Film Review: BATMAN RETURNS (1992, Tim Burton)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 126 minutes.
Tag-line: "The Bat, The Cat, The Penguin."
Notable Cast or Crew: Written by Sam Hamm (BATMAN '89, Joe Dante's HOMECOMING) and Daniel Waters (HEATHERS, DEMOLITION MAN).  Starring Michael Keaton (BEETLEJUICE, MR. MOM), Danny DeVito (TWINS, TAXI, ROMANCING THE STONE), Michelle Pfeiffer (DANGEROUS MINDS, SCARFACE), Christopher Walken (MCBAIN, THE DEER HUNTER), Michael Murphy (TANNER '88, NASHVILLE), Michael Gough (TROG, SLEEPY HOLLOW), Pat Hingle (SUDDEN IMPACT, NORMA RAE), Vincent Schiavelli (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, AMADEUS), Jan Hooks (PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE), Doug Jones (PAN'S LABYRINTH, "The Gentleman" on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER), Paul Reubens (PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER THE MOVIE), Sean Whalen (THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, LOST), Diane Salinger (PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE, GHOST WORLD).  Music by Danny Elfman (THE UNKNOWN KNOWN, BEETLEJUICE). Production Design by Bo Welch (MEN IN BLACK, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS). Art Direction by Tom Duffield (ED WOOD, BEETLEJUICE) and Rick Heinrichs (THE BIG LEBOWSKI, STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII). Special Penguin Makeup and Effects Production by Stan Winston (THE TERMINATOR, ALIENS, PREDATOR, A.I.).
Best One-liner:"You gotta admit I played this stinkin' city like a harp from hell!"

A whirlwind, three-ring circus of Neo-Gothic exuberance and German Expressionistic mayhem, Tim Burton's BATMAN RETURNS is, for my money, the finest of all the BATMAN films and a last great gasp of Classic Hollywood artistry lurking in the shape of a playfully subversive superhero movie (set at Christmastime). It's a movie so delightfully insane and packed to the gills with chaotic performances and sheer spectacle that afterward you might even overlook specific details that would be unforgettable in a different film, like Vincent Schiavelli commandeering a life-sized toy choo-choo train of kidnapping and child murder:

or a mangy poodle wielding a grenade:

or a circus strongman beating the devil out of a Salvation Army Santa Claus with a Rosebud sled:

And all of this in what is ostensibly a children's movie, lavishly marketed by mainstream tastemakers, tied in with McDonald's Happy Meals, and available at every mall in America––one could argue that Burton pulled off the artistic coup of the decade. In this vein, and in the vein of my beloved minutiae, allow me to extrapolate on my 10 favorite things about the film.  (There are a few spoilers, but I think I can safely assume that you've already seen BATMAN RETURNS.)

#10. Pee Wee (Paul Reubens) and Simone (Diane Salinger) as the Penguin's disaffected martini-swilling parents in an expressionistic prologue seemingly designed to "out-Edward Gorey" Edward Gorey.

It's an apparent dark coda to their near-romance in PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE ("Au revoir, Pee Wee!").

#9. The aforementioned Vincent Schiavelli as an organ grinder with a Gatling gun inside his music box.


This is the sort of thing I mean when I say "playfully subversive." This is a summer tentpole studio action movie, for God's sake, and we've got sad-eyed character actors gunning down well-wishers at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony!

#8. Evil clown bikers wearing oversized bobble-head skulls with googly eyes, chipped teeth, and hypno-wheels painted across their domes.

This is simply one of many details in a startling sequence of what amounts to "clown terrorism," but is truly an embarrassment of circus-horror riches.

#7. And in light of this carnivalistic assault, it becomes apparent that Batman has outfitted the Batmobile with a specific countermeasure for upending fire-juggling stilt walkers––namely these Schweet Stilt-Knockin' Paddle Wings.




I'm glad he finally got the chance to use those. Speaking of Batman––

#6. No Batman. Ostensibly the film is about him and his "return." And yet the title character appears in only 3 of the film's first 44 minutes. You might as well take Keaton's face off of the poster and replace him with Christopher Walken.

This is actually the story of three psychologically unbalanced characters and their increasingly manic quest for image control: Christopher Walken's Max Shreck (named for the silent film legend), Danny DeVito's Oswald Cobblepot, and Michelle Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle. Batman is but an ancillary character.

#5. Did I mention that the film takes place within Shreck's kleptocratic urban dystopia, ruled over by ubiquitous, leering depictions of an evil Felix the Cat?

This logo represents the Shreck Corporation, the true ruler of Gotham (who uses the Mayor, played by Altman standby Michael Murphy, as a prop until it is no longer politically expedient)
 
and its branding leaks into Gotham's real estate, energy, and commerce––it even governs how Gothamites tell time.

Shreck's image control is based in silencing his critics, and in a few notable cases he murders them, from his business partner down to his secretary. He positions himself as a political kingmaker, appropriating from Nixon and Boss Tweed

 

and his quest for power has a nice (electrical) arc that sees him becoming the literal embodiment of "power" while still retaining his shock of white hair.

 This scene always felt very "Large Marge" to me.

#4. Said kingmaking is of DeVito's Cobblepot, who explicitly wants to know "who I am"

 

and tracks down his birth parents (in a graveyard), blackmails major corporations, brandishes severed hands, poses for photo ops, runs for mayor, proposes Biblical plagues, and evokes Werner Krauss' Dr. Caligari (from THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI)

while making remarks like "You flush it, I flaunt it!" which could just as easily be a quote from his character on IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA. It's a hurly-burly "riches to rags, rags to riches, riches back to rags story," and while you can take the boy out of the sewer, it becomes more difficult to take the sewer out of the boy, which is beautifully illustrated in the following scene––

#3. Whereupon a preening political operatives Jan Hooks and Steve Witting prepare DeVito for his poll-tested makeover

and DeVito's Penguin responds in a Joe Pesci-style outburst of violence by biting Witting's nose, which proceeds to gush blood.

(This scene was especially memorable to my childhood self, who had never seen such an unexpected eruption of Pesci-style violence onscreen.)

#2. In his final persona, that of a fat man-baby in dirty drawers (soon to be spewing actual, black bile), he addresses an assembly of penguins who are wearing little missiles like backpacks.

 

Burton evokes George Patton's penchant for chest-thumping belligerence in a rather inspired bit of subversion. It's as if this entire film was constructed for the purpose of undermining popular myths, whether municipal, political, corporate, militaristic, or sexual––which leads me to the créme de la créme, or at least the cat who got the cream––

#1. Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle. She's unceremoniously shoved to her death (by Schreck, her boss) and reborn as "Catwoman," who has eight more lives to redefine herself and emerge from the shadow of Shreck's corporate branding.

She does this while wearing barely enough PVC to cover Michelle Pfeiffer, which has been vacuum sealed and held together by autopsy stitching. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It's her initial transition that is the most remarkable, as she destroys the markers of her CATHY-style, stereotypical single woman's existence in an amazingly deranged sequence that sees her annihilating the very concept of corporate girlhood, even using traditional instruments of homemaking to fuel the destruction. She feeds her stuffed animals to the garbage disposal,


smashes mirrors and Hummel figurines with a frying pan,

makes like a punk Nora Helmer and spray-paints her doll's house black

and adjusts her polite and demure "HELLO THERE" neon sign (which is already cool enough to be in a Jarmusch movie)

into the more appropriate "HELL HERE." She then proceeds to slink around in her new S&M costume in a fabulous tableau of yowling, mewling, and posing.

Her subsequent lives see a number of interesting adjustments, from department store bomber to agent provocateur to day-job slacker. She tries "socialite" on for size during a sequence where she dates some rich guy (I think his name was Bruce Wayne?). One of her lives is even spent as Paul Kersey. It's short-lived, but this is straight out of DEATH WISH––a proto-Tommy Wiseau is taking liberties with a holiday shopper in an alleyway when he encounters Catwoman's particular brand of vigilante justice:



The ol' Tic-Tac-Toe.

Though I have to say my favorite Catwoman-related moment might be when she concludes a scene in the Penguin's bedroom (charged with a weirdo, nearly pre-pubescent sexual fascination on the Penguin's part) by saying "Maybe I'll just give myself a bath right here."


and proceeds to lick her costume while the Penguin lolls around, aroused and confused, in the background.

––Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... NIGHTBREED (1990)

Only now does it occur to me... that in a dark, phantasmagorical carnival filled with wall-to-wall imaginative demons,

creatures,

and nightmarish concepts...

that David Cronenberg would come out of left field to steal the show!

Lookin' creepy, Mr. C!

NIGHTBREED is a deeply atmospheric Clive Barker film (based on his novel CABAL) that he imagined would be the "STAR WARS" of horror movies: a multi-part epic with creature effects, a sweeping soundtrack (by Danny Elfman), heroic prophecies, beautiful matte paintings, and explosive action setpieces.

Unfortunately, it failed to recoup its budget and didn't gain much traction with critics, although over the years it has accumulated a devoted cult following. The newly remastered Director's Cut (while not incredibly different from the theatrical cut), is a generally stronger piece and, when it's over, you're left wishing there had been at least a trilogy of these movies.

Anyway––back to my enthusiastic salute to David Cronenberg's acting abilities! (Who knew?)

As psychotic psychotherapist Dr. Philip K. Decker (an homage to sci-fi author and Cronenberg hero Philip K. Dick), Cronenberg plays a near-pastiche of your typical Cronenberg villains––brilliant, perverse, detached, and clinical. Being a "closeted" outsider himself (Barker, as usual, peppers his horror with apt LGBT commentary), Dr. Decker loathes unconventional society and wishes to (literally) carve the "new flesh" off of the world.  In short, he's a soft-spoken creeper who moonlights as a terrifying, hooded slasher,

almost a proto-version of Cillian Murphy's "Scarecrow" from BATMAN BEGINS.

He has a wonderful yuppie lair where he lays out all of his knives like a Dario Argento murderer,

and he generally hypnotizes the viewer with his self-loathing and low-key menace.  It's an incredibly subtle performance, and I was left wishing that Cronenberg would use his acting abilities more often.

Interested parties may see Mr. Cronenberg ply this underrated talent in JASON X (as a doctor), ALIAS (also as a doctor), THE STUPIDS (as a postal worker), and TO DIE FOR (as a mafioso hitman!).

2015 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN OVERFLOW

1.  SCANNERS (1981, David Cronenberg)

2.  MICHAEL IRONSIDE: MENTAL SABOTEUR (2014, Karen Stetler)

3.  NOMADS (1986, John McTiernan)

4.  THE STUFF (1985, Larry Cohen)

5.  THE BEACH (2000, Danny Boyle)

6.  CHILD'S PLAY 2 (1990, John Lafia)

7.  NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (1988, Kevin S. Tenney)
8. VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1995, John Carpenter)

9. BLACK ROSES (1988, John Fasano)

10. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, "HALLOWEEN" (1997, Bruce Seth Green) 

11. ANGEL, "THE RING" (2000, Nick Marck)

12. CHILD'S PLAY 3 (1991, Jack Bender)

13. ...

Film Review: MIDNIGHT RUN (1988, Martin Brest)

Stars: 5 of 5.

Running Time: 127 minutes.

Tag-line: "Taking the midnight run is a hell of a way to make a living."

Notable Cast or Crew:  Starring Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin (BEETHOVEN, ROSEMARY'S BABY), Yaphet Kotto (ALIEN, BLUE COLLAR, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 6: FREDDY'S DEAD), John Ashton (BEVERLY HILLS COP, SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL), Dennis Farina (THIEF, MANHUNTER, GET SHORTY), Joe Pantoliano (THE GOONIES, RISKY BUSINESS, BOUND, THE SOPRANOS), Jack Kehoe (THE UNTOUCHABLES, SERPICO), Wendy Phillips (BUGSY, THE WIZARD), Philip Baker Hall (SECRET HONOR, HARD EIGHT), Fran Brill (WHAT ABOUT BOB?, Jim Henson crony and puppeteer and voice of "Prairie Dawn"), Tracey Walter (REPO MAN, BATMAN, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS).  Directed by Martin Brest (BEVERLY HILLS COP, SCENT OF A WOMAN).  Written by George Gallo (WISE GUYS, BAD BOYS).   Music by Danny Elfman (BATMAN RETURNS, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS).  Cinematography by Donald E. Thorin (THIEF, TANGO & CASH).

Best One-liner: "Why are you so unpopular with the Chicago police department?"

Let's talk MIDNIGHT RUN– undoubtedly, it's one of the funniest, most artistic, best-written, and best-acted buddy movies of the 1980s, or perhaps ever.  It was recommended to me for years (and most successfully so by J.D.'s terrific writeup over at Radiator Heaven), and I must say it was well worth the "Very Long Wait" it endured in my Netflix queue.  It's a road trip-buddy movie without clichéd characterizations, and each and every role and setpiece feels lived in.  In a year (1988) where one of the most acclaimed films (RAIN MAN) was a cloying and much less successful riff (in my opinion) on the convention, MIDNIGHT RUN has become a kind of sleeper classic, and one that I believe truly stands the test of time.

The plot is simple, but there's a lot of moving parts– consequently, even before we get to the characterizations it's a little more complex than the usual potboiler:  a sleazy bondsman (Joe Pantoliano) unwittingly posts bail for an accountant (Charles Grodin) who has embezzled $15 million from a ferocious mob boss (Dennis Farina).  With mafia assassins after him, Grodin has jumped bail and escaped cross-country, therefore Pantoliano employs a bounty hunter (Robert De Niro) to track him down in the five days he has left before he defaults on the massive bond.  Finding Grodin is only half the battle, however– De Niro must bring him back, alone, and he faces stiff competition from a dirty bounty huntin' rival (John Ashton), a single-minded FBI agent (Yaphet Kotto), the aforementioned mafia assassins,  double-crossin' informants, and even a helicopter.
 
 
 In what is possibly the best De Niro vs. Helicopter scene in all of filmdom. 

Whew.  And there's so many shifting allegiances and players, it's practically Shakespearean.  (Or at least GAME OF THRONES-ian.)  And I must say that it roughly does for bail bonds and bounty hunters what REPO MAN did for that occupation; a seedy and offbeat journey across the American underbelly.  I wish they made more films like this.

At the center of all this scheming and law-bending is the relationship between De Niro and Grodin (which, as J.D. astutely points out in his review, builds an atypical comedic relationship with two 'straight' men, eschewing the funny/zany guy), and boy, is it a doozy. 

We watch them (successfully) get on each other's nerves for nearly two hours, usually by petty and/or absurd means,

 
but something spectacular happens along the way:  it turns into one of the better character studies of the decade.

You expect De Niro, pre-"phoning-it-in era," to be excellent, and he is.  And the way he naturally takes to the comedic role, particularly in his improvisations, is admirable.  At one point, Grodin's character accuses him of having "only two forms of expression: silence and rage."  While this may be true, De Niro gives us each and every color of those respective rainbows––it's like how they say the Inuit language has over two hundred different words for snow: De Niro has at least that many ways to express silence and rage!

I must say that this movie transformed my understanding of Charles Grodin.  I suppose I'd become used to thinking of him as "the dad from BEETHOVEN who was in ROSEMARY'S BABY when he was really young," but holy Toledo– the man can ACT!

The choices he makes are spectacular– you know him, and you believe he's real, but you can't fully read him- he's wise, yet high-strung; paranoid, yet zen.  You get the idea that he just might be the smartest guy in the room, but you're unaware of his actual plan; like Michael Emerson's character on LOST but with an air of benevolence instead of menace.  He's always working an angle, and you can see it playing across his face, especially when nobody's looking.

His general demeanor is "disappointed" and nearly uninvolved, but make no mistake, he's heavily invested.  In who or what, I shall not say.

Then there are all these beautiful, understated moments of pathos and verisimilitude that pepper their journey.  De Niro has fleeting reunion with his ex-wife and daughter, and as it happens, we're really witnessing two scenes:  the foreground with De Niro and his daughter, and the background with Grodin and the ex-wife (Wendy Phillips). 

A lot of actors would have stood around while the main action played out, but not in this movie!  The word of the day is "subtlety."  Enrichment without pulling focus.

Shortly thereafter, there's a peculiar, tender moment as De Niro leads Grodin back to the car.  You could say it is a prisoner being led by his captor; you could say it's two opposing forces about to be confined in a single space; you could say it's two human beings compelled into an uncomfortable position because of pressures beyond their control.  No matter what you say, there's a sad dignity in the following, oddly paternal gesture whereupon De Niro repositions Grodin's overcoat so it doesn't get caught in the car door.



And that is the film in a nutshell.  Many movies are simply a collection of scenes, and the makers are interested in getting from point A to B to C.  If a journey by car is required to get from A to B, they'll put on their workgloves and hammer out a segue.  It risks becoming a chore, a time-filler, a necessary evil.  Here, that's not so.  MIDNIGHT RUN breathes life from every pore, it's teeming with an authenticity that cannot be contained.  Slamming a car door becomes an opportunity for character development, enlightenment, truth– not simply an audiovisual cue that we're about to move from one location to another.  This is just one example out of dozens: I can already tell you that this film will reward multiple viewings.

Now, I don't want to give too much away– especially because, as the film progressed, I found myself legitimately not knowing how it was going to end.  Do you realize how rare that is in an 80's buddy/action/crime/comedy?  Such a thing must be savored!


In closing, here are ten bits of my beloved minutiae that I must mention in order to properly sing MIDNIGHT RUN's praises:


#1. Yaphet Kotto.  Hell yes, Yaphet Kotto.  Master of the slow burn.


I've never not loved a scene that starred Yaphet Kotto, from LIVE AND LET DIE to ALIEN to THE RUNNING MAN to A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 6: FREDDY'S DEAD.  His big, watery eyes are slow-cookin' with gentlemanly rage. 

He plays it so deadpan, I suppose you could make the argument that he's the true straight man of the piece.  Carry on, Yaphet.

#2.  Danny Elfman's score.  It is the least-Danny Elfmanish Danny Elfman score ever.  It's like honkytonk Ry Cooder meets a Huey Lewis and the News karaoke track.  It's beautiful and terrible both, and it's still stuck in my head.

#3.  Joey Pants.  Mr. Pantoliano himself.

His stash of money in his pink socks, his terrible late 80s patterned shirts, his shit-eating grins, his sweaty combovers, his ratlike countenance– has anyone ever been better suited to play a bailbondsman?  Perhaps not.

#4.  Apparently the studio wanted George Gallo to rewrite the screenplay to accommodate Cher in the Charles Grodin role.  When that didn't work, they were pulling for Robin Williams.  Obviously, given the perfection of Grodin's performance, in either case it would have been a real movie killer.  I just physically shivered.  I don't even want to think about this.

#5.  Philip Baker Hall (SECRET HONOR, BOOGIE NIGHTS, DOGVILLE) as a Las Vegas mob associate named "Sydney."

Fans of P.T. Anderson's HARD EIGHT (aka SYDNEY) will note that he plays a washed-up Las Vegas gambler also named Sydney in that particular film.  I realize that the continuity isn't perfect by any means, but seems like a little more than a coincidence.  I'm just going to pretend it's an official sequel, and don't try to stop me.

#6.  Cult maniac Tracey Walter (REPO MAN, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, CONAN THE DESTROYER, BATMAN '90, RUMBLE FISH, THE HAND) as the proprietor of a greasy spoon diner.

That is his natural habitat, and all is right in the world.

#7.  The "litmus configuration" scene (I will say no more of the specifics) is a mini-masterpiece of actors playing characters who in turn are "acting."  Every element of the scene: the improv, the near crack-ups, the locale, the bystanders– it's perfection. 


I think it even quietly transcends the classic "I hate rednecks" bar scene from 48 HRS., another classic buddy movie moment similarly founded on some harmless flim-flammin'.

#8.  John Ashton.  As an endearingly diabolical rival bounty hunter, John Ashton officially won me over with this movie.  I'd probably seen him in half a dozen other roles (including BEVERLY HILLS COP, BREAKING AWAY, BORDERLINE, and SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL)

but only here did I see his acting chops on full display.  You love to hate him, and he never lets up– though he's imbued with a few streaks of pathos that wouldn't usually be afforded to such a character.

#9.  Dennis Farina.  I suppose this movie is ostensibly a comedy, thought I hope I've adequately made the argument that that's not entirely the case.  That fact is never more clear than when we get to sit down and meet Dennis Farina's mobster, up close.  He starts tossing around death threats

and for a moment the movie turns legitimately scary.  I applaud this.

#10.  Another cross-country fugitive road trip movie, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, gets a nice nod when Robert De Niro chases a crop duster– instead of the other way around.


I was speechless when I witnessed that moment, and speechless I shall remain.  

But before I go, let me say:  Five stars... and bravo!

–Sean Gill