Holy whips and chains, Batman!

NOTE: THIS POST IS ONLY ABOUT THE MOVIE (NOT ANY OF THE REAL LIFE MADNESS/ SADNESS THAT UNFOLDED AROUND THE MOVIE). 

The movie has been out for a while now. It probably would have been more timely to publish this a week ago. By now, though, more people have seen the movie. I try to make jokes that would be funny if you haven't seen the movie.

BUT THERE ARE SPOILERS. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING GIVEN AWAY.

SETTING THE STAGE: EXPOSITION THAT LASTS FOREVER

Before things really happen... the makers of this lay the groundwork for thirteen different story-lines.  

When the movie starts, Batman hasn't been seen for 8 years and Bruce Wayne has become a emo recluse. He limps around the manor in his pajamas practicing archery in the attic. For serious. He is super pathetic looking and has an awful sad looking goatee.

Meanwhile, everyone is super psyched that Gotham is at peace. There is peace everywhere! They are silly with it. Soon we won't need police-men because there is so much peace!!!

The first twenty minutes of dialogue are basically citizens of Gotham asking how things could possibly go wrong!!?

We've SEEN the trailer. We KNOW things are going to go wrong. Its kind of why we are here. Rather than be bludgeoned to death with foreshadowing- how about some more fight scenes, or cool gadgets, or Morgan Freeman, or Morgan Freeman doing a fight scene. No? Everyone gets an emo monologue instead? Cool.

Anyway, Catwoman steals some pearls from Batman.

This act of of petty thievery makes Bruce Wayne shave off his stank ass goatee (THANK YOU, CATWOMAN) and explore the city (which is peaceful!). 

He finds that his selfish pining has landed his company in the toilet and orphans are living in sewers because of him. 

Also, everyone he loves is still dead.

STUFF HAPPENS 

The plot is driven forward once again by Catwoman doing awesome things.

She dazzles everyone with her sneaky schemey brain and kicks everyone who stands in her way in the face. Awesome.

While Bruce Wayne is being a useless feeb- Catwoman is kicking so much ass. About 94% of the badassitude in this movie is provided by Anne Hathaway. It should be called Catwoman: A Tale of Awesome Air-Kicks.

At one point, she and Batman are both fighting Bane's thugs. Randomly during the fight, Batman knocks the gun out of Catwoman's hands and chastises her for using it. I'm pretty sure it is supposed to be a nod to Batman's history of being anti-gun in the comics but it carries significantly less weight in the movie when all of Bruce Wayne's vehicles come equipped with CANNONS. 

ALSO- Catwoman has an awesome lesbian subtext (AND NO ONE CAN TELL ME OTHERWISE). When Catwoman isn't being a brilliant adorable ninja- she is in the company of some nameless urchin she has taken under her wing. She is protective of random urchin and lives with her in her little hovel. GAY!

BATMAN: "Wait...... what?"

THERE IS THIS RANDOM WOMAN...

Some woman keeps popping up trying to get Bruce Wayne to support her clean energy project. The woman is played by Marion Cottilliard so she is PROBABLY significant in the future (even though Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are in this movie and are completely pointless). But, I guess, whatever for now....

BANE

Bane lives in the sewers with his occupy Gotham posse. Bane is made of muscles and only wears leather and kevlar and wears a mask you would normally only see in a nightmare. The screenwriters, however, really want to drive home that he is a bad guy so he murders some people at random to establish his villainy. (WE GET IT!)

There is so much peace that the new police strategy in new Peaceful Gotham is to not chase bad guys. All they do is hop down the sewers and they escape. Gordon is a renegade and plays by his own rules (i.e. actual police rules) and finds out there are a crap-ton of people living in the sewers with guns.

Also, Bane sounds like a bad Sean Connery impression. 

BATMAN RETURNS?

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne is still trying to solve the mystery of who Bane is... and what he wants. He doesn't figure much out. Alfred, however, is like some sort of super-villain wikipedia and looks up everything there is to know about him.

"All I need to fight crime is my batsuit and my serious face"

Bane seems bad and emo Bruce Wayne sighs deeply and decides to be the Batman again. Alfred rightly points out that you need muscles to be Batman but Bruce Wayne is all like, "Whatever, Alfred. I've done this before, I think I know what I'm doing!"

You listen to Alfred, whippersnapper!

Anyway- cue Batman's badass return to the scene. He's out to stop Bane from doing... something. 

(Bruce Wayne isn't awesome at solving mysteries in this movie).

Bane shoots up the exchange and Wall Street people and despite earlier established villainy-- EVERYONE IS TOTALLY ROOTING FOR HIM. Like, he just shoots some people point blank in the face and as far as I can tell and no one in the audience cared. The Wall Street Suits are later used as HUMAN SHIELDS and people still don't care. The police don't even care. They are chasing after Batman. Even Batman makes almost NO effort to save them.

RANDOM WOMAN BECOMES RELEVANT!

Random woman (Marion Cottilliard) takes over Bruce Wayne's fusion reactor which can power all of Gotham with clean free sustainable energy (but can also be weaponized) so he didn't turn it on. 

BANE MAKES HIS MOVE

Bane shows up at the Wayne Enterprises board meeting and steals the reactor and uses it to give Gotham free sustainable energy. 

JK- he totally uses it for evil.

Also, that shoot out at the stock exchange, stealing all of Bruce Wayne's money, and a couple of random scenes with Catwoman-- that was all to gain access to the fusion reactor. With Bruce Wayne gone, Bane could replace him with his people. I like how Bane is a violent terrorist and just shoots and kills people to get what he wants but in order to get a fusion reactor- it is imperative that he gain majority access on the shareholder's board. 

BATMAN FIGHTS BANE AND LOSES SO HARD

It is hard to watch.

They have a pity party over who had a tougher childhood. 

I'm guessing the guy who has to wear a mask in order to breathe.

Batman is then banished to the Middle east to learn how to be less of a pussy.

The Middle East.

Bane blows up a football field (and the mayor) and lays siege to the city. He can basically do all of this because he trapped the entire police force underground. 

JUST TO REVIEW...

So, just to review: Batman is in the middle east, the people of Gotham are just being assholes, the entire police force is just chilling underground, and the outside world is completely useless. 

And it is like this for a LONG TIME.

Winter happens.

CUT TO THE MIDDLE EAST

So Bruce is in the  Middle East to re-learn how to be a badass and it takes him FOREVER. He is in a giant pit with other forgotten rabble. It isn't really guarded- it is just impossible to escape. Getting out of the pit requries an impossible jump that no one has ever made-- oh, except a child did it this once.

Bruce Wayne's time in the middle east is basically a montage of him doing sit-ups and pull-ups while he is told the story of this little child who made the jump. Two magical arabs tell him the story.

The reason the child made the jump is that their life was filled with pain and hatred. Growing up in the pit, the child was surrounded by darkness, sickness, and the worst parts of man. The child had nothing to loose. Bruce Wayne lost both his parents as a child and fell down a well once so he figures that is practically the same thing.

Bruce Wayne makes the climb. 

(*Also, for someone only eating gruel, he certainly bulked up during his time in the pit.)

When he emerges, he negligently tosses a rope down into the pit. Did that free everyone from the pit? It is unclear!

Also unclear- how the FUCK Bruce got back to Gotham city from the friggin Middle East.

Sooooo... Batman's major action sequence is climbing out of a giant well.

THERE IS A BOMB THREAT BECOMES RELEVANT STARTING.... NOW!

Suddenly, the bomb is a threat. Like, it was a threat before now but now it is even more of a threat.

A SERIES OF EPIC FIGHTS

For anyone who thought this movie was going to be pro-occupy, they would be seriously dissapointed. Bane uses the same rhetoric as the Occupy Movement does and is against pretty much the same things but he is a violent psychopath. His vision for Gotham is one of chaos and violence.

This is actually a candid shot.

The movie doesn't really paint cops in a great light- but the people who stand up to Bane are the cops and in the end it feels very pro-cop.

Bane fights Batman. Batman tries to redeem himself but it is Catwoman who dispatches Bane (with an effing CANNON).

EVACUATING GOTHAM

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is tasked with evacuating Gotham which is no easy task since Gotham is a metropolis. 

First place Levitt goes to is the boys home to rush the orphans to the bus and then he goes to the NOWHERE ELSE.

He pulls four orphans aside and tasks them wtih knocking on as many doors as you can in 15 minutes within a two block radius of the bus.

THAT is his EVACUATION PLAN.

If you are in the other 98% of the city, you don't even get a heads up.

And if you do happen to be in that 2 block radius- your warning is a street urchin hollering at you to go to the bridge because Batman said so.

Surprisingly, no one listens to them and the 13 orphans are the only ones to leave on the freedom bus.

You guys, The city is under siege! 

I wouldn't open the door for Batman.

So... super ineffective evacuation plan.

GETTING RID OF THE BOMB

For what is supposedly a mega-unstable substance, it actually seems to be the most durable device ever. While attempting to manuever that reactor out of the city, it gets flung against the ground, shaken up in a bus, and smashed against several walls before it is airborne. It explodes off the coast having no effect on life at all.

Batman sacrifices his life for the city.

And thus the movie ends not with a bang but with a whimper.

SO IN THE END...

Wrong is righted? 

The movie manages to be anti-establishment, anti-rich, and anti-rabble. 

If you are ever in trouble, don't count on the cops or the government or your neighbors or even your local super-hero (he might be to busy pining over his dead girlfriend).

Was the lesson that everyone is awful and pointless?

Also- renewable energy is bad because it can be weaponized (which someone rightfully pointed out is becoming a disturbing theme in movies...).

The only thing that seems to be good are orphans and sexy ninja thieves.

...And I was already on Team Hathaway.

I am awesome.

WHAT DID TAYLOR SWIFT EVER DO TO YOU?

There is a movie coming out based on Sheila Weller’s book “Girls Like Us.” It is the story of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Carol King and the kickass stuff they did.

Taylor Swift is rumored to play Joni Mitchell and some people are FURIOUS.

My favorite article was titled “Taylor Swift to Potentially Ruin Another Thing.”

Strong words.

It is just a blurb but a paragraph is sufficient enough for this man to vent his horror and rage. 

The title of this article suggests that Swift has ruined other things. I don’t know what other things Taylor Swift has destroyed in her quest to ruin this man’s life. Her cover of "Lose Yourself?" Whatever it is, he has been profoundly affected by the actions of TSwift.

Joni Mitchell played a huge role in this man’s life. When he first heard the amazingness that is Joni he says it was “like some astral stranger crawling out of the speakers and wrapping you in a bittersweet embrace.”

That is a pretty intense reaction to have to something playing on the overhead speakers at Starbucks.

That kind of experience probably ranks up there with that time he was rocked by the genius of Maya Angelou. Sure it was just a quote on a coffee cup (but spiritual awakenings can happen anywhere!).

I'm not saying he is wrong to not like T Swizzle. 

It is okay to not like Taylor Swift.

While I cannot conceive of a reason you would hate this adorable angel child, you do have every right to hate her. 

That is your opinion and I can never take that away from you.

It is hilarious to me, however, that a 22 year old girl child can ruin your life (and all that you love) so easily. That her pretending to be Joni Mitchell would negate those powerful "emotional experiences" you had. 

If this is the case, biopics are probably destroying this man's life! ("Gandhi? Yeah, I used to be a fan-- until that jerk, Ben Kingsley, went and messed everything up. He ruined non-violence for me.")

He begrudgingly admits that Swift “writes fun pop songs and seems like a nice enough young lady” which is nice concession on his part. He stands his ground, though: “but Joni Mitchell she is not nor will ever be.” (*italics added to emphasize vehemence!)

To clarify, she will be pretending to be Joni Mitchell. It is not as if she will BECOME Joni Mitchell (the key is to eat her albums. Its how you gain her power!)

He then goes on to call her a “deer fetus” which, despite my affection for Taylor Swift, is pretty funny. 

I like it because it is so insanely absurd and because it doesn't quite work as an insult.

I understand how Taylor Swift could be thought of as a fragile adorable faun AND that she is young (ergo fetus). But for some reason the combination of these two insults doesn’t really make sense. What is he really insulting? The power of insults lay in their remarkable specificity. "Deer fetus" is more like a weird nickname your friend gives you.

He calls her an "1820s deer ghost" (hysterical!) in an earlier article, which is a slightly more effective insult.

You would think he could muster up something more scathing, though, for someone who is destroying everything he loves. 

He goes on: “Who is going to play Carly Simon, Selena Gomez?”

God, I hope so. 

Actually, no. I hope Taylor Swift plays ALL the parts (that would make him furious!).

Writer-man suggests Mia Wasikowska for the roll of Joni Mitchell because she is a good actress who looks like Joni Mitchell and MORE IMPORTANTLY she hasn’t ever released awesome songs about boyfriends and dreams! 

“Plus, (Mia Wasikowska) already played a character named Joni.”

How… is this a point?

If this were a standard by which we cast people in movies then, yes, Selena Gomez really would be a horrible choice for Carly Simon because clearly, that role would be destined for Miranda Cosgrove (that other Disney Channel superstar. She plays Carly on iCarly). 

(NOTE: No one age-appropriate has played a character named Carol- but I want them to cast Amandla Stenberg from “Hunger Games” because she is ADORABLE.)

Basically he is upset that Taylor Swift is popular and therefore couldn’t possibly portray the amazing genius of Joni Mitchell and everyone knows that all profound and meaningful music is locked away in the past where it is protected by nostalgia and fairies.

That isn’t to say Joni Mitchell’s music isn’t profound and meaningful. She was (and is) amazing. She was a voice of her generation.

You realize, though, if she debuted today, people would DESTROY her.

That same amazing music (that so affected everyone) would be picked apart by hordes of faceless critics who peddle their opinions as incontrovertible truths. 

When she sold her album in Starbucks, she would be crucified! Anything profound she had ever sung about would suddenly be derided as hypocritical and meaningless (because Starbucks is a huge fan of paving paradise and putting up parking lots).

And, if somehow, she overcame all those haters and became successful she would obviously be a sell-out because she had the gall to achieve mass appeal (and everyone knows that anything popular is garbage!).

And God help her if she had the audacity to consider a lead role in the “Taylor Swift” story.

Ugh, she would be such a deer fetus.

*PS: if you didn't click on that T Swizzle link... do it. It's not too late. 

"I've grown up a lot since before dinner."

- Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles is one of my favorite galleries because a) they sell affordable and awesome prints and b) they have exhibits that pay tribute to comedians, famous books, video games, and one of my favorite movies of all time "Wet Hot American Summer." View the prints here and the paintings here. The fact that this exhibit exists says to me that you really can do anything you want. Anything.

- My obsession with The Hairpin continues with "Taglines for Romantic Comedies that will never exist."

- The current issue of "Under the Radar." The theme is "Music vs Comedy" but really it is a wicked awesome fusion of the two. There are interviews with comedians who sing, singers who do comedy, and awesome pictures of comedians dressed as musicians. To the left is Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson from "Parks and Recreation"). Another picture I remember was Ty Burrell (from "Modern Family") as Joni Mitchell. Classic.

- "Best Songs of 2011 to Air Guitar To While Naked In Your Room." You can start to see that I have an affinity for remarkably specific lists.

- Second to lastly, everyone should be listening to the "Nerdist" podcast. Chris Hardwick is fast becoming my new hero celebrating all things comedy and nerdy alike. He just interviewed Zooey Deschanel and it is delightful. My favorite interviews include: Drew Carey, Maria Bamford, Felicia Day, Donald Glover, Mike Birbiglia, Kevin Smith, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and THE MUPPETS! Listening to this podcast is one of the things that finally made me start doing open-mics. It is pure nerd inspiration.

and lastly... this:

"Green With Envy" Trailer/ YOU GUYS, IT'S THE 'MUPPET MOVIE!!!!

Comics have 100% more stories about people punching sharks with hammers

I saw "Thor" last night and it was awesome.

Frankly, my expectations were quite low, because even though the amazing Kenneth Branagh was directing, there were so many things that could have gone wrong.

- He travels to earth via the bifrost-- which is a rainbow bridge. That could have looked ridiculous. Instead, it was epic and I want one.

- As hilarious as old-timey viking language is, it could have been over done. It turns out that I never get tired of Thor calling everyone around him a puny mortal.

- I thought that Natalie Portman was a bizarre choice. Didn't know if she would add anything to the movie. I was wrong to doubt her.

I really liked "Thor" and I think other people will find it just as epic.

If I can nerd out for a second, though, I just want to say that comics are awesome. In Hollywood's recent rush to cash in on the comic industry, some of the adaptations have been pretty awful. You would think Hollywood could produce a basic hero movie (especially given the budgets some of these movies have) but clearly that is not the case.

There are all kinds of comics (or graphic novels if you are a snob) and there is some great storytelling that just flourishes in the comic medium. Recently, I've been obsessed with Marvel and which just looks at every possible variation of the heroic struggle. One of the best stories I have ever read, however, is "Y the Last Man." I recommend it to everyone.

Even those who don't think they like comics, when they look deep within their heart--they find that there is something. If you like snark, underdogs, wonderdogs, justice, philosophy, heroes, romance, robots, or laser beams-- then you probably like comics.

Also, "Thor" reignited my excitement for "the Avengers" movie. Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America come together and battle some epic baddy. What is even better is Joss Whedon not only wrote the script-- but is directing the movie.

Whedon was behind "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Firefly", and "Dr.Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog." The man has a knack for storytelling and creating amazing characters.

He also has a reputation for killing those amazing characters.

And getting fired.

(if you can't read the comic, click here to go to the original)