You guys can stop with the PM's wondering why I haven't updated my blog with the last movies I've seen, because here they are.

Coraline - I was born without the unadulterated love for The Nightmare Before Christmas that you find in some, so I was only mildly curious about Henry Selick's newest. I came away with similar feelings this time - I wasn't blown away by it, but it was a nice trip. The movie opens in the real world, glossed with light sense of horror and disquiet that leaves both Coraline and the viewer open to the possibilities presented by the mirror world. As this state of affairs gradually reverses itself, the movie achieves a genuine sense of dread that, for the most part, overcomes the plot's devolution into something resembling the Legend of Zelda. The narrative is ably supplemented by another marvelous technical achievement from Selick, whose use of 3D is subtle - designed to draw the viewer into the world of the film rather than startle and dazzle. The result is the best 3D film since Captain Eo. This movie is a 65.

Watchmen - Zack Snyder's spectacularly bad adaptation of Watchmen plays like out like a teenager's idea of why he loved the comic. Every action sequence is elaborated with slow motion, martial artists and gratuitous, blood-curdling gore. Panel-after-panel is painstakingly recreated on celluloid and much of the dialogue is lifted wholesale, all as if the source material were sacrosanct. All of this is utterly superficial - what's missing is the comic's soul.

The Black Freighter sub-story was excised for time constraints and while this is fine on its face, there is nothing there to replace the crucial subtext it provided for the main narrative. The height of the film's crimes is its significant re-working of the heroes' post-apocalypse interaction. It is keen to give Nite Owl his balls back but it competely excises the conversation between Jon and Adrian - only the thematic centerpiece of the entire book. All of the film's moral complexity is stripped bare.

It's as if everyone knows that Watchmen is the greatest superhero comic of them all (and this seems to be the consensus) and so the filmmakers know they love it, but if you ask them why, they'll quote the dialogue and describe the art, and tell you what a badass Rorschach is but, if you press them, they can't explain why any of this makes Watchmen a great story. All of this would be tragic, except that Watchmen arrives less than a year after The Dark Knight gave us a superhero movie that deconstructs the genre with intelligence and complexity. It turns out that The Dark Knight is the cinematic progeny of Moore and Gibbons' work; Snyder's Watchmen feels more like an exercise in determining what the story would have felt like if published by Image in 1992. This movie is a 30.

I Love You, Man - This is a perfectly solid execution of the now well-worn Judd Apatow formula that manages to avoid the most trite and saccharine aspects of Apatow's style. No one really learns any important lessons or has to change the things about their lives that made most of the movie really funny. While it's not as ambitious as The 40-Year Old Virgin or Pineapple Express and it's certainly not as consistently hilarious as the former or Superbad, I'll take Paul Rudd in a lead role, plenty of quality laughs, and nothing cringe-inducing. This movie is a 65.

2009 Top 10
1. Coraline
2. I Love You, Man
3. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
4. Watchmen
5. The Unborn
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

I had to go to the dentist today and the assistant told me that I had "beautiful eyes." That was really nice; I was touched. I don't think anyone has ever told me that before that I wasn't sleeping with. I hope she meant it - you can't just go around saying stuff like that to people if you don't mean it.

This is probably the best thing to happen to me since some guy stopped me on the sidewalk back in May to tell me that I looked beautiful. He wasn't hitting on me or anything, it was a real manly compliment. So that's two pretty good ones on the year which makes it one of my better years in this category.

Had a couple of solid dreams last night, neither of which I remember very well. In the first, haziest, of the dreams, my family and I were on a road trip/vacation in a mountainous area - very much a horror movie vibe. Visceral dread and fear without going into a full-fledged nightmare. Just wish I could remember it better.

The second dream saw me involved in a trial of some sort. I don't think it was criminal, but it was definitely a jury trial - one that saw me and, in the storyline of the dream, my former lover Gillian Anderson. I'm not sure I've ever dreamed about Gillian Anderson before. It was great though - the trial brought us closer together, rekindling our former passion. I woke up just as we had locked in a tight embrace. Oh, and the jurors were all characters from The Simpsons.

As always, assume spoilers.

Batman (1989) - As noted in our last exciting episode, aside from Supergirl, we had only the first four Superman movies as entries in this genre through its first eleven years. The goddamn Batman property had been in development hell since the late 1970s - roughly when Superman was actually in production - but not even the massive box office for that franchise's initial installments had been enough to fast track Batman.

Whatever the case, Batman was finally made and it has a special place in my moviegoing heart. Up to this point, my parents were sort of weird in that they assumed that the MPAA must know what it was doing, so I wasn't really allowed to see PG-13 movies. Even so, I read and bought everything about Batman that I could get my hands - the big feature in the paper on its opening weekend, the entire collector card series, and a companion magazine that revealed basically the entire plot (in fact, this magazine's references to some of the film's influences - like The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke - were my first introductions to those works, so this movie was a milestone for my comic-reading self as well). By the time my parents finally relented and let me see the thing after everyone I knew had seen it (you know what - kind of mean of my parents), I knew pretty much the entire movie by heart. Still loved it. This movie ranks just a bit behind Star Wars as one of the foundation blocks of my geekdom.

After the zany comics of the 1950s and 60s culminated in the quintessentially campy Batman television show of 1966-68, it much cemented that comical view of the Batman character and mythos as the definitive representation for the mainstream, even though DC had made the editorial decision almost immediately after the show was cancelled to take Batman back to his 30-year old roots as a grim avenger beset by serious, deadly threats. That view of the character dominated the comics for nearly two decades, reaching its apogee in the milestone Dark Knight Returns in 1986. This sort of seeped into the mainstream, but it was the decision of the men behind this movie to look to O'Neill, Englehart, Miller, and Moore for inspiration that finally defined Batman as the darkest of the major super heroes in popular culture.

Definitive personal pop culture moment or not, I think the holds up quote well. Keaton's Batman/Bruce Wayne isn't so much the tortured obsessive that Frank Miller brought into the comics, but rather a man who has been lost and detatched for 20 years. His Batman is wry and distant; when he's out of costume, he seems almost distracted rather than foppish like most modern interpretations in the comics. It's a different take, but it works in that he's particularly comfortable with or interested in being Bruce Wayne. Nicholson's Joker has now been rendered obsolete by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, but so have all Jokers and Nicholson's remains above average - a gleefully sadistic anarchist who avoids self-parody.

Beyond those two characters, the strength of the movie is setting and atmosphere. No other superhero movie milieu - and few movies of any genre - feels as otherworldly and timeless as Tim Burton's noirish, art deco Gotham City. It's a sharp contrast to Superman's Metropolis, which was so obviously late 1970s New York and gives the modern viewer an odd sense of disconnect. Batman might have worked in that kind of real world setting (The Dark Knight essentially followed the Superman blueprint, for instance), but it never would have had the same fantastic allure.

While the movie is largely true to the modern spirit of the mythos, there are some departures. This Batman kills - not cavalierly, but without much hesitation. Perhaps this isn't so much a departure as it is a harkening all the way back to 1939, but it's a long-dead element of Batman and one that more wisely eschewed (for psychological reasons as much as anything else). This Joker is given a definitive origin - never before done in the comics - and, more pointedly, is the culprit in the murder of Bruce's parents. I don't like that move because I think it personalizes Batman's mission in an unnecessary way, but in some respects the sequel addresses those concerns.

Batman Returns (1992) - A sequel that kept the dark, brooding tone of the first film and, if anything, grew even darker with its resurrected-from-the-dead-by-alley-cats Catwoman and its disgusting, oozing, dirty Penguin. I don't mind all of this doom-and-gloom though; Burton and his team carry it off well with another magnificent combination of set and costume design.

Returns is, nevertheless, a cut below its predecessor. While Pfeiffer's Catwoman is a tremendous realization, she's playing both sides against the other and can't alone replace the villainous energy and focus of the Joker. DeVito is energetic enough, but his Penguin matches Nicholson's Joker neither for menace and magnetism. In this he is done no favors by the complicating presence of Max Schreck. I don't really dislike the character, but as the true manipulator of events, he upstages both the Penguin and Catwoman as the ultimate villain of the film. It just doesn't seem right or fair to the far more elaborately realized Penguin, whose final struggle with Batman is thus rather anticlimactic.

With two major villains and a third quasi-villain, we've already hit upon one of the things that will bring this franchise down - the focus on the villains in both quality and quantity. Batman has less to do here than in the previous film and much of the screen time is taken up with Selina's development or Schreck's scheming. It's still a luscious piece of moviemaking and a satisfying follow-up because the villains are done well for the most part and Keaton is still strong enough to command attention when on screen, but it's ultimately too busy to match the focus of the Batman-Joker war that gave Batman its spine.

Batman Forever (1995) - Although successful, Returns was something of a disappointment, earning only about 65% of the original's box office (by comparison, Superman II did about 80% of its predecessor's business). Apparently blaming this on the further darkening of the tone and mood in Returns, Tim Burton was eased out of the franchise and replaced with Joel Schumacher and an edict to make the series more family-friendly. As a result, the franchise took a sharp turn back towards the 1960s, from its Tiger Beat-esque title on down.

Val Kilmer replaced Keaton as Batman and while he plays the character similarly, he seems almost bored where Keaton was detatched and emotionally distant. It's sort of a subtle difference, but it seeps into the entire film. While Batman is still more or less Batman, the new direction manifests itself in other ways. Gone is the gothic grandeur of the first two films, replaced by immense statuary and garish blasts of neon. Also present for the first time is that traditional antidote to darkness in the mythos, Robin, who joins Batman in significantly camping up the decor and attire.

As in Returns, we get two major Batman villains - Jim Carrey's Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones's Two-Face. Of course, this time, the movie doesn't have the benefit of doubling one of them into a love interest (that's Nicole Kidman's gratingly acted, written, and named "Dr. Chase Meridian), so it saves time by scrimping on Two-Face's development, reducing the most thematically complicated Batman villain into a low-rent Joker knockoff. Though he gets consequently more of the spotlight, Carrey's Riddler comes off little better. The core of the character is here, but the realization is tepid - this Riddler is silly, goofy, and pretty much completely mid-1990s Jim Carrey. Even Frank Gorshin's television work (which essentially re-invented the character) always managed a layer of menace underneath the mania.

The movie is weighed down by too many characters and developments. Batman gets a full arc exploring his motivations and romance with Dr. Chase Meridian (you have to say the whole thing for effect), Robin has to go from acrobat to junior avenger of the night, and the Riddler from anonymous lab tech to sci-fi criminal overlord of Gotham. It's all a bit much, and it's all dressed loudly and garishly. I think the movie's worst offense is that it has stopped taking itself seriously. It's one thing to make B-movies like this with a (Harrison) Fordian wink in the eye, but it's another to lack respect for the material, and I think that non-seriousness of purpose, that tendency to treat the entire enterprise as a toy commercial, rotted the entire movie from underneath.

Batman & Robin (1997) - Everything wrong with Batman Forever was multiplied by an order of magnitude in its sequel. Forever saw camp creep into and infect the somber vision established by Burton - Batman & Robin reduced the franchise to the level of the 1960s with a budget and cutting edge technology.

George Clooney replaces Kilmer - rather than bored, he seems almost embarrassed, and well he should be. Virtually every frame mocks the central conceit, from the very first scene on (what are the odds that Batman and Robin would come equipped with ice skates - ha!). The costumes and equipment are now hopelessly ridiculous.

This movie crams in not two new villains but three - Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Bane - as well as a new hero in Batgirl. At this point, Batman is almost a spectator in his own movie. Arnold Schwarzegnegger's Mr. Freeze is pretty much the embodiment of everything wrong with the movie. Freeze speaks in a series of terrible puns; no actor could have saved them, but Schwarzegnegger's accent and non-acting render them all the more absurd. Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy is pure ham and Bane is reduced from the ultra-dangerous anti-Batman to a brainless thug in a terrible rubber muscle suit.

It is clear from watching this movie that the filmmakers found the entire premise behind Batman to be ludicrous - as though they were embarrassed to make the film unless they planted their tongues firmly in their cheeks. While there is nothing inherently wrong with mocking or satirizing super heroes, it's foolish to see that as the only respectable path, and it's foolish on both an artistic and a financial level to choose to express that opinion in a movie about Batman - established less than a decade previously as the coolest, darkest of super heroes. Joel Schumacher's legacy is that he reduced Batman from the pop culture event of 1989 to a laughingstock that left the entire property radioactive just eight years later. The final judgment would be left to Marvel Studios, which just a year later would begin to resurrect the genre that Schumacher and his colleagues disdained by daring to treat the material and the audience with respect.

The two people who read my last blog probably want to talk about Batman some more. Since I've been twitching with anticipation for Batman 3 ever since 2:45 am on July 18 and after the OT thread about it, I thought I'd go through the pantheon of Batman foes looking for some new villain fodder.

David Goyer has said that they don't want to use villains who were used in previous movies. That explains Begins, which used Ra's al Ghul and the Scarecrow, the two most prominent Batman villains who didn't make it into the 1989-97 series, but not TDK, because the Joker and Two-Face obviously did. So I'm not sure how much stock to put in that comment. If TDK was just making an exception for the two most important Batvillains, then this would take the Penguin, Catwoman, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, and Poison Ivy out of the running (I doubt it would apply to Bane, who was barely a presence in Batman & Robin). Those are probably the five most prominent Batman villains that Nolan hasn't used, so that could really blow things wide open, though I think it would a policy worth re-considering.

The Penguin - Nolan has said he doesn't think the Penguin works within the vision they've established for these movies, and maybe he doesn't in his Golden/Silver Age incarnation with colorful umbrellas shooting bullets, poison gas, and turning into helicopters. The comics of the last few years have turned him into a shady businessman who is sometimes an underworld boss and sometimes just dabbling in crime. I would think there's room for a character like that in a Nolan Batman movie, but probably not the main heavy - he's not enough of a Joker-like freak.

Catwoman - Of the five villains who showed up in 1989-97 and haven't in Nolan's series, Catwoman is maybe the only one was done exceedingly well, in Batman Returns. That might be an obstacle to including her under Goyer's theory, but in her favor is the fact that she would fill two vacant roles - love interest and the spot occupied by Harvey in between hero (Batman) and villain (Joker last time, Two-Face or someone new this time). Also, Batman's femme fatales have always had far more staying power than Bruce Wayne's respectable girlfriends (Julie Madison, Silver St. Cloud, Vicki Vale, etc.). I liked Pfeiffer's turn, but I wouldn't mind seeing a more hard-bitten, rugged take on Catwoman reminiscent of Miller's Year One. She also features prominently in The Long Halloween, which provided the germ of several of TDK's ideas.

The Riddler - I've always had a problem with the Riddler, he's never menacing enough. I think Frank Gorshin's take is probably better than Jim Carrey's, but they're both too playful for the Nolan-Bale world. As I said in the OT thread, if they upped the ante on the Riddler and made his puzzles deadly and murderous, a serial killer like Seven's John Doe, then you'd have something: a guy afflicted with self-doubt, obsessed with proving he's smarter than Batman and killing everyone he can to do it. I think that would be a hell of a main villain and could carry a movie opposite Batman, especially given the recognition of the name. This has my vote for next main villain.

Mr. Freeze - Mr. Freeze's freeze gun is probably a step too far for Nolan's "realistic" vision for the movies. There are sci-fi elements to the movies, and you could probably make Freeze's cryogenic condition work, but not the freeze. And without that, I'm not sure how much you're left with. Mr. Freeze is a character that benefited incredibly from Batman: The Animated Series, going from a run-of-the-mill villain to one with real depth and motivation. I'm just not sure I see him as much of a threat to Batman and Gotham without the over-the-top freezing devices and so forth. I think Freeze is probably best left in TAS, where he was in good hands.

Poison Ivy - They could make her work mechanically - dropping the manipulation of plantlife in favor of an environmental terrorist with a penchant for poison. That would make her fit in the milieu, but I'm not sure how much of a movie it would be. It just doesn't feel big and dangerous enough. I could see her in a smaller role, such as in The Long Halloween where Carmine Falcone hired her to chemically seduce Bruce Wayne, but not as a major villain in one of these movies.

The Mad Hatter - Arguably the most historically prominent Batman villain who hasn't yet managed a movie appearance. The Hatter's gimmick is fine - he relies on mind control and that could work in these movies much as the Scarecrow's toxins did, but the Alice in Wonderland theme would have to go, and probably the name as well. At that point, you're left with a guy named Jervis Tetch, which is a great name, but doesn't really draw you in like the Joker or the Riddler would for a major movie villain. I could see them using Tetch as a lackey for a mob boss or a fellow villain, as with the Poison Ivy suggestion, but not necessarily as the main villain unless they completely revamped his look and name - at which point he's not even really the Mad Hatter.

Talia - In the comics, Ra's al Ghul's daughter and, along with Catwoman, the most frequent contender for Batman's heart. Not only could she, like Catwoman, fill the love interest void, but she already has a perfectly good reason to be in the movie - Batman's battle with her father in Begins. Her presence, for good, bad, or in-between, would help bring the narrative of a trilogy (if that's where it ends up) full-circle. Because she doesn't wear a costume or flaunt a garish name, she also drops into the Nolanverse without any cosmetic problems. Very high on my wishcasting list.

Bane - One of many "anti-Batman;" a peerless (actually drug-infused) physical specimen with a keen tactical mind and a proclivity for inspiring terror. He's not as famous as the group brought to prominence in the TV show and the earlier movie series, but he has a simple look and he would provide an intense, worthy challenge to Batman. Also, since the next movie would likely involve Gotham warming back up to Batman after he took the fall for Harvey, a demonstration of what Batman would be like if he were a megalomaniac and not altruistic plays into that. Up there with the Riddler for me as a candidate for main villain.

The Ventriloquist - A split-personality type whose domineering gangster persona manifests itself in a ventriloquist's dummy named Scarface; the Ventriloquist himself remains meek and timid. He could step in as a new, freakier sort of underworld leader, but it's a silly character and the Penguin could do the same thing more iconically.

Harley Quinn - Introduced in TAS as the Joker's girlfriend. This is a terrible idea, because as soon as the Joker has a girlfriend, he's not the Joker anymore. Happily, I don't think anyone could imagine Ledger's Joker having a girlfriend. Rather, I think Harley could work as a copycat, echoing the Batman copycats in TDK. In fact, I think it draws such a stark parallel that I hope they do it, but without giving much more screen time to Harley than to those faux-Batman. Otherwise you're just rehashing the Joker in the next movie.

Clayface - See Mr. Freeze, basically. I guess you could have a master-of-disguise with sci-fi elements and call him Clayface, but that seems more like an easter egg type, a henchman for a bigger villain.

Man-Bat - A scientist who turns into a bat; basically Batman's version of the Spider-Man's villain the Lizard - both are often feral and dangerous when transformed, but upstanding and allies of the hero as humans. Too outlandish for this world, I think.

Black Mask - A gangster who was a contemporary and peer of Bruce Wayne growing up. His gimmick involves wearing a mask and requiring his others to do the same. I could see him working in a story in which, just as freaks like the Joker have made normal gangsters like Maroni almost obsolete, the mob becomes more freakish as a reaction, but I wouldn't want it as the main thrust of the plot. Like the Penguin, Black Mask would work best as a replacement for the Falcone and Maroni characters.

Deadshot - Assassin with a death wish. He was already featured in Gotham Knight, so that may be an obstacle, or it may demonstrate that he's a guy who could work in these movies. Certainly not very outlandish if you tone down his costume. Probably not interesting as a main villain, but like many others here, he would be at home as a hired gun.

Killer Croc - Also in GK; feasible probably for similar reasons. Gained some prominence from TAS, where I thought he had some good episodes, but Croc is at best a modest gangster and at worst just a brute. Like Black Mask, he might weird up Gotham's underworld (though this would be inconsistent with his GK appearance). Otherwise, he's just a fight scene.

Anarky - They've already touched on the ideas of copy-cat vigilantes; Anarky is a kid who made a costume and tried to put his anarchic beliefs into action as a vigilante in Gotham. Way too V for Vendetta probably, in the comics and in a movie.

Killer Moth - Like Anarky, slides into the copycat vigilante role. Also an anti-Batman, as he hires himself out to the underworld to help them as Batman helps the citizenry. Silly name and kind of a silly concept (which would echo too closely the Joker's purported offer to work for Gotham's collected criminals).

Hugo Strange - A psychologist who learns Batman's identity and replaces him. Originally appeared as a vital part of one of the great Batman runs in Detective Comics. Opens the door to exploring Bruce/Batman psychologically, but I can't see them doing much more than that with him.

Firefly - Psychotic arsonist whose costume allows him to "fly" on the thermals he creates. Nah.

Hush - Yet another anti-Batman, this one was Bruce's best childhood friend. Instead of losing his parents tragically, he tried to murder them to inherit their fortune. He turns up years later trying to kill Bruce/Batman because Bruce's father saved Hush's mother and ... you know, the Hush arc ending up being a lousy read and let's hope that Nolan thought so too.