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fawltybasil's Replies
Is he? He's hilarious but considering how much of a snob he is, and how he treats Manuel, I'm not sure he's sympathetic.
You're right. On the Blu-ray commentary track, Tim Burton said that he didn't understand the reaction to Returns because some people were saying it was darker than the first, and some were saying it was sillier than the first. But both things can be true at the same time.
While Returns has some dark moments, it also has the penguin army with rockets on their back, the penguins magically using their flippers to drag Penguin's dead body into the water, Batman somehow punching an hole through the bottom of the batmobile, the duck on wheels, the ice princess on the roof fending off a swarm of bats while for some strange reason Batman just stands near her watching instead of saving her....
It's a very strange film tonally.
My favourite Joker moments are when he enjoys himself while he's shooting Jack Palance, and then the scene after where he's sat at his desk.
"Winged freak....terrorizes....wait till they get a load of me. Oooooooooohhhhh.....ooooh....oooh..
He cracks me up.
8/10 for me. A good balance of dark and camp with Michael Keaton being my favourite Batman, and Jack Nicholson my favourite Joker. And I've always loved the Gothic, 30's film noir meets 80's look. The only thing I don't care for are the use of the Prince songs.
I just always assumed Batman lined his shot up ready to kill The Joker and then changed his mind because he wanted to actually face him over his parents murder. So he just fired in anger near him instead.
Keaton remains the best Batman. He was short and balding. He shouldn't have worked as Batman but somehow when he was in that costume - the voice, the eyes, he just did.
Batman (1989) which I think still remains the best one. I like Returns, in particular the snowy Christmas setting, but once Penguin goes back to his old life in the sewer, it starts to get a bit boring, and even for Tim Burton the penguin army was ridiculous.
Jack Nicholson >>>> Heath Ledger
With Ledger's performance I just saw a mixture of Brandon Lee in The Crow, and Scorpio in Dirty Harry. And that constant licking of his lips was annoying.
Nicholson brought the right balance of psychotic and camp, and I liked the different ways he killed people. For me, Nicholson remains the best Joker.
Blade Runner's one of my favourite films but for me there's no perfect version of it which is why I regard it as a 9 instead of a 10.
I like the theatrical cut the best but I don't care for the voiceover. The director's cut removes the voiceover but also some violence, and I don't like the unicorn scene. And the final cut looks terrible. Too much blue tint and teal.
I keep meaning to make my own edit of the film but I just haven't got around to it yet.
The director's cut with no unicorn scene, the extra violence from the theatrical cut, Batty saying f***er instead of father, and Zhora's death from the final cut with Joanna Cassidy is my ideal cut.
Nay. I like Last Crusade but I always watch it from Harrison Ford's intro.
The idea that Indy got his fear of snakes, his whip, and his scar all in one adventure wasn't just too contrived, it also took away too much mystery about him. And it also revealed that he'd copied someone else's look which cheapened his character.
Humungous would easily win in a fight but Toecutter was the better villain. Hugh Kaeys Byrne was brilliant in Mad Max.
The Nightrider... that is his name. The Night....rider.
It wasn't impossible for Humungous. He was five times Olympics javelin champion. That's why he lost it and became anti-social. World War Three cut his career short.
Mel Gibson's Max in this is much better than Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, who was just doing a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western impression with his voice. I don't dislike Russell at all, not even as Snake, but it came across like a performance. It never felt real.
And I can't think of a single action scene in EFNY that really impressed me, unlike this film where there were countless eye-popping stunts, many of which still hold up now.
I like them about equal for different reasons. I am talking here about the proper, Australian version of Mad Max and not that terrible American dub.
Mel Gibson was much better in the sequel. He was too baby faced in the original to be convincing as a tough cop. Here, just a few years later, he'd bulked up a bit and looked much rougher. He was only 24 and did a great job making Max cool and charismatic yet sympathetic with very little dialogue. And I love the dog, and the Gyro Captain is very funny. However, apart from them, I prefer the characters in the original film overall.
The police officers were better than the majority of those at the oil refinery, Toecutter, Johnny Boy, Bubba Zenetti, and even Nightrider in his short appearance, were better than Lord Humongous, Wez, and the rest of the villains. In fact, I still think the villains in the first remain the best in the franchise.
RW of course has more action but I still love the opening sequence in MM where they pursue Nightrider, and think it's as good as anything in RW. And the original had more POV camera shots where you felt as though you were actually speeding on the road yourself that I love.
MM has a darker tone and the ending packs a punch as he's driving out into nowhere, emotionally dead, having lost his wife and kid. But then again, I love the ending of RW. After a superb action scene where Humongous and Wez smash into each other that makes you want to punch the air no matter how many times you see it, you realise there was never any fuel in the tanker anyway, and that the old man narrating the story was the Feral Kid. Brilliant.
Nope, I can't choose between them. I enjoy both.
I'll say this. I really like this film and I'm glad Mel Gibson was cast as Max because he would go on to be superb in The Road Warrior but I've always felt Gibson was a bit miscast here. He was only 21, still a student at drama school, and he simply looks too naive and a bit wet behind the ears to be convincing as a tough cop in a crime ridden future who has gained a reputation amongst criminal gangs as someone to fear. He looks too much like a rookie unlike Goose.
Just a slight tinkering of the script would have solved that problem. The film would play out pretty much the same but have Goose be the one with the tough cop reputation at the beginning of the film and the one who takes care of Nightrider. Let's face it, Toecutter and his gang go after Goose instead of Max anyway.
Max loses Goose, quits because he needs to put his family first, loses them, and then toughens up and becomes more like Goose to take his revenge. It wouldn't have just solved the problem of Gibson's youth, it would have also given Max a more interesting character arc.
He deserved to die.
Nah. The main villain needed to be outrageous and over the top to counterbalance the "hero's" quiet, reserved personality.
Gary Oldman and Jean Reno were both great in their roles.
Director's cut because it doesn't feel compromised. Even though it's set in New York, this is a French arthouse film through and through, and the theatrical cut always seemed a bit off. Like it was trying to be more of an Hollywood thriller for the masses, and the revenge aspect was the most important part of the film. But it never was. The most important aspect of the film was always the relationship between a lonely killer and a lost girl.
The best way to think of it as not a plot hole in this, is that in YOLT, Bond is still in his Japanese disguise when he meets Blofeld in the volcano but the filmmakers knew that the audience wouldn't have wanted to see Connery's face for the rest of the film in that awful make-up. So we see the real Bond but Blofeld doesn't.
It's bollocks but just go with that.