Fifth Avenue Forum

Yeah, I was reluctant to devote 3 hrs of cinema time to The Batman, and now that I've seen it on the TV I really wish I had.

Aer Lingus had a decent movie selection...watched a few:

Belfast

The Batman

From a nuts-and-bolts movie making perspective it is already one of my top 10 films of ever.

It is certainly my net favorite Batman film, which is saying a lot, given that this is the same world in which The Dark Knight exists. All elements - directing, acting, cinematography, sound, music, costume and art....... I'm sure the craft services were top notch, too. Everyone brought their frickin' A-game, and it's glorious.

- In retrospect the trailers establish the concept well enough, but I was still taken aback by the horror film nature of the portrayal; Bats is less Caped Crusader and more Jason Voorhees in the way he's shown persistently stalking his prey. Like "You can't run from me, because I'm in your mind and you will take me with you wherever you go. And when I do catch you, it will be just so terrible." It was such a brilliantly unnerving touch.

- We see Batman from criminals' POV as a predator. But when he enters a crime scene we see it from Bats' POV as the GCPD look on in shock/wonder/surprise/contempt. Totally captures the mindset.

- Musically speaking, The Batman main theme and Something In The Way are the same harmonic structure in different key centers (i - bVI, if you're playing Beato Bingo at home). Michael Giacchino says he didn't know Reeves was leaning into Nirvana/Kurt Cobain as a muse at the time he wrote the theme (which was so long ago they were apparently able to play the orchestral suite for Pattinson's screen test), so this is sort of a remarkable mash up.

- There are certain film moments I'd love the chance to experience for the first time again. The opening 90 seconds of Star Wars; the breathless silence when the music stops after the first fight in Crouching Tiger; the Chestburster; "For Frodo"; you could make an entire list of these moments just from Spielberg films;............. The reveal of the Batmobile in this film was pure hair raising exhilaration. Please inject this stuff directly into my spinal fluid.

- Fresh take on Alfred Pennyworth, at least to me. The idea of him as Thomas Wayne's bodyguard, and then as Bruce's fighty/beat-people-up mentor was cool. It creates some potential hangups (if that's the right word) for the relationship between Bruce and Alfred if the character ages are accurate to the actors, but that's okay. Just show me the Batmobile again and I'll forget about it.

- Similarly this is the first Batman that I genuinely believe as a guy who has spent years of his life living in the night. All pale and pasty and kinda gross tbh. Probably has really bad BO. I've said that I prefer the Batman-wears-a-Bruce-mask take on the character, and this was perfection. (He even uses his Bruce mask the first time he infiltrates The Iceberg Lounge)

- Riddler is creepy AF. Some pretty standard serial killer motivations, but that makes it more believable. Plus I like how they play the interrogation scene with some ambiguity - is Riddler just fixated on Bruce Wayne as an embodiment of his tormet? Does he suspect (or know of) the link between Bruce and Bats? Tune in next week!

- There are a small few moments where the action becomes cartoonish and too obviously CG, and it very nearly undermined the extensive efforts taken to ground the story in a sense of a real world. And similarly there are a few plot points that sort of beggar belief in a "super easy, barely an inconvenience" kind of way. Haven't watched the Pitch Meeting yet, so we'll see if Ryan George agrees with me.

- The deleted scene with Joker is fabulous, but it's a deleted scene so it doesn't count (disappearing paper clips and all). I like that the official clip of it on HBO Max has it edited into continuity with the preceding scene (the discovery of the rat maze riddle) to give it context.

Stop that

Chip and Dale

Chip and Dale

Chip and Dale

My BiL recommended this to me yesterday.

Multiverse of Madness… hard meh.