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I loved it. My new favorite MI film, a great film all around. Just as good as SPECTRE in my book.
Yes, i forgot him. :)
His little quotes and moments along the way always have me laughing. Not really a spoiler, but I laughed really, really hard in theaters when:
Good film, that. That's one of my favourite Stacy Keach films.
This gets aired every Christmas, but I don t think I have watched it in its entirety since I was a kid. This Soviet/French/Rumanian psychedelic musical from 1976, featuring the Ice Ballet of The Moscow Circus as all the animals is really something else.
I will be watching this from now on. Very enjoyable.
@MajorDSmythe, how about Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return? :D
I haven't seen that one. Actually, I haven't seen any of the Children Of The Corn films. I do remember following your COTC retrospective some time ago, though, @DarthDimi.
Yes, that's a good choice. For an actor that's never really been a star, he's managed to carve out a varied career. Some of my favourites being...
- The Squeeze (1977), a 70's crime thriller, cut from the same cloth as The Sweeney and Get Carter.
- Road Games (1981), a film heavily influenced by Hitchcock. To be more precise, it's heavily influenced by Rear Window.
- The Ninth Configuration (1981), a cult classic in every way, and deservedly so. It's also a rare chance to see Keach without his 'stache.
As well as the already mentioned, Gray Lady Down. And how could I forget the role he is perhaps most known for, Mike Hammer? 4 tv movies between 1984 to 1989 and the two tv shows, The New Mike Hammer (1984-1987), and Mike Hammer, Private Eye (1997-1998).
Well its Christmas, so I just watched my annual viewing of Where Eagles Dare, with a few (ahem) choice whiskeys. love it.
On Christmas Day I intend to watch OHMSS.
Quirky Christmas films I will watch, and this is purely down to nostalgia, they mean different childhood memory things to me.
'The Fearless Vampire Killers'
The ipcress File
Zulu
Monsieur Hulots Holiday
The Italian Job (original!)
Coincidence that 3 of them star Michael Caine!
<center><font color = darkblue size = 4>part 9/30</font></center>
<center><font color = darkblue size = 6>Batman & Robin (1997)</font></center>
Relax, I'm giving this film the finger too. But the whole point of this guilty pleasure series is that bad can be good too. And boy, ain't Batman & Robin one of the most obvious guilty pleasure films?
Holy melting ice cubes, Batman! There's a new villain in town. He calls himself Mr. Freeze. So bring your batskates and your batdefroster because as the man wisely puts it, everything freezes! Who would know that you're going to play diamond hockey in a museum, then rocket-launch yourself to space, then skydive back down - eh - from space, all because Victor needs diamonds to power up his search for a cure for his frozen wife Nora? Even worse, nature activist Pam Isley just found her blood replaced with pretty much all kinds of venom in a South American lab where she consequently teamed up with a dysfunctional monstrosity called Bane, perpetually doped up on venom too. She's on her way to Gotham now because she wants you to stop cutting down the rainforest. And she wants to mate with a refrigerator. Meanwhile in Wayne Manor, poor Alfred is dying and refuses any help but luckily he has a niece, Barbara, who pretends to be a good schoolgirl but is instead an underground street racer. While you and the Boy Wonder will fight over who gets the plant girl now known as Poison Ivy or whose bat credit card is the most loaded, Barb will assume the role of the barely masked Batgirl - Bruce, it's me, Barbara! - and aid in stopping Freeze from literally freezing Gotham. So suit up, nipples in place, and get out there, in the real world, a world made of plastic, bathing in fluorescence and built in the shape of giant statues.
Let's face it, Batman & Robin was never going to be good. Warner wanted something "toyific" and Batman Returns hadn't been that at all (though some pretty good action figures have recently convinced me otherwise). Batman Forever, however, had been a huge success in terms of BO takes and toy sales, so why not make the next Batman flick even more for kids with more villains and more superheroes and more vehicles and whatnot. For that to happen, it's best to not worry about a decent script at all. And apparently nobody did.
The big shame is that this movie actually uses some pretty tragic characters from the Batman universe. Both Freeze and Bane had, in comics as well as the animated Batman series, been given a lot of drama to cope with. Then there's Poison Ivy, one of the coolest and by far hottest of Batman's female adversaries, perhaps second only to Talia or, counting her as a villain, Catwoman. To make matters worse, the casting is completely off. Arnold certainly is imposing enough but Patrick Stewart, pre X-Men, would have been far better suited to play a tragic Freeze. Of course this film doesn't want a tragic Freeze. In fact, I can give Arnold some credit for playing along. His performance in this film is good in the sense that he knows what kind of film he's in. Uma Thurman, though Tarantino's muse, is almost always a tough sell for me. She's a peculiar kind of beauty yet hardly sexy. Point is, she's no Poison Ivy. Claire Forlani would have been so much better. But again, this is not that film. Uma overacts like crazy but perhaps that's what they wanted her to do.
George Clooney may very well be the worst Bruce Wayne and Batman we've ever seen! Keaton was terrific as both, Kilmer was an underestimated Batman but Clooney was Clooney. His saving grace is that in all the press material, he at least called the film out for what it is, a stinker. Chris O'Donnell was about 14 years too old to play Robin and that's a shame for he really isn't a bad actor. But Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl? Wow, who let her in? Okay, I'm not going with the whole "Fatgirl" thing. She was a girl of "substance" but hardly too fat. My complaint is that her acting in this film is unacceptable. When she's about to turn Ivy into compost, she strikes a pose that's laugh-out-loud bad. And Ivy is the one who gives women a bad name?
Batman & Robin lacks nuance, tension, plot. It's an incoherent collection of unfunny jokes, unexciting action scenes and overperfumed settings. Goldenthal's score feels like a note-for-note redo of his score for Batman Forever. Everybody - especially the heroes and villains - is dressed like the comic book version of the Village People. Seriously, this movie is held together by elements that assault all our senses. Batman & Robin is loud, psychedelically coloured and chaotic. Director Schumacher claims this film was forced upon him while he wanted a darker Batman film. Whether true or not, his 'apologies' are most welcome.
So when comes the part where I start defending this movie? How about right now. To make a long history short, in the 1950s some American Jesus Camp folks decided in their prudish wisdom that comic books demoralised the youth. Suddenly, the edge was taken out of them. Batman and his 'ward' Robin became parodies of their previous selves. For decades, the Batman comics were kept lighter in tone than the average newspaper funny. Then came the 1966 Batman series, starring Adam West. With even more pastiche and kiddy level comedy inserted, Batman became less intimidating than a box of cereal. Only since halfway through the 70s would brave comic book authors attempt to make Batman a bit edgier again. But despite being knee-deep in campy nonsense, Batman '66 became a beloved brand of its own. There are times when the camp can be fun, when the jokes can work, when the nonsense can put a smile on a Batman fan's face. In a sense, this is where Batman & Robin, though unintentionally in my opinion, finds its major strength. It could be seen as the 1997 tribute to the series many of us enjoyed as kids. Granted, no-one is this film is even half as cool as Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Julie Newmar, ... but the tone is pretty similar. Once I had reconnected with that distant memory from my childhood, once I had learned to love and embrace the 60s Batman for being the ugly duckling in the legacy of the Dark Knight, I suddenly saw amusing potential in Batman & Robin. Lest I be mistaken for actually thinking this is a good film, let me emphasise that this is not my favourite Batman. This isn't The Dark Knight Returns, this isn't the Bruce Timm animated series, this isn't Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. But a Bond fan sometimes feels like watching Austin Powers; a hardcore Batman fan like myself can likewise sometimes be indulged by Batman & Robin. It's nonsense from start to finish but it gets the joke. Whether you think the joke is funny or not is entirely up to you. I can enjoy the film for what it is in those rare moments where I'm not complaining about what it ain't.
"Hi Freeze. I'm Batman."
MY GUILTY PLEASURE RANKING
Great because it's actually not bad.
Last Action Hero
Dagon
Great because it's the best acid trip you ever had without acid.
The Avengers (1998)
Zardoz
Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance
Great because it's fun to see people go totally off the rails.
Showgirls
Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Batman & Robin
Great because I just happen to like these things and I'm not too proud to admit it.
G.I. Joe: The Movie
This film is just amazing and brutal and DiCaprio's character, Glass really suffers. Amazingly atmospheric and beautifully shot. The director, Alejandro G. Iñárritu has said he wants to do a Bond film? EoN give tge man the job no questions asked!
You can imagine the likes of Harry Callahan or Jack Reacher going through a similar situation and using their cunning and tough personality to survive.
"Now I have a machine gun, a shotgun, AND a rocket launcher! HO HO HO"
It's well known Bruce Willis worked as a Barman before getting his acting break. :)
Jay Oliva
If I can permit myself a degree of speculative latitude, I'd say many people will avoid this film on the simple basis of it being animated. That would be a tragic mistake. Frank Miller's seminal comic book miniseries, written in the late 80s, couldn't have been adapted any better than this. No wonder imdb scores both parts at 8.0 and 8.4 respectively, leaving all the live action Batman films except Nolan's behind The Dark Knight Returns.
Apart from the stunning voice work, there's also Christopher Drake's fabulous score and a script that in some scenes does a better job at telling the story than Miller's book. Furthermore, this isn't kid's stuff. The fights are violent, the issues pretty political, satirical and overall worth contemplating with an adult view on things. Bruno's bare bottom may have been covered up but the Swastikas over her nipples remain. The infamous Love Tunnel fight with Joker is pretty brutal and when Batman takes on the Mutant Leader, you can hear the bones crack. The filmmakers never held back.
I've watched both parts six times this year alone and still haven't grown tired of them. At the end of part 2 it's tough for me to repress some tears. I'm always pulled right into this film and I'm so engaged in the Superman versus Batman climax, I literally make a fist every time and hope that Batman with beat up the Kryptonian show-off real good.
Huge recommend!