http://tv.gawker.com/5715645/the-wisdom-of-batman
Seriously, the new guy sucks!
The original batman was better
http://tv.gawker.com/5715645/the-wisdom-of-batman
Seriously, the new guy sucks!
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
While it turns my stomach a bit to agree with anything gawker, this responding post sums it up:
"Adam West is the only true Batman. Sure, there's been a couple of movies with a half-dozen different stars, but they're all just pretenders to his throne."
"Even though West's portrayal of Batman has become a running joke in today's culture, he managed to represent the caped crusader as a very human crime-fighter, one who has a true belief in honesty, social responsibility and morals providing us with a very different version of the Dark Knight than the one we know today."
I'm sorry but wasn't morality and social responsibility a big part of the Dark Knight?
At some point I want to write a cultural anthology of the past decade. I find it especially fascinating how so much of our major motion pictures were essentially remakes or cinematic interpretations of books/comics that made everything much darker and more brooding than the works that inspired them.
Batman is a great example of this. It's during this decade that we produced (and eagerly consumed) a dark, somewhat sociopathic Batman over the original, which was meant to be a lot more overbearingly optimistic and moralistic.
PS- Never understood Tear's aversion to Gawker...
Last edited by Dreadnaught; 12-28-2010 at 02:19 AM.
I dont know about this... this seems to be more of a Warner Brothers thing where they've recently started to make much more dramatic action movies with complex stories like Inception, or The Book of Eli. Other super hero movies like Iron Man, Superman and Spiderman were never dark.Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
I think "complex" can sometimes mean "darker" than the original stories were meant to be.
But it's not just about super heroes, I think it's about the entertainment and media that's done well over the past decade. I think we've gravitated towards less happy-go-lucky entertainment this decade.
The only batman that wasn't lame was George Clooney.
No, wait, that one sucked, too, but I love him.
We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.
I don't really see anything darker than the dark knight. Most newer movies seem to be more realistic (or at least contain more plausible scenarios) with theatrical action incorporated into them. I wouldn't really neccisarily call most of them dark.
Not just movies, I'm talking about books, TV shows, etc. I think there's a reason shows like the Sopranos and Dexter have done so well, and I think they are products of this particular cultural environment.
I'd just stop at remakes. Hollywood is recycling old scripts at a higher rate than ever before. Some (e.g. Ocean's Eleven) are far better, but most are just tired money makers substituting CGI and/or star power for originality and quality.
As for dark, 70s movies were far darker than most of what I've seen in the aughts. And no, bloodier doesn't mean darker. There's tons of blood, gore and sex in the aughts, but there are usually pollyannish endings. The 70s and early 80s had lots of films whose endings were just grim and lightless.
I disagree. Most of them have been fairly dark, that being implicit in the character and the basic story. The 89 Keaton batman was plenty dark, and he was a good batman because of his sour, cynical bearing. The most recent was unremittingly dark, true. But it was also a scattered disaster of a script and directing job, with a story that had little coherence beyond "Heath Ledger is rocking the Joker like never before." Great performance, poor movie.Batman is a great example of this. It's during this decade that we produced (and eagerly consumed) a dark, somewhat sociopathic Batman over the original, which was meant to be a lot more overbearingly optimistic and moralistic.
Try many of the famous movies of the 70s on for size. Check out Chinatown for example.
Besides that it and its siblings are for the most part trashy tabloid sites for witty, self-congratulatory urbanites?PS- Never understood Tear's aversion to Gawker...
The original Batman TV series was fucking garbage.
Such is Life...
Then you totally missed the point. It was tongue in cheek. Check out the slight smirk on Adam West's face through much of it. Come on, man, it's not even subtle: "POW" "ZAP?" "Holy <ridiculous adjective and noun>, Batman?" It was way over the top, and intentionally so. As such, it was way better than the ones who tried to take themselves seriously. Sort of like the classic godzillas being hilarious and the modern American remake being a flop.
Bat Ladder!
Wait, are you saying that Batman jumped the shark?
The whole thing was an exercise is campy action. Pure gold! Sort of like a comic book Hogan's Heroes.
Uh oh. Did I just pop a bubble? Psst, Hogan's Heroes is not a serious WWII drama. Just wanted to make sure you knew that, termite.
I'm not an idiot ][ear I didn't think it was Shakespeare, but just because a show is "tongue in cheek" doesn't mean it isn't complete fucking garbage which IMO the original Batman series was - I will concede that there were some actors (Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero) that made the most of the mediocre material they had to work with but on the whole it was fucking garbage.
Such is Life...
Hey, I gave you the winky emoticon, no? No need to get defensive.
You're welcome to your opinion, of course. Humor may be the single most subjective of all entertainments. But I found the show to be quite fun in a silly 60s way, along the lines of Hogan's Heroes and Get Smart. And I've always loved how the actors (and an impressive series of cameos) hammed the shit out of things. Good fun. If they had that rubber shark hanging onto Batman's leg in a serious attempt to achieve action and drama, it would be profoundly lame. That they did so in their camp fest, knowing that it was absolutely lame, was great stuff.
BTW, I'm betting you won't like Buckaroo Banzai, so just an FYI. It's one of those "love it or hate it" kind of movies. It's also one that helps if you can associate with the period (80s) more, which may also handicap you for the original Batman. For that matter, I've noticed that people who don't have a good sense of the 70s music scene don't appreciate Spinal Tap as much. Decades have their "feel," after all, and a lot of those jokes are 70s band jokes.
On the topic, who remembers the old animated Spider Man (1967-1970)? I don't think I've seen it since I was probably 11 or 12, but I have fond memories of it. It was there that I got "spidey senses are tingling," not the few comic books I read. I should try to see if I can find it, and whether I'd like it at all. I considered the first Tobey McGuire movie to be pretty good. Willem DaFoe was good, but it's not hard to succeed with hammy comic book roles. McGuire was pretty good with the Spiderman angst, though you might argue that it was typcasting for him, eh? Dunst pretty good. Can't say I liked James Franco's acting in any of them. Too pretty boy, over-acted in a role that could have used some subtlety. And I consider the 2nd and 3rd films to go downhill. Must say great FX and action scenes throughout.
Much as I prefer the new Batman, have to admit that my favorite scene from a Batman movie is far and away this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoUpF7rvfnk
I nearly died laughing at one of the comments "did anyone notice that they parked the Batmobile like a normal car?".
Tomorrow is like an empty canvas that extends endlessly, what should I sketch on it?
Much as I prefer the new Batman, have to admit that my favorite scene from a Batman movie is far and away this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoUpF7rvfnk
They may be drinkers, Robin, but they're still human beings."
What a freakin awesome scene. Bizarre 60s slapstick comedy.
December 16, 2010
Culture of Recession? Or Vice Versa?
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
BACK in October, when headlines in Britain were all gloom and doom about the pending cuts to public spending, a prominent New York art dealer manning a booth at the Frieze fair in London was grumbling about business. It seemed odd considering that before him stretched a sea of bodies: roaming mobs of ardent 20-somethings and middle-aged flâneurs (not a few of them trying to look 20-something). Dealers schmoozed with art consultants who were collecting info and photographs to send home to clients who might (possibly, perhaps, we’ll get back to you, love your stuff, ciao) be interested in buying something.
But not much actual business, so said the prominent New York dealer. Meanwhile Larry Gagosian’s people boasted that some collector shelled out $5.6 million for a Damien Hirst, a claim prompting much private skepticism among rival dealers. The spinmeisters of the art market, including fair promoters, are forever making assertions about their commercial conquests that have to be taken on blind faith. Notwithstanding the recession, art-worlders insist smart people still pay good money for great art. (Really? Smart? Hirst?) And then occasionally dealers or even artists themselves are discovered discreetly propping up prices at auction to maintain this rosy notion.
Who’s to know the truth? That skeptical New York dealer wasn’t the only dissenter. But then, there were all those gawkers, just looking around. The current art world, in the form of art fairs like Frieze, as well as the ubiquitous biennials and other festivals, is without debate succeeding at something now.
It’s succeeding at providing relatively cheap forms of mild distraction for ever-larger masses of fashion-conscious people whose budgets cover dinner at PizzaExpress, but not works of art.
Escapism, in other words.
It’s not a minor function of culture, in straitened times or flush ones. Britain ended up sparing the arts a cut as deep as others suffered; for the big national art institutions it will be about 15 percent over four years. Arts officials, like Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate, made ritual lamentations afterward about the unfortunate “sea change” this would bring about, but the government had basically bought their argument beforehand — that unlike welfare or child care, culture generates revenue. It brings in tourist dollars. It is good public relations for the nation, critical to the future economy. Just how critical is fuzzy math? Museum directors and publicists, like art dealers, are also masters of creative accounting.
But whatever the true figures might be, the money argument clearly trumps squishy pleas for preserving civilization to save the soul of people when trying to bargain with besieged and parsimonious politicians. Especially in austere times, the winning argument is that, business-wise and propaganda-wise, the show must go on.
Is there a culture specific to this recession, as there was to the Depression, a culture in Europe and the United States, at least? Something memorable and distinct that will define the age? Not to belittle the present malaise, but can any recession inspire such a thing in the first place?
Depressions, sure. Wars, definitely. But recession? Granted, the current slowdown and high unemployment figures are grave for many art institutions, especially small ones, without private resources; and it’s bad for who knows how many aspiring Jonathan Franzens and Sasha Waltzes and Tacita Deans who decide to steer clear of careers in the arts because they’ve got to make money, now, and jobs are scarce.
While Wall Streeters still rake in the dough, only a tiny bit of their booty will be passed on to the arts in the form of collecting and charity. So a recession is basically as lousy for many artists as it is for the rest of us.
The recessionary 1970s, for a long time derided culturally, in retrospect produced darkling riches across the board: in film, theater, music, television, fashion, dance, literature and art. But then, besides the oil crisis and runaway inflation, there was Vietnam, Watergate, the cold war and a slew of other soul-shaking events to add to that period’s climate of disillusion and unrest, which, in turn, inspired artful responses.
About the present it’s just too early to say. And maybe the question’s wrong to begin with. Let history sort out what defines this era.
What can be said already is that some things never change. During the 1930s and ’40s Americans forgot their cares for a few hours watching William Powell down martinis as “The Thin Man,” Cary Grant court Katharine Hepburn in “The Philadelphia Story,” Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan swing from tree branches and Esther Williams paddle around the Aquacade. People lost themselves for an afternoon or evening at Palisades Amusement Park or Coney Island. They laughed at Fibber McGee and Jack Benny and tracked the Lone Ranger on the radio. A beleaguered audience indulged in fantasies of vicarious wealth and in preposterous extravaganzas.
That’s pretty much the cultural menu now, no? Movies and “Mad Men” aside, the art world, having become almost entirely extension of the fashion and entertainment industries, offers its own version of bygone Hollywood’s outlandish riches and loopy entertainment. Instead of Esther Williams, it’s Jeff Koons. Instead of Tarzan, there’s Olafur Eliasson. At the same time a universe of computer games, smartphone gadgets and reality television shows have come to replace the Aquacade and the amusement park.
As I said, escapism.
If this were all that art produced, the era’s legacy would look dire. But it would also be grim to contemplate the arts being serious and important all the time. We need both Pierre Boulez and Tokio Hotel, Richard Serra and also Turkish soap operas. Some modern Waugh or Daumier or Tati may even now be capitalizing on the delicious way Britons and French played to type in responding to the financial crisis this fall: the Britons initially stiffening their upper lips at word that half a million jobs would be lost and $130 billion in public spending cut; the French taking to the barricades, blocking airports and refineries, shutting down gas stations and schools, just to defy President Nicolas Sarkozy’s initiative that the retirement age rise to 62 from 60.
As Anne Applebaum put it on Slate: “And thus did everyone, amazingly, conform to national stereotypes. In an age of supposed globalization when we are all allegedly becoming more alike — listening to the same American music, buying the same Chinese products — it is astonishing how absolutely British the British remain, and how thoroughly French are the French.”
Right. And that’s the grander truth about culture now: that it has only become more atomized, and impossible to generalize about, because of the very global forces we’re told homogenize us today. We react against those forces to assert our own identities. And culture is how, consciously or otherwise, we express those identities.
Recession, double-dip inflation, whatever, that’s the essence of art now, and perhaps forever.
There’s no escaping it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/ar...kimmelman.html
Holy insults Batman.
Not to worry Robin, we have appropriate responses to such arrogance...
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I'd agree that lately things have been more dark in nature, but not that it's the first time. Maybe it just stands out after a period of relative happy-go-lucky entertainment in the 90s. And even that is grossly generalizing, I just checked my movie collection and some films from the 90s include Fargo, Insomnia, the Boondock Saints, etc., which aren't happy-go-lucky films without violence either, and when I look back further I only see more 'dark' movies. And keep in mind there are still tons of happy productions coming in theaters non stop. Countless romantic comedies, which are as dark as the snow. So maybe it just seems to have gone darker because you were younger then and only saw the family friendly entertainment?
I'm not really an expert, but weren't a lot of comic books always dark in nature? Just that the movie remakes were adapted for kids, because comics 'are for kids'?
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
I believe you nailed it there.
Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita
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