Batman

****

Well… he made mistakes. Then he had his LIGHTS OUT! Now you wanna get nuts? Come on! Let’s get nuts!

Did I just review The Flash with co-star Michael Keaton (semi-)reprising his role as Batman/Bruce Wayne featuring the line, “You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts.”? Yes, yes I did. It was the the surprisingly decent Flash that made me wonder what I’d rated this Batman. THE Batman (not The Batman). Shockingly it turns out that I never rated it. I listened to Kevin Smith’s podcast about Batman for a long time, which included at least one watch-along. I remember watching Batman Forever on DVD during law school and being really disappointed, since I loved that movie when it came out (I was 13). This movie was too adult in my mind to have cared, at 7. Batman Returns, on the other hand I distinctly remember because of Catwoman and her unique look. Not from the movie, but from the Taco Bell cups and other cross-promotional merchandising associated with that movie. The question then was – would this film hold up?

Batman flies a plane with machine guns. Does that sound like it holds up? The director, Tim Burton, barely seems to have understood Batman, nor cared to really understand him. Does that sound ideal? Sam Hamm wrote the screenplay, not Burton, but the film is so atmospheric that it almost feels like the script was secondary. Danny Elfman’s all-time great Batman theme puts in a ton of work throughout the film. I want to talk about the casting, since that made a huge difference too. Gotham was not cast for this movie, but it is certainly one of the main characters. For me, despite major flaws as a movie and specifically as a Batman story, it is still worthy of 4 stars.

I have the least to say about the sets and art design simply because I lack the background to express why it strikes me as so atmospheric and great. If anything Gotham is better now than it was 34 years ago, because its basis, grimy 1980s New York City is gone. This version of Chicago is no more. The extra gothic and extra dark version of those places seems all the more striking now that those cities are closer to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies. It’s the detailed miniature work and mat paintings that do it for me. It is not that I dislike computer graphics, but this was the dark pinnacle of skills honed by filmmakers for almost 100 years.

As I said, to me the story is weak and the writing relies on excellent acting. Robert Wuhl, who was charming as Arli$$ on HBO, read the lines as written and presumably in the way Tim Burton wanted, and is terrible. He is supposed to be cheesy and light, with a little dash of ‘hey, this part is serious’ but it feels like it’s all (weak) text and no subtext. Jack Palance as Grissom suffers too, because he played it like a Jack Palance role. Even Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale, who manages to embody the impressive woman of the time (independent journalist), is limited by what she is stuck saying. The people who really elevate the film are it’s male stars: Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Keaton’s Bruce Wayne feels like a real character and his lines are delivered in a way that fits a man who is trying to play a certain role who lets his guard down a little. Keaton’s Batman is not perfect, but everything he did well was noted by those who followed him, and where there was room for improvement, others went for it. I can’t unwatch those performances, but Keaton’s Batman was very good. Nicholson’s Joker is not my favorite version, but it’s certainly Jack Nicholson’s Joker. The way his Jack Napier can sit in a chair and not command the focus, while that same character as the Joker demands it, really impresses me.

What tips the scales though is the music and specifically Danny Elfman’s Batman theme. It was used for my favorite animated series of all-time, Batman: The Animated Series, and presented essentially unchanged. Functionally, it took a comic book character and made him James Bond. No matter what had happened, when I heard that theme hit…it meant Batman was there. Bad dialogue? Dumb story? Inconsistencies with the comics? Out the window. In the same way that it does not matter if it’s Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton or Daniel Craig…when that theme hits – it’s Batman and that’s the best thing a Batman movie can really do because as a kid I loved Batman. Part of me still loves Batman and that means that an extremely positive emotion can be touched by art, or it can feel betrayed and lead to hatred.

After enjoying this movie and finding so much to analyze, I wanted to watch the others! I put on Batman Returns but couldn’t get past the first five minutes because it was awful and clearly not Batman. It was everything people disliked about Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory condensed into five minutes. Batman and Robin, on the other hand, was kind of Batman, but it was also aggressively and condescendingly dumb. It wanted to be modern Batman merged with 1966’s Adam West Batman and it failed at both. Those awful sequels helped me appreciate this movie so much more.

Airplane!

***

I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.

This is a great fount of quotes. But quotable movies are not always the best movies. Take Anchorman as an example. There are tons of funny and memorable quotes in that movie, but the story is weak and the characters seem absurd. I would say that the characters in this tend toward the absurd, but that the story is compelling. Having never seen the movies that this is satirizing, I may find the story more exciting than if I knew the bases of the parodies.

It is clearly a movie from the 1970s, even though it was released in 1980. As a product of the 70s a lot of it seems pretty offensive with 21st century eyes. My guess is that it was moderately offensive at the time as well. My biggest complaint about this movie is that it isn’t The Naked Gun. That is an unreasonable criticism and this movie clearly helped pave the way for the later adaptation of “Police Squad.” The biggest surprise in this is that its star, Robert Hays, did not go onto bigger things. Even Steve Guttenberg got big after Police Academy. Hays’ love interest, Julie Hagerty, had a little more success in her career, but she also did not hit those Guttenberg heights.

The movie is 41 years old now and 20 years ago I would have said that this was a must-see movie. While its significance in the annals of film history may be great, this is not Die Hard. Die Hard still holds up as a good movie, but has the weight of many copycats on its back. This is more like The French Connection, which no longer feels like a good movie but has influenced many very good movies.

Bloodsport

***

Very good. But brick not hit back!

Bolo Yueng as Chong Li

The end of this movie includes some amazing facts about its protagonist Frank Dux and his success in the secret international fighting circle known as “kumite.” You might look at the dates on this film and get the impression that Dux watched Enter the Dragon and then started to tell stories about himself in the role of Bruce Lee. From what I have read, that basically sums up what happened! But I learned that after I watched the movie. All I knew is that Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD) was a less than convincing Californian and that he fought against Bolo Yueng. You may recognize Bolo from being the #1 henchman in the movie ENTER THE DRAGON. I am just glad that the wonderful Bolo did not lose out on a role that was clearly designated for a “Bolo Yueng type.”

The gist of this based-on-a-false-story movie is that JCVD goes AWOL from the US military to compete in a kumite in Hong Kong to honor his master, who only taught his own son and JCVD the “death touch.” The story actually gets more absurd as the story continues in this narcissistic fantasy. The military sends two officers to bring him back because he is such a valuable asset. A (female) reporter investigating the kumite falls for him and they have sex. It is like if Bruce Lee did a bunch of cocaine and then tried to juice up Enter the Dragon so that he was even more amazing and desirible.

While the film is dishonest and its protagonist is excessively self-aggrandizing, there are positives too. JVCD’s charisma vacuum is at work, so he does not come across as self-centered or cocky. There are some good fights and the setting for their matches was quite interesting. Bolo Yueng was in the movie too. He was in both Enter the Dragon and Drunken Master, so usually his appearance in a film is a symbol of quality. He was probably the highlight for me in this movie.

Tootsie

***

Ron? I have a name it’s Dorothy. It’s not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll.

This is a film of its time. That is a phrase I use a lot when I talk about Bond movies. It’s worth noting that Ian Fleming never intended James Bond to be a hero, however he is the protagonist of those books. Of all of the Bond films none get “of its time” so often as Goldfinger does. When people hear Goldfinger they either think that it’s a classic and the pinnacle of the genre, or that it’s inexcusable sexist tripe. Maybe it’s both. I have no intention of stopping my rewatching of Bond movies, but I think that it is important to acknowledge their flaws before each viewing. Otherwise viewers will be more strongly influenced by the pull of an exciting story with a charismatic protagonist, and may empathize with his behavior, including the inexcusable parts.

Watching Tootsie in 2020 I expected to be offended by the insensitive premise—a male actor (Dustin Hoffman) disguises himself as a woman in order to get a role on a soap opera. Watching it I was not offended. Clearly the filmmakers wanted to make a non-offensive film and probably succeeded by 1982 standards. There are a few funny scenes and characters, but if you are going to watch this for the first time I recommend reading a modern review to understand how insensitive this film is.

If you do choose to watch it, I would draw your attention to the start of the film where you will be shown auditions from Dustin Hoffman and Teri Garr. Their representations of mediocre acting were very impressive. Mediocre acting is hard. It is easy to be terrible, for obvious reasons. Further I think it is easier for a great actor to be great, than to turn down their abilities from 100% to 80%, rather than going down to 40%. Maybe that is the real reason Hoffman got the Best Actor nomination for this film, but probably not.

Castle in the Sky

***

A girl just fell from the sky, boss!

Hayao Miyazaki is known as the greatest anime director of all-time. Technically this is his third feature film, but his second with creative control. It is natural to compare it to his prior film, Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind, so I will. Tonally this one fails to meet the bar set by Nausicaä. The ending is pretty good, but it’s just a bit too silly and the pirates do not make good heroes.

I watched this with the English language dubbing and it was not great. In particular, casting James Van Der Beek to voice a 10 year old worked very poorly. Anna Paquin was fine and so was Mark Hamill, but on the whole it was an element that took away from the film. I am glad this one was not as good, so that I will have a broader range of comparison for future Miyazaki/ Studio Ghibli films.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

****

It’s so beautiful. It’s hard to believe these spores could kill me.

Princess Nausicaä and Lord Yupa in a hidden spore garden.

Hayao Miyazaki is known as the greatest anime director of all-time. Technically this is his second feature film, after the wonderful Castle Cagliostro, which was a Lupin property. But that was an existing property and might not have been an accurate reflection of his skill. So, I wondered if he could come out of the gate that strong, or if it took him a long time to become such a master of his craft? Orson Welles’ first movie was Citizen Kane, but how many Orson Welleses can there be?

That said, this is a really good movie. It was much better and more engaging than I expected. It reminded me of his Princess Mononoke, but the main characters are both princesses who identify and support nature over humanity in a world of modernizing violence and destruction. Still, the stories are not the same and the princesses are distinctly different. If you like the other Miyazaki-Studio Ghibli films, then you should definitely watch this one.

Traditionally I favor subtitles over dubbing, which, as an adult watching a cartoon, I can no longer fully defend. As a new parent whose babies like to cry, I now need subtitles to hear when they yell and dubbing to hear when I cannot look at the screen. Most of the dubbed actors did a good job, Alison Lohman’s Nausicaä was great, as was Patrick Stewart’s Lord Yupa. Shia LaBeouf’s Asbel was only so-so and Mark Hamill’s Mayor of Pejite was jarring. That said, I would, for the first time in 20 years, recommend watching this movie with the dub.

Akira

*****

Kaneda, you’ve always been a pain in the ass, y’know. You’ve been telling me what to do since we were kids. You always treat me like a kid. You always show up and start bossing me around, and don’t you deny it!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had not reviewed this classic. THE anime that started the “Japanimation” craze, as it was called in the 1990s. The original US release was dubbed into English and people found it so complicated that they could not understand what was going on. Having seen that version with a buddy in high school I was excited to learn that there were intelligible subtitled versions available by the 2000s. The film is set in 2019, so it’s interesting to see writer-director Katsuhiro Otomo’s vision for the future, assuming that an explosion had devastated 1988 Tokyo, like a mini-nuclear bomb. Sadly, 2019 Neo-Tokyo seems like modern day US with violent riot police taking on protesters. Police brutality is commonplace there. And the government is disappearing people from the street. At least there are beings of amazing power to rationalize this. Oh, and the 2020 Summer Olympics were set for Tokyo, just like in real life.

Other than the quality of the film, what I remember most about it is yelling the names of the characters at a couple of my friends back in college. Tetsuo! Kaneda! Very rarely Akira! Often we would use a high pitched voice and say Tetsuku! That is how I started learning about Japanese suffixes. -kun being a term of affection. Everyone probably knows -sensei and has heard -san. But there is an even higher level of respect -sama. Or when you’re talking to a kid you would say -chan. OR at least that is how I remember it from almost 20 years ago.

One aspect that I forgot about was the amazing, driving soundtrack/score. The credit for that goes to Shôji Yamashiro. You may also know him from literally nothing else. He is the Harper Lee of film scores. Or Jeff Buckley, if you prefer that reference. His sound is so unique, probably because he never made any others, with the exception now of a 2017 short film.

The art is consistent with the manga, but occasionally there is just something very impressive for a film from the 1980s. All of this great art and music adds up to a story about massive power in individuals who don’t look like superheroes. They look like elderly children. The government is trying to keep them secret, to keep Akira, who is dead for most of the film, secret. When a young biker gang whose leaders are Kaneda and Tetsuo come across one of these special people, Tetsuo is changed and taken away by the government for testing. Kaneda and his gang, plus Tetsuo’s girlfriend Kaori, try to get him back. Others try to kidnap him or control him. All the while Tetsuo is mutating into potentially the next Akira, whose importance becomes clearer later in the film. Describing the movie reminds me of the ads for The Matrix that said “No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” That was untrue, but it may be true for Akira. Not only that, but Kaneda wears an iconic jacket with a red and blue capsule pill on the back. The Matrix is not a remake of Akira, in the way that A Fistful of Dollars is a remake of Yojimbo, but I can see how the film must have influenced the Wachowskis. The inventor of “Bullet Time” in The Matrix, John Gaeta, directly credits Akira as the artistic influence for the effect.

This strikes the perfect balance between comedy, drama, and action. It has the right amount of style and the right amount of substance. In two hours it does not try to cram 2,000 page of manga into it, but instead is somehow just the right amount of everything.

Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment

*½

It’s official, Captain Lassard. This is now the worst precinct in the entire city! Burglary up 25%, armed robbery up 30%, vandalism up 44%.

The first Police Academy was not good, but obviously it was profitable. The second Police Academy asks, what if we didn’t have a police academy in a movie called Police Academy? The answer is – something worse than Police Academy. For those Police Academy series completists, this movie has the debut of Zed–Bobcat Goldthwait. I had no memory of Zed starting out as a gang leader villain. In this movie he does the broken coiled spring really well. It shows that he had some true acting and comedic talent, hidden underneath all the yelling. It also has the first appearance of Proctor, who plays second fiddle to Lt. Mauser–Art Metrano–in this movie, but later to Lt. Harris, who is sadly missing from this movie.

Last time I said that if you had never seen a Police Academy movie, to not start with #1. I am going to go farther this time and say, even if you have seen one, to actively avoid #2. Other than the opening scene of Guttenberg’s Mahoney on a big police dune buggy on the beach, there is little worth watching.

Police Academy

**½

They all used to be the right color, the right height, the right weight. And they all had Johnsons, Lassard!

This movie came out in 1984. Kim Cattrall is in it, and I didn’t know who she was at the time because Sex and the City hadn’t come out yet. Also I was 2. The shocker for me in going back to this movie, the start of a family friendly series, was seeing that it was rated R. That R was for racism. In the film’s defense, I think the creators didn’t mean to be racist, but they were definitely comfortable with stereotypes in a way that resulted in racist jokes.

If I can identify one progressive thing about the movie, it’s that Commandant Lassard is not homophobic when he thinks that Mahoney—Steve Guttenberg—has given him oral sex and not the prostitute who had recently snuck out of the lectern. The film is preposterous, but within the confines of the premise that Mahoney can’t quit the academy or he goes to jail, and the Commandant has decreed that no-one shall be kicked out, there is room for shenanigans like this. Plus, Lassard gets revenge on Mahoney, so by the film’s logic all is fair by the end. I wonder if the Blue Oyster (Club) scenes were homophobic by 1984 standards. They definitely rely on a stereotype of the fear of aggressive homosexual men, but never cross the line into actually showing them as predators. If you have seen the movie, I bet you have that one song that is always playing on the jukebox there popping into your head.

I won’t sugarcoat this – the movie is bad, but the cast has some real gems. Cattrall displayed an understated charm that went really far in such an over the top movie. G.W. Bailey’s Lt. Harris (“Move it! Move it! Move it!”) was such a great villain that I am glad he came back for the rest of the series. I had a crush on Leslie Easterbrook’s Lt. Callahan, whose name and demeanor were a parody of Dirty Harry that I did not get until I finally saw Dirty Harry. Lastly, what would this film be without Michael Winslow’s Larvell Jones. His ability to mimic sounds might be unparalleled in the history of mankind. He showcased this skill just the right amount of times, in an odd instance of restraint by the filmmakers.

If you have managed to avoid watching any Police Academy movies, then I would recommend keeping it that way. For me there is an element of nostalgia and appreciation of how the characters started out, compared to their arcs over several movies. I actually gave this movie 8 (out of 10) stars on IMDb when I rated it almost 20 years ago. That said, watching this cold, without some good reason, would most likely be an unsatisfying experience.

Yeah, but…Amadeus

When I first started tracking my movies I had 22 years of film viewing to find five star movies to rewatch and rate. Within the first year I had given 12 movies 5 stars. In the 13 years since then I have rated 32 more movies 5 stars, this being 1 of them. 8 years ago I ranked Amadeus the 2nd best movie from 1980–1984, behind only The Empire Strikes Back. Now I look at it again to see how holds up.

The things I loved about it then I love about it now: Three main characters who are not black & white. The music, oh that music. Some consider the music to be a main character in and of itself (thanks Mario for pointing this out). The music might be the best thing about this great movie, although F. Murray Abraham’s voiceover and performance as Salieri in general are amazing. Jeffrey Jones is a polarizing figure because of his legal troubles, but his performance as the emperor has always captivated me—I still like to say “well, there it is” as his character does and nobody ever gets it. The movie sucks me in so deeply. That Salieri’s old person makeup does not look entirely convincing doesn’t matter, or it wouldn’t really matter to me in a play. And a play could not go so many places for quick scenes, although on Broadway the costumes may have been on par with these Oscar award winning designs (I assume, I am not even checking to see if this is true). Truly everything about this movie is excellent, but what makes it excellent is not always as readily visible as the beauty of the costumes.

For instance, which character are you? Who is the audience? Put another way, through whose eyes are we meant to see things? Milos Forman, or Peter Shaffer adapting his own play, adds a priest who seeks Salieri’s confession in the insane asylum. Salieri’s story takes almost 24 hours to tell and basically rumples the priest before our eyes. So are we then rumpled and crushed by the film? Despite it having Mozart’s death and Salieri’s life in an asylum the film ends on a very high note as Salieri acts the part of a priest and pardons his fellow mediocrities. He labels himself their patron saint. In his mind G-d tormented him by giving him enough talent and skill to fully appreciate Mozart’s superiority over him. This ties into a fundamental problem that many films dealing with geniuses face—how do you demonstrate genius? One way is by having a lot of stuff on chalkboards and Russell Crowe acting weird, which was the A Beautiful Mind route, which works for some people. Amadeus presents a much more refined and elegant way. The prodigy montage was pretty standard, but even before that the film defines Salieri as well above average, but somehow forgotten; he was a fallible person who rose to astonishing heights, respected by seemingly everyone around him. In the first scene with the priest he plays two songs that he claims were very popular, which elicit no recollection from the younger priest. But when he plays Mozart the priest can recognize it and actually finish the song, calling it “charming”. Just like that Mozart’s work is timeless while Salieri’s is not. No offense, but most people are not doing timeless work, I certainly am not. Would I consider my work better than average? I would like to think so, which means I should relate far better to Salieri than Mozart. Next take this secretly relatable character and show him seem slow; have him show shock when confronted with Mozart. Even as Mozart seems hours from death, his mind can still work faster than Salieri’s brain or fingers. Lastly they reinforce this message with an incredible score. Jeffrey Jones’s emperor, who is very mediocre at everything avoids becoming the relatable character by virtue of him being a freaking emperor and thus out of touch with reality.

That was a lot for a review of this size. I did not include how Mozart’s wife Constanze fits into this, but I feel that her character does not see enough to be that anchor. Fortunately she is presented, as Mozart is as well, as human and flawed. She is neither an opportunistic gold digger, nor is she Virgin Mary meets pre-prison Martha Stewart.

While the movie is called Amadeus, as was the play it was based on, the artistic source for the Salieri-killed-Mozart theory comes from Pushkin, who almost certainly took a popular rumor and turned it into a much less subtle short play—Salieri openly poisons Mozart. But one thing that I have taken for granted, as most audiences have been trained to do, is that what I am being shown is true. Well, true within the confines of the world established by the film. For instance, when you feel annoyed at James Caan for not believing in Santa Claus in Elf that is because the movie presents Santa as factual. With that setup notice that 98% of this film is a presentation of Salieri’s memory. Or at least the way he chooses to relay this memory to a priest asking him to confess if he truly was responsible for Mozart’s death. Salieri is a man who thought G-d killed his father as a gift so he could make heavenly music. Why would you trust Salieri? Salieri is a man who maligned Mozart behind his back to the Emperor, and maligned the court behind their back to Mozart. Why would you trust Salieri?? Is the film even trying to posit what is being shown was factual by having such an unreliable and untrustworthy narrator? The film is historical FICTION, but as with Santa, in its world there must be some truth, but is Salieri’s version true even in those terms?

Lastly, you might wonder, why does a rich man like Salieri wind up in an asylum? The reason for this is that he had tried to commit suicide, which under Catholicism is a mortal sin and if successful lands you in hell. Only a crazy person would try to go to hell. And when I say crazy it is important to note that in the 18th century (and well into the 19th century) the prevailing theory of insanity and mental illness was that it was a choice. Thus the key to curing insanity was to present sanity as tolerable and insanity as intolerable. That is why you see someone in a tiny metal box and someone collared to a wall so that he could not sit. It is a small part of this movie, but I thought it was an interesting touch.