Well, Michael Keaton isn't exactly a bronzed Adonis. And Pattinson is a terrible choice, regardless of his opinion on working out. Casting Pattinson as Batman is bad casting. On a par with Tom Cruise's ill-fated bid to succeed Roger Moore as James Bond. I predict a box office bomb.

It's kind of ironic, because there are plenty of schlubby roles for men. Just not the hunky lead. Go for character parts, dude.

Dude, it's Batman, not Fatman.

He also has stated in previous interviews that he doesn't shower on a regular basis and won't wear deodorant. Must be a real treat to work close ups with him.

No sense trying to be a better person when being a lazy slob is now a virtue.

Wokeness is indeed about being lazy and self-centered. The protests against body shaming and "performative femininity" represent this perfectly. Just search for photos of a feminist protest: ugh. Being in good shape and looking good is good for you. Being a lazy fat shlub tells people you have no will power and don't care. Looking at someone's appearance does indeed tell you a lot about them. Someone who is fit and not fat will avoid (or reduce the severity/risk of) diabetes, heart disease, knee problems, osteoporosis, fatty liver disease (which can kill by the way), and others. Having more energy enables you to do more with your life.

> Pattinson as Batman is bad casting

Mr. Pattinson has always spoken highly of your work, Patrick.





Y'know...

My generation saw a high number of very good and interesting films in the 1970's, commercially successful ones. And if I'm remembering those (teen) years correctly, and maybe not, we all knew that it was something of a golden age for Hollywood, if not THE golden age.

Star Wars was released the week I graduated high school. And smarter people than me immediately pointed out that it was over… That whatever its charms, this outer-space-man trend was not about human beings in the same way that The Godfather and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest had been.

And people smarter even than those — meaning, specifically, investors and their bankers — saw that the global box office for Star Wars portended an important new flow of revenue, one not to be clogged by films with emotional complexity or specifically American characteristics… Stuff like resistance to authority, feminism (and femininity), liberty defended by violence, entrepreneurial enthusiasm, and so forth.

So I was perfectly years-old to be surprised by what happened in the decades to follow… Which was that even the brightest people, those attuned to human history as well as Hollywood history, were taking those stupid little movies, and their mundane plot points, FAR too seriously. They'd find far too much insight in the victory of the Klingons over the Death Star in the battle of Mucus Galaxy in Episode XIV, and on and on. They engaged the machina stupidities of what had essentially been satire as something like gospel. These were people who knew more Shakespeare than you & I put together.

And if you & I are going to be put together, please take a shower first.

It's amazing that adults of any sort, and not just women, try to find meaning and connotation in these super-hero special-effects franchises, which are designed with scientific expertise to appeal to addled, twelve-year-old boys.

Hollywood movies meant THAT MUCH to people. They put up with it. It's like being married to a woman who sleeps with your best friend. But she's still really pretty....




WGAF if some actor skips the weight room?

Well, Michael Keaton isn't exactly a bronzed Adonis. And Pattinson is a terrible choice, regardless of his opinion on working out. Casting Pattinson as Batman is bad casting. ~ Patrick at May 17, 2020 12:49 AM

IDK. Adam West was able to make a schlubby Batman work. George Reeves wasn't exactly an Adonis playing Superman either. Whoever plays Batman also needs to play Bruce Wayne, a part that does not call for an Adonis type, but for a rich socialite type.

I haven't watched Pattinson in anything. I looked him up in IMDb and understand why. I refuse to watch anything from the Twilight series after giving up on the first movie five minutes in. Vampires with sparkly skin? Please. The rest of his filmography looks equally idiotic.

Besides, I've given up on superhero movies. The last thing I want is to see another origin story. Enough already. We get it. Does every reboot have to replay the same story? His parents were killed and he set out to avenge them.

What made The Godfather work is they saved the origin story for the sequel and gave us the badass Vito Corleone in the premier, leaving us to wonder how he became the capo; a tale to be told in the second movie.

I simply got tired of paying money and sitting still for two hours to watch a movie that, 25% of the time, was going to disappoint me anyway. I don't enjoy watching movies at home the way I used to, either.

And I think this is worth repeating.
__________________________________

I swear it was Fran Lebowitz who said - though I can't seem to track this down:

"There are some things that are simply too lightweight to bear criticism. Movies, for example, and, of course, rock and roll."

At any rate, I managed to stop talking about either of those subjects (except with fellow diehard fans and in similar online forums) by age 25 or so. Not a minute too soon. From what I've heard from moderate/conservative columnist Alex Beam, it's become common for educated adults to talk very seriously, at parties, about critically praised cable TV shows - as if they were on the same level as critically praised books! I REFUSE to do that...even if it's true that, as they say: "TV is better than the movies these days."

I kind of want to see the movie Fatman...

WGAF if some actor skips the weight room?

One of the directors? Ra's al Ghul?? besides, they can fix it in CGI.

As I stated in the linkies page some days ago, I probably would skip this until it comes out for free on the IMDB.tv channel.

I've been semi-binging the A-Team. I never realized that Dirk Benedict was not Face in the 2 hour pilot. That role was performed by Tim Dunigan, but he was thought to be too young - born in 1955 - and so the role passed on to the older Benedict.

Agree with Crid. I read about Joaquin Phoenix taking MONTHS to “get into character as the Joker,” and I can’t imagine he was more entertaining than Cesar Romero, who took the character so seriously he didn’t even bother to shave his moustache, letting the makeup department put greasepaint over it. He just showed up and cackled. And he was wonderful.

For the record— I'm not saying Patrick is wrong! And the films one cares about are one's own business, always!

And let the most pretentious of us, AHEM, make this clear; ALL the films a person cares about are silly. Yours… Mine… Even Conan's, though I agree with every word he says above. Beloved films are personally silly, always.

But the shift in direction for so much of Hollywood's product was jarring to people my age and older, while youngerfolk —including smug intellectuals— just went along with it: 'Why yes, certainly... Women and others with gentle tastes *should* expect to be entertained by inane violence composed for witless 12yo boys... After all, who wouldn't want to see the skyline of New York City (Chi, SF, LA, Syd, Tok, Par etc.) destroyed 500 times with convincing animation?'

...inane violence composed for witless 12yo boys... ~ Crid at May 17, 2020 8:39 PM

That's the main audience for movies today. That and foreign markets.

The problem with creating movies for both domestic and foreign markets, especially China and other parts of Asia, is that in-depth explorations of modern society fall flat in non-Western markets. The folks there just don't get the cultural references and subtleties. So, movies cannot have subtle nuances in them. They must be obvious in order to cross cultural barriers. Things must explode.

I hadn't given much thought to the genesis of this, but Star Wars is probably as good a starting point as any. It certainly helped to usher in the blockbuster movie mentality. I'd also explore Jaws and Die Hard as culprits.

Well, America has its Batman and it spans any number of markets.

Wuhan must have a bat man specifically for their market, albeit wet, and now we all get to enjoy his work.

Interesting analysis on the US film industry. It implies there is room for a new domestic market participant. A Nashville of movies if you will.