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Speaker 2: Oh g is, folks, it's showtime.
Speaker 1: People say good money to see this movie.
Speaker 3: When they go out to a theater, they want clod sodas,
Speaker 3: hot popcorn, and no monsters in the Projection Booth.
Speaker 2: Everyone for ten podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 4: Put it off? So you know that? Do you think
Speaker 4: it's coming back? I don't know.
Speaker 5: What are you?
Speaker 4: I'm confin's recording. I'm not afraid. I'm angry. It's still wait.
Speaker 4: Remember where you.
Speaker 6: Parked, still lost my ticket and your wife said you
Speaker 6: were taking a cab home my wife.
Speaker 7: Don't worry.
Speaker 4: Monster away.
Speaker 7: It takes a little time to get back in the
Speaker 7: smooth thing.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White
Speaker 1: Jo and me once again as mister Chris Stashue.
Speaker 2: You're worship be born in the dark. I was brendident.
Speaker 2: I can't do brack from space Ghost coast to coast
Speaker 2: very well.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, couldn't even do that line very well.
Speaker 8: Actually, well neither could Tom Hardy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was about to say, what was that one
Speaker 2: term where it's like I was going off of my
Speaker 2: remembrance of the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh okay. Also back in the booth is mister Spencer Parsons.
Speaker 9: I'm a big believer that all aren't aspires to the
Speaker 9: condition of Batman.
Speaker 1: This week we are looking at Christopher Nolan's third film
Speaker 1: and his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, released in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve. The film stars Christian Bale as the titular
Speaker 1: Dark Knight. Here he goes back to fighting the League
Speaker 1: of Shadows in the former of Razah Ghul's daughter and
Speaker 1: her Minion Baine played by Tom Hardy, on the streets
Speaker 1: of Gotham here recast as New York. We will be
Speaker 1: spoiling this film as we go along. So if you
Speaker 1: haven't seen The Dark Knight Rises, which I know at
Speaker 1: some point I'm gonna slip up and call The Dark
Speaker 1: Knight Returns or the other two in Nolan's trilogy, go
Speaker 1: ahead and turn off the podcast. Come back after you've
Speaker 1: seen them. Really, if you just want to watch the
Speaker 1: first movie. Not even if you want to watch a
Speaker 1: second movie and then come back, you really don't need
Speaker 1: to see the third movie. I'm just gonna assume that
Speaker 1: all three of us saw this theatrically, but will verify. So, Chris,
Speaker 1: when was the first time you saw The Dark Knight Rises?
Speaker 1: And what did you think?
Speaker 2: I saw The Dark Knight Rises July twentieth, twenty twelve
Speaker 2: in theaters. Like I assume everybody did The Dark Knight
Speaker 2: For me, I guess the original one, but the film
Speaker 2: before this one, So the film that preceded this one.
Speaker 2: But I think the one that most people remember is
Speaker 2: a movie that made a lot of interesting choices that
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people really resonated with. Heath
Speaker 2: Ledger as the Joker obviously is a big one. Christopher
Speaker 2: Nolan's kind of take on Batman in that movie is
Speaker 2: also a very interesting take on Batman. Aaron Eckhart as
Speaker 2: Harvey Dent. I'm not sure Aaron Eckhart has been as
Speaker 2: good in anything as he was in that movie. And
Speaker 2: thank you for smoking and in terms of visibility for
Speaker 2: most people, I think that's the biggest thing Aaron Eckhart
Speaker 2: was ever in is The Dark Knight For most people.
Speaker 2: Enough cannot be said about Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon,
Speaker 2: so that movie it hits on all cylinders, and it
Speaker 2: is a movie that I think, as much as I'm
Speaker 2: maybe not a fan of Nolan's take on Batman, that movie,
Speaker 2: I think, of the three is the one that has
Speaker 2: the most interesting things to say about the character of Batman.
Speaker 2: All of that to say, I watched this movie in
Speaker 2: theaters and I think, like pretty much everybody else who
Speaker 2: saw it, was pretty disappointed. I did not resonate or
Speaker 2: vibe with this movie the way I resonated with the
Speaker 2: last film. I think, like I clearly already alluded to,
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the Last film when it came out, and
Speaker 2: I'm not anymore the biggest fan of it, having watched
Speaker 2: it subsequent times. It's just not my cup of tea anymore.
Speaker 2: But The Dark Knight Rises is really not my cup
Speaker 2: of tea. There are parts of it that I appreciate
Speaker 2: now having rewatched it for your show and having rewatched
Speaker 2: it probably two times since it came out. It's not
Speaker 2: something that I go out of my way to watch.
Speaker 2: I've definitely seen The Dark Knight more, but when I
Speaker 2: watched it in theaters, I think that the overall sentiment
Speaker 2: from everybody who saw it was we waited.
Speaker 1: Four years for this, and Spencer, how about yourself?
Speaker 9: I would echo a lot of what Chris said, but
Speaker 9: I would add I was there opening night for it,
Speaker 9: and my laughter was loud enough that I was angrily
Speaker 9: shushed repeatedly while watching from barely not even five minutes in.
Speaker 9: As soon as that awful, I'll go ahead and just
Speaker 9: say that it's awful. The plane sequence at the beginning,
Speaker 9: it's not a good action sequence.
Speaker 8: It sucks. From very early in the movie.
Speaker 9: I was laughing and could not stop because the movie
Speaker 9: was visible. So as to be as fair as possible
Speaker 9: to the movie and to be properly armed to talk
Speaker 9: about it. I've now watched it two more times, and
Speaker 9: there are movies I genuinely like that I haven't seen
Speaker 9: three times. This is an interesting experience. I will say
Speaker 9: I still think it's as bad, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 8: More than I did at the time.
Speaker 9: I think, having rewatched all three of Nolan's Batman movies,
Speaker 9: I do believe that they are all three of them
Speaker 9: fairly precient in terms of spotting trends, vibes, things in
Speaker 9: the air that have manifested more clearly since with this
Speaker 9: particular film. At the time, just because of the accident
Speaker 9: of when it was released, it was around the time
Speaker 9: of occupy, so a lot of people connected occupy with
Speaker 9: the takeover of the stock market in it, which at
Speaker 9: the time, Yeah, obviously a lot of us had thoughts
Speaker 9: about the stock market. I didn't think was actually a
Speaker 9: very useful or interesting connection. This time, I wouldn't say
Speaker 9: that connection got more useful, but thinking about where things
Speaker 9: have gone and the world of disruptors that have taken
Speaker 9: over our economy, you know, I didn't see Bane as
Speaker 9: any kind of legitimate occupy force. That didn't strike me
Speaker 9: as a very good analogy then and it doesn't now.
Speaker 9: But I do think that there's something about the Silicon
Speaker 9: Valley crowd that controls our economy and also will use
Speaker 9: for all their anti woke kind of statements, they will
Speaker 9: also use a lot of social justice language to talk
Speaker 9: a populist game about how AI can make the world
Speaker 9: more democratic and stop all the gatekeeping and that kind
Speaker 9: of a thing. And so this time Bain came across
Speaker 9: as a little bit more interesting allegory, if not actually a.
Speaker 8: Better character or a better performance, or.
Speaker 9: A more purposeful villain within this particular film. All that
Speaker 9: to say more appreciation. Actually glad that I watched again.
Speaker 9: I think these are all interesting historical objects, including Dark
Speaker 9: Knight rises, but I wouldn't say that appreciation is the
Speaker 9: same thing as liking the film anymore.
Speaker 1: I also saw this first weekend it was out. I
Speaker 1: loved the Dark Knight, really appreciated what they were doing
Speaker 1: with Heath Ledger's character, the Joker. I really appreciated that
Speaker 1: he was such a mysterious force and just a force
Speaker 1: of pure chaos. I loved the whole thing, how he
Speaker 1: kept changing his own backstory with the story about the scars.
Speaker 1: I loved the whole idea of him wearing that custom
Speaker 1: made clothing, no labels, no fingerprints on any sort of files,
Speaker 1: no DNA on any files, just completely a man without
Speaker 1: a past showing up to cause havoc and doing it
Speaker 1: in just a glorious way, and just his performance is riveting. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: with Bain, I was so glad that this is a
Speaker 1: different type of Bane than I had seen in one
Speaker 1: of the previous Batman movies. We must not forget that
Speaker 1: Bay and that was a I think he was part
Speaker 1: of Poison Ivy's group.
Speaker 8: He's in Batman and Robin.
Speaker 2: It was Batman and Robin where he was part of
Speaker 2: kind of Poison Ivy's crew of people. But mind you
Speaker 2: never had a single line in the film, which not
Speaker 2: necessarily canonically comic book Bain talks plenty in the comic books. Actually,
Speaker 2: Bain talks all the time, kind of like here right
Speaker 2: in terms of the way this character is handled as
Speaker 2: much more akin with more contemporary Scott Capulo type reimaginings
Speaker 2: of the character, where he's as smart as Batman, but
Speaker 2: he's also buff jacked and he's on In the comic books,
Speaker 2: now it's he's on the venom. I don't even think
Speaker 2: they say what it is here. I think it's just
Speaker 2: he's on the he's on the Dennis Hopper blue velvet
Speaker 2: gas as far as we know, like, they don't really
Speaker 2: ever go into detail, thankfully, to be fair, Chris Olins
Speaker 2: movies are not really interested in some of that stuff anyways. Frankly,
Speaker 2: they run away from it at full tilt, kind of
Speaker 2: like those Daniel Craig James Bond movies. That's what these
Speaker 2: feel like.
Speaker 1: If anything, I would really like to have known more
Speaker 1: about Bain, since they are not trying to make his
Speaker 1: past a secret, and they give a little bit. I mean,
Speaker 1: they kind of give his origin story. Though Batman here
Speaker 1: is dumb. He's really pretty dumb in this and the
Speaker 1: way that he just assumes things like as soon as
Speaker 1: they talk about a prisoner escaping from this crazy prison
Speaker 1: with no guards and very easily escapable, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that more later. As soon as they talk about that,
Speaker 1: he's just like Baine, Oh yeah, yeah, that's Baine. That's
Speaker 1: gotta be Baane.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean he just says the word Bane. He's not
Speaker 1: giving all of the stuff that I'm doing, but he's
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I got everything solved.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, you dumbass, you don't have it solved.
Speaker 1: And why do you just assume that it was Bane
Speaker 1: that escaped from this prison? Anyway? What's his story? I
Speaker 1: love his outfit, I love his look. I love that
Speaker 1: he's got this what is it like an Australian jacket,
Speaker 1: but it's styled more in the French Revolution. To bring
Speaker 1: to mind the whole idea of a tale of two
Speaker 1: cities and I was watching this film. I was literally
Speaker 1: offended by this film. I don't think that it was
Speaker 1: too close to the Occupy Wall Street movement. As soon
Speaker 1: as they took over the stock market, I was like, Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about Occupy Wall Street. All right, I
Speaker 1: got this. And I just kept thinking to myself, this
Speaker 1: is the writer saying, look at this, liberals, this is
Speaker 1: what you want. You want mass chaos, You want a band.
Speaker 1: You need a band to come in and take over
Speaker 1: for you because you're so weak in an effectual Well,
Speaker 1: this is what happens. And the whole idea of Catwoman
Speaker 1: later on, when she's in someone's house, this rich house
Speaker 1: and her girlfriend question Mark, which also seemed kind of
Speaker 1: weird because it seems like she swings both ways in
Speaker 1: this and it seems like she's being punished for going
Speaker 1: both ways. It feels like this movie one of the
Speaker 1: trajectories of this is to basically heterosexualize Catwoman in this
Speaker 1: And once you give up this whole idea of being
Speaker 1: bisexual and get rid of Jen and go with Bruce Wayne,
Speaker 1: then your life will be much better and you can
Speaker 1: start over again. But until you give up this crazy
Speaker 1: notion of lesbianism or bisexuality. You are stuck in this world.
Speaker 1: This whole idea of her and Jen living in this
Speaker 1: very posh place after the takeover. It so reminded me
Speaker 1: of a movie that we talked about together, all my
Speaker 1: good countrymen, and this whole idea of like the communists
Speaker 1: taking over and like being Okay, yeah, here you go,
Speaker 1: here's all this nice stuff. We're going to move you
Speaker 1: out of here, person that actually owns this house and
Speaker 1: move in somebody who is more quote unquote deserving of this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I was offended then, and I'm even more
Speaker 1: offended now as time has gone on, and especially as
Speaker 1: I've read more about the Tale of Two Cities. I
Speaker 1: tried my best to listen to that book, but it's
Speaker 1: a lot, and it's like fourteen hours worth of book,
Speaker 1: and it was just too much for me to handle
Speaker 1: at this moment. So I did watch the Thug Notes
Speaker 1: version of it, and thank God for Thug Notes. I
Speaker 1: love that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Seventeen seventy five and Lucy Manee been thinking of pot
Speaker 11: Doc Manee been dead for a long ass time, but
Speaker 11: one day where come that he actually been on lockdown
Speaker 11: in Paris for the past eighteen damn years.
Speaker 9: Taylor of Two Cities is actually short for Dickens, as
Speaker 9: I recall, I do remember that one. I haven't read
Speaker 9: it in years and years, but I remember it fondly
Speaker 9: from reading in high school. It was one of the
Speaker 9: ones that did work for me and really stuck with me.
Speaker 9: I thought, I is going to come in breathing the
Speaker 9: most fire about this movie because I really hate it.
Speaker 8: I think we're all pretty much on the same kind
Speaker 8: of page.
Speaker 9: I guess one thing that I would want to add
Speaker 9: to this, and this doesn't actually take away from my
Speaker 9: enjoyment of Batman Begins and The Dark Night, but both
Speaker 9: of those movies are pretty conservative in their worldview. This
Speaker 9: is the main kind of justice argument of those first
Speaker 9: two movies is pining for a better class of billionaires.
Speaker 9: That's what's really going to make the world better. And
Speaker 9: the sort of origin of Batman, which I caught this
Speaker 9: time in a different way from when I had seen
Speaker 9: them before. I do think that it's really striking that
Speaker 9: this is an extremely British class system coded version of Batman.
Speaker 9: The mansion is very obviously like a Dalton Abbey style
Speaker 9: kind of thing, and that's not completely foreign from the
Speaker 9: Bruce Wayne thing, but the origin story that Nolan really
Speaker 9: filled in some gaps on this version sends Bruce Wayne
Speaker 9: to be trained, educated in far flowng dark parts of
Speaker 9: the world to bring that knowledge back. It's a very
Speaker 9: a nobility engaged in colonialism to gain the best knowledge
Speaker 9: so that they can be the best people in charge.
Speaker 9: And that really is very much how Batman as a figure.
Speaker 9: Batman throughout all his superpower always is money, but very
Speaker 9: particularly and I think this is smart about these movies
Speaker 9: is that, like Nolan is onto the class relationships as
Speaker 9: class relationships, not just oh, the fantasy if he has
Speaker 9: a lot of money so he can buy all this stuff.
Speaker 9: But this also comes along with a view of the
Speaker 9: of how the world is to be run by a
Speaker 9: kind of hatriarchal nobility. Of course, then the very idea
Speaker 9: of occupy or something like it, or of any kind
Speaker 9: of a left populist uprising is going to be seen
Speaker 9: as bad news within that kind of worldview. I'm actually
Speaker 9: willing to take that on its own terms, and those
Speaker 9: terms are better represented by Catwoman for a brief period
Speaker 9: of the movie, even as a wrongheaded, villainous kind of
Speaker 9: response to class issues. She is a figure who genuinely
Speaker 9: is of the people. She is coming from the low background,
Speaker 9: and interestingly, the move over these three films in terms
Speaker 9: of crime and how it's represented. The first few movies
Speaker 9: really focus on how gangsters coded as being the underclass
Speaker 9: coming up into at least a moneyed upper class and
Speaker 9: fighting with the billionaires and the police. Over the course
Speaker 9: of these couple of movies, the gangsters are representing the
Speaker 9: lower and working classes in a cultural class system or
Speaker 9: caste system kind of way. They get lots of money,
Speaker 9: but they have of course, they're lower class people who
Speaker 9: have come into that much money through crime, through perfidious behavior.
Speaker 9: In this third one, it's really interesting to introduce Catwoman
Speaker 9: because in the previous to its organized crime, she is
Speaker 9: disorganized crime.
Speaker 8: She is the wildcat.
Speaker 9: She is the individual from a lower class who is
Speaker 9: making her way up and is presented in a much
Speaker 9: more sympathetic light than any of the gangsters in the
Speaker 9: first couple, and we get a kind of quasi romance
Speaker 9: getting going. The real problem here is bane within the story.
Speaker 9: It's not a particularly great Tom Hardy performance. It's limited.
Speaker 9: As you mentioned, he looks great. The design is great.
Speaker 9: The mask looks awesome. The way that Tom Hardy walks
Speaker 9: and stalks through the movie is actually riveting. But there's
Speaker 9: just a lot of tools taken away from him as
Speaker 9: an actor. All we get front for his face is eyes,
Speaker 9: and the role is not very well written.
Speaker 8: And in addition to that, the.
Speaker 9: Voice that he has throughout the movie is pretty poorly
Speaker 9: altered in post I would say there are a lot
Speaker 9: of tricks, especially talking through a mask, that you could
Speaker 9: do to take all that adr and make it sound
Speaker 9: more like it's within the space with everybody else.
Speaker 8: It's like they did a better job of adr.
Speaker 9: Ing the villain in Madam Webb than they did in
Speaker 9: this movie, with much more talented people involved in making
Speaker 9: it happen. But Bain doesn't really he doesn't really track,
Speaker 9: He doesn't really make sense with this world. And one
Speaker 9: of the things that's really striking to me and riffing
Speaker 9: off of what's to you about it, and it's also
Speaker 9: offensive to me, there's so much talk about the city
Speaker 9: and the people of the city and they're not represented
Speaker 9: at all. Christopher Nolan can't imagine the people of the city,
Speaker 9: even within a plot that provides opportunities that we could
Speaker 9: have characters who more represent the people of the city.
Speaker 9: Catwoman on the straddling the line, but basically it's all
Speaker 9: superheroes and billionaires or super villain's superheroes and billionaires.
Speaker 1: That famous scene of being addressing people and talking about
Speaker 1: I give it back to you the people. I kept saying,
Speaker 1: who the fuck is he talking to? Because I rewatched
Speaker 1: that scene several times and there's like a line of
Speaker 1: reporters across the street, And first off, he's not using
Speaker 1: any sort of microphone or anything. I'm just like, how
Speaker 1: do they even hear him?
Speaker 8: They can hear him because the adr is magic.
Speaker 9: It makes his voice more present in every situation than
Speaker 9: it should be.
Speaker 1: Well, do you guys remember the teaser trailer where no
Speaker 1: one could understand a word he was saying, and the
Speaker 1: whole like everybody everywhere online was just like, what the
Speaker 1: hell is going on? We can't hear a freakin word
Speaker 1: this guy said. And so they like went the other
Speaker 1: way and just were like, Yeah, we're gonna clean this
Speaker 1: up and we're going to place this. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like Arnest Schwarzenegger's Hercules type of dub over it. Even
Speaker 1: with that, where's your kind of muffle for a shutter
Speaker 1: storing and it's like, okay, great, who are you?
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter who we are.
Speaker 7: What matters is our plan.
Speaker 4: No one cared who was put on the mask.
Speaker 7: No one cared who I was, and I put on
Speaker 7: the mobs.
Speaker 8: If I pull that off, will you die?
Speaker 4: It would be extremely thankful.
Speaker 7: You're a big guy for you.
Speaker 8: If I pull that off, will you die?
Speaker 4: It would be extremely painful. You're a big guy for you.
Speaker 8: Getting caught part of your plan was getting caught part
Speaker 8: of your plan.
Speaker 1: Of course, when I watch Batman begins, I was just like,
Speaker 1: he's basically joining al Qaeda, like the League of Shadows
Speaker 1: is basically he's being radicalized. He's over in another country.
Speaker 1: He's basically that guy who left the US and went
Speaker 1: over to Afghanistan and joined al Qaeda, you know.
Speaker 8: And it's like, right, American Taliban, Yeah.
Speaker 1: American Taliban is just like what the hell? Like, he
Speaker 1: learns all their skills and then he breaks with them
Speaker 1: at the very end, and then he decides he's going
Speaker 1: to do battle with them, and then he comes back
Speaker 1: over to the United States and he's like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this whole thing. I'm going to become Batman,
Speaker 1: and he relies on all of Wayne Enterprise's secret military
Speaker 1: contracts because poor Lucius Fox is like stuck someplace and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, you're not even on the books anymore,
Speaker 1: like he is. It's the darkest of dark ops that
Speaker 1: you could possibly have, and he's using all of this
Speaker 1: military grade equipment in order to take care of quote
Speaker 1: unquote take care of the criminals of Gotham. And it's
Speaker 1: so much like And I know that Ferguson was twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: this is still twenty twelve, but it so reminds me
Speaker 1: of the beginnings of the talks of the militarization of police.
Speaker 1: Here we are in twenty twenty five as we're recording
Speaker 1: this with fucking National Guard out on the streets, you know,
Speaker 1: doing god knows what in fucking ice go our own
Speaker 1: homegrown ss out on the streets. It's like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: this say is so prescient around that stuff as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a great article that I read
Speaker 1: and this author was quoting another author who said Wayne
Speaker 1: Slash Batman is nothing more than a neoliberal tyrant, a
Speaker 1: faux philanthropist only too happy to redeem the military contracts
Speaker 1: taken on by Wayne Enterprises by righteously using various weapons
Speaker 1: technologies to protect quote unquote Gotham's imperiled citizenry. To illustrate
Speaker 1: that the point Toe toh is, the author of the
Speaker 1: original quote, points to the film's fetishistic investment in Batman's
Speaker 1: militarized tech. I gotta get me one of those grin's
Speaker 1: and awestruck Sergeant Gordon Gary Oldman after witnessing Batman's humv
Speaker 1: esque vehicle and action. I mean, this is totally the
Speaker 1: militarization of the police, or in this case, militarization of
Speaker 1: a vigil lante.
Speaker 2: Contrast that argument two thousand and let's say eight right,
Speaker 2: Dark Knight, with the other film that came out that year,
Speaker 2: Iron Man, which is exactly the same thing. And yet
Speaker 2: I wouldn't think anyone would be making that kind of
Speaker 2: statement against Iron Man as a film because of the
Speaker 2: way the character holds himself in the movie. Because Robert
Speaker 2: Downey Junior as iron Man and as that character as
Speaker 2: Tony Stark, you understand that he understands, at least in
Speaker 2: the first movie. Now you make the case by the
Speaker 2: time age of Ultron rolls around, and we essentially have
Speaker 2: what we're talking about, what happens in the dark night
Speaker 2: with the cameras, the kind of big brother camera eye
Speaker 2: in the sky. Now there is a little bit.
Speaker 1: Of that I want a suit of armor around this world.
Speaker 2: That's essentially what Tony Stark talks about in Age of Ultron.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't seem so unpalatable when it's Robert Downey Junior,
Speaker 2: because they think Robert Downey junr As Tony Stark the
Speaker 2: character versus Bruce Wayne, the character. Tony Stark is a
Speaker 2: lot more aware of the ramifications of what he's doing
Speaker 2: in the greater world, at least in that first Iron
Speaker 2: Man movie, again only commenting on the movie that comes
Speaker 2: out in two thousand and eight. Bruce Wayne is not
Speaker 2: like that at all in that two thousand and eight Batman. Subsequently,
Speaker 2: in this film, by the end of this film, he's
Speaker 2: been knocked down all the way back down to nothing,
Speaker 2: and he comes back with a literal jet that he's
Speaker 2: flying around in like we have the ultimate militarization of
Speaker 2: Batman by the end of this movie. Having a car
Speaker 2: is one thing, and we know Batman has a batwing,
Speaker 2: so it's not like this is a thing that we
Speaker 2: don't know about, or that's some sort of new creation
Speaker 2: not in the comic books. But this version of it
Speaker 2: is really I wouldn't say it's unpalatable, but just it's
Speaker 2: not what has aged well in a time where this
Speaker 2: is now just the way things are. And I'm not
Speaker 2: sure seeing Batman coppaganda really feels great. It didn't feel
Speaker 2: great at the time, I'm sure, but it was more
Speaker 2: of a we're getting there, not we're there now, and
Speaker 2: this is just a reinforcement of that kind of over
Speaker 2: and over.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of Iron Man while I was watching
Speaker 1: The Dark Night when there's that moment of Aaron Eckhart
Speaker 1: as Harvey Dent and he says, I'm the Batman, and
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking like, okay, you know, because that movie's
Speaker 1: all about fake outs and stuff, and there's the ultimate
Speaker 1: fake out at the end when they say, oh, Harvey's
Speaker 1: at this address, and Maggie Joeen Hall's at this other address,
Speaker 1: Rachel is at this other address, and then they purposefully
Speaker 1: say that one's going to one place and the other's
Speaker 1: going to the other. But then they lie to us.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why the film has to lie
Speaker 1: to this. I've watched that scene many times. I'm just like, wait,
Speaker 1: he says he's going to take care of Rachel and
Speaker 1: sending Jim over to take care of of Harvey. So
Speaker 1: why do they switch? Like there's anyway, small potatoes.
Speaker 2: He knew who he would choose, so Poker is just
Speaker 2: double blinding him. Yeah.
Speaker 9: I read that as the Joker wanting to hurt him
Speaker 9: more in that way that the Joker is lying in
Speaker 9: order to give that extra pain. And also in a
Speaker 9: way what Batman is doing at that moment is personally
Speaker 9: oriented rather than civically oriented. It's a punishment for him
Speaker 9: to give into the personal over the civic. But all
Speaker 9: this can sound like beating up on all three of
Speaker 9: the movies, and I think there's good reason too, if
Speaker 9: you really like ideologically this stuff is it does not
Speaker 9: represent all the ways that I believe or ideally see
Speaker 9: stories that said I'm enough of an adult to like
Speaker 9: look at this and go, Okay, this is a really
Speaker 9: interesting potent myth delivered on the first two movies twice
Speaker 9: in ways that I don't necessarily agree with, but that
Speaker 9: I find entertaining interesting and also is articulating a politics
Speaker 9: that is very real, and that needs to be acknowledged.
Speaker 9: That the neoliberal take on how to solve our problems,
Speaker 9: how to solve crime using crime as a proxy for
Speaker 9: politics more generally in these films.
Speaker 8: That's a purpose of storytelling, that's a purpose of movies.
Speaker 9: And I can appreciate this stuff well disagreeing, but the
Speaker 9: third one, it's incoherent. And to go back to this
Speaker 9: business of Bain making that speech about I'm gonna return
Speaker 9: Gotham to the I'm not gonna try to imitate him.
Speaker 12: We take Gotham from the corrupt, the oppressors of generations
Speaker 12: who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and
Speaker 12: we give it back to you, the people. Gotham is nors,
Speaker 12: none shall into Finn do as you please.
Speaker 9: It's not even a lie, it's not even an interesting lie.
Speaker 9: It's an incoherent grabbed out of the sky, a bit
Speaker 9: of animus against against a kind of populist movement, because
Speaker 9: there's really there's nothing about Baine that represents such a
Speaker 9: point of view. Yeah, he comes from low origins, but
Speaker 9: the low origins are also fantastical. This like the deepest,
Speaker 9: darkest prison in the far away place, which then somehow
Speaker 9: is what just outside of town in the third act
Speaker 9: where Bruce Wayne is stuck there and then once he
Speaker 9: climbs out, he's able to get back into Gotham like
Speaker 9: really quickly. But that last season, in the last couple
Speaker 9: of seasons of Game of Thrones, where people are getting
Speaker 9: across the world really fast and time doesn't make sense
Speaker 9: anymore after a certain point. But what bugs me is
Speaker 9: that it's incoherent, and it's incoherent in a context where
Speaker 9: the first act really sets us up. Bain's appearance is notwithstanding,
Speaker 9: really sets us up for something that could be an
Speaker 9: interesting battle between the neoliberal and the populist if we
Speaker 9: were just focused on Batman and Catwoman, and even more
Speaker 9: than that, really interesting to sexualize that kind of relationship,
Speaker 9: or at least romanticize it, have the two of them
Speaker 9: in battle when they've got a kind of romance going on.
Speaker 8: And why can't Catwoman be the big bad of this movie?
Speaker 9: Why can't Catwoman rate the stock market on, behalf of
Speaker 9: the people the people?
Speaker 8: Why can't she do those things?
Speaker 9: Because Christopher Nolan can't imagine an ordinary person like within
Speaker 9: these stories, He cannot imagine an ordinary person who could
Speaker 9: become a genuine threat to the status quo.
Speaker 2: You can't even imagine a genuine person being involved in
Speaker 2: this story to begin with. Look at Joseph Gordon Levitt,
Speaker 2: who I don't really comprehend his involvement in this movie
Speaker 2: other than they were like what they were doing the
Speaker 2: whole Benedict Cumberbatch is totally not gone of this movie,
Speaker 2: and they knew there was never anything like that was
Speaker 2: ever going to happen. And it just seems so strange
Speaker 2: to me. And it's and again, like Chris Nolan, I
Speaker 2: just don't Chris Nolan works best when the pieces are big,
Speaker 2: and the stage is big, and the moves are broad,
Speaker 2: and he's making big, broad choices. Look, he is no
Speaker 2: different than someone whose foot is permanently now apparently in
Speaker 2: his mouth, Quentin Tarantino. He works best when the choices
Speaker 2: are big, the pieces are big, the stage is big,
Speaker 2: and he's the one moving the pieces around. And you
Speaker 2: know what, there's something to be said for a director
Speaker 2: who knows that and is that way, because not everybody
Speaker 2: is wants to be or can be. And just because
Speaker 2: these guys are doesn't mean I'm I bemoan that or
Speaker 2: pooh that or look down on that. But that also
Speaker 2: means the decisions that they make are so specifically their
Speaker 2: own that I sometimes just go probably made sense to you,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure it makes sense to me. And
Speaker 2: that's again subjectivity versus objectivity perfectly fine as far as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned, as long as you can explain away why
Speaker 2: you've made the choice.
Speaker 1: First off, Catwoman can't be the big bad of this
Speaker 1: movie because the Nolan brothers and Goyer cannot write female
Speaker 1: characters as we see by her as well as Talia
Speaker 1: al Ghoul Like, they just can't do it. Second off,
Speaker 1: I want to go back to Iron Man real quick,
Speaker 1: because Iron Man at the beginning of the movie is
Speaker 1: at that whole like, well, that's how Dad did it,
Speaker 1: you know, Like he's so beholden to his father, and
Speaker 1: he's so beholden to his father's legacy and all these things,
Speaker 1: and he is hoisted on his own Patard. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's blown up by something from Stark Industries. And I
Speaker 1: can't say he has a change of heart because he
Speaker 1: basically has no heart at the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: It's all like replaced by mechanics. But he has a
Speaker 1: change of heart and wants to go back and he
Speaker 1: wants to get his burger King cheeseburger. Nice product placement there,
Speaker 1: and then says, okay, Obadiah, I need to tear down
Speaker 1: the walls of this whole place. We are not doing
Speaker 1: this whole weapons thing anymore. And Batman doesn't have that
Speaker 1: change of heart. There is no, he's not very much
Speaker 1: much a dynamic character. He basically makes that idea to
Speaker 1: change very early on, and Batman begins and then just
Speaker 1: kind of stays the same character for the rest of it.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to even like his redemption arc
Speaker 1: in this film where he gets literally broken by Bain
Speaker 1: and gets thrown into that prison. Yeah, half a world away,
Speaker 1: and then comes back half a world again, like I
Speaker 1: don't know why Bain has to take him back to
Speaker 1: that prison, make sure that the prison has closed circuit
Speaker 1: television so he can watch what's going on in Gotham
Speaker 1: at all times, gets this spine realigned by Tom Conti,
Speaker 1: and then easily climbs out again. It's like all right, anyway,
Speaker 1: when he comes back, he doesn't have a new plan.
Speaker 1: He just punches Baine harder. There's not any sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this thing in order to weaken
Speaker 1: Baine or do anything. Basically, it's I'm going to punch
Speaker 1: Baine in the face as hard as I can. I'm
Speaker 1: going to break that mask. That's his plan. That's his
Speaker 1: wonderful plan that he has. And I don't understand Talia
Speaker 1: al Ghoul's plan either, because, first off, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a neutron bomb or a nuclear bomb, because
Speaker 1: I swear they say both, and there's a big difference
Speaker 1: between those two. Either way, everybody's dying, including the people
Speaker 1: that are driving around with this fucking bomb, including you know,
Speaker 1: having Talia al Ghoul and Bane on the same island
Speaker 1: and we have I can't say it's a ticking clock
Speaker 1: because it seems to speed up towards the end. You're
Speaker 1: talking about how time has no meaning in this. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's going to this bomb is going to detonate in
Speaker 1: approximately five months. We cut ahead. I don't know how
Speaker 1: quickly they do that, but they're like, okay, now it's
Speaker 1: twenty three days. Now, it's a day. Now, it's five hours, now,
Speaker 1: it's ten minutes. And I'm just like, what the fuck
Speaker 1: is going on with this thing? Like what is this
Speaker 1: weird ticking clock that you have? And why do you
Speaker 1: want this bomb to go off while you're on this island?
Speaker 1: You have no escape plan, Talia, You're gonna go up
Speaker 1: with this thing, But.
Speaker 9: Her reasoning doesn't oh because this was Raza Gul's plan
Speaker 9: at some earlier point, and which makes its own sort
Speaker 9: of sense. In Batman begins, We're gonna do this again,
Speaker 9: but there's no better reasoning behind it than my dad
Speaker 9: meant to take out this city. Bain's populist talk is
Speaker 9: just talk for a period of the movie, while they
Speaker 9: then do this strange thing of kicking the rich people
Speaker 9: out of their houses and catwomen can take over one.
Speaker 9: These elements don't cohere, they don't make sense, and within
Speaker 9: the context of larger Batman, they don't necessarily always have to.
Speaker 9: And then here's probably my hottest take on this movie.
Speaker 9: Anne Hathaway is the only good thing about it. You're right, Mike,
Speaker 9: these guys can't write a female character. But Anne Hathaway
Speaker 9: has shown up. She know what this movie actually is,
Speaker 9: which is absurd, and she plays a kind of fun
Speaker 9: quasi camp absurdity as the character. I think she's a
Speaker 9: pretty great catwoman she's the most riveting presence for me
Speaker 9: in the whole in the whole film, But she seems
Speaker 9: to understand that what we've arrived at is the kind
Speaker 9: of incoherence and absurdity that you can do in a
Speaker 9: Tim Burton Batman movie and get away with it, because
Speaker 9: that's more psychological. That's also not realism. That's about the
Speaker 9: like bouncing off of each other of crazy people. Here's
Speaker 9: another hot take. I think Batman Forever is maybe the
Speaker 9: second best Batman movie, the first of the Joel Schudenmacher's.
Speaker 9: The second one is terrible, but on this level of
Speaker 9: just being like embracing the fun of absurdity and not
Speaker 9: asking us to take it particularly seriously. The first two
Speaker 9: Nolan movies earn a fair bit of the seriousness and
Speaker 9: earn a fair bit of their quasi realist Batman aesthetic.
Speaker 9: Tim Burton obviously is on his own aesthetic path, one
Speaker 9: kind of psycho sexual horniness. Joel Schumacher takes up from
Speaker 9: there and does his own little version of more candy
Speaker 9: colored psycho sexual horniness with Batman.
Speaker 8: And you don't have to have a whole lot of logic.
Speaker 9: I don't want to come off like a cinema sins
Speaker 9: kind of guy talking about this movie. But the style
Speaker 9: and the faux seriousness or the real seriousness that they're
Speaker 9: asking of us is not matched in the way that
Speaker 9: like the plot and allegory are being carried out, and
Speaker 9: so then it's just not as fun. And then on
Speaker 9: top of it, the action sequences in this movie are
Speaker 9: not very good.
Speaker 8: They're just they're not as good as in the other
Speaker 8: Batman movies.
Speaker 9: It's I feel like Nolan's pretty much out of ideas
Speaker 9: for what to do with the premise. The only one
Speaker 9: that kind of visually has some real half does the
Speaker 9: football game where the field collapses under everybody.
Speaker 8: That's and that one that one.
Speaker 9: Feels a little bit more in the crazy yess world
Speaker 9: of Tim Burton or a Joel Schumacher Batman like conceptually
Speaker 9: as a thing to happen. It's not the beautiful, clean
Speaker 9: chase that we get in in the dark night in
Speaker 9: Lower Whacker that then comes out and we get a
Speaker 9: real eighteen wheeler ass over tea kettle on a major
Speaker 9: street that is beautiful, beautifully executed. I've read criticism of, oh,
Speaker 9: they're crossing a line in these parts of it, and
Speaker 9: it's no, Nolan has actually set up that sequence so
Speaker 9: cleanly that we understand where we are every time it
Speaker 9: quote unquote crosses the line you're being a patant about
Speaker 9: this kind of thing. Nolan is capable and has shown
Speaker 9: us big action sequences in the other ones, and this
Speaker 9: one doesn't even have particularly good action sequences. The biggest
Speaker 9: idea is one that like might actually be better executed
Speaker 9: by Joel Schumacher. Bigger, more ridiculous, funnier with a football game,
Speaker 9: more homo erotic, bring the fun.
Speaker 8: But this is a movie where it's absurd and bad ways.
Speaker 8: But yeah, I would.
Speaker 9: I'll just come back to Ann Hathaway as Catwoman, and
Speaker 9: I'm not an Ana Hathaway super fan, but in this movie,
Speaker 9: she's the only thing that's fun, and she's the only
Speaker 9: one who seems to get that the absurdity is something
Speaker 9: that you can you can dance upon.
Speaker 1: So she's playing this meek, meek maid at the beginning
Speaker 1: when we first see her, and then when Bruce Wayne
Speaker 1: catches her stealing those pearls and he says like, oh,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, this uncrackable safe, her face does this
Speaker 1: little change from I'm the meek maid to I Am Catwoman,
Speaker 1: and it's so well done and so nice. Ah, I
Speaker 1: love it. And though I have to say, while I
Speaker 1: love this shot, the shot of her bending over her
Speaker 1: bike is so gratuitous and so male gaze, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I feel a little dirty for watching this. I mean,
Speaker 1: I appreciate as a man, as a heterosexual man, I
Speaker 1: appreciate that a lot, but it just was a little much.
Speaker 1: It was just like almost like bending over towards the
Speaker 1: camera and pushing her boobs together or something. I was
Speaker 1: just like, wow, oh, all right, And I have to
Speaker 1: say that this movie isn't really even that well made.
Speaker 1: And yeah, again I don't so first off, sorry to
Speaker 1: stop the whole show here. I don't like to pick
Speaker 1: on movies. I think we've only ever done one movie
Speaker 1: where I kind of knew it was bad, and that
Speaker 1: was Battlefield Earth. But I tried my best to be
Speaker 1: as fair and not judgmental as I possibly could. It
Speaker 1: was kind of impossible with that movie and this one.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm sorry, but I feel like we're kind
Speaker 1: of loaded for a duck right now, and it's like, eh,
Speaker 1: I feel a little bad, but I've been mad about
Speaker 1: this movie since twenty twelve, So I guess the other
Speaker 1: one was Contact. I kind of did this with Contact,
Speaker 1: and at least with this one, I don't have, like
Speaker 1: the producer, one of the stars, all these people on
Speaker 1: here for them to get offended by me ripping apart
Speaker 1: the movie. But I've wanted to talk about this and
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to be in a room full of
Speaker 1: like minded people to discuss this right now. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate that guy. So just audience at home, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this is just the way this one's shaken out. Hopefully
Speaker 1: you're enjoying this discussion as much as I am, because
Speaker 1: it's so refreshing to be able to talk so openly
Speaker 1: about this movie because so many people are just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so good. Bain's so good. But anyway, going back
Speaker 1: to the actual nuts and bolts of the film, there's
Speaker 1: some weird things in like The Dark Night, Like the
Speaker 1: whole death of Michael Jay White is very very strange
Speaker 1: in there, and I guess there's a whole scene where
Speaker 1: he had a scar but instead he just kind of
Speaker 1: flops over. And in this one, after Catwoman blow was
Speaker 1: up that wall that I guess is keeping the police,
Speaker 1: all of the police except for like four people. All
Speaker 1: the police down in the shoers. Like she blows up
Speaker 1: a wall. The camera just lingers on that for like
Speaker 1: the longest time, and I'm just like, are we supposed
Speaker 1: to be seeing something?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: What the hell's going on? This just feels kind of
Speaker 1: sloppy and not put together very well. Like I was
Speaker 1: talking about the confusion around the timeline. I don't need
Speaker 1: I don't need fucking Dunkirk subtitles to come up and
Speaker 1: tell me how time is moving slowly, and I don't
Speaker 1: need this movie to run backwards or something. But I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I would like a little bit more knowledge
Speaker 1: as far as how much time has passed, in a
Speaker 1: much better way than random things about when this bomb
Speaker 1: is going to mysteriously go off.
Speaker 13: I think the best way to tell the story is
Speaker 13: by starting at the end briefly, then going back to
Speaker 13: the beginning the periodically returning to the end, maybe giving
Speaker 13: different characters perspectives throughout, just to get a good bit
Speaker 13: of dynamism. Otherwise it's just sort of a linear story.
Speaker 9: There's a lot of editing in this that feels like
Speaker 9: they maybe they just didn't have time to finish, maybe
Speaker 9: the release date that that happens. There are bigger problems
Speaker 9: with this movie than that, But there there are a
Speaker 9: lot of There are a lot of fade outs that
Speaker 9: are awkward, that.
Speaker 8: Are what's that's how we're going to get to the
Speaker 8: next scene. There's the awkwardness right out of the gate
Speaker 8: the very beginning.
Speaker 9: We kind of open in the midst of Harvey dent
Speaker 9: funeral and we get out very quickly, and then go
Speaker 9: to Bane and the plane and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 9: and then come back to another Harvey Dent event years
Speaker 9: later and the first one. If Harvey Dent isn't coming
Speaker 9: back from the dead as the major villain of this film,
Speaker 9: why is this the opening gambit? Why is this the
Speaker 9: first moment of the film. They're going to talk about
Speaker 9: them a whole lot, but why is this the most
Speaker 9: important thing to open with? That doesn't track, That doesn't
Speaker 9: make sense on a screenwriting level. This it feels to
Speaker 9: me like at minimum a hat on a hat that,
Speaker 9: like Batman has disappeared for eight years, and also the
Speaker 9: Bruce Wayne has become for the past eight years in
Speaker 9: between the films, a recluse, and it sets me wondering Oh,
Speaker 9: if Bruce Wayne has been a recluse for the last
Speaker 9: eight years while Batman has been completely gone, how is
Speaker 9: it that nobody but Joseph Gordon Levitt could figure out
Speaker 9: that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same guy. So
Speaker 9: not only does it feel to me like a first
Speaker 9: draft scripting doubling up of one idea and you got
Speaker 9: a Jennison one or the other of them. Obviously because
Speaker 9: of the continuity from the first the one to Jennison
Speaker 9: is Bruce Wayne being a Howard Hughes type recluse to
Speaker 9: everybody thinks has eight inch fingernails.
Speaker 8: So that's the one that you get rid of.
Speaker 9: But it raises really big plausibility questions out of the gate,
Speaker 9: and there's plausibility within the entire series where there are
Speaker 9: people in.
Speaker 8: Each one of these that figure out who Batman is.
Speaker 9: Where it really does make me wonder why doesn't everybody
Speaker 9: know who Batman is?
Speaker 8: They don't seem they don't see that much.
Speaker 9: Smarter necessarily than everybody else, And somehow they've seen through
Speaker 9: in it, particularly in the Dark Night, there's that guy,
Speaker 9: the like flunky within Wayne enterprises who figures it out,
Speaker 9: and then Lucius Fox shoots him down with do you
Speaker 9: really want to take on this big billionaire? And that
Speaker 9: guy's part of the plot seems like it doesn't really
Speaker 9: work out very well, a flaw within within Dark Knight.
Speaker 9: But it's like one of those things that runs through
Speaker 9: all this and becomes the most sort of silly and absurd.
Speaker 8: In the third one out of all of them. And
Speaker 8: there's just a lot of writing that's like that.
Speaker 9: Again, it's weird to it's weird to point to Tim
Speaker 9: Burton's Batman Returns, which has multiple villains, or the Schumacher
Speaker 9: Batman Forever, which has multiple villains. Those are movies that
Speaker 9: are not expecting as much of the world as a
Speaker 9: kind of social field to be realistically rendered, and so
Speaker 9: then having too many villains here, and there are so
Speaker 9: many villains. Matthew Modine in a way as yet another villain.
Speaker 9: I don't know why he's in this movie. I don't
Speaker 9: know what his character as the follow up to Oldman
Speaker 9: as Commissioner Gordon. I don't get what that really buys
Speaker 9: us in the scheme of things. I don't think that
Speaker 9: he's necessary. He's the kind of character again that you
Speaker 9: jettison a couple of drafts into it, and so we
Speaker 9: have this, we have this script that feels like a
Speaker 9: first or first and a half after studio notes kind
Speaker 9: of draft that they've then expensively shot, and then they
Speaker 9: got into the editing room and they didn't spend enough time,
Speaker 9: and there's all this there's all this kind of janky
Speaker 9: cutting and janky structural decision making that makes it weird
Speaker 9: and difficult movie to follow, while also being like two
Speaker 9: hours and forty five minutes long.
Speaker 8: I know that superhero movies are now.
Speaker 9: Our form of opera, and so they're gonna run long.
Speaker 9: They're like Shakespearean tragedy within our culture. We can draw
Speaker 9: our conclusions about what that says about us. But nevertheless,
Speaker 9: that's the thing. But it really does feel like an
Speaker 9: excessively long two hours and forty five minutes, overstuffed in
Speaker 9: most respects and then underfed wherever it counts, and it
Speaker 9: makes it a tough thing to wrestle with. I guess
Speaker 9: I've just been picking on it and trouncing, So I'll
Speaker 9: just say with that, I don't know, Maybe they are
Speaker 9: interesting aspects of it that bad are good, are like
Speaker 9: more exciting to wrestle with than just bad movie.
Speaker 1: Chris, you talked about, you know how big Nolan swings,
Speaker 1: and you compared them to Tarantino. I would say that
Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan is the Michael Bay of the New Yorker crowd.
Speaker 1: You know, it just feels like he's a lot of times,
Speaker 1: this whole I'm going to tell the story backwards type
Speaker 1: of thing just feels like obfuscation. I mean, especially when
Speaker 1: you come to something like Tenet, where you're just like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Like this really does not add
Speaker 1: anything to this story. I would say that Dunkirk does
Speaker 1: the same thing, where it's just like, I don't care
Speaker 1: that you're stretching out time over here and condensing time
Speaker 1: over there. Learn to tell a better story.
Speaker 2: The thing that just keeps reminding me so much of
Speaker 2: these movies are those late and again I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: No Time to Die so much, but definitely this movie
Speaker 2: really reminds me of Specter. You go from something like Skyfall,
Speaker 2: which I'm not a huge fan of. I know that
Speaker 2: there are people that are huge fans of Skyfall. I'm
Speaker 2: not as big of a fan of the Dark Knight
Speaker 2: as I used to be, but there are people that
Speaker 2: are still huge fans of it still love it. So
Speaker 2: I look at Skyfall, I look at The Dark Knight
Speaker 2: as similar movies. Then I look at this movie as
Speaker 2: the follow up to Skyfall the way Specter was, and
Speaker 2: this movie is the follow up to The Dark Knight.
Speaker 2: And neither of these movies do anything to serve that
Speaker 2: narrative set down in the movie before, and in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways, it corrupts what was so good about
Speaker 2: the franchise, at least the better parts. Ultimately, this movie
Speaker 2: even goes as far as to say the Talia al
Speaker 2: Ghoul character, who is not revealed to be Talia al
Speaker 2: Ghoul until the third act of the film, is essentially
Speaker 2: the and the League of Shadows have been the villains
Speaker 2: this whole time, and not even in the last movie.
Speaker 2: But there's they're the overriding villains throughout all of this
Speaker 2: because again it follows the Scream three rules, and we're
Speaker 2: gonna go back in retcon some things and make some
Speaker 2: things again work here that wouldn't have necessarily worked it.
Speaker 2: They didn't plan in the first movie that the third
Speaker 2: movie was going to have a return to form or
Speaker 2: a return to Rozel Ghoul. There was no need to
Speaker 2: return to the Rozel Ghul story, frankly, and I guess
Speaker 2: that's my issue. Is in Inspector we have that same
Speaker 2: thing with Christoph Waltz being like, I am the author
Speaker 2: of your pain, James, and everything has been my kind
Speaker 2: of doing here. And it's even they do it worse
Speaker 2: there they go, even Mad's Michelson and even Javier Bardem's
Speaker 2: character and the character the villain from Quantumus Olus. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all of them are. They're all Quantum, but that's actually
Speaker 2: Specter and it's been me this whole time, Like this
Speaker 2: movie has shades of that, and it's just I don't
Speaker 2: know why we have to keep doing the thing that
Speaker 2: a movie from the early two thousands as a horror
Speaker 2: movie pointed out that we are ret cunning our own franchise,
Speaker 2: our own rules, our own history, and there's no need,
Speaker 2: There's nothing is gained. Frankly, all it does is hurt
Speaker 2: the series overall. Even look at the most recent Star
Speaker 2: Wars film, Emperor Palpatine is back. Why Why somehow Palpatine
Speaker 2: returned somehow? And it's the same thing here. It's like,
Speaker 2: why is Talia al Ghoul? Why is rozoh Ghoul? Why
Speaker 2: is any of that being brought up in this third
Speaker 2: movie when it's been clear that we don't like with
Speaker 2: the last movie, we don't need some and again I
Speaker 2: think it's probably that most apt comparison with the James
Speaker 2: Bond of it all. We don't need a James Bond
Speaker 2: level threat with Batman. Batman is at his best for
Speaker 2: me when he's fighting someone who is dangerous to him specifically,
Speaker 2: not the city at large. And that's the thing. I
Speaker 2: know that this is based off of the Nightfall storyline,
Speaker 2: which is about Gotham being essentially isolated from the rest
Speaker 2: of the world. That's what this storyline is. However, that
Speaker 2: works in a comic book. In a movie, it's kind
Speaker 2: of hope key James Bond and Batman. While yes they
Speaker 2: are both smart and charming and debonair, I guess Bruce
Speaker 2: Wayne is maybe not so much Batman. The villainization of
Speaker 2: a James Bond character into a Batman villain doesn't really
Speaker 2: work because Batman doesn't need to be a world ending threat,
Speaker 2: not unless he's part of the Justice League. And this
Speaker 2: version of Batman would not work with any other version
Speaker 2: of Superman other than the one that we get created
Speaker 2: by Chris Nolan and pals for Zack Snyder. We didn't
Speaker 2: get a sequel to this movie, but we technically did
Speaker 2: because the tone of this movie and these Nolan movies.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to say it's Zack Snyder's fault, it's actually
Speaker 2: Chris Nolan's fault too. Man of Steele's tone is actually
Speaker 2: more influenced by this that it's influenced by anything else.
Speaker 2: And again, I feel like the self serious James Bond
Speaker 2: Casino Reyal worked Quantum Osolas works for me. Beyond that,
Speaker 2: it doesn't Batman. Batman begins in Dark Knight Rises. Dark
Speaker 2: Knight works for me. Dark Knight Rises doesn't, and anything
Speaker 2: past Dark Knight Rises doesn't work for me either, which
Speaker 2: includes Man of Steel and all of those other DCEU movies,
Speaker 2: because again, the tone of Man of Steel comes from
Speaker 2: this movie, and the tone of those movies comes from
Speaker 2: that Casino Reale movie that made so much money, and
Speaker 2: being so self serious with these fun things can work.
Speaker 2: I just don't think Chris Nolan is the right person
Speaker 2: to tell that story. I think that there are other
Speaker 2: people who could tell a serious story with Batman that
Speaker 2: doesn't betray the character completely. And that's how you get
Speaker 2: something like the Batman film that Matt Reeves directed and wrote.
Speaker 2: That's more akin to what this should have been. If
Speaker 2: you're going to talk about the world, if you're gonna
Speaker 2: talk about the community of Batman and the world of Gotham.
Speaker 2: The new Batman film really leans into it in an
Speaker 2: interesting and fun way, and it talks about there is
Speaker 2: a little bit of the kind of us versus them,
Speaker 2: the one percent versus the ninety nine percent. There is
Speaker 2: some of that in the new Matt Reeves Batman movie.
Speaker 2: This movie can't figure out how to do it well
Speaker 2: because these writers don't really have the capability to understand
Speaker 2: the nuance necessary to tell that story. And that's always
Speaker 2: been the case with Chris Nolan. Similarly to Quentin Tarantino,
Speaker 2: you work better in big strokes. The smaller strokes don't
Speaker 2: really work because that's not really your forte. Your forte
Speaker 2: is telling a big story with big choices, big decisions,
Speaker 2: and this movie makes a lot of big choices and
Speaker 2: big decisions. Not all of them work. Frankly, most of
Speaker 2: them don't work. The last movie, a lot of the
Speaker 2: big choices did work, and even at the end of
Speaker 2: the movie where we at the end of the last
Speaker 2: movie where we have the kind of back and forth
Speaker 2: on the boats and we're gonna blow up who's gonna
Speaker 2: blow up the boat as one boat gonna blow the
Speaker 2: other one, the criminals or the people like oh, and
Speaker 2: the society is good on both sides. Like even that,
Speaker 2: looking back on it is so heavy handed and preachy,
Speaker 2: but it's better than anything this movie ever does in
Speaker 2: terms of approaching having something interesting or unique to say
Speaker 2: about the situation that Bane has put Gotham. I just
Speaker 2: think Chris Nolan, like so many other tours, he's good
Speaker 2: in small doses and he's better when he's doing his
Speaker 2: own things. Because trying to do something like this with
Speaker 2: a character that already has a really strongly established set
Speaker 2: of ideas and a narrative kind of constructed around him,
Speaker 2: like it's you don't need to do so much to
Speaker 2: change the character to make him your thing. Write a
Speaker 2: story that works that is more your thing. It's just
Speaker 2: a lot of things that don't work for me, and
Speaker 2: the self seriousness is one of them. But also just
Speaker 2: the not understanding of the character is another.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that was the marketing campaign, right, Why
Speaker 1: so self serious? Wasn't that It for this one. I
Speaker 1: agree with you what you're talking about with all of
Speaker 1: the James Bond stuff, by the way, and especially yeah,
Speaker 1: this whole like we have to tie stuff back together.
Speaker 1: You mentioned you know somehow Palpatine has returned. This for me,
Speaker 1: is bringing back the League of Shadows, is building another
Speaker 1: Death Star. You could have done without that. And they
Speaker 1: knew that. They didn't really have a good idea coming
Speaker 1: into this. They're just like, well, we don't even know
Speaker 1: what we're going to do. There was talk about while
Speaker 1: The Dark Knight was being made or shortly thereafter, they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to do another one of these, and we're
Speaker 1: going to have the Joker back and it's going to
Speaker 1: be the Joker's trial and all this. And similarly to
Speaker 1: foil Ado, that was going to have the whole Joker
Speaker 1: throwing acid and Harvey Dent's face, but then they read
Speaker 1: con that and they said, no, we're going to put
Speaker 1: that the whole Harvey Dent thing in the second movie.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they didn't know. I mean, this suffers from
Speaker 1: the same problem that those Star Wars sequels suffer from,
Speaker 1: which is they didn't have a plant. They were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're making these one at a time. We don't have
Speaker 1: an overall arc to this whole thing. So what this
Speaker 1: becomes is attacked on third act that really didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: need to be there, and yes, to have two hours
Speaker 1: and forty five minutes to stretch the sucker out for
Speaker 1: all of this. It's like, just because it's doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's grandiose. It really doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker 1: Like we Yes, we have the beginning with Alfred talking
Speaker 1: about you know, oh, I have this fantasy of me
Speaker 1: going to you know, Italy or whatever, and you're there,
Speaker 1: and then they relive it in the last part of
Speaker 1: the film as they're closing up all of the stories,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, that's clever and everything, but I
Speaker 1: almost forget about it because it was two hours and
Speaker 1: forty minutes ago that you talked about that, so it
Speaker 1: really goes on for a long time. And yeah, you
Speaker 1: were talking about too many villains, Spencer, and I completely agree,
Speaker 1: because not only is there Tali al Ghoul and then Baine,
Speaker 1: but then you have the characters like the and you
Speaker 1: mentioned Chris Foley, the Matthew Modine character, but I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of like Burne Gorman and Ben Mendelssohn. It's like these
Speaker 1: guys are just kind of along for the ride and
Speaker 1: Killian Murphy. Yeah, because you also have like the the
Speaker 1: whole group that goes on with uh with Baine, and
Speaker 1: then you introduce somebody like a uh Brett Cullen as
Speaker 1: the congressman who's in there for like two scenes, and
Speaker 1: I thought for sure he was going to be a
Speaker 1: much bigger player in this. And that whole scene of
Speaker 1: her getting the fingerprints back to burn Gorman, it's completely unnecessary,
Speaker 1: Like you can just eliminate that whole thing. This movie
Speaker 1: can be really like, I actually looked for a fan
Speaker 1: edit of this just to see what would a shorter
Speaker 1: version of this movie look. There is there is one
Speaker 1: out there, and I did not have a chance to
Speaker 1: download it. Couldn't find a file of it. I hate
Speaker 1: fan edit dot org these days because there's no fan
Speaker 1: edit dot info anymore, and fan edit dot info was
Speaker 1: the only place that you could find the places to
Speaker 1: download the files. And fan edit dot org they're so
Speaker 1: high and mighty that they're just like, well, there are
Speaker 1: all these things called fan edits, and here are all
Speaker 1: these people that are doing them, but we will not
Speaker 1: allow you to ask where can I download a copy?
Speaker 1: And it's just like, well, then you.
Speaker 2: Because they don't want to get in trouble, which is
Speaker 2: you know, that's fine. At the same time, though I
Speaker 2: was gonna I was gonna make a joke about it,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to just make a fan edit of
Speaker 2: the amount of time that Batman is in this movie,
Speaker 2: I think it's like twelve minutes, which if you want
Speaker 2: to just watch Batman in a Batman movie, then two
Speaker 2: hours and forty five minutes is a lot more than
Speaker 2: the twelve that he's in it. This is barely a
Speaker 2: Batman movie. This movie is it is barely a Batman movie.
Speaker 2: And I think that if Chris Nolan was going to
Speaker 2: make this movie this way, why not just make it
Speaker 2: with something else, like some other kind of characters, some
Speaker 2: other kind of ip. If there needed to be one,
Speaker 2: just go make Tenant. I don't know, this story doesn't
Speaker 2: need Batman. And you guys mentioned the Nolan brothers not
Speaker 2: being able to write female characters. Joe Nolan and his
Speaker 2: wife can write a good female character with Delores in Westworld,
Speaker 2: but I don't think the two of them together can no,
Speaker 2: and I think that they can't really write Batman either.
Speaker 2: We've mentioned it's the Nolan brothers who wrote this movie,
Speaker 2: but we have to remind ourselves that the story by
Speaker 2: is still David S.
Speaker 7: Goyer.
Speaker 2: He's still involved, which is surprising because you would think that, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe this movie didn't have Goyer involved, and that's why
Speaker 2: the story is kind of all over the place. No,
Speaker 2: Goyer is in fact involved in this movie. And I
Speaker 2: don't know how much of what Goyer brought to The
Speaker 2: Dark Knight or Batman Begins allowed those movies to be
Speaker 2: better than this movie. With Batman Begins, Goyer has a
Speaker 2: screenplay by credit as opposed to just story by.
Speaker 1: With the last two with Jonathan Nolan or Jonah Nolan.
Speaker 1: I was so confused when I was reading in you.
Speaker 2: No, I think his name is Jonah and Joe. I
Speaker 2: think that's how you say his.
Speaker 1: Question Jonathan and his credits right, I.
Speaker 2: Think so or something to that effect, because on all
Speaker 2: the West World stuff they always talk about it and
Speaker 2: they say it really Jonah Nolan, I think or something
Speaker 2: that Jonathan.
Speaker 1: I was ringing an interview with Christopher Nolan or Chris
Speaker 1: to his friends, and he kept talking about Jonah and
Speaker 1: so This was a printed interview, and so they were
Speaker 1: spelling it like the person that was inside of the
Speaker 1: belly of a whale. But then when you see his credits,
Speaker 1: it's always you know Jonathan. But anyway, whoever, this person
Speaker 1: is Chris Nolan's brother. He was the person behind the
Speaker 1: show Person of Interest, which was a very interesting show.
Speaker 1: I really liked that one a lot, and that basically
Speaker 1: really feeds into the end of The Dark Knight. This
Speaker 1: whole idea of a machine that can see everything, hear everything,
Speaker 1: pinpoint where people are. You know, we're talking about how
Speaker 1: this movie just pulls from the zeitgeist. It is so
Speaker 1: Patriot Act. I mean that one coming out in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, then the Patriot Act having been passed
Speaker 1: a few years before that. I mean, I like that
Speaker 1: Lucius Fox is like, whoa, you are crossing a line,
Speaker 1: like he I'm surprised that Lucius is back for this
Speaker 1: movie after what Batman pulled in the last movie, just
Speaker 1: because he was dead set against that of like, you
Speaker 1: are crossing the line here. You've made my invention into
Speaker 1: this weapon that you can now see and hear and
Speaker 1: spy on everybody in Gotham and Batman's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, ends justify the means.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: And by the way, watching all three of these movies
Speaker 1: in a row, I forgot he doesn't use the voice.
Speaker 1: In the first movie, he talks like a normal human being,
Speaker 1: but by the time the second one comes, he starts
Speaker 1: to sound like Robert F.
Speaker 7: Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's just like, what the fuck man? So he's just like, basically,
Speaker 1: the ends justify the means. I need to find the Joker.
Speaker 1: I've turned your machine into a weapon. Fuck you very much, Lucius.
Speaker 1: You can stop it at the end, you just type
Speaker 1: in your name.
Speaker 9: One of the things that animates Batman Begins and The
Speaker 9: Dark Knight that is interesting about them within this very
Speaker 9: this highly conservative kind of politics that I don't really
Speaker 9: agree with, is that there's there are actual arguments about
Speaker 9: the nature of justice and what's right that are made
Speaker 9: through dialogue but also played out.
Speaker 8: Particularly in Batman Begins.
Speaker 9: That's one where we go through a number of different ideas.
Speaker 9: And one of the things that made me like that
Speaker 9: movie the first time that I saw it was that
Speaker 9: there was a good twenty odd minutes where I was
Speaker 9: getting ready to go because I was like, this movie's
Speaker 9: full on fascist, and I know that's the thing. It's
Speaker 9: a superhero movie, it's a Batman movie. It can definitely
Speaker 9: go full on fascist. But then it turned to this
Speaker 9: core in terms of its approach to what is good,
Speaker 9: what is right, how's the society supposed to work. There's
Speaker 9: a real push and pull there. This is a movie
Speaker 9: where the push poll is Alfred telling Bruce Wayne that
Speaker 9: he should just get out and touch grass and no,
Speaker 9: don't be Batman, and then we faint in the direction of, oh,
Speaker 9: you're taking over the stock market, but ultimately Bain is
Speaker 9: taking over the stock market to benefit this other guy
Speaker 9: on the board of Wayne Enterprises, so that there's a
Speaker 9: lot of maneuvering, but none of it is actually like
Speaker 9: working through problems of what is the right thing to do,
Speaker 9: even though I'm not I'm actually really not crazy about
Speaker 9: the very ending of The Dark Knight, the decision for
Speaker 9: them to tell a quote unquote noble lie as the
Speaker 9: end of the movie Batman actually killed Harvey Dent, so
Speaker 9: that then Harvey Dent can be held up as a
Speaker 9: hero and therefore crime whatever. This doesn't all really track
Speaker 9: totally for me, but they work through a thing. They're
Speaker 9: like making decisions about what's supposed to be right, and honestly,
Speaker 9: the very end, and one of the reasons why the
Speaker 9: movie ends up working for me is at the end
Speaker 9: is Batman sort of banished from society, riding off into
Speaker 9: who knows what, and the choice doesn't play as particularly happy.
Speaker 9: They make an argument that this is a necessary choice
Speaker 9: that I don't necessarily agree with, but I also see
Speaker 9: somebody who is making a sacrifice at the end, and
Speaker 9: things are not necessarily better for him, and I don't
Speaker 9: necessarily know at the end that things are going to
Speaker 9: be so much better for Gotham either. That ambiguity, which yeah,
Speaker 9: they're setting up for a sequel, but that ambiguity makes
Speaker 9: a lot of what comes before in the arguments over
Speaker 9: what's right and Lucia's Fox saying no, you've gone too
Speaker 9: far with the surveillance state kind of stuff. In the
Speaker 9: context of a celebration of weaponized policing, militarized not just weaponized,
Speaker 9: but like militarized policing, militarized vigilanteism. That's interesting stuff for
Speaker 9: us to have an argument over as a result of
Speaker 9: a movie. That's interesting, good stuff for me to think
Speaker 9: about even in the act of.
Speaker 8: Disagreeing with it.
Speaker 9: But yeah, we got we got a thing here where
Speaker 9: it's it's more incoherent and it's not working out. But
Speaker 9: I guess so here's a question that I want to
Speaker 9: steer towards. These movies are the high water mark of
Speaker 9: realistic superhero that no one comes in and he's going
Speaker 9: to add a lot more realism, and we can question
Speaker 9: where is the realism applied. But the idea of a
Speaker 9: more realistic version of Batman Dark Knight returns I don't
Speaker 9: consider realistic, but maybe Batman you're one Frank Miller's Batman,
Speaker 9: you're one that's in the comic books, adding a level
Speaker 9: of a kind of street level reality to the idea
Speaker 9: of this comic book character and some of the more
Speaker 9: fantastical elements that we've that we've experienced so far. And
Speaker 9: for instance, when we get the Scarecrow as a character
Speaker 9: in he's in all three of the movies, but we
Speaker 9: don't see him as the Scarecrow.
Speaker 8: Here.
Speaker 9: The Scarecrow has a scientifically worked out how to of
Speaker 9: issuing a drug along with having this mask that is
Speaker 9: going to become a particular kind of a thing that
Speaker 9: takes it a little bit out of the world of
Speaker 9: being the fantastical version of there is the Scarecrow from
Speaker 9: like earlier comics, and is making this sort of more
Speaker 9: real world plausible. Additionally, with Batman, yeah, he's always been
Speaker 9: a billionaire and so he can buy the toys, but
Speaker 9: in this case he's buying the toys from his company's
Speaker 9: weapons operation, and so that makes things much more quote
Speaker 9: unquote realistic a world for Batman to exist in, and
Speaker 9: the villains in general, even the Joker is the most fantastical,
Speaker 9: but the Joker seems to have more elements that suggest
Speaker 9: a reality behind him that is more like our everyday
Speaker 9: reality in order to make this happen. Is this a
Speaker 9: good idea for comic book movies? How far have we
Speaker 9: gone with this particular notion? Is it a good idea
Speaker 9: for James Bond? Because I think, yeah, parallel thing has
Speaker 9: happened with James Bond. With these kinds of fantastical characters,
Speaker 9: what do we really get from.
Speaker 8: Bringing in the Nolan style realism?
Speaker 2: I think for me, as someone who grew up with
Speaker 2: essentially none of the trappings of anybody a similar lya
Speaker 2: to y'all, none of us grew up with a serious
Speaker 2: version of these characters in film. This was only in
Speaker 2: the last fifteen years that this has become so prevalent
Speaker 2: and a thing. Looking back on it now, looking at
Speaker 2: it as maybe it's over finally, maybe this trend has
Speaker 2: finally willed itself out of the system and it's finally gone.
Speaker 2: I feel like, for me, what have we learned? That
Speaker 2: there might be an audience for this, and there might
Speaker 2: be a place for it. But I think people tend
Speaker 2: to forget that you can tell these kinds of stories
Speaker 2: in a comic book and it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: on the big screen, and in it not needing to
Speaker 2: be on the big screen, you can enjoy all kinds
Speaker 2: of different versions of these characters. The whole argument of
Speaker 2: Zack Snyder having Superman kill people or kill Zod at
Speaker 2: the end of Man of Steel, I think comes into
Speaker 2: mind when Superman wouldn't do that in the comics. It's
Speaker 2: like there are all kinds of versions of Superman in
Speaker 2: the comic books, including a version of Superman that landed
Speaker 2: in the USSR, and so he became the Soviet version
Speaker 2: of Superman as opposed to the American version of Superman.
Speaker 2: This version of Batman is not for me. This version
Speaker 2: of Batman's trilogy is not for me. I think if
Speaker 2: anything is gleaned from all of this, it's that there
Speaker 2: are people that this is for. I just don't think
Speaker 2: it's long term sustainable in terms of being entertaining, because
Speaker 2: I think after a while, if you reject the fantastical
Speaker 2: for too long with these kinds of things, you work
Speaker 2: yourself into a corner where you can only tell certain
Speaker 2: kinds of stories. And these kinds of characters don't really
Speaker 2: work with certain kinds of stories, and by certain kinds
Speaker 2: of stories, a lot of different kinds of stories, these
Speaker 2: kinds of characters don't work with. Really, there are some
Speaker 2: things that Batman could solve so easily, so quickly, with
Speaker 2: so little interference an issue. That's why he can't deal
Speaker 2: with it. That's why you have to make some of
Speaker 2: these threats worldwide or global threats, because it's like Batman,
Speaker 2: like we've already alluded to it, even in this version
Speaker 2: of the story, is a multi billionaire playboy, and in
Speaker 2: this one he's essentially got a small military's worth of
Speaker 2: gear that he can have created or create for himself.
Speaker 2: What fucking threat would be a real threat to this
Speaker 2: guy if he were not. Essentially in this film, Coded
Speaker 2: is moron. He's the world's greatest detective, and Talia al
Speaker 2: Goole works for his come He's the world's greatest detection.
Speaker 7: It's a CEO.
Speaker 2: I know there are parts of this version of Batman
Speaker 2: that are interesting, and then there are parts of the
Speaker 2: version of Batman that are really poorly thought out. And
Speaker 2: the character of Batman, I think, to your point, Mike
Speaker 2: is not interesting. I think the character of Batman here
Speaker 2: is not interesting, and he's a very static character. Bruce Wayne,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, I think is actually rather well
Speaker 2: represented in the first two movies, not so much in
Speaker 2: the third one. But that's not necessarily the case in
Speaker 2: some of the other Batman movies. I know people to
Speaker 2: have their issues with Keaton or Kilmer, but I think
Speaker 2: Christian Bale's pretty good as Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: I think uh Clooney Halari Clooney.
Speaker 8: Cloney truly might be the worst. He's probably the worst
Speaker 8: Batman ever.
Speaker 2: They brought him back though at the end of that
Speaker 2: flash movie. Remember they were like, this is a thing
Speaker 2: that the world wanted. We want more of this. If
Speaker 2: anything has learned for me, it's just that we it's
Speaker 2: not that we don't need this. I just don't think
Speaker 2: after a while, you have much room to cover other
Speaker 2: than the ground you've already covered. There's not a lot
Speaker 2: of interesting places and spaces to go. I think that's
Speaker 2: the big takeaway for me.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go ahead and take a break and
Speaker 1: we'll be back right after these brief messages. Looking for
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Speaker 1: we're back, and we're talking about the Dark Knight Rises.
Speaker 1: And at the crux of the Dark Knight Rises is
Speaker 1: this machine. This machine that they turn into either a
Speaker 1: neutron or a nuclear bomb. It's a fusion machine. And
Speaker 1: I still don't know after watching this movie quite a
Speaker 1: few times now, I still don't know why they don't
Speaker 1: turn it on is it that it's dangerous because they say,
Speaker 1: like you should turn on the machine, like you've poured
Speaker 1: all your money, Like he's almost in danger of not
Speaker 1: being a billionaire. He might be a quadrillionaire after this,
Speaker 1: but like not being a billionaire because he poured all
Speaker 1: of his money into this R and D project of
Speaker 1: a fusion reactor, which I'm guessing is going to power
Speaker 1: the entire city. Again, very much a James Bond type
Speaker 1: of thing, like oh, you know Scaramunga with his son
Speaker 1: Ray that can you know? Or what was the Tomorrow
Speaker 1: Never Dies whichever one night had the diamond faced guy
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to use this
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, die another day.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use this beam and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be able to put sunlight in places where it's normally dark,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to be able to raise crops there.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah. So here's Bruce, like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to power the entire city. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to do a Martin and come up with like
Speaker 1: a little fusion reactor that powers this entire place.
Speaker 14: You know, behold the power plant.
Speaker 8: Of the future today to cold and sterile whish the hot,
Speaker 8: but it.
Speaker 13: Really generates power.
Speaker 5: It's letting this room right now.
Speaker 1: Really the danger of this movie for Bruce Wayne is
Speaker 1: losing his superpower, which is losing his money. This whole
Speaker 1: takeover over of Wall Street is targeted at him. Like
Speaker 1: I guess he's one, maybe of a few people, but
Speaker 1: it feels like it's very much just targeted at Bruce
Speaker 1: Wayne solely, maybe because of Tali al Gould knowing who
Speaker 1: he is.
Speaker 2: That's my assumption. It's just why not just make that
Speaker 2: the case from the beginning of the movie. Not this
Speaker 2: like Benedict Cumberbatch's con nonsense. Again they did. This was
Speaker 2: another thing they were doing. The Christoph Waltz is not Blowfeld.
Speaker 2: We promised, like everybody was, like, it's Talia al Gould.
Speaker 2: Tally al Gould. So you cast Marion Cottiard in your film,
Speaker 2: She's not gonna just play nobody. That's literally not how
Speaker 2: it works if it's announced ahead of time. This is
Speaker 2: not Brad Pitt in Deadpool two where he shows up
Speaker 2: for fifteen seconds and nobody knew that ahead of time.
Speaker 2: She was cast. We knew it. Her character's name was
Speaker 2: announced it was a very obviously like fake character sounding name.
Speaker 2: What was it, Star Trek? It was con was John
Speaker 2: Smith or something to that effect. Yeah, it's oh who
Speaker 2: could he? Whoever could he be? Like why would you?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I hated that they've stopped doing that, thankfully.
Speaker 2: Just work it into the script. It doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be a surprise. You can do surprises other ways.
Speaker 1: I feel like the SEC probably would have canceled the
Speaker 1: whole transaction that takes place with Bruce Wayne's fake fingerprints anyway,
Speaker 1: so it feels like there is no real threat here
Speaker 1: any way. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, no, he's
Speaker 1: going to lose the company. I'm like, no, he's not.
Speaker 7: Like that.
Speaker 1: That whole transaction was invalid, Like we have footage of this,
Speaker 1: I would think, or maybe we don't, because like you're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, going back to that speech that Bain gives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: other than a few reporters, we basically see like police
Speaker 1: line the streets or thugs from this prison that they
Speaker 1: liberate aka the best deal. And I'm sorry, but the
Speaker 1: whole idea of like Bain living underground and Batman has
Speaker 1: the bat Cave and you know, yeah, you just adopted
Speaker 1: the darkness. I was born in it. There's a huge
Speaker 1: hole in that prison that just light lets sunlight in
Speaker 1: probably at least twelve hours of the day. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: this is not a dark prison. This is not the deepest,
Speaker 1: darkest hole like Alfred is talking about. You can almost
Speaker 1: escape from this prison as long as you can jump
Speaker 1: twelve feet. And I don't know why all of the
Speaker 1: people that are in this prison just don't work together
Speaker 1: in order to build a better bridge and just go out.
Speaker 1: It's like, because, like I said, there's no guards in
Speaker 1: this prison. Okay, everybody seems to be eating well, everybody
Speaker 1: seems relatively healthy. I don't know how they're getting food
Speaker 1: in this prison. And I'm sorry again, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to Cinema sends this thing either, but it's like,
Speaker 1: if you present me with this whole idea, I want
Speaker 1: to look at it, and I'm gonna be like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see the sun right there, Like what is
Speaker 1: this whole thing?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 1: I would have rather like I like how the Joker
Speaker 1: and Batman, especially the Joker even says it in the
Speaker 1: previous movie, and even Jack Nicholson says it. You know,
Speaker 1: you created me, I created you, Like are we going
Speaker 1: to go back and forth like this?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: And then Heath Ledger's like, I know you complete me,
Speaker 1: like there is no me without you type of thing.
Speaker 1: It feels like there should be that type of symbiotic
Speaker 1: relationship between Batman and Bain, and there's not. You know,
Speaker 1: there's just that one line about adopting the darkness while
Speaker 1: Bain was born there and again also a lie because
Speaker 1: it was Taliya Ghould I was born there, it wasn't Main,
Speaker 1: so again kind of throwing us off with this thing.
Speaker 1: So this movie just doesn't feel like it was very
Speaker 1: well thought out at all. That you can just like
Speaker 1: keep picking and picking and picking and it just never
Speaker 1: comes to anything, and you're just like, I'm not following this,
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, it's great that you're making all these
Speaker 1: allusions to a tail of Two Cities, but I have
Speaker 1: to tell you when Bruce Wayne is dead, no he's not.
Speaker 1: When he's dead at the end and they're reading from
Speaker 1: a tailor two Cities, I'm just like, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: the only thing I'm thinking of right now is Spock
Speaker 1: being dead. That death meant a lot to me, The
Speaker 1: death of Bruce Wayne means nothing, especially because you have
Speaker 1: two very pointed lines about the autopilot, even right before
Speaker 1: the finale of the film. It's just like, Oh, don't
Speaker 1: forget about that autopilot. I'm like, really, we're gonna go there,
Speaker 1: You're gonna remind me of that. Oh geez hey, Charles,
Speaker 1: what was the name of that sled that you had?
Speaker 1: Was that something like a flower?
Speaker 15: I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising
Speaker 15: from this abyss. I see their lives for which I
Speaker 15: lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous, and happy. I
Speaker 15: see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts and
Speaker 15: in the hearts of their descendants generation's heads. It is
Speaker 15: a far far better thing that I do than I.
Speaker 10: Have never done, far far better resting place than I
Speaker 10: go to I have ever known.
Speaker 5: Is that a pot.
Speaker 4: Something? Spot was trying to tell me you, okay, Jo,
Speaker 4: how do you feel?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, Spock.
Speaker 9: That's a classic thing where there was a fake out,
Speaker 9: but it took another movie to work it out.
Speaker 8: And one may.
Speaker 9: Like or dislike the Star Trek to Search for SoC
Speaker 9: I'm one of the fans of that one.
Speaker 8: I know a lot of other Star Trek fans.
Speaker 9: Don't like it, but it's a it's a near thing,
Speaker 9: and there's a drama to get there to get Spock back,
Speaker 9: And in Wrath of Khan, when Spock dies, for the
Speaker 9: characters in that moment, that is absolutely a real death,
Speaker 9: and to whatever degree the series is pulling a fake
Speaker 9: out on us, we got to build back up from there.
Speaker 9: This is a thing where it's a fake out, but
Speaker 9: it's a fake out without the fun of Marian getting
Speaker 9: in that truck in Raiders of the Lost Arc and
Speaker 9: it blows up and we never find out how she
Speaker 9: actually managed to live. And Lucas and Spielberg were pulling
Speaker 9: a fast one there, and they knew they were doing
Speaker 9: it within that kind of flifhanger genre that they're inhabiting.
Speaker 9: But here it's at a point in the drama where
Speaker 9: we're built up to expect a real at minimum a
Speaker 9: real sacrifice from Batman slash Bruce Wayne, and in those moments,
Speaker 9: even when we're building up to think about the sacrifice,
Speaker 9: we've got to set up the fake out so the
Speaker 9: audience doesn't feel too faked out.
Speaker 8: But the reason why you're.
Speaker 9: Having to set up a fake out is because basically
Speaker 9: like the audience wouldn't accept it because it's phony and
Speaker 9: it's bad for Batman not to die saving the city
Speaker 9: at the end of this movie, and it takes away
Speaker 9: as you talk about, there's a lot of stuff that's
Speaker 9: really weightless, that doesn't seem like it adds up to much.
Speaker 9: But and then we get this like strange, long winded
Speaker 9: sequence with this nuclear device that's gonna blow up the
Speaker 9: whole city. At least let him sacrifice to save the city. Honestly,
Speaker 9: that would make Alfred's earlier speech more meaningful. What Alfred's
Speaker 9: speech earlier on sets up for us is an ending
Speaker 9: where yeah, like Batman and Catwoman got away together in Italy.
Speaker 9: Just think about the emotional impact of Alfred going to
Speaker 9: someplace and redoing his vision from early in the movie.
Speaker 9: But there's no Batman there, there's no Christian Bale, there's
Speaker 9: no Bruce Wayne. Alfred hoping against hope that he pulled
Speaker 9: a fast one doesn't get that, And we end on
Speaker 9: a moment of meaningful sadness and perhaps even like ambiguity.
Speaker 9: Just the act of going there and like wishing for
Speaker 9: it creates something. But we got to wrap it all
Speaker 9: up tightly, and James Bond at this point has done
Speaker 9: the sacrifice and has died. It's hilarious to me that
Speaker 9: they're having arguments over how do we bring James Bond back?
Speaker 8: Hire another actor?
Speaker 7: Do it?
Speaker 9: James Bond? What sense did it make when Sean Connery
Speaker 9: left and Roger Moore took over.
Speaker 8: None.
Speaker 9: We won't fully own up to the implications of our storytelling,
Speaker 9: and we end up with these things that are weightless.
Speaker 9: And this especially presents as a problem. Again, I'm going
Speaker 9: to pick on the realism in a more realistic kind
Speaker 9: of setting and realistic set of expectations, the idea of
Speaker 9: this a more realistic world. Then yeah, Batman should die.
Speaker 9: If that's what you're building up to. That's the thing.
Speaker 9: So to the positive, not the positive about this movie,
Speaker 9: but to the positive in terms of cinema and.
Speaker 8: Aesthetics and stuff. I think there are advantages.
Speaker 9: The over reliance on trying to go realistic is weirdly
Speaker 9: at best, a backhanded compliment to.
Speaker 8: A comic book aesthetics.
Speaker 9: It's a backhanded compliment in that it's, oh, this stuff
Speaker 9: is actually important, and it's important enough to make it realistic,
Speaker 9: and I'm like, no, this stuff is important, and it's
Speaker 9: important enough to keep in its fantastical manifestations. It's important
Speaker 9: enough to do Burton's Batman Returns, which, because Christmas is coming.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna watch this weekend. Batman Returns is great stuff.
Speaker 9: And you know what's funny is simply because it went
Speaker 9: darker in its vision.
Speaker 8: The previous Adam West Batman.
Speaker 9: That was a certain kind of like sea change in
Speaker 9: how we could look at comic books. And of course
Speaker 9: it lagged several years behind Alan Moore's work and Frank
Speaker 9: Miller's work, that like really brought a kind of darkness,
Speaker 9: but the darkness of the Burton comported with a kind
Speaker 9: of wild Gothic imagination that is a bit fit with
Speaker 9: this kind of logic. Burton deciding that it's really funny
Speaker 9: and perverse and perverted for people to dress up in
Speaker 9: skin tight leather as animals and run around a city
Speaker 9: and they might think that they're superheroes, are super villains,
Speaker 9: but this is perverted weirdness with people running around in
Speaker 9: skin in gimp suits throughout Gotham, and that's very much
Speaker 9: what he's going for. There's beauty and there is horror,
Speaker 9: and there is honor. In that kind of storytelling that
Speaker 9: goes towards the fantastical and in a different zone. This
Speaker 9: is also a comic book thing, but related to how
Speaker 9: animation gets turned into live action. The most radical thing
Speaker 9: about the Wachowski Speed Racer is that it's a movie
Speaker 9: for children. Now, their minds overcomplicated. It did too much
Speaker 9: plot kids and follow all that. But the aesthetic, like
Speaker 9: the whole mode of address of the movie. The concerns
Speaker 9: of it are it's basically like a gen X lecture
Speaker 9: on selling out, delivered squarely to eight to eleven year olds. Again,
Speaker 9: that's beautiful. I fucking love that movie. There is honor
Speaker 9: in that, there is a good way to tell those stories.
Speaker 9: And I just got to say the experiment and more
Speaker 9: realistic superhero stuff, yeah, it pays off a couple of times,
Speaker 9: But I just I don't think.
Speaker 8: I don't think.
Speaker 9: That it does what everybody thinks they wanted to do,
Speaker 9: which is to bring more seriousness and attention. The seriousness
Speaker 9: and attention is already there in comic books. They are worthwhile. No,
Speaker 9: they don't replace reading the Brothers Karamotsov. Sorry, I'm still
Speaker 9: better off because I've read both a lot of Batman
Speaker 9: and a lot of X Men and the brothers Karamotsov.
Speaker 9: It doesn't get you that kind of a thing. They're
Speaker 9: all good, but yeah, trying to trick it up with
Speaker 9: quote unquote realism. I just don't know that that was
Speaker 9: particularly necessary. Maybe it can be done well again, but again,
Speaker 9: I feel like it's a backhanded compliment to a mode
Speaker 9: of art and a mode of imagination that doesn't need it.
Speaker 2: When they don't want it to be serious, they're okay
Speaker 2: with it, but for the most part they want it
Speaker 2: to be serious. The ending of The Dark Knight Rises
Speaker 2: is so fantastical and bizarre and doesn't hang with the
Speaker 2: rest of the movie, because again, they want to be
Speaker 2: serious up into the last ten minutes, and then they
Speaker 2: just there's a nuke, and the nuke goes off and
Speaker 2: it's okay, fine.
Speaker 8: And nobody in Gotham gets cancer.
Speaker 2: Maybe Nolan and Snyder and all these people who do
Speaker 2: these serious films, they just I would never lower myself
Speaker 2: to something so silly as Batman, But if you want
Speaker 2: me to do it, I'll do it in my own way.
Speaker 2: And it was like when Tarantina was talking about doing
Speaker 2: a start movie. I'm good like you said, I read
Speaker 2: a lot of comic books. Comic books have a lot
Speaker 2: of serious, nuanced storytelling that gets ignored because of the
Speaker 2: medium through which it's being presented, just like video games.
Speaker 2: Video games have some really serious, in depth, complex storytelling
Speaker 2: and it's not treated that way because of the medium
Speaker 2: through which it's being told. It's just like the genre
Speaker 2: problem of horror films never getting nominated for anything. With
Speaker 2: the Oscars, Oh my god, weapons might get nominated for
Speaker 2: Best Casting for the first time ever. Wow, that's really insane. Congratulations.
Speaker 2: It's the same thing here. If you don't vibe with
Speaker 2: what you're going to talk about, just don't make it.
Speaker 2: Don't force this thing into a box that it's not
Speaker 2: willing to be forced into, because even if you force
Speaker 2: it into the box, when you take it out, it's
Speaker 2: still gonna have all these sharp edges that you can't
Speaker 2: really do anything with because again, you're not really interested
Speaker 2: in doing anything with it. Christopher Nolan is interested in
Speaker 2: telling a story he wants to tell and then putting
Speaker 2: Batman in it. It should be a Batman story, and
Speaker 2: then Christopher Nolan is telling a story with Batman, not
Speaker 2: a story that just happens to have Batman. This is Batman.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a character who, for all intents and purposes,
Speaker 2: if you showed it to someone on the other side
Speaker 2: of the globe, they would recognize him. And that's not
Speaker 2: something that can be said for a whole lot of things,
Speaker 2: especially from Western culture anymore. To Spencer's point, like it
Speaker 2: works for a while, but look the way things have gone.
Speaker 2: It's returned back to the thing, to a thing more
Speaker 2: akin to the way it was before, a little bit
Speaker 2: more fantastical, maybe a little bit more serious in the storytelling,
Speaker 2: a little bit more nuanced storytelling, but not so self
Speaker 2: serious that all of the fun has just been trained
Speaker 2: out of it completely and it's just some sort of
Speaker 2: like transactional deal level. His name is Robin, what's your name? Solo?
Speaker 1: Spencer, You've brought up Batman Returns a few times, and
Speaker 1: that's the only other time that we've really dived into
Speaker 1: a Batman and movie was talking about Batman Returns on
Speaker 1: this show years ago, and I think about the scene
Speaker 1: of Selena Kyle and Bruce Wayne at the Masquerade ball
Speaker 1: and how they're speaking to each other about their secret
Speaker 1: identities but not actually speaking about their secret identities, And
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of that here where she asked
Speaker 1: him like, well, who are you supposed to be? And
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, I'm pretending to be Bruce Wayne eccentric
Speaker 1: millionaire or whatever. And I'm just like, don't do that,
Speaker 1: because you are calling to mind a much better movie
Speaker 1: by doing that.
Speaker 8: It's a raising costume for Kappa.
Speaker 4: And yeah, who are you pretending to.
Speaker 8: Be Bruce Wayne eccentric Jona?
Speaker 4: You take off her customers.
Speaker 10: I guess I'm tired.
Speaker 5: To learn math me too.
Speaker 1: The whole thing of of Selena Kyle in Batman or
Speaker 1: Turns was the employee who's been shit on and just
Speaker 1: like comes back for revenge and all you know, it's
Speaker 1: like she is so empowered in that movie. It's so great.
Speaker 1: And then here it's like they're just trying to like
Speaker 1: keep a lid on her. Like like I said, they're
Speaker 1: basically trying to team the cat through this movie. And
Speaker 1: it's like she's got this whole thing of like I
Speaker 1: want this clean slate program. I've made a lot of
Speaker 1: mistakes in my life.
Speaker 8: I got read in my ledger.
Speaker 6: I'd like to wipe it out.
Speaker 1: And again I keep thinking that she's talking about Jen
Speaker 1: as well as all of the other things that she's done,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, yeah, first off that and somebody
Speaker 1: was writing about this movie and they kept they said
Speaker 1: like that was the mcguffin of the film, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not a mcguffin of the film, but that is
Speaker 1: over with within like the first twenty minutes of the movie,
Speaker 1: Like they say that doesn't exist, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it really does exist or not exist,
Speaker 1: and they just tell her it doesn't exist. But yeah, they,
Speaker 1: like you said, they forget about it. And the real
Speaker 1: mcguffin is that stupid ticking clock that they have through
Speaker 1: this whole thing that just Baine sets this whole thing
Speaker 1: up at that football game where he's like, one of you,
Speaker 1: how's the detonator And it's like, okay, that doesn't become anything.
Speaker 1: They forget about that too, So it's like, okay, if
Speaker 1: that's the case, maybe we should find that person and
Speaker 1: stop them. But instead it's like literally the last second
Speaker 1: as they are, you know, as Jim Gordon is disarming
Speaker 1: this bomb, but then yet there's another ten minutes on
Speaker 1: it and then yeah, Batman flies it off. We get
Speaker 1: the explosion, and yeah, I love that that piece. Earlier
Speaker 1: in the film, Batman says to Alfred.
Speaker 4: If this man is everything that you say.
Speaker 10: He is, and the city needs me, the city needs
Speaker 10: Bruce Wayne the resourcation, it doesn't need your body for
Speaker 10: your life. The time's past.
Speaker 1: You're afraid that, So I go back out there, I'll fail.
Speaker 10: I'm a fright did you punch you?
Speaker 1: He should die. Batman should have made the ultimate sacrifice
Speaker 1: in this film, because you know what, Christian Bale as
Speaker 1: Batman is not coming back. We're not going to get
Speaker 1: another Christian Bale thing. I really kind of wish that,
Speaker 1: you know, when they brought back Batman in Oh God,
Speaker 1: that shitty flash movie that we're talking about, it's like
Speaker 1: that should have been the Dark Knight version. That should
Speaker 1: have been the Frank Miller version of Batman. Like we've
Speaker 1: been talking for years about having that Frank Miller version
Speaker 1: of Batman on screen. They made a not very good
Speaker 1: animated film out of The Dark Knight Returns. But the
Speaker 1: Dark Knight, like the Frank Miller first book, the non
Speaker 1: overly fascistic one that he wouldn't make after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: You know that's a great book, and they kind of
Speaker 1: touch on that in the Dark Knight movie because they
Speaker 1: have those like I think they call him sons of
Speaker 1: Batman in the comic book, but they don't really have
Speaker 1: a name for them here. I kind of like that
Speaker 1: that whole thing. And then when he has that line,
Speaker 1: which I know a lot of people make fun of, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't see me wearing hockey pads or whatever,
Speaker 1: that to me then calls to mind Frank Miller's Batman
Speaker 1: You're One, which Darren Aronofsky was supposed to direct that.
Speaker 1: I think he worked on a screenplay for it that
Speaker 1: never really came to fruition. And then Matt Reeves, I
Speaker 1: think that his The Batman really owes a lot to
Speaker 1: Frank Miller.
Speaker 7: I agree.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask something because this is again to
Speaker 2: go to this kind of idea of the stakes of
Speaker 2: the movie kind of being wonky, the characters not necessarily
Speaker 2: seeming like it all hangs together. Could this have all
Speaker 2: been also a symptom of Heath Ledger passing away and
Speaker 2: them having absolutely no idea how to follow up his permance?
Speaker 2: I assume, based on everything I've read and seen as
Speaker 2: well that he was going to be part of this.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much of that is caused by this,
Speaker 2: because I understand plans interrupt us because of the biggest
Speaker 2: part of your last movie. I would even go as
Speaker 2: far as to say, maybe the best thing that any
Speaker 2: of these three movies have in them is Heath Ledger's performance.
Speaker 2: It is the thing by which this entire franchise is remembered.
Speaker 2: Christian Bale's great. Yeah, no one's gonna argue that he's
Speaker 2: one of the better Batman's. However, I don't think he's
Speaker 2: in the conversation for the best. I don't even think
Speaker 2: he's in the conversation for top two. Coincidentally, for me,
Speaker 2: I think that he is fine. I think Heath Ledger
Speaker 2: as the Joker is so good. It's such a memorable performance.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say Joaquin Phoenix's Joker movie prove
Speaker 2: that you can just make a Joker movie, but it
Speaker 2: did so. Again. If you want to have someone just
Speaker 2: give a raucous, balls to the wall, completely out of
Speaker 2: control performance like what He've led your conjured with that
Speaker 2: character in the Dark Night, that's gonna be what the
Speaker 2: entire thing is remembered for. Unless you rise to the
Speaker 2: level of that character. They wrote that character so well
Speaker 2: that nothing else in any of these things rises to
Speaker 2: that level. Maybe Harvey Dent in that second movie, But
Speaker 2: my god, I don't even know why you would try
Speaker 2: to make a third movie other than the obvious. And again, Chris,
Speaker 2: obviously it's because of money. Okay, thank you, everybody gets that,
Speaker 2: that's not what I'm talking about. Why would you even
Speaker 2: try to do this movie the way that they did
Speaker 2: it when it's so clear and obvious that if it
Speaker 2: had just been The Joker, this movie might have worked
Speaker 2: three times as well, just because he'd Ledger's performance would
Speaker 2: have worked better with the message that they were trying
Speaker 2: to get at in this movie. Yes, they would have
Speaker 2: had to make changes, Yes things would have been different,
Speaker 2: But I think so much of this movie stems from
Speaker 2: something that is outside, that was outside of their control.
Speaker 2: Yet they didn't really do anything to rectify the lacking
Speaker 2: in that performance. And so I wonder I put it
Speaker 2: to y'all, is how much of what this movie's kind
Speaker 2: of failures are is tied up in not being able
Speaker 2: to rise to the occasion of the Joker from the
Speaker 2: last film. Also, just not even being able to have
Speaker 2: Heath Ledger in this movie.
Speaker 9: I would say that that that makes sense here. We
Speaker 9: could blame the studio the most, but I just gotta
Speaker 9: say they could make a third Batman movie in the
Speaker 9: series without Heath Ledger, but the need to go and
Speaker 9: make it so quickly. The choices here speak ill. That's
Speaker 9: the excuse that because it couldn't be Joker, then that's
Speaker 9: why the movie ends up falling down. I don't think
Speaker 9: that's a very good excuse, and I think that really
Speaker 9: speaks ill of everybody involved for needing to make more money,
Speaker 9: to milk more money out of it as a franchise.
Speaker 9: When a person has died, Yeah, then change your plan,
Speaker 9: spend another couple of years thinking about it, whatever it
Speaker 9: is that they might have had planned.
Speaker 8: One way or the other.
Speaker 9: One of the things that's interesting here is that this
Speaker 9: movie I believe came four years after Dark Knight, but
Speaker 9: they say eight years, and so it's like they've given
Speaker 9: this longer gap And there's really that's interesting to me
Speaker 9: because it speaks to the problem that maybe basically what
Speaker 9: they needed to do if they were taking this world
Speaker 9: seriously and they wanted to take it was an argument
Speaker 9: I think in good faith in the first two movies
Speaker 9: is an argument about justice, an argument about how it's
Speaker 9: supposed to work, an argument about how power is used,
Speaker 9: how it can be used, and then spend the time
Speaker 9: that it takes to continue that good faith argument, whether
Speaker 9: or not somebody like me is going to agree with it,
Speaker 9: but to continue that sense of argument between these combating
Speaker 9: forces in the world, and a sort of engagement with
Speaker 9: the audience thinking about what they want a need from
Speaker 9: justice and from government. Again, not a bad thing and
Speaker 9: not a bad thing to do on a comic book level.
Speaker 9: That doesn't only dump down and that doesn't only make
Speaker 9: it superficial. And as much as I disagree with the
Speaker 9: first two movies, I think they're for real. The thrill,
Speaker 9: the entertainment for me is in watching this back and forth.
Speaker 9: If they had just spent that time, then perhaps they
Speaker 9: could have gotten there. And if their plan was to
Speaker 9: have the joker, that really suggests, all right, back off,
Speaker 9: let's spend another couple of years before we do this.
Speaker 9: We will still make money in six or eight years
Speaker 9: between movies, as we will with four years in between.
Speaker 9: And yeah, maybe Warner Brothers was going to go ahead
Speaker 9: and make another sequel without them. But what happened that
Speaker 9: got Joel Schumacher and Val Kilmer involved in Batman Forever?
Speaker 8: The thing's broke down with Tim Burton. But they've done this,
Speaker 8: they've gone down that road.
Speaker 9: Why not maybe somebody else should be at bat That's
Speaker 9: how the comic books work. The writers, the artists get
Speaker 9: replaced all the time, and that revivifies the mythology. I
Speaker 9: guess I'm on the side of go full comic book.
Speaker 9: That's my thesis for everything I've been saying.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't honor the memory. Honestly, with the heat
Speaker 2: Ledger performance that this third movie just limps along, doesn't
Speaker 2: really do much, doesn't even reach the where the end
Speaker 2: of the last movie is. This movie doesn't even get there.
Speaker 2: This movie doesn't reach the highs of the last movie
Speaker 2: at all. But it doesn't even it's not even starting
Speaker 2: at the same spot that the last movie ended. Make
Speaker 2: this a comic book thing? Why are we so afraid
Speaker 2: to have a good time?
Speaker 1: Jesus, Yeah, you're talking about the whole James Bond thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Dark Knight begins with basically James Bond sequence,
Speaker 1: with this whole idea of the Bank robbery, and really
Speaker 1: they should not have started with Commissioner Gordon or at
Speaker 1: the time Captain Gordon or whatever his rank is in
Speaker 1: this one. They shouldn't have started with Gary Oldman. They
Speaker 1: should have just done this cold open to introduce Spain,
Speaker 1: the same thing I think we saw in that teaser trailer.
Speaker 1: That should have been your open, and then they should
Speaker 1: have gone on from there. But again to your point,
Speaker 1: I agree, it's not a very good action sequence. They
Speaker 1: never rise to that level of either of those set
Speaker 1: pieces of the Well, there's quite a few set pieces
Speaker 1: in the second movie, but like the opening with that
Speaker 1: bank robbery, that bank robbery is freaking amazing. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love how it all comes together. I love all
Speaker 1: of the criminals killing each other this whole like you know, no,
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to kill the bus driver.
Speaker 7: Thing.
Speaker 1: William Fickner in there is just so fricking good. The
Speaker 1: reveal of the the of Heath Ledger himself is great.
Speaker 1: Just him standing there on the street with those slumped shoulders,
Speaker 1: holding that mask, that body language that he brings to
Speaker 1: that first shot of the movie is so great. You
Speaker 1: never come back to something like that, and this one
Speaker 1: you never come back to that semi stunt that they had.
Speaker 1: It just yeah, feels so pale in comparison. I mean
Speaker 1: when they come to the big riot at the end,
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, guys, it's a group of however
Speaker 1: many hundreds of police officers on one side. It's a
Speaker 1: group of however many criminals on the other side. They
Speaker 1: have Batman's vehicles there, Like basically they have two or
Speaker 1: three batmobiles there. One fires off one shot Batman I
Speaker 1: guess takes that blast in the bat his jet that
Speaker 1: he has, and then that's it. He fucks off. After that,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, they got a lot more rounds than
Speaker 1: just one, Like they should just lay waste to those cops.
Speaker 1: Like this makes And again I don't want to just
Speaker 1: keep pointing out like logical flaws in this, but it's
Speaker 1: just like so at the end, basically you take all
Speaker 1: of your action figures in your right hand and all
Speaker 1: of your action figures in your left hand, and you
Speaker 1: just start smashing them together because that's the riot. At
Speaker 1: the end of this, it's like, what are you guys doing,
Speaker 1: Like where's the nuance? You know, Like yeah, like you're saying,
Speaker 1: chrys the whole idea of the two boats and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's basically just a you know, a trolley car exercise
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But it's like, yeah, at least that's something.
Speaker 1: At least you got freaking debo there, Like taking the
Speaker 1: remote control and saying I'm going to do what you
Speaker 1: can't do, and I'm going to do what you should
Speaker 1: have done a long time ago, and throwing that out
Speaker 1: of the ferry. You know, it's like, yeah, there you go,
Speaker 1: that's your thing. And then disappointing the Joker that his
Speaker 1: plan didn't come through. I love that his big moment
Speaker 1: is a moment of disappointment.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like that in this movie. Nothing even comes close.
Speaker 2: I don't understand.
Speaker 9: Why abbloviating about the people and the city and all that.
Speaker 8: In Dark Night it's small. I would say it's not sufficient,
Speaker 8: it's not enough.
Speaker 9: But we get a character on the prison boat, we
Speaker 9: get a character on the citizen boat. There are actors
Speaker 9: that have to act these small roles representing ordinary people.
Speaker 9: Those kinds of roles should be bigger in that movie
Speaker 9: as well, but they exist and they make decisive choice
Speaker 9: within the film that then, yeah, brings disappointment to the
Speaker 9: nihilism of the Joker and quite frankly, the nihilism of
Speaker 9: a lot of the folks in the audience think that
Speaker 9: the Joker is really cool, and we know that, we
Speaker 9: know that they're out there there. There were lots of
Speaker 9: those folks. That's good dramaturgy for the part of the audience.
Speaker 9: I'm not going to write those folks off. It's actually
Speaker 9: like a good thing to go through a drama where
Speaker 9: that kind of hardcore, dark, blackpilled, nihilistic view of the
Speaker 9: world is then thrown into disappointment. That's a good thing.
Speaker 9: That's a good thing that you can do for different
Speaker 9: portions of your audience. So yeah, we just don't have
Speaker 9: anything that can arrive. They're clear enough. And we also
Speaker 9: like all the cinemasins kind of stuff that we've mentioned
Speaker 9: going along. It's because the movie doesn't embrace dream logic
Speaker 9: or the kind of fantasy where you can leave gaps
Speaker 9: the fantasy logic of Raiders of the Lost Arc, for instance,
Speaker 9: where you can cinemasins the hell out of that movie.
Speaker 9: But it's part of the entertainment, it's part of the fun,
Speaker 9: and it's a logic of the world that helps all
Speaker 9: the stuff come together.
Speaker 8: And we just don't have that.
Speaker 9: I do want to quickly mention, because you brought up
Speaker 9: the opening of the original Dark Knight, I'm not using
Speaker 9: this example to slag on that movie or how that's done.
Speaker 9: I am gonna say it is a masterful ripoff of
Speaker 9: a masterful sequence at the beginning of Andrea's Zulovsky's Lamore
Speaker 9: Brock Zulawski.
Speaker 8: Who you might know who did Possession.
Speaker 9: Everybody knows the Isabella Johnny meme from Possession, and a
Speaker 9: lot of people have seen that Lamore Brock a little
Speaker 9: bit more obscure film, but it opens with a bank
Speaker 9: robbery of guys in Disney character masks that has so
Speaker 9: many similarities to this opening. My only issue with Nolan
Speaker 9: stealing from it is he It would be nice if,
Speaker 9: in some interview somewhere or a commentary or whatever, had
Speaker 9: acknowledged the Zulovsky got there first. And Nolan definitely bests
Speaker 9: that sequence in terms of grandeur and effects and everything.
Speaker 9: He's got a much bigger budget, but Julovsky was there
Speaker 9: first and did an amazing job, and it looks so
Speaker 9: similar I cannot but believe that there's a ripoff that
Speaker 9: was perpetrated.
Speaker 8: A ripoff I approve of but a ripoff.
Speaker 2: Nonetheless, I like Spencer, you're talking about the lack of
Speaker 2: dream logic in this film. Why not just have had
Speaker 2: Harvey Dent come back that was less rhetorical but more
Speaker 2: the movie answers it and you answered it as well, Spencer,
Speaker 2: which is, there isn't a need to bring someone back
Speaker 2: who you killed at the end of the last movie.
Speaker 2: But why did you insist upon killing him at the
Speaker 2: end of the last movie. That's the part that.
Speaker 7: You could have put him in the archay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will never understand why they don't lean into
Speaker 2: the trappings of Batman of the things that are obvious.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Put here's the thing. That's where the Joker went at
Speaker 2: the end of the last movie is he went to Arkham.
Speaker 2: But what's the point? What are we gonna do if
Speaker 2: he led Your can't go back as the Joker, We
Speaker 2: can't James Bond of the Joker, though again, we totally
Speaker 2: could have done that as well. There's a version of
Speaker 2: the Joker in the comics who literally cuts off his
Speaker 2: own face and reattaches it with belt loops. There are
Speaker 2: plenty of ways to do this, but not if you
Speaker 2: refuse to even have dream logic or any level of
Speaker 2: fun or wanting to engage with the medium on its terms.
Speaker 2: It's like you, unless you engage it with it on
Speaker 2: my terms, I don't care, and I don't care about
Speaker 2: the things that I don't like. I don't care about
Speaker 2: the things that don't work within my scope and scheme
Speaker 2: of things because it's not my thing, and I feel
Speaker 2: like Nolan and a lot of these other directors that's
Speaker 2: their thing. It's like, I just won't lower myself to
Speaker 2: the silly level of a guy in a bat outfit.
Speaker 2: It's got to be a conversation about the heroes and villains,
Speaker 2: and it can a hero be good and bad at
Speaker 2: the same time. It's like, oh, okay, all right, James
Speaker 2: Gunn did it better in super You want to have
Speaker 2: a conversation like that, There are ways to have that.
Speaker 2: There are ways to have that conversation that don't necessitate
Speaker 2: roping Batman or Superman or any of these other characters
Speaker 2: into it. Say what you will about the MCU and
Speaker 2: it all feeling the same and having the same tone.
Speaker 2: At least, it all is acknowledging the fact that it
Speaker 2: comes from silly comic books. Marvel has elevated the MCU
Speaker 2: stuff and taking it more seriously than I think people
Speaker 2: fail to give it any credit for. It's just not
Speaker 2: self serious. It's not super serious. It's not serious in
Speaker 2: place of having fun like these movies are. These movies
Speaker 2: are barely even fun.
Speaker 9: One of my favorite things about the Zack Snyder cut
Speaker 9: of Justice League is that completely bizarre last ten to
Speaker 9: fifteen minutes of.
Speaker 2: It the best part of the movie, you mean.
Speaker 9: Where it like goes a little bit into the future,
Speaker 9: and it's like Zack Snyder's dream of setting up a
Speaker 9: whole bunch of sequels that he's never going to get
Speaker 9: to do. And the thing is, it's completely surreal and bizarre.
Speaker 8: I don't understand why the.
Speaker 9: Joker has suddenly popped up Martian Manhunter. The end of
Speaker 9: the movie is I'm Martian Manhunter and then he flies away.
Speaker 8: Who can imagine such things?
Speaker 9: This is total utter craziness, and I'm actually here for it.
Speaker 9: Unfortunately I have to be here for it after four
Speaker 9: hours of the rest of that goddamn movie. But I
Speaker 9: will say one other part of the Zack Snyder Justice
Speaker 9: League there are moments in it that I genuinely love.
Speaker 9: I will say the Zack Snyder Justice League, but Wonder
Speaker 9: Woman beheading the main villain with a giant sword? What
Speaker 9: how did we get here? How did we imagine this?
Speaker 9: I'm here for it. That's great. The crazy flash sequence
Speaker 9: where everything goes super slow and all the lot like
Speaker 9: hot dogs and buns are flying through the air in slow.
Speaker 2: Motion on the babies and the babies.
Speaker 8: So completely batshit crazy. That's some fun.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Zack Snyder not my favorite filmmaker, but genuinely has
Speaker 9: a passion and imagination for this stuff.
Speaker 8: Totally.
Speaker 9: Two points of Excess is into a whole weird, grim
Speaker 9: dark thing that I don't fully understand. Oh, Batman versus
Speaker 9: Superman has one of my favorite bizarro I don't understand
Speaker 9: what this is kind of sequences where all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: Batman comes out with a machine gun and he's like
Speaker 9: shooting a bunch of people and then they're flying villains
Speaker 9: and shit, and then he wakes up out of a dream,
Speaker 9: and then the Flash appears to him on a computer
Speaker 9: screen and yells a bunch of shit that nobody can
Speaker 9: possibly understand, and then Batman is asleep and wakes up
Speaker 9: a second time out of a dream.
Speaker 2: Amazing, you just explained why I love that movie so much. Fence,
Speaker 2: I'm kidding, I'm joking.
Speaker 9: Obviously, I love that part, and I actually love the
Speaker 9: casting of Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor that now talk
Speaker 9: about appreciant that turned out to predict the future of
Speaker 9: the world. Casting a Zuckerberg a character as Lex l
Speaker 9: Luthor that is imaginative politics in a movie. That was
Speaker 9: a good move to me. Yeah, those movies are super
Speaker 9: all over the place. They're crazy. But when I watched
Speaker 9: Batman versus Superman on a plane, people around me noticed
Speaker 9: when that like crazy dream sequence happened because I could
Speaker 9: not contain myself. And if any of those folks on
Speaker 9: the plane are recognizing this, I sincerely apologize.
Speaker 1: That sequence, the dream sequence. There's a group called the
Speaker 1: Oral Knots and they basically redid that sequence and they
Speaker 1: had a whole rap song.
Speaker 14: Proof, Oh Flash you from the future. The lyricy fresh,
Speaker 14: specially with the face and like the face, well, it's greatest.
Speaker 14: The tech dude can't stay on my case, yam, I'm
Speaker 14: running in place, so keep up if you can.
Speaker 8: I've brought it so fast and I'm my whole hype
Speaker 8: man who sold is it up, Bruce.
Speaker 14: Shit's about to get real, like smooths running circles around
Speaker 14: the Man of Steam and dark Side.
Speaker 2: Is coming, so we gotta prepare.
Speaker 8: You gotta get your lazy ass out out of the chair.
Speaker 2: But before I pass out.
Speaker 7: From speed fatigue, I'd like to introduce you to.
Speaker 14: The chaste smooth, the first running nets coming from the
Speaker 14: deep Head.
Speaker 8: It's your boy on Coleman, the Vicious Member four friend.
Speaker 14: The Black Herman, Lader, Files Dice and his creator. He
Speaker 14: doesn't think you're real, Mamill explained it to him later.
Speaker 14: Woman's here, which you already knew.
Speaker 8: So why the hell did you ask?
Speaker 13: Damn?
Speaker 14: I just brought the Fourth Walk. Can't you track of
Speaker 14: at all?
Speaker 8: I'll come Zack Snyder recall.
Speaker 1: And they also did a whole thing of Batman The
Speaker 1: Dark Knight Rises, where they went through and redid all
Speaker 1: these scenes of Bain talking about the importance of fiber
Speaker 1: in your diet, or did you have folk breakfast?
Speaker 4: Answer him, I was asking you.
Speaker 8: A bagel with cream cheese.
Speaker 4: Have you heard the phrase you are what you eat?
Speaker 4: Because when I look at you, guess what I see.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you bagel and cream cheese. What did you
Speaker 4: eat a frownie biscuit?
Speaker 1: Then they did a whole thing where at the stadium
Speaker 1: he has Doctor Pavel there and he's just like, who
Speaker 1: was the only man who could beat me in freestyle?
Speaker 1: And the guy goes, you know, only me, and then
Speaker 1: he cracks that guy's neck and then he goes DJ
Speaker 1: drop a beat and then he raps for like five
Speaker 1: minutes until somebody yells out, you suck Bane, and they
Speaker 1: just like kill them all.
Speaker 7: It is so good.
Speaker 9: So some good art did come out of this movie.
Speaker 9: Let's as we wrap up, let's accentuate the positive. The
Speaker 9: Dark Knight rose so that we can have these amazing
Speaker 9: cultural gifts.
Speaker 2: They knew the best parts of this movie because that
Speaker 2: was one of the things they included in the promotional
Speaker 2: materials for this film was the football stadium scene. They
Speaker 2: knew what they had. They knew what they had. They
Speaker 2: didn't have much else.
Speaker 1: It's the only really visually spectacular scene of the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, even the chase on the motorcycles is really
Speaker 1: cold soup compared to anything else.
Speaker 2: How about Bane and Batman fighting on the steps of
Speaker 2: town hall. Oh my god, this is the yeah, you're
Speaker 2: putting me to sleep here, And then again we have
Speaker 2: the always fun goofy visuals of having a character light
Speaker 2: something on fire to create a symbol of their iconography.
Speaker 2: It always just reminds me of John Travolta being dragged
Speaker 2: behind a car in The Punisher and then you seeing
Speaker 2: the Punisher's skull from the sky as John Travolta is
Speaker 2: being blown up on the ground and lit on fire.
Speaker 2: So I was like, who was seeing this? Who is
Speaker 2: this for? How did he even know? That's a little
Speaker 2: bit more fantastical than this. This is just the entire
Speaker 2: bridge is on fire. But again it's just you don't
Speaker 2: like Spencer. You said like you don't want to acknowledge
Speaker 2: how silly this is until you do. But you do
Speaker 2: it in the most milk toast kind of nah in
Speaker 2: like halfway in, halfway out way, And it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: so you know that this is silly, and I know
Speaker 2: that you can acknowledge that this is silly. You just
Speaker 2: don't want to, So go make the Odyssey, Then go
Speaker 2: make Dunkirk, Go make something else that's actually exciting to you.
Speaker 2: Don't go I don't have any real interest in making
Speaker 2: this movie, then don't make it.
Speaker 1: I was watching a video about this earlier today and
Speaker 1: was like, oh yeah, and then he went off and
Speaker 1: he did Inception and that was a huge hit. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, so many people I know watched that movie,
Speaker 1: and I'm like the whole argument of original ip versus
Speaker 1: an established property like a Batman. It's like, yes, of
Speaker 1: course you blew the doors off when you were making
Speaker 1: those movies. And so many people saw them because the
Speaker 1: first two pretty decent movies, especially that second one. It's like,
Speaker 1: people will go see your stuff. People did go see
Speaker 1: Tenant even though it was during the pandemic, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure yeah, a lot of people are probably going to
Speaker 1: go see The Odyssey. It's like, yeah, you can actually
Speaker 1: do some original stuff. You don't have to rely on
Speaker 1: the superhero films unless you make them yours, which I
Speaker 1: feel like he did in those first two films, and
Speaker 1: then just really crapped out on this third one.
Speaker 2: I think the second one is genuinely a great film,
Speaker 2: a well made film. It's not again to go further.
Speaker 2: It's not just a good comic book movie. It transcends
Speaker 2: comic book film and it's a good film. It as
Speaker 2: an Oscar winning performance, it has amazing visuals, It has
Speaker 2: decent enough performances. Look, you cast Christian Bale as Bruce
Speaker 2: Wayne and he was played Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.
Speaker 2: We get it. The second movie is really the only
Speaker 2: movie where they even traffic a little bit in that
Speaker 2: which again, don't pretend like those of us who don't
Speaker 2: know cinema language don't know that's what you were also
Speaker 2: doing here, like at least partially going well, that's a
Speaker 2: thing that could totally work, because it's already worked for me.
Speaker 2: That second movie is outside of everything else, Like it's
Speaker 2: almost like Raiders of the Lost Arc. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: it's a perfect movie, but I think the second movie
Speaker 2: is definitely up there for one of Nolan's best, if
Speaker 2: not in the conversation for Nolan's best movie. And look,
Speaker 2: this movie made so much money. This movie wasn't financially unsuccessful.
Speaker 2: That's the crazy thing. Like this movie made a ton
Speaker 2: of money. This movie, I think, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: think it's like the second highest grossing Batman movie ever made.
Speaker 2: It made like so much money that again, like you
Speaker 2: would be shocked because it doesn't seem like it would
Speaker 2: be successful given how not great the film is. But
Speaker 2: it still made one point two billion dollars. Effectively, a
Speaker 2: quote really bad movie doesn't make one point two billion dollars,
Speaker 2: even if I'm not a fan of the movie. And again,
Speaker 2: this movie has its problems, but this movie just doesn't
Speaker 2: need to exist other than for the singular purpose of
Speaker 2: making money. Nobody shows up for this franchise the way
Speaker 2: they did in the second movie, So just still make
Speaker 2: another movie. Look, Keith Ledger passed away. It's really sad,
Speaker 2: it's really unfortunate. And that kind of gives you almost
Speaker 2: like an out. They didn't have to make Black Panther three.
Speaker 2: They chose to get or two. I guess get why
Speaker 2: they did, but they didn't have to. You really didn't
Speaker 2: have to make a third movie here. And if you are,
Speaker 2: then bring back Aaron Eckhart. Do something else. At least
Speaker 2: give a little bit more of what you gave in
Speaker 2: the second movie. Don't just go completely all over the
Speaker 2: place once again, pretending like you're not in a superhero
Speaker 2: movie even though you clearly are.
Speaker 1: All Right, guys, we're gonna take a break and play
Speaker 1: a preview for next week's show right after these brief
Speaker 1: messages benefice Dune bad.
Speaker 16: That's why he said he'd like to begin with him
Speaker 16: with smooth skin with the blank. And it's surprising how
Speaker 16: it's progressed.
Speaker 5: From the hope he will rope enough, he'll be dope
Speaker 5: enough to marry me.
Speaker 4: We'll see.
Speaker 5: We as super playing every now and again.
Speaker 13: You will make it.
Speaker 5: Plain you appreciate the pains were taking making fee, so
Speaker 5: we swear and we stream entertain.
Speaker 17: Mister cath was the first to realize mister Sloane's potential.
Speaker 14: What a smooth skin you have on you, I entertained,
Speaker 14: missus Lang. I'm give him the benefit of your experience.
Speaker 17: But Dad, I wasn't at all keen on entertaining mister Sloane.
Speaker 2: You who told you to take in lodgers, Well I
Speaker 2: needed a bit extra.
Speaker 7: You know what they say about landladies.
Speaker 10: And then ruther Ed saw the light.
Speaker 7: That must have been a rotten life again, been an orphan.
Speaker 4: Don't take any money from him.
Speaker 7: I'll pay.
Speaker 4: It's going to work for me.
Speaker 7: Can I buy a shirt?
Speaker 4: Clothes?
Speaker 7: Making yourself look ridiculous?
Speaker 17: Entertaining mister Sloane became a fiercely competitive struggle.
Speaker 4: Quite imminent about the waist has I expect you've noticed.
Speaker 17: Women are like banks boy breaking an entrance as a
Speaker 17: serious business.
Speaker 7: And mister Sloane, if you take your trousers off with
Speaker 7: me behind.
Speaker 4: Your boy you.
Speaker 17: Mister Sloane had his own ideas of entertainment enter Mister Sloan,
Speaker 17: starring Beryl Reed, Harry andrews, Alan Webb, Peter McHenry as
Speaker 17: mister Sloane.
Speaker 1: I'm going to the place.
Speaker 8: You bring this on yourself, you know.
Speaker 17: So this was also a part of mister Sloan's entertainment er.
Speaker 17: Mister everybody wanted to entertain mister Sloane, and mister Sloan
Speaker 17: is waiting to entertain you.
Speaker 7: That's right.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with a look at entertaining
Speaker 1: mister Sloan. Until then, I want to thank my co
Speaker 1: host christ and Spencer. So, Chris, what are you up
Speaker 1: to these days?
Speaker 2: Just working on things over at weirdingwaymedia dot com where
Speaker 2: you and I have a podcast network where our friends
Speaker 2: get to sit and talk about movies and TV, and
Speaker 2: then we also do podcasts about movies and TV and
Speaker 2: other various pop culture things. All that can be found
Speaker 2: at weirdingwaymedia dot com other than our show Ranking on Bond,
Speaker 2: which we do over at patreon dot com slash culturecast
Speaker 2: and patreon dot com slash Projection Booth where we talk
Speaker 2: about James Bond once a month and speaking to Daniel Craig.
Speaker 2: We're charging through the Daniel Craig movies right heading towards
Speaker 2: the end of this whole project. So if that's the
Speaker 2: thing you want to hear because you didn't enjoy enough
Speaker 2: grim dark analysis with this movie, that's where you can
Speaker 2: go and find it and spencer about yourself.
Speaker 9: I'm going to start listening to your cull Shack the
Speaker 9: night Stalker podcast because I've just been rewatching all of
Speaker 9: those and.
Speaker 8: The best TV show ever. I love it. I love
Speaker 8: it so much. I am gearing up to teach an
Speaker 8: intro class at Northwestern.
Speaker 9: Winter and I'm working on the syllabus right now, and
Speaker 9: it's an intro level class I haven't taught in about
Speaker 9: ten years, and prepping for it is kicking my ass
Speaker 9: right now.
Speaker 8: So that's the big thing that I'm up to.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, guys for being on the show. Thanks to
Speaker 1: everybody for listening. Do you want to support physical media
Speaker 1: and get great movies in the mail, head over to
Speaker 1: scarecrow dot com and try Scarecrow Videos incredible rent by
Speaker 1: mail service, the largest publicly accessible collection in the world.
Speaker 1: You'll find films there entirely unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want,
Speaker 1: when you want it, without the scrolling, and of course
Speaker 1: they have the Dark Knight Rises. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear more of me shooting off my mouth check, I
Speaker 1: got some of the other shows that I work on.
Speaker 1: They are also available over at Wadingmamedia dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: especially to our Patreon community.
Speaker 7: If you want to.
Speaker 1: Join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth.
Speaker 1: Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 7: That's great, Gotham, How are your feet to the lyrical
Speaker 7: flow of faith? I braid, Yes, that's my name. You
Speaker 7: hear the name Ben. I guarantee the bad I'm coming
Speaker 7: after you.
Speaker 3: Bruce White, I'm stronger Smart Kennedy and said, I'm braid
Speaker 3: that's my name? Was Wade in the the same I
Speaker 3: broke his back dot combat Smart, Then I crack my
Speaker 3: twenty brook champd oh likes hip hop.
Speaker 7: I had Gotham City was all right, I'm made, Yes,
Speaker 7: it's a shape and declare us alone. You all come
Speaker 7: I laugh.
Speaker 12: When you ask why I wear the marsh, I'll explain
Speaker 12: it's because I'm paid.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's my name. You saying it to watch the
Speaker 7: name becomes the name, of course.
Speaker 3: Something I plancks gain if you say it to my face.
Speaker 3: Old pressure lad.
Speaker 7: When I say no, you say survivals.
Speaker 5: No No.
Speaker 7: When I say no, you say it the vibon no no,
Speaker 7: I breathe, breathe bad. Stop the music.