Jim Hegarty (Talljim)

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.