and Vicki just hanging there after they fall. Oh, it was 23 years ago, I’ll let it slide.
• A laughing bag? Oh Joker, still got tricks up your sleeve you grinning corpse.

• ‘Where are you going Vale? I thought were going to fuck.’ Bye Knox.
• A letter from Batman. Short version: ‘I bought you a big flashlight’. 
• ‘Mr. Wayne asked me to tell you he might be a bit late’. He’s busy standing at top a building looking at a light in the sky.

That’s it. I am sure this is very long. It’s fun to read this stuff as you watch it. 

BLOGGING THE BATMAN MOVIES

I have a bunch of Batman movies sitting around the house and figure it was time to sit down and have a little fun with them. I have seen them multiple times, but now would be a good time to write up a blog or seven about them. 

I am smart enough to know not to live tweet them or anything like that. That would be annoying for all of you on Twitter. So I will be sitting down with the following Batman movies and making fun/pointing out stuff I really liked in each one. 

I will watch and post in this order: 

Batman 1989 (Tim Burton/Michael Keaton)

Batman Returns

Batman Forever

Batman & Robin (I am sorry already)

Batman Begins

The Dark Knight 

Batman: The Movie (1966 Adam West Batman)

It’s a five course meal with dessert (TDK) and a nightcap (B:TM). 

So keep an eye out for those.