Ten Statements About....BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997)

Boy, those attempts to make the NHL appeal to new
viewers have gotten...weird.

"In the universe, there is only one constant...everything freezes."

1) The best way--some would say the only way--to view this movie is by accepting that this is a film that has surrendered itself so totally to the marketing department that it has ceased to have any connection to character, place or reality. This film is not so much telling us a story but stringing a long succession of scenes together in the hope of getting us to buy stuff.

2) Poor George Clooney, cast at the last minute, is obviously overtired throughout the film, sporting a perpetual five o'clock shadow. Yes, he tries very hard to keep up his energy, but he fails to give us anything more than a Batman who seems to have hit the vicodin a lil' too hard. That being said....

3) His best moments, and the best moments in the film, are the ones between him and Michael Gough as Alfred. There's a genuine connection between the two, so much so that you believe wholeheartedly that this is not employer and employee, but father than son. It is the through line between the two that provides what little grounding this film has...at least until the whole 'Oh, noes, I gots da McGregor disease' development drops Alfred from the second half of the film.

In her off-time, Alicia Silverstone looks for an earlier
version of the script that actually makes sense while
pretending to have a stroke...

4) Here's something heretical--yes, Arnold Schwarzeneggar's incessant ice puns do detract from the movie, but there are some lines of dialogue that Mr. Freeze has that actually make sense and would have been effective if, you know, it wasn't being muttered by a guy with a thick Austrian accent who looks so much bigger than the Clooney Batman that he wouldn't need a suit of armor designed for a Broadway musical to beat his ass. It's those blink-and-you-miss-it brief moment that make me think that yes, at one point, there was a movie that would have been entertaining.

5) Movie, just because you can drag Vendela and Viveca A. Fox and Coolio into your orbit for a few moments in nothing roles doesn't mean you should have.

6) And while we're on the subject, movie...when Elizabeth Sanders' Gossip Gerty and the Neon Skull Gang have both more screen time and more lines of dialogue than Commisioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara, you're very severely flawed.

7) I'm absolutely convinced that of all the people involved in this movie, Uma Thurman was the only one who realized how far down a hole this film was falling and threw all caution to the wind. It's the only way I can explain how she chose to play Poison Ivy as Mae West.

8) You know what the problem is with Alicia Silverstone in this movie? It's that, as an actress, she seems incapable of being serious without doing these weird gurning movements with her face. Watching her emote as Barbara Gordon is like watching a claymation version of her; between the wiggling of her eyebrows and the chewing of her lips from side to side, she comes off as a grotesque.

"You know, in a previous incarnation, I was actually
articulate..."

9) Good job taking Bane, a character who is even more overtly the dark mirror of the Batman, someone whose intelligence and strength embody the nature to Batman's nuture, and turning him into a monosyllabic bull in a china shop.

No, wait. NO IT ISN'T.

10) That total lack of reality I cited in statement one extends to this version of Gotham, which simply is a city that Can Not Possibly Exist. There is no sense of place, just a bunch of crazy items (statues that hold buildings up miles over the street! Insane asylums that have cages up on bridges over the ocean! Factories that are condemned yet still have vats of non-decayed, still soft ice cream out in the open air!) that facilitates set pieces.

Overall...this is not the Worst Movie Ever. It's not even The Worst Superhero Movie Ever (anyone who lobs that charge at this film hasn't seen, among other things, Pumaman or Ghost Rider--yes, Munn, I said it). What it is is a gigantic mess of ulterior motives, bad decisions and miscues drawn together in what has to be a perfect storm of nonsense. Could be worth watching as an example of a franchise crashing down under its own weight.

Ten Statements About....FROM DUSK 'TIL DAWN (1995)

Do you know how much willpower it takes to look away
from Aztec Bikini Salma Hayek?

"I'm peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster. Except for the fact that I just...I just rammed a wooden stake into my brother's chest because he turned into a vampire, even though I don't believein vampires. Aside from that unfortunate business, everything is hunky dory."

1) You know, this may be the greatest Tarantino performance ever. Save for one speech at the beginning, he doesn't speak much, he gets frequently knocked around and coldcocked, and is killed halfway through.

Yep. Greatest performance ever.

2) How perverse is it that Texas Ranger Earl McGraw's first appearance results in his demise?

3) I love how Rodriguez and Tarantino cast some of characters against type--thus, George Clooney is a Parker-esque bad-ass, and Harvey Keitel is a disillusioned minister--and we're not even touching upon how two of the three Cheech Marin parts are waaaay against type.

4) Man, when Salma Hayek does her Aztec Bikini dance, its like the entire film just holds its breath. And that's how it should be.

Because plain ol' Danny Trejo wasn't scary enough...

5) Give it to Robert Rodriguez for finding a way to make Danny Trejo scarier--because what's scarier than Danny Trejo looking to fuck you up than a vampire Danny Trejo looking to fuck you up.

6) Speaking of Clooney's Seth and Keitel's Jacob--I really like how their relationship develops. Over the course of this film, these two men develop a respect for each other, and through this respect become transformed--Jacob by reconnecting with his faith, and Seth by slowly leaving his rage behind and becoming a somewhat better man...a better man that knows damn well not to drag Julliette Lewis' Kate down the pre-destined road he's on.

7) A lot has been written about how this film takes a sudden u-turn into horror territory after Salma's Aztec Bikini Dance. The reason I think that sudden switch is so effective is because Rodriguez and Tarantino keep both genres in their respective sections of the film...thus, the film starts finding its black sense of humor only after the change-up happens. Up until that point, it's a very tense little crime thriller with echoes of Of Mice And Men.

8) You know, I would love to know what a world would be like where Tom Savini never went into make-up and became a full-time actor...as I've mentioned when talking about Knightriders, he's genuinely good and in this film manages to sell some of the broader laugh lines. Plus, in this film, he manages to prevent us from laughing at loud over the fact he's named Sex Machine. That's gotta count for something.

Is it just me, or is some variation of this shot in every film
Tarantino has been involved with?

9) Man, once we reach the hour mark this film just gets super-gooey to the point of parody. And the funny thing is that, with all the gore when the cast is trapped in the Titty Twister, the most disturbing moment happens in a motel room where Seth discovers what his brother did to their hostage. Rodriguez just lets the scene play out, giving us little, quick-to-the-point-of-subliminal shots of what the room the Geckos are looking at looks like...

10) Give it to Tarantino to actually dispute his movie influences in this one--to the point where certain plot elements are taken from the literary sources. The whole 'El Rey' angle is something lifted whole from the much superior, but arguably unfilmable end of the Jim Thompson novel that inspired Peckinpah's The Getaway.

Overall...the kind of genre bending film I absolutely adore, a controlled scream of rage and panic that manages to keep things moving for its entire running time. Plus, you get to see George Clooney acting as a total bad-ass with tribal tattoos...and he knocks Tarantino out cold....

Hey, enjoy The Aztec Vampire Bikini Dance!