Batman Begins (2005)

Matt (00:00:46):

This is the Summer of Nolan on the 1-Week Rental podcast going through the films of Christopher Nolan and we’re doing Batman Begins today. We’re so glad to have you here. My name is Matt Stokes. And

Laci (00:00:57):

I am Laci Roth.

Matt (00:00:58):

We have had a podcast for nine years now. Podcast. Used to be called Loadbring Beams. Now it’s called 1-Week Rental. Rent the movie from the video store. Watch it, study it, talk about it, tell you all about it. But I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, Laci, this is the first time we’ve talked about Batman.

Laci (00:01:16):

I mean, I’m a great lover of the three Batmans that happened when I was a mere baby.

Matt (00:01:24):

The three Batmans you say.

Laci (00:01:25):

Would it be three?

Matt (00:01:26):

Like when you were born, three Batman came to your cradle and-

Laci (00:01:29):

Yeah, then they brought me to a dark place. Batman, Batman Returns, Batman and Robin.

Matt (00:01:35):

Don’t forget about Batman Forever. You didn’t four Batmans.

Laci (00:01:39):

You think I’m going to forget Mr. Freeze or Captain Free? Captain

Matt (00:01:43):

Freeze

Laci (00:01:44):

Is his family. Baptist Freeze. Arnold Schwartz a freeze. Anyway, those are beloved movies of mine. Me too. Yeah, weird. Weird. Suspicious. We haven’t brought this up. It’s almost like we were waiting for a

Matt (00:02:00):

… It’s too big a topic. I had a panic attack preparing for this episode, preparing. We’re doing two more Batman episodes, so that helps. It’s like, okay, I don’t have to get to it all here. I think Batman might be the pop culture figure that is most like a religion. So it’d be like if we’re like, we’re tackling Christianity today on the show.

Laci (00:02:19):

More than Star Wars?

Matt (00:02:20):

Yes. More than Star Wars. Interesting. And I’ll tell you why.

Laci (00:02:23):

Okay.

Matt (00:02:23):

I’ll tell you why. Because Star Wars for the longest time was just made by one guy and it was kind of what that guy said went more or less. I know there’s exceptions, there’s extended universe and stuff, but it’s like you have a poke.

Laci (00:02:36):

You have a creator.

Matt (00:02:37):

Yes. And in Batman, it’s a lot longer. It goes back a lot way further. You have comic books and movies and TV shows.

Laci (00:02:44):

I think what you’re telling me is that there’s a Batman Bible. There’s different writers. There’s different generations of writers. There’s a Matthew, Mark, Luke and John situation

Matt (00:02:52):

Happening. Exactly. And people

Laci (00:02:53):

Who take the helm and write very close to what the other person wrote, but make their own little changes.

Matt (00:03:01):

Different sex will form up saying like, “No, we center the 1960s Batman in our religion. Oh, we care for people. ” We demand camp. Frank Miller thing that was a reaction to the ’60s camp TV show. And there’s always this anxiety like, “What’s the real bet?” What’s the real

Laci (00:03:16):

Bum?

Matt (00:03:18):

So that’s why I think people get very, very defensive. And then you have someone like me and I’ll say this, I’m nearly 40 years old. I love Batman. I really do love Batman.

Laci (00:03:27):

Wow.

Matt (00:03:28):

It makes me very unusual.

Laci (00:03:30):

Jeff.

Matt (00:03:31):

You

Laci (00:03:32):

Brave man.

Matt (00:03:33):

I have a reputation on this show and in my videos for not liking superhero movies.

Laci (00:03:38):

But not for not liking the superheroes. I think you like Spider-Man just fine.

Matt (00:03:42):

Oh, I love Spider-Man.

Laci (00:03:43):

So then what the fuck are you talking about?

Matt (00:03:45):

It’s okay

Laci (00:03:46):

Not to like the event.

Matt (00:03:46):

The thing that I don’t like that has happened is that superhero movies have become at all consuming. I am now seeing that there is limitations to a superhero story that are not in other kinds of stories.

Laci (00:04:04):

Okay.

Matt (00:04:05):

That’s a topic for another day. I mean, Batman though is the one that I think is the richest because it’s the one where you can explore this question of why are we so attached as a culture as a people to these individuals with extraordinary talents and powers who can solve all our problems for us.

Laci (00:04:21):

And Batman is probably the most honest one because it’s like, you know what you need a lot of money.

Matt (00:04:28):

But you know what’s interesting

Laci (00:04:29):

About this- Well, other people just end up getting boosters. They end up getting rich backers to help them. I feel like this would

Matt (00:04:39):

Happen. Or magic powers basically.

Laci (00:04:41):

Sure.

Matt (00:04:42):

But being super rich is also a magic power. In fact, you’re equally likely to be rich as you to be generationally wealthy as you are to be bitten by a radioactive spider. Neither of them is going to happen to you if you’re listening to this, I promise. And I’m sorry.

Laci (00:04:55):

It’s not because of this.

Matt (00:04:57):

Is Batman the most popular fictional character, do you think?

Laci (00:05:05):

I feel like I’d say yes, and then someone would point to something like Dracula.

Matt (00:05:09):

Dracula.

Laci (00:05:10):

Something that’s just so ancient.

Matt (00:05:13):

But I’m talking about like right now.

Laci (00:05:16):

That’s not fair.

Matt (00:05:16):

What’s the Q rating of Dracula versus the Q rating of Batman? He’s certainly, he’s the most popular superhero, right?

Laci (00:05:24):

I don’t even know how you would fucking figure this out. There’s the top three for me and absolutely Superman is third.

Matt (00:05:32):

Spider-Man two. Just clarifying.

Laci (00:05:36):

Yeah, of course. Of course. And maybe we’re just kind of submerged a litle bit more in a lot more recent Spider-Man content, but does Spider-Man stretch back as far as Batman? No. Does it have as many iterations? I’m not the bright person to say this, but I think no.

Matt (00:05:54):

Right. He has a lot, but it’s

Laci (00:05:55):

Nowhere near. And in such variety and huge, God, huge stars inside of each one. I mean, William Shatner, right?

Matt (00:06:08):

I’m

Laci (00:06:09):

Making that up.

Matt (00:06:09):

Adam West.

Laci (00:06:10):

Adam West. Sorry. Big deep voice brado guy. And then Michael Keaton. And then I feel like everyone who takes on the suit just becomes a big deal where I don’t think that’s true of Spider-Man. They become a mid-deal.

Matt (00:06:23):

Yeah. And in some ways that’s because Hollywood has changed where it’s not going to boost your movie star power by being in Spider-Man because it’s like, well, you didn’t make that movie. Spider-Man made that movie. I think there’s

Laci (00:06:36):

Something so interesting about the character of Batman where you get to be a little dark and brooding and a little bit more like a villain, but you’re also a hero and maybe there’s just an opportunity to show more complexity if you take this role rather than the, “Gee, golly. I’m just a kid and now I’ve got all these responsibilities. Oh no, my uncle’s dead. Gee. Aw man, come. Come’s coming out of my hands.” Mary Jane. You see how limited that is.

Matt (00:07:02):

Yeah, but Spider-Man is a way more relatable character, I think.

Laci (00:07:05):

Absolutely. Because who can relate to a billionaire, but it’s fun to watch a tortured one.

Matt (00:07:11):

Yeah.

Laci (00:07:11):

Look at all your money. Look at all your toys. You live in a dark cave.

Matt (00:07:14):

What they will say is- But I still like it. And I have quote from Nolan saying, “You can do the math in your head of theoretically I could do enough work. I could do enough pushups to become Batman like Bruce Wayne did.” That’s how he reasons it. Now that’s bullshit.

Laci (00:07:30):

So that should make him more relatable?

Matt (00:07:32):

So that’s why people get attached to Batman in ways that they don’t to other superheroes.

Laci (00:07:36):

Then there’s Ironman and that’s the same fucking thing. I mean, I realize that Batman has all this lore of having fighting and handy-hand combat stuff that Ironman doesn’t necessarily have, but it’s still just about the stuff he’s got on him right? His ability to call Alfred and just get just picked up on the top of a street side where the hell he was.

Matt (00:07:58):

There’s no comparison if you’re Iron Man and you get Jarvis versus being Batman and getting Alfred. There’s nothing that compares to that.

Laci (00:08:06):

And Alfred loves you like a son.

Matt (00:08:10):

Even when

Laci (00:08:10):

You’re being a shit and you’re gone for seven years shit and about.

Matt (00:08:13):

Yeah. There are these just like really primal emotional connections in the Batman universe that there aren’t.

Laci (00:08:20):

And this intense love of his parents. He’s old money, but they were sweeties. It’s like on reigned.

Matt (00:08:32):

Ein Rand?

Laci (00:08:33):

Eind Rand novel. But his dad is somehow the villain of that novel, but we know she’s wrong so he becomes like the hero of our brain novel.

Matt (00:08:44):

I think I follow.

Laci (00:08:45):

Yeah. Well, I mean, he wants free things for the people. He knows it’ll lift up a town in poverty and he knows that all the crime is a result of that poverty. He has good politics and maybe it’s because it’s like the 1920s American Gothic style architecture that makes me think of also the place where the Iran and Rhindrand.

Matt (00:09:11):

And in the Joe Schumacher movies-

Laci (00:09:13):

Great Gatsby. It all feels of a piece.

Matt (00:09:16):

Okay. Yes. I

Laci (00:09:17):

Went somewhere.

Matt (00:09:18):

In the Batman animated series from the ’90s was very … All the architecture looked very film noir. Looked the 1997 Batman and Robin, there’s literally Atlas statues holding up the city. All of the highways are on top of Atlas statues.

Laci (00:09:35):

I do love the way that they made this set in this one. It’s like that future tomorrow land kind of … And when the mom and dad and son are on it, it’s shiny and brilliant and beautiful, but it’s still working just as good, even though it’s grimy and shitty once Batman becomes Batman. Gameway, that style of architecture is always going to be kind of haunting. It’s literally called Gothic, isn’t it? So anyway, I like the spin Nolan took on

Matt (00:10:06):

It. Nolan’s spin was very much a reaction to Joel Schumacher and Batman and Robin and how much everyone hated that movie.

Laci (00:10:12):

It’s easy to

Matt (00:10:13):

Hate. But it’s always the push and pull of Batman of it gets too silly and then people revolt except that-

Laci (00:10:19):

There is an inevitable camp and the bad guys get stupider and stupid. That’s what it is. The bad guys get silly and then the whole thing starts to get silly.

Matt (00:10:28):

Batman

Laci (00:10:28):

Has world class jackass.

Matt (00:10:31):

Yes, of course. And my position on Batman is- Lamboyancy. I want it a little more cartoony because it’s impossible for this not to be stupid and gampy. How could it not be?

Laci (00:10:41):

Well, each villain is so visually interesting and you become a prisoner of your own making. You have M night shame on yourself. You’re like, how the fuck do I top the Joker? The Penguin and the Redler and two face is they all have their own kind of layer so they can’t all have the same kind of weird layer. How many layers can we find? How many weird backstories can we get? You just can’t reinvent that many times without going off jumping the silly shark.

Matt (00:11:17):

Nolan makes so many smart decisions in this movie. All of it made in the context of we need to assure people this isn’t Batman and Robin. One of the big things is we’re not going to feature the main A- list villains in this movie. It’s a good chance you haven’t heard of any of the villains in this movie. When it

Laci (00:11:35):

Started, I’m like fucking Pacone or whatever the …

Matt (00:11:39):

Falcone.

Laci (00:11:41):

What a sweet little awe.

Matt (00:11:44):

Yeah, Falcone and Rosal and the Scarecrow. And these are all characters from Batman Lore. It’s not like they were invented for this movie, but he is also like- It’s timely. His pitch is, “We are going to ground this. This needs to be … What would this look like if this happened in the real world?” And that’s why people love it.

Laci (00:12:01):

I know that the top three that we’re talking about, it’s really the Avengers who can’t seem to stay on their own turf and they’re saving fucking everything. But I realize Superman Smallville and

Matt (00:12:13):

Spider-Man- And Metropolis.

Laci (00:12:15):

That’s exactly what I said. And then Small … Fuck. And then Spider-Man, he’s the hometown boy and then Batman stays here. That’s what I like. I like that. I don’t like when it’s everything everywhere all at once.

Matt (00:12:30):

Oh, absolutely.

Laci (00:12:31):

I like that it’s not just my dad and mom were shot and it was me because I made us leave early and that’s this whole thing. It’s also about politics. It’s also about are places worth saving? And can you really just say this town is complete trash and needs to be wiped from the earth, including its children and it’s disabled people. I didn’t really remember that there’s a lot of politics involved in or class stuff.

Matt (00:13:00):

Well, that’s his other ideas. Let’s inject. Let’s take this really seriously. Let’s talk about crime and politics and economics. And when I saw this movie at 17, I loved it and I’ve seen this movie so many times. Why? And every time I watch it now, I like it less because every one of those ideas that Nolan had, I think, don’t do that. That’s bad. Nope, nope. The more grounded you make this, the more questions I have to ask about this world and the more obvious things about Bruce Wayne.

Laci (00:13:38):

Become problematic.

Matt (00:13:39):

Yes. The first being every bad thing happening in the world is because of Bruce Wayne’s wealth and this movie- And

Laci (00:13:47):

Because of people like him. Yeah.

Matt (00:13:48):

And this movie comes nowhere close to acknowledging that. This movie’s so baby brained about societal ills that it’s like there’s thing called crime and it’s done by criminals. Okay. So we have to go stop the criminals. All

Laci (00:14:00):

Right. So this is what happens in our summer of series. As almost right away, you start seeing through lines. And so we found our first one, which is that this is a smart looking movie and at first glance you go, “Smart. Smart things are thought here.” And the more you watch it, the dumber it gets. This is again a movie to make stupid people feel smart. And that’s what Memento was. And I’m going to get some shit.

Matt (00:14:27):

Yeah, you’re going to get some shit. I agree with you. I agree with you. This is smart

Laci (00:14:30):

Batman.

Matt (00:14:31):

But even wears

Laci (00:14:32):

Glasses at some point.

Matt (00:14:33):

Don’t just blame Laci because she’s a girl. I also think that. This makes me dislike perform. Liam Neeson, who I love-

Laci (00:14:41):

Who I

Matt (00:14:41):

Love. I hate in this movie.

Laci (00:14:43):

What a wet fucking

Matt (00:14:44):

Wine in this. Everything he says is so stupid.

Laci (00:14:47):

This is why I wanted to ask, this is 2005?

Matt (00:14:50):

Yeah.

Laci (00:14:50):

And when was Kill Bill?

Matt (00:14:52):

2003 and four.

Laci (00:14:53):

Okay. So suck my dick, Nolan. Don’t give me a hard to please Asian man at the top of the hill. Don’t do that. That just happened. I mean, okay. He can’t help that. They could have picked some other kind of origin. I guess I find it slightly interesting that Batman has this background in training. I don’t think I learned that from my Michael Keaton Batman. I don’t think I realized he had true hand-to-hand combat like Uma Thurman level skills. So that’s interesting because I thought he really relied on all those amazing gadgets. I don’t know. It’s just boring. It’s always a fucking Asian man on top of a hill with a special flower.

Matt (00:15:33):

It’s always that. Fucking boy. Always flower. Well, I don’t want to get you ahead of everything. I just wanted to let people know that this is a beloved movie and Laci and … I do like this movie, but I feel very, very conflicted about it. I have a ton of critiques about it and there’s things that I really hate about this movie. I

Laci (00:15:51):

Have a feeling I’m going to feel nostalgic for this movie once we watch the next one and then the one after that. Because again, I feel I’m expecting fun. You tell me. I was like, “Oh, I’m ready for this. I’m ready to sing into this shit.” And I did. And I had that same pit feeling of I’m a little bit bored and I don’t know how that’s possible and I’m not having fun. I’m doing homework. This is not hard to solve or anything. This is no momentum, of course, but

Laci (00:16:23):

There’s a lot of strings. They are throwing a lot of storylines at you and I guess I’m not totally sure. I don’t know. None of it’s rompy enough. None of it’s heisty enough. None of it’s compelling or sweet enough. I’d say my favorite favorite thing about this movie is that Morgan Freeman’s in it and his relationship to Alfred and Alfred’s really those three. The family part of it, the camaraderie part, the we’ve got access to some shit and we’re just taking advantage of the fact that you have an immense wealth and this company’s been taken over by somebody even sleazier in the wealth department. So let’s just play all the toys. I like that part of

Matt (00:17:09):

It. Yeah. What saves the movie is some really, really great performances. Yes. Which

Laci (00:17:13):

Is why Lean Neeson’s performance pisses me.

Matt (00:17:16):

Ozzy had

Laci (00:17:16):

Nothing to do. He did the most

Matt (00:17:18):

And

Laci (00:17:19):

Had nothing to do.

Matt (00:17:19):

I mean, by nothing to do, I would say he’s saying dumb stuff in the seventh grade. Just take the challenge, ladies and gentlemen. Every time he says the word fear, take a drink. You will die. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fair, fair, fair, fair, fear, fair, fear. Your fear, your fear, fair, fear, fear.

Laci (00:17:34):

So I’m saying, you can’t go from Kill Bill who did it too prof … I hate

Matt (00:17:39):

Bill. I hate Bill to kill the

Laci (00:17:41):

Movies. Bill, I am talking about Pi Me. You cannot watch this master for pulling things from kung fu movies and fucking … Someone like Quinn Tarantino who has bathed in the genre and that’s why he’s going to respect it by giving it its due. All the little nuances, all the hair, the costume, it’s perfection. And that’s okay. This is just one little sliver of Nolan’s movie. I get that. But bitch, don’t one year later try to come play in the sandbox and put a lot of the same stuff in it without the detail and the interest. And then you’ve got white savior that leads the way. You don’t even let the Asian guy be the guy. Why is Liam Neeson in this movie?

Matt (00:18:26):

Because he’s Gilliam Neeson and he’s great.

Laci (00:18:28):

And I love him. But it is weird that you have this big bad that I’m supposed to be very scared of and he does nothing.

Matt (00:18:35):

I think that’s a good historic. I remember being in the theater seeing it for the first time and Leonisan comes back and my heart falling out of my chest. Oh my God.

Laci (00:18:44):

I will say I expect Leon Neeson to come back and be a good guy. I didn’t expect the bad guy part, which that’s kind of stupid. That was his whole mission. He’s been up on that hill just for even longer and he had already made his mind up that we’re going to need to thano some stuff.

Matt (00:18:59):

If you love Batman begins and you like us and you feel it’s going to be a little too annoying to hear us criticize this movie, I just wanted to front load that. We’re also going to say a bunch of things that we like about the movie. I think there’s tons to like about this movie and I think it’s very interesting to tie it into Nolan’s later career and also weave it into my Christopher Nolan is Oppenheimer and this is his atomic bomb and this is what he will feel eternally guilty about.

Laci (00:19:25):

His brain feels like there’s too many cooks in his kitchen. He is a very smart person who can put together a very smart, innovative, new, technique, fun way to tell a story, but there’s this part of him that’s pulling him all the time to be like, populous, make it a litle bit more for the boys. He still seems to want to be very Spielbergie with it. He wants it to have mass appeal. So it’s like he doesn’t go all the way with the really intelligent idea or at least he is, but then it’s watered down by dumb writing or something. I don’t even know how to explain it. It feels like it’s in a no man’s land, but for some reason it fucking works and then I feel stupid. Why am I left met after both of these movies?

Matt (00:20:18):

This one he wrote with another writer. He usually writes alone and he wrote with David Goyer who had written the Blade movies, was a veteran of comic book movies because he was important to Nolan to be faithful to comic books. I don’t want to seem like I’m looking down at this material.

Laci (00:20:33):

Not at all. And when you think back to a comic book, there’s only so much space in these bubbles. There’s a reason why it’s one liner, the catch phrases. It’s quick and easy to … It’s visual. I get that. But once Christian Bale puts on the mask, I complete … He doesn’t sound like him and I know that’s intentional, but the chin doesn’t look like his. He looks like a fucking idiot. I immediately don’t like him where when Michael Keaton would put on the costume, I’m like, look who’s here. Even fucking God help me.

Matt (00:21:07):

Ben Affleck?

Laci (00:21:07):

Yes. Because he’s all chin. But I don’t know why Christian, because

Matt (00:21:12):

Christian

Laci (00:21:13):

Bale is the hair. He is the crazy one eye that goes this way. He’s that sexy mass that looks like he could just peel it off at any time. And then you go chopping half of it off and I’m like, no.

Matt (00:21:23):

For me- Cut

Laci (00:21:23):

It back.

Matt (00:21:24):

When it comes to live action Batman, Burton got it by far the best. Now this is just a taste. This is my personal taste that the most interesting thing about Batman is that he is doing this thing that is stupid and insane because he has an insatiable neuroses that can only be filled by dressing up as a bat and punching people. And Tim Burton understood that.

Laci (00:21:48):

Understood

Matt (00:21:48):

That. And Michael Keaton understood that we need to play him like a freak.

Laci (00:21:52):

Yes.

Matt (00:21:52):

Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale’s approach was the opposite.This mission he has, it makes sense. Any

Laci (00:21:58):

Millionaire could find themselves here.

Matt (00:22:00):

You

Laci (00:22:00):

Just need two dead parents.

Matt (00:22:02):

Let’s get into the history of how this movie was made.

Laci (00:22:04):

Oh, fuck. We didn’t even start.

Matt (00:22:05):

Batman begins. There’s a great book that I’ve read many times by Glen Weldon. It’s a history of Batman. It’s called The Caped Crusade, Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture. I

Laci (00:22:42):

Didn’t even think of the Lego iteration of Batman. There’s yet another very distinct other kind of genre where Batman

Matt (00:22:49):

Started. There’s a Batman for every flavor. Well, one of the things is in 1997, Batman and Robin comes out. It doesn’t do well. Everyone hates it, but that was at a time where you only get one Batman at a time. Now it’s all Batman’s all the time. There’s 10 different animated Batman series all the time. There’s movies where we have two different Batman continuities going on in movies. We just had a bunch of different … So it’s like you’ll get the Batman you won eventually. If one doesn’t work for you, just wait, there’s another one coming. So the pressure seems a little lower. It doesn’t seem as high stakes.

Laci (00:23:21):

Okay.

Matt (00:23:21):

Glen Weldon writes, quote, every 30 years or so, Batman cycles from dark to light and back again. Twice before in his 77 year history, the Dark Knight has given way to the Camp Crusader and twice before a small subset of his most ardent fans have risen up in protest to demand that Batman returned to his grittier roots. These hardcore enthusiasts accept only the darkest, grimest, most hyper masculine version of the character imaginable and view any alternative batteration as somehow suspect, inauthentic, debased, and sort of gay.

Laci (00:23:55):

You need relief,

Matt (00:23:56):

But

Laci (00:23:56):

It’s relief. You can’t spend so much time in the dark. You can even love those movies so much and just be like, “What if you were happy?” Can we swing the pendulum again, please?

Matt (00:24:08):

Especially if you’re a writer or an artist or Batman comics who spends 10 years just in the muck. Don’t you want to make him have a little want him to be a litle gay? Kiss Robin, kiss Robin. Come on. But the history of Batman is so fucking huge, too huge for us to get into created in the 40s or the 30s by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. The thing you have to understand is there’s been so many different iterations of Batman and I think it causes anxiety among fans. This is why I compare it to a religion because it’s like the real on is this version. Batman, the 60s Batman TV series was super popular and for so many people it was, they’re like, Batman, you mean the guy on TV? The Zam Pow.

Laci (00:24:50):

Anyway, I think this one makes it special is that there’s so much kind of Batman you can get into and it’s also distinctly different.

Matt (00:24:57):

Well, if they’re a Batman fan who would hear you say that and say wrong, that pisses them off. No, Batman’s dark.

Laci (00:25:03):

I’ve pissed off three people today already, so I can’t really take that on right now. So anyone that doesn’t like me say the opposite.

Matt (00:25:11):

Yeah, say nice things. Laci, I like that.

Laci (00:25:13):

Literally say I like you. Yeah.

Matt (00:25:16):

So you have the 60s Batman series and in the 70s and 80s, the comics react by going very dark. And then in 1989, Tim Burton makes his Batman movie, which may be the first modern blockbuster, like real modern blockbuster, but it I think strikes the perfect balance of tones and everyone loves it. And if you watch it today, you might remember it as a very grim dark movie, but it is a cartoony as hell. Yeah, yeah. That’s what I remember. It’s so much fun.

Laci (00:25:41):

It’s a kid’s movie in my brain.

Matt (00:25:43):

Yeah. Widely- I

Laci (00:25:44):

Watched it so many times.

Matt (00:25:46):

The first one? Yeah.

Laci (00:25:48):

I loved Jack Nicholson. He’s so

Matt (00:25:49):

Funny. Had a

Laci (00:25:50):

Big crush on

Matt (00:25:51):

Him from this movie. Yeah, it’s such a basic opinion, but he’s Jack Nicholson’s great. Jack Nicholson’s great in that movie. I mean, but I

Laci (00:25:57):

Feel that I also had a crush on Michael Keaton for the longest time. I just felt both of them were just so like, I want to dance with you in the Pale Moonlight. Yes, I do.

Matt (00:26:04):

What is totally missing, I think, from this movie, Batman Begins and- Any

Laci (00:26:08):

Fun at all?

Matt (00:26:09):

I would say in his two sequels is there’s nothing as compelling as the scene where Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson just talk to each other in Vicky Bale’s apartment. You want to get nuts. There’s just nothing like that and that’s just two actors going at it.

Laci (00:26:22):

And I’ll say Cillian Murphy is last name Magnetic. I loved his version of just some little bit fucked up science guy. I mean, he was very … And what he was doing and that was all very effective for me. I thought that was a creative way to fuck with the whole town.

Matt (00:26:46):

Yeah, almost wish he was the big

Laci (00:26:47):

Villain. That was disappointing. Yeah. It gets muddied from Valconi to him and then all of a sudden, no, it’s Liam Neeson. That’s boring to me. I don’t want to be switched. I like that the Batman movies let you focus on one villain at a time sometimes too.

Matt (00:27:04):

So Batman comes out, huge hit. Three years later, you get Batman returns, which is not as big a hit, criticized for being too dark and not selling enough toys. So Tim Burton and Michael Keaton leave the series. They recast Batman with Val Kilmer. They hired Joel Schumacher.

Laci (00:27:20):

God, I deleted that.

Matt (00:27:21):

But it’s still the same Batman. They’re not saying this is a new Batman. No, no. He’s the same guy from the last movies. And I

Laci (00:27:26):

Remember really like … Is that when I get The Ridler?

Matt (00:27:28):

That’s the Riddler. Yeah.

Laci (00:27:29):

And Poison Ivy and … Right? Poisoning.

Matt (00:27:33):

She’s in the next one. She’s in Batman and Robin.

Laci (00:27:35):

So I get Mr. Freeze or whatever.

Matt (00:27:38):

And Batman Forever, you get ridler and two face. Batman and Robin, you get Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy.

Laci (00:27:42):

Oh, that’s bad.

Matt (00:27:43):

Batman forever. They amp up the campiness, the humor, but still retain enough like, ooh, cool, dark shit that it’s a huge hit. People love it and it sells a lot of toys. And so Schumacher comes back two years later. They make Batman and Robin. They recast Batman again this time with George Clooney. But again, this is still the same guy. Yes. He’s supposed to be the … This is Michael Keaton’s Batman.

Laci (00:28:06):

I did enjoy the edition of Alicia Silverstone.

Matt (00:28:09):

Yeah. I just watched this movie. She’s not very good. I did,

Laci (00:28:13):

But I loved her from Clueless. She could do no wrong.

Matt (00:28:15):

Well, Batman and Robin was my first Batman. I saw it. That was the first Batman I ever saw as a kid.

Laci (00:28:20):

So fucking young and weird.

Matt (00:28:21):

And I fucking loved it.

Laci (00:28:22):

I think I saw all of them in the theaters. When was the first Batman? 87?

Matt (00:28:25):

89.

Laci (00:28:27):

Nah, it’s probably a little smooch too. I would’ve seen it blockbuster.

Matt (00:28:31):

Well, I watched it obsessively as a kid. I even remember feeling bad that I was worried. Oh no, am I starting to like something as much as I like Star Wars? Do I like Batman more than Star Wars? Feeling real fear about that. Now then I learned when I become a film synob as a teenager that Batman and Robin is bad. So I don’t see it again for, I don’t know, 20 years. Watched it this weekend. I had a good time. It’s a fun movie. It’s stupid as fuck. It’s so stupid. Well, I

Laci (00:28:59):

Love Oma Thurman.

Matt (00:29:00):

But they know exactly what they’re doing. Yeah. They know how insane the movie is. But yeah, everyone hates it. Everyone hates it and it doesn’t make any money.

Laci (00:29:09):

How do you like that little bitch? George Clooney.

Matt (00:29:12):

Yeah. George Clooty, not very good in that movie. Well,

Laci (00:29:16):

He’s a rich little know- it-all fucking man. That was perfect. Time to be a little bitch moment for you, your dummy.

Matt (00:29:23):

Wasn’t a movie star yet.This will make you a movie star. It didn’t.

Laci (00:29:26):

He’s fresh out of ER.

Matt (00:29:28):

He’s still doing ER. He’s a TV guy. What’s this TV guy doing on my big screen? But Joel Schumacher, who is a gay man is like fucking-

Laci (00:29:36):

Oh, look at those … I’m sorry. You have a screenshot of Batgirl Robin and Batman all in a row here and the accents of the dick.

Matt (00:29:45):

Yeah. So he’s like- Wow. No fuck. I just made a huge movie in forever. I get to do whatever I want. Bat nipples, up close shots of their butts and their dicks and stuff and this is all going to be filmed like they’re putting on Dominatrix gear. I’m going to totally own that. And So people are like, not only is he making a movie that feels like the ’60s TV show, he’s also, they’re making him gay and I hate it. And people were furious. What have they done to my Batman? Now think of the 35 year old man who loves Batman and reads Batman comics and knows this is a product for children, but is always defensive. Actually, it’s very fucked up. And Batman’s really scary and terrifying and stuff. And then you go and you see this movie. So that’s what they’re always pushing against.

Laci (00:30:31):

But you’d had three campy movies in a row that were gradually getting campier. What did you think you were going to go see? There are previews. Can you not see

Matt (00:30:39):

His bat? They’re mad about that.

Laci (00:30:41):

All right

Matt (00:30:42):

Then. All right. Batman now has to go into hibernation because it’s not working. So Warner Brothers is like, Batman’s our most popular character, but we got to put him on ice for a while. Now let’s check in with … Well, before we check in with Christopher Nolan, in the movie industry, a very important thing is happening between 1997 and 2005. Sam Ramey’s Spider-Man comes out, becomes the most popular movie in the world. A superhero movie hasn’t been this popular since Burton’s Batman. In fact, this is more popular. This is now playing like a Star Wars movie. And suddenly the age of superhero movies had always been around. But a superhero movie that can be the biggest movie of the year that can be bigger than a Star Wars movie because remember Star Wars movies were coming out at the time. In 2002, George Lucas’s second Star Wars prequel came out.

Matt (00:31:27):

Spider-Man was way bigger than it.

Laci (00:31:29):

Those are trash.

Matt (00:31:31):

Well, meanwhile, Christopher Nolan, he makes Memento and then the next thing he does is he makes insomnia an excellent movie that we’ll be covering on the Patreon. This is his first time working with movie stars, working with a big budget, $50 million. It’s not like a blockbuster, but still you’re working with real money. And he says he was a nervous wreck on this

Laci (00:31:54):

Movie.What a two. I’m sorry, Hillary, but just fucking right out of the gate,

Matt (00:32:00):

These two? It was Al Pacino that he grew up worshiping Al Pacino.

Laci (00:32:04):

Fine, but being around Robin Williams is a chill.

Matt (00:32:07):

Well, no.

Laci (00:32:07):

Okay.

Matt (00:32:08):

No, no, not at all. But he said it was the absolute best experience of the most important learning experience. Learn how to work within the constraints of a studio and work with huge movie stars like this. And it’s interesting if you look at directors today who will make a memento, make a little indie hit, and then immediately get signed up to do the big blockbuster. They don’t get to do the intermediate thing that Nolan got to do.

Laci (00:32:35):

Imposter syndrome is real in every profession.

Matt (00:32:39):

Well, yeah, but that’s why the studio likes it because if you don’t have the confidence to take control of this production, that means the studio controls the production, not the director. So if you make Memento and you get the confidence of like, “I was able to direct Al Pacino, I feel confident enough to take control of this giant Batman movie.” So this whole time Warner Brothers is trying to figure out what to do with Batman and they get a bunch of different projects in development. Darren Aronovski, the director of Requiem for a Dream, he gets hired to develop an adaptation of a graphic novel called Batman Year one, which is basically Batman, Batman origins. What was Batman like at the beginning of his career? But the draft that he turns in the studio realizes there’s no way for this not to be R-rated so they don’t move forward with that.

Matt (00:33:26):

Batman has to have a PG-13 rating.That’s a requirement. Christopher Nolan then in 2003 had a general meeting with Warner Brothers where like, “Oh, you’re an up and coming director. Come in and we’ll just chat. What do you think? What kind of things are you thinking of? You thinking?”

Matt (00:33:43):

Yeah. And so he knew, because if you’re connected, you hear the scuttlebutter around town. Warner Brothers is trying to come up with a Batman idea and so Nolan comes up with this idea.

Laci (00:33:54):

But what is the idea? Still not … What are you pitching? You be Nolan. Pitch me this.

Matt (00:34:02):

Well, I’ll read it exactly what he said the idea was, but- Cheater. You don’t think you can … T me, it’s a very clear idea. I just don’t think it’s a good idea. And you don’t-

Laci (00:34:14):

I just see trope after trope and then … Okay. It’s an action movie. I mean, Batman is action so it does not help that I don’t feel like Nolan’s particularly good at really clear

Matt (00:34:28):

Action.

Laci (00:34:28):

So if it’s an action heavy movie, I’m going to be bored. And if it’s just like, okay, so we get the really sad beginning, falls in a well, parents are dead. Okay. Then we get some action. Okay. Then now he’s training. Why is he in prison? What’s he doing with the flower? Action. And it’s like every little bit of an idea is then bookended with action that I guess got my attention losing it, got my attention losing it. So it feels like five small ideas and then let’s just see how it goes.

Matt (00:35:06):

I think the big idea and what attracted to me when I saw the movie in theaters was I’ve seen Batman so many times. Oh, where did he come up with the idea to have the freaking hooks on the side of his gloves or where did he learn to move in stealth and shadows and stuff? So it was neat to see him doing all this stuff and it’s very smart of Nolan to not start the movie and then start with him as Batman and then flashback. You don’t see him as Batman until an hour in. Instead, you see precursors to Batman.

Laci (00:35:35):

And I appreciate that. I love the idea of this place that is where I spent my most terrified moments and they have haunted me to this moment. I’m going to make this my cave. That would be a good reason to have a bat cave. The infrastructure of that, how do you even start to build one of those? Why would you do it? And so I love the logic all that. I love seeing how you would get something that kind of looks like a Batmobile, why that would happen. I think all that’s real smart. I enjoy those parts. I like all the parts with him with Alfred and with Mr. Fox.

Matt (00:36:12):

Yeah. It seems to be like you think Nolan’s a shitty action director and I think the action in this movie’s bad. I agree with you. I’m

Laci (00:36:18):

Just not tracking it well. I’m not an action person per se. So I’m already going to … Some people fast forward to action parts and movies. I like to skip them. I never do, but if I could, I would sometimes. I think maybe it’s an ADHD thing I’m not following. Maybe I don’t understand what parts I can let go. I mean, it’s a skill

Matt (00:36:41):

Issue of the director that he failed at his job. For

Laci (00:36:44):

Instance-

Matt (00:36:45):

George Miller of Mad Max.

Laci (00:36:47):

Great example. And then all the John Wick movies and a lot of the mission impossibles. I am following it beat for beat. I am on the edge of my seat. I fucking love it. So yeah, it’s not like I can’t be enthralled by it.

Matt (00:37:01):

Yeah. And with Nolan, I think he gets better at action, but I think that a thing that he doesn’t do well is fighting. And I’m a

Laci (00:37:09):

Snob about good fighting.

Matt (00:37:11):

And it’s very weirdly edited all the fighting, but we’ll get to all that when we talk about the movie itself. But okay, so there’s this book, Christopher Nolan, iconic director by Don Jolen. Here we’re going to read about Nolan coming up with the idea. “Nolan was open to ideas so his agent, Dan Aloney, pointed out that Warner Brothers

Matt (00:37:27):

Was looking for someone to fix Batman. They really didn’t know what to do, Nolan said. So it was this incredible opportunity to just go in and pitch what I really wanted to do, which was, he said, to make the audience believe in the reality of the character, reasoning that Batman is unique among superheroes in presenting that opportunity. He really is just a guy that does a lot of pushups. Unlike Tim Burton, who in 1989’s Batman created a whole gothic, fantastical setting around the hero, Nolan wanted to do for the character what he felt Richard Donner had done so well in 1978 Superman introduced this extraordinary figure into a relatively recognizable world via a detailed and impressively cast origin story. We did an episode about Superman 1978 last year. Everybody can refer back to that episode. I forgot how much this movie has in common with that where it’s an hour of one movie and then 90 minutes of a different movie.

Matt (00:38:17):

Superman, I think way more successful at that. He started working with screenwriter, David Goyer, who had written the Blade movies. He was a comic book movie guy, Nolan. It was important to Nolan not to look down on comic books to-

Laci (00:38:31):

I appreciate that.

Matt (00:38:32):

But instead of doing the traditional thing of like, I’m going to write a script or a treatment, I’m going to go pitch Warner Brothers on that. Instead, he hires a production designer, Nathan Crowley, and they start building models.

Laci (00:38:42):

And that’s my favorite thing probably about the movie besides the actors and performances I already mentioned. It looks great to me. I know where I am.

Matt (00:38:52):

If you watch Batman and Robin, there’s stuff I’d totally forgotten. There’s a motorcycle gang that’s all neon, which rules, which rules, but at the time people hated. And so he’s thinking like, ” We need to go in and sell them on how this is going to look and feel, and it’s going to be different. “That’s more important than like, ” In this movie, Batman fights the scarecrow. Didn’t write a script, just came up with a story outline. They had the idea for the villains they would use. They’re not going to use the A- list. They’re not going to use Two-Face or Catwoman or whoever were going to use the Scarecrow and Razagul and they have a model for the Batmobile, but a Batmobile that you could see this could actually exist in the real world. LA Times in 2005 wrote, “After a 45 minute point by point pitch, Warner Brothers signed Nolan to a payer play deal on the spot without even a treatment or a script in place.” So Nolan is officially aboard the movies, it’s a green light, it’s a go picture.

Matt (00:39:46):

From that CMLA Times article, David Goyer is like trying to familiarize people who aren’t familiar with comic books of the idea of the reboot. Now it’s like it’s second nature to everybody, but here’s what he says.

Matt (00:40:01):

“After Batman and Robin, it was necessary to do what we call in comic book terms a reboot. Say you’ve had 187 issues of the incredible Hulk and you decide you’re going to introduce a new issue one. You pretend like those first 187 issues never happened and you start the story from the beginning and the slate is wiped clean and no one blinks. Even me at the time, I saw trailers for this movie and I thought like, wait, so he’s still the same guy, right? He’s going to become Michael Keaton and you can even watch the movie and make that work in your head. Yeah. But it’s just funny that this is a time where people, this was a brand new idea to people. But who would play Batman? Christopher Nolan insists he always wanted Christian Bail because of American psycho, but the studio wanted someone hotter, like Ashton Kutcher or Jake Gillenhall.

Laci (00:40:55):

His sister gets it later. Yay.

Matt (00:40:58):

He was just every single role. How about Jack Gellenhall? How about Jake Gellenhall? Yeah. Nolan explained to the BBC in 2005 why he wanted Bail. “I chose Christian to play Batman based on that idea of trying to create a realistic version of the story. You need an actor like Christian who has sufficient intensity and focus in his eyes to make you believe in the idea that somebody without superpowers and Bruce Wayne has no superpowers could through sheer force of will change himself into a superhero. I think from meeting Christian and seeing his other performances, it’s clear he has the ability to project that kind of intensity.” Yeah, intensity is the line of, that’s like the line you’d use to describe Christian Pale. He had just done this movie The Machinist where he lost so much weight and that’s always been a thing. He’s a method actor.

Matt (00:41:42):

He loves to physically transform for roles.

Laci (00:41:45):

Remember whenever we did Green Lantern … No, he’s a bad guy and he’s green shit.

Matt (00:41:49):

The Green Goblin. The

Laci (00:41:50):

Green Goblin.

Matt (00:41:51):

That was Spider-Man.

Laci (00:41:52):

No, I know, but specifically that Spider-Man and I think we had like this disconnect and this, it’s with McCulloughulk and Pagemaster. There are certain actors where you need their full face. And so you take someone like William DeFoe and then you put him in a full fucking face of shit and then you’ve just got his disembodied voice and he’s in this stupid outfit. It doesn’t empower him and it takes his power away. His intensity is in his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks and his weird, like the way he does his hair, it’s everything and then you mask it and I’ll go back to Paige Master McCulloughCulkin is a face. He’s adorable little package.You cartoonize him and just give him a voice and now I’m bored to fuck. And Christian Bale, I didn’t realize it until last night. He needs his whole head.

Laci (00:42:44):

I need his furrowed brow. I cannot be distracted by the fact that he took time and blacked around his eyes with some sort of grease paint then put on his mask because that’s what you see. It’s distracting and weird. It doesn’t make him seem more equipped to do anything. It’s silly on him. I’m sure I’ll grow into it because I love him.

Matt (00:43:06):

He

Laci (00:43:06):

Can sell me on any … The man’s got a double widow’s peak. That’s some fucking intention.

Matt (00:43:11):

I like this performance a lot.

Laci (00:43:12):

No, I’m not saying

Matt (00:43:13):

The flaws

Laci (00:43:13):

Is bad. It’s just as soon as the costumes on, I’m like, “I’m feeling a little less like you’re capable.”

Matt (00:43:18):

Yeah. I like him as Bruce Wayne. As Batman- I do.

Laci (00:43:20):

I do.

Matt (00:43:21):

Whatever.

Laci (00:43:21):

Whatever. It could be literally anyone in that suit. He loses all everything to me. His answers are shorter. His voice is different. I just kept thinking of Elizabeth Holmes. That’s all I kept thinking about. I know that Batman changes his voice, but is it that much usually?

Matt (00:43:38):

No, watch Michael Keaton. He changes, but only a little.

Laci (00:43:40):

Only a little.

Matt (00:43:41):

I wish you to tell your friends about me.

Laci (00:43:42):

Right. I’m Batman. It’s just me when I’m being kind of serious.

Matt (00:43:49):

So you can see the whole thing, the whole unified Nolan approach is what would this look like if this guy really did it and we believed that this is a reasonable thing for this guy to do and this guy has the intensity and the integrity and the resources to pull it off. He’s not a lunatic like Michael Keaton. He’s just a guy responding to trauma. And again, that’s the least interesting version of Batman to me. If you want to go that route, then you’re going to have to pose a lot of other questions. I feel like the Robert Pattinson character comes closer to getting at those questions and that movie, like for example, in that movie, The Batman from 2022, you will see him without the mask and with all the eye black so that you just realize, oh, this guy puts on eye black so that he can put on the bat cowl and that says something about him.

Matt (00:44:40):

It makes him seem a little nuttier.

Laci (00:44:43):

A little bit performing, a

Matt (00:44:45):

Little

Laci (00:44:45):

More theater. And it doesn’t help that the love interest is Katie Holmes. I find her very boring.

Matt (00:44:50):

Oh yeah.

Laci (00:44:51):

She’s not adding anything. So because she’s in so many scenes she is taking away. I don’t care if she dies. And I don’t buy that they have any chemistry or have any hopes of being an item.

Matt (00:45:03):

It’s also, it’s the Nolan thing of the only way he can conceive of there being a romance is because they were children together and that’s kind of weird. The man I used to love is gone. You loved him when he was seven.

Laci (00:45:17):

Right.

Matt (00:45:17):

You would need to see- And

Laci (00:45:18):

You were the help, gross. I’m just kidding.

Matt (00:45:20):

There’s an animated Batman movie called Mask of the Fantasm, which is great. And you see- People love that movie. Yeah, yeah. You see Bruce Wayne as a younger man having a romance with a woman and it’s distracting him from being Batman.

Laci (00:45:33):

So that is, I’d say of every superhero, I guess I’m a Simpleton, but it’s always bothered me that Batman’s the only one that doesn’t seem to be able to have a successful girlfriend or like he just can’t seem … It’s only Alfred. He’d have to fully let someone in the way Iron Man does, the way Spider-Man does. And I know Spider-Man also rejects … I feel like he always gets to a point where he has to go, “No, Mary Jane.” Right, but while they are together, it is hot.

Matt (00:46:04):

It is

Laci (00:46:04):

Awesome. I believe the chemistry, I believe the story, it’s all very compelling and it’s like Batman’s just this bachelor who needs to date for appearances and so it’s all … But then he does have this girl that he likes because of family or whatever, but there’s no spark that … It feels like filler.

Matt (00:46:24):

The spark, you’ll see a spark in Batman returns because it’s with Catwoman, because it’s with Michelle Pfeiffer. I love it. It’s with another freak.

Laci (00:46:32):

Yes. I love that. It’s the funny parts of the Lego Batman stuff where it’s like, “Fuck Robin.” It’s me and the … Is it the Joker who’s always like, “We’re nemesises.” But yeah, those are the parts that are the most compelling. When that freak is with the other freaks, that’s just walked a slightly different path than you.

Matt (00:46:54):

Because we can’t emphasize enough. The thing is he chose this. Spider-Man didn’t choose it. Peter Parker did not choose for this to happen to him. Bruce Wayne wakes up every day and says, “I want to go fucking be a bat and beat up people for selling marijuana.”

Laci (00:47:06):

Anything to not get married.

Matt (00:47:09):

Glen Weldon, the guy who wrote the Batman book, he said, “There’s a widespread tendency among nerds and normals alike to dismiss the impact of Bruce Wayne’s billionaire status on the idea of Batman.” But of course, that wealth is Batman’s true superpower. Its narrative function in any Batman story is to turn the flatly impossible into the vaguely plausible. It works essentially as magic, yet few fans acknowledge that socioeconomic wish fulfillment plays even a small role in the bond they feel with him. Many don’t even consider his wealth to be a core element of his character, which given that it is only this unimaginable wealth that makes his whole one man Chyrp terra themed war on crime possible in the first place is A, nuts and B, fascinating. It speaks to the abiding and uniquely American belief that anyone can become obscenely rich if they just want to really hard.

Matt (00:47:59):

I love that because you don’t hear people talk about what they love about Batman as he’s rich, but it is part of the appeal because it’s wish fulfillment. And then remember when Batman was created, it was the 1930s. It was the Great Depression. Depression. Yeah. You’re reading about this guy who’s a billionaire. That’s awesome.

Laci (00:48:16):

Because it had to seem like a superpower. What would I do? All I do is spend all day working my ass off to barely get by. But if I had all kinds of money, what would I get them to?

Matt (00:48:26):

Yeah.

Laci (00:48:26):

I would just be dressing up. I’d be helping people. I’d definitely be helping people.

Matt (00:48:31):

Though as Weldon points out in the early Batman issues, he wasn’t helping poor people. He was like, rich people got their jewels stolen and he goes and recovers them.

Laci (00:48:40):

He’s just bored.

Matt (00:48:41):

So he’s just helping. He’s not like a Robinhood figure. He’s helping the rich recover their property.

Laci (00:48:46):

He’s a taxman. No, that’s not the reason. He’s

Matt (00:48:50):

Not

Laci (00:48:50):

The

Matt (00:48:50):

Tax man.

Laci (00:48:51):

That’s not it either.

Matt (00:48:53):

Anyway, they make Batman begins and it’s highly anticipated all the marketing is taking a lot of paints to say this is not Batman and Robin. Trust us. Goyer told the LA Times in 2005, “The first question I got,” he’s talking about when he was at Comic-Con. The first question I got was someone stood up in the audience said, “How can you guarantee this movie won’t suck?” And everyone applauded. But it comes out in summer of 05, gets great reviews. I go see it in theaters three times. I think it’s amazing. One of those times is on a date. How about that?

Laci (00:49:24):

You didn’t even kiss her.

Matt (00:49:26):

No.This

Laci (00:49:26):

Is not a fucking feeling.

Matt (00:49:28):

We went to see Batman begins. Shut up. Roger Ebert said, “This is at last the Batman movie I’ve been waiting for. Batman begins at last penetrates to the dark and troubled depths of the Batman legend, creating a superhero who, if not plausible, is at least persuasive as a man driven to dress like a bat and become a vigilante. The movie doesn’t simply supply Batman’s beginnings in the tradition of a comic book origin story, but explores the tortured path that led Bruce Wayne from a parentless childhood to a friendless adult existence. The movie is not realistic because how could it could be, but it acts as if it is. “

Laci (00:50:00):

Look how much Morgan Freeman and Christian Bill hate Katie Holmes in

Matt (00:50:03):

This

Laci (00:50:03):

Picture. They barely want to touch her. Look

Matt (00:50:06):

At

Laci (00:50:06):

Her.

Matt (00:50:08):

And look at Christopher Nolan as a young man of chubby cheeks. Well,

Laci (00:50:12):

His wife’s pregnant too right there.

Matt (00:50:13):

Is she?

Laci (00:50:14):

I think so.

Matt (00:50:14):

Good, good man. Movie makes $375 million worldwide on a 150 million dollar budget, which is that’s smaller than you. You think in retrospect, this was an enormous movie. It wasn’t quite the world beating thing that they were hoping for, but everyone liked it.

Laci (00:50:30):

There was a turning point in approaching so many different kinds of stories. Exactly. Yes. And that’s the problem is I can’t watch this movie and forget that this movie invented the dark blank. And then all of a sudden Disney’s doing dark everything with their shit too, but like five years later. It didn’t even catch on as fast as you think it would, but it set a ton of franchises in motion to do this.

Matt (00:50:54):

Well, just one year later, James Bond. Dark James Bond. Yeah. Casino Royale, a great movie. It might be the best James Bond movie. It owes so much to the dark night. It’s crazy. And I think that that’s where Nolan and Oppenheimer maybe he starts to feel like Oppenheimer because this wasn’t the first superhero movie. And if it hadn’t been him who did this, someone else would’ve, but it was like he gave them the model. We can take IP that already was very successful and reboot it when it hasn’t actually been that long. It was only eight years ago we can reboot it. Critics will take it seriously and now this is kind of all we get.

Laci (00:51:35):

He’s such a young and still inexperienced director who just is gifted and did a really good job with this novel idea. But again, the reason why on rewatch this movie starts to lose stuff is because what he’s good at is the novel idea. That doesn’t mean it’s going to sustain. And it certainly doesn’t mean that a less talented director can take this sort of concept and do anything interesting with it. I’m not saying other dark things aren’t interesting, but you just could feel it. It’s like, oh, here comes dark fucking Beauty of the Beast. Dark Beatlejuice. How are they doing that? It was already dark. What the fuck? Okay. It just feels so cynical.

Matt (00:52:14):

And I don’t know when he started to feel, I don’t know if it’s regret, but feel like, “Ooh, maybe I messed with the cosmic scales of justice.” Maybe.

Laci (00:52:24):

I mean, you

Matt (00:52:24):

Keep

Laci (00:52:25):

Saying he feels that way. I don’t know where you’re pulling that from.

Matt (00:52:28):

I’m pulling it from his movies. I’m pulling it from the stories he’s telling. All

Laci (00:52:31):

These movies are apologies and admitted

Matt (00:52:33):

In

Laci (00:52:33):

Ministry. You know what I also would compare it to is how when they figured out that you could do a live action of a cartoon and then all of a sudden everything, it’s just another way of regurgitating the same shit people liked and people are going to go see it. Even if it’s line for line the same.

Matt (00:52:50):

That’s true. But I think that for him, he’s like, “I put everything into that movie. I am so proud of that movie.” And it would have been different if he had gotten hired to make a live action cartoon and he could just say like, “Anybody could have done that. ” What was the point of trying so hard if now Hollywood only lets these kinds of movies get made?

Laci (00:53:13):

We couldn’t have known that that was going to happen and he let other production companies or whoever puts these things together see that you could pay not that much too because if this little guy can do it, I mean …

Matt (00:53:31):

Three years later, he makes The Dark Night.That becomes the biggest movie of all time, fucking enormous- Tell me,

Laci (00:53:37):

I’m sorry.

Matt (00:53:38):

Monocultural.

Laci (00:53:39):

Remember this, but Heath Ledgard Dying had already happened.

Matt (00:53:45):

He’d already filmed all his stuff, but it was six months before the movie came out. Yeah, that was certainly a part of it.

Laci (00:53:52):

Well, like with the Crow, I mean, he dies on set, so that made it such a juggernaut.

Matt (00:53:57):

Oh, absolutely.That was a huge part of its success, but that becomes so much more successful than Batman begins and then it doesn’t get a best picture Oscar nomination and the Oscars change their rules so that they expand the field of nominees. And then I think he has to start to think, but like, no, but it’s just a big superhero movie. Come on. I don’t know. I’m sure I’m projecting onto him. I think you are. But we will take a look at that movie in a few weeks. We’re going to now talk about Batman. Where did Batman begin? Let’s find out.

Laci (00:54:38):

In a well.

Matt (00:55:12):

The book about Batman that I mentioned in the history segment, Glen Weldon’s book about the history of Batman and fan culture. It’s all about people getting very defensive and needing sort of the larger culture to validate their love for this thing, but they’re very specific of view of what’s the real version of it. Do you have anything like that?

Laci (00:55:36):

I guess Beatle Juice.

Matt (00:55:38):

Wait.

Laci (00:55:38):

I guess I would throw in … And I’ve never seen Wednesdays, so maybe I’d like it, but that Wednesday got lumped in with the new Beatlejuice and that I love both the original two Adams family movies, not what preceded them. I don’t know that Adam’s family … I mean, the monsters are clearly the fucking Adams family, right? So I can get confused. Was there an earlier iteration of the Adams family before

Matt (00:55:59):

My- Yeah, it was a New Yorker cartoon.

Laci (00:56:01):

Okay, that’s right. So here I am. That is the only real Adams family, BeatleJuice again with my man, Batman.

Matt (00:56:12):

Michael Keaton.

Laci (00:56:13):

That’s his name. That is the only Beatlejuice. So when the nude Beatle juice combined both of those properties, didn’t they? Isn’t Lydia the mom of Wednesday or some bullshit?

Matt (00:56:25):

No, it’s the actress. It is. The actress. And Tim Burton was a director on the Wednesday show. So they’re trying to get the juice of Wednesday, but it’s not literally a crossover, but wink, wink. It’s kind of a crossover, but not really.

Laci (00:56:38):

Yeah,

Matt (00:56:38):

Thanks. So what you’re

Laci (00:56:38):

Saying- Any sadness. I guess it’s the closest thing I can think of. There are certain movies I don’t want to be remade. I don’t want new fans. I don’t think they understand the old fandom and they don’t get it.

Matt (00:56:49):

So if a kid, some whippersnapper said, “I love Beetlejuice. I love the scene where Beatlejuice and Wednesday Adams do the thing.” Because we still have never seen Beetlejuice too.

Laci (00:56:57):

We’ve never seen

Matt (00:56:58):

It. You would get mad. You’d be like, “That’s not real Beatlejuice.”

Laci (00:57:01):

I wouldn’t get mad, but I’d hate that child inside my mind. Yeah. People- And

Matt (00:57:06):

I’ll

Laci (00:57:06):

Probably like those things. I probably like them.

Matt (00:57:09):

Every time I’ve said, “Let’s watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” you’d be like, “Nah.”

Laci (00:57:12):

That’s not true. You’ve only said it once. And I said.

Matt (00:57:15):

Apologies. You said no differently. It’s a thing people will comment on things you and I say on this program. They’ll get mad at us if we criticize a thing that they like. And the thing I always come back with is like, “Hey man, me not liking it has nothing to do with you enjoying it. You get to keep enjoying it. “

Laci (00:57:35):

Also, let me make this clear. I know that that’s dumb what I’m saying about Beetlejuice, but it is how I feel and I don’t think it makes me a better person, a smarter person, a cooler person, a person born better in a better time. I don’t think any of those things. I think that I had an era of Beetlejuice that seeped into my soul and I have no room for other Beetlejuice. So I don’t have a need for the general population to agree with me about my Beale Juice. In fact, the fewer, the better. It makes me unique and interesting.

Matt (00:58:10):

I gotcha. Yeah. And the word fan is short for fanatic. Never forget that. You are supposed to be a little unhinged and lunatic about it. And that’s my favorite kind of fan is people who can mock themselves and like, “I know this is like … ” Well,

Laci (00:58:24):

Because I think the psychological part of it is very interesting. I think it’s weird. I think it’s so interesting that I can pour myself into certain bands at a certain time of my life and then viscerally reject the idea that new bands happen after the point in my life where I have that kind of like consumption ability. I just don’t anymore. I’ll never know a new band the way I know the ones I already know and therefore it makes me annoyed that they exist.

Matt (00:58:51):

That’s just a resentment that time is marching on and we’re going to die.

Laci (00:58:57):

Yes.

Matt (00:58:58):

Yes, it is. But these people will get mad at us and I will always say like, “You shouldn’t care what I say. I’m just some dip shit.” And you shouldn’t care what anybody thinks. If you enjoy something, keep enjoying it.

Laci (00:59:08):

Well, and what you should care about is that we both care about something enough to talk about it and it’s related to shit you really like too. We’re nerds about this stuff. That means me and you probably could have a good conversation. So no point in being mean to us. We’re probably your people, just not here.

Matt (00:59:25):

Yeah, maybe not.

Laci (00:59:27):

I’m just saying, don’t be mean. I’m nice.

Matt (00:59:28):

Don’t be mean to Laci. She’s very nice. We’re nice. She’s not nice. So I feel very high and mighty when I tell people this. Why do you need me to validate your opinion? But I did used to have this thing about music. I made a very big part of my identity, my love for Weezer, and I would say the Weather’s my favorite band. And people would say that band that has that stupid song, Beverly Hills, and I’d be like, “You can’t judge them by Beverly Hills just because- ” How does

Laci (00:59:53):

That fucking song slaps?

Matt (00:59:55):

That song sucks, but just because it’s their lead single and their biggest hit ever and then the Larger conversation of can you judge a band by its singles?

Laci (01:00:02):

No, in fact you shouldn’t. It’s the lowest common denominator.

Matt (01:00:05):

No, you should. You can do whatever. Well, it’s all a package. Weezer did Beverly Hills. They have to own it.

Laci (01:00:13):

There’s no right way to like a thing. Just like stuff.

Matt (01:00:16):

But it would bother me if people thought Weezer was stupid because most of the songs they heard were stupid. And now I can acknowledge, yeah, probably most of the songs you’ve heard by them suck and that’s okay. And I know the songs that don’t suck, but you don’t need to know them.

Laci (01:00:31):

It makes you feel special. They’re yours. They’re your little songs.

Matt (01:00:34):

Exactly. And I’d be defensive about Blink 182. They weaponize their immaturity. It’s just a veneer because they’re actually very smart and sophisticated. The music’s actually very totally sophisticated.

Laci (01:00:44):

You taught me about Modest Mouse and Blur. Those are two bands where I only knew one song, liked both of those songs heavily, but had no idea the depth, especially Modest Mouse. Not Modest at all.

Matt (01:00:55):

The blur thing actually kind of does still annoy me because the only song … They have a ton of hit singles everywhere, but America in America they’re only known as- So I just hit on something. The woo-hoo song. So I guess I do still have them. No. You’re

Laci (01:01:08):

Doing it wrong.

Matt (01:01:09):

All right. Batman begins, opens up well. And well, no, even before that, Nolan is showing you, I’m stripping this thing to the bones because there are no opening credits.

Laci (01:01:20):

We open straight into the Secret Garden.

Matt (01:01:22):

The Spider-Man movies have just come out and they have great elaborate opening credits. Nolan, it’s your fault. We got rid of opening credits because of you.

Laci (01:01:32):

Okay, but are they opening credits comic book noddings?

Matt (01:01:36):

Yeah, but they don’t have to be.

Laci (01:01:37):

No, but are they in Spider-Man? Yeah. Well, his

Matt (01:01:40):

Whole

Laci (01:01:40):

Point … Stop. Stop. His whole point is to wash you clean of what you think you know about Bassman about Batman and start it from a story of a person. So it makes sense to do it here.

Matt (01:01:52):

I think he started all these trends that I don’t like, started all of them for good reasons.

Laci (01:01:56):

That’s what I was saying.

Matt (01:01:57):

That’s

Laci (01:01:57):

The problem with being novel and having that work once. It’s like in Lesser Hands, your novel idea is now annoying as shit.

Matt (01:02:06):

And it’s not even that it has to be lesser hands. It’s just, did you do it for a reason or did you do it because you saw it in Batman Begins? Well,

Laci (01:02:12):

It’s a whole thing in novelty, right? Once it’s done once, it better just have staying power or else I’m just annoyed you’re doing this thing that someone else did.

Matt (01:02:19):

Not only are there not opening credits in Batman Begins, it doesn’t say the title. You just have a bunch of bats in the sky and Nolan movies often don’t have the title at the beginning of the movie. It’s the end of the movie.

Laci (01:02:28):

He wants you to be worried you’re in the wrong movie. He’s backwards

Matt (01:02:31):

Every day. The whole time, I’m like, “Come on, come on. ” Sit

Laci (01:02:33):

Next to someone I know, sit next to someone I know.

Matt (01:02:35):

Then the movie ends. Ah, done Kirk. Okay. It was Dunkirk the whole time. I think

Laci (01:02:38):

You see in the hall, lots of people looking at their ticket looking outside. Look at the ticket, looking outside. That the movie theater hall, just like, I am in the … Okay.

Matt (01:02:47):

I think we need to go back to the movie starts with opening credits that make you very confident of what movie you’re in.

Laci (01:02:52):

I don’t like when the … I think it’s charming that older movies had what looks like end credits in the beginning. That’s adorable, but they waste my time. Let’s get to it.

Matt (01:03:03):

Okay.

Laci (01:03:04):

I like variety. What am I talking about? Give me all the Weezers.

Matt (01:03:08):

I know. This directly contradicts what I just said.

Laci (01:03:10):

Right. So maybe we should just talk about the movie.

Matt (01:03:13):

All right the movie. Opens in a while. One more gripe. Batman, the Danny Elfman Batman’s theme is like one of the most-

Laci (01:03:22):

Danny Elphinet. I’m sorry. Elphin sounds like F. It’s fine.

Matt (01:03:26):

And people like this Han Zimmer score for the Batman pictures by Christopher Nolan. And if you put me, I’d be in a torture chamber and couldn’t tell you what the theme is in these movies. I was

Laci (01:03:34):

Just going to say I never had of it. I’m going to thuding.

Matt (01:03:40):

Little Bruce Wayne running around the compound that his family has owned for generations with little Rachel Dawes.

Laci (01:03:47):

Somehow doesn’t know there’s a fucking well.

Matt (01:03:49):

No. Stupid

Laci (01:03:49):

Little guy.

Matt (01:03:50):

Doesn’t have to know. He pays other people to know things like that.

Laci (01:03:52):

They should put a sign well.

Matt (01:03:54):

And what are they fighting or play fighting over?

Laci (01:03:57):

Stolen fucking indigenous wars. They are little settlers who have found a Native American arrowhead.

Matt (01:04:07):

They found an arrowhead. And he literally

Laci (01:04:09):

Says, Finders keepers. Yeah, bitch.

Matt (01:04:11):

That’s

Laci (01:04:11):

How colonialism I’m being.

Matt (01:04:13):

That’s the Wayne family crest. Yes, Finders Keepers. No, on top of everything else. Finders,

Laci (01:04:18):

Keepers, distributors. That’s the Wayne way.

Matt (01:04:21):

On top of everything else, yeah, our manner’s on stolen land. What of it? But later in the movie, Michael Camwell show us, during the Chevy wall, your family used underground railroad for due caverns. So they were good. They were good. Oh,

Laci (01:04:33):

Thank God.

Matt (01:04:34):

So Bruce Wayne’s being a litle chwat. He’s like, “That’s my arrowhead.” And he runs around and then falls down a well and Rachel’s- It’s

Laci (01:04:41):

A

Matt (01:04:41):

Pretty good fall. Yeah.

Laci (01:04:42):

And if you got down there and broke your leg, uncomfortable.

Matt (01:04:45):

To save the least.

Laci (01:04:47):

I’d say

Matt (01:04:47):

He’s underreacting.This is smart.

Laci (01:04:49):

I have no time to be scared of bats when my bone is sticking out

Matt (01:04:52):

Of my finger. Right. So Mr. Alfred, Bruce has fallen down a well. And then Bruce is down in the well and he gets attacked by bats. But then wakes up in the present and is Christian bail. He’s in some prison in a mysterious Asian country. And because he’s the most important person in the universe, his cellmate just watches him as he has loops and is there to be there as soon as he wakes up to comment. Oh, you’ve just woken up and it seems you had a dream. A memory.

Laci (01:05:20):

I’m so involved in you, Cellmate, that I know now when you’re having bad nights and good nights. And I never sleep while you sleep because I want to protect you. Also, I’m going to let you know in the chow line that they are going to attack you again. For some reason I tell you everything and they tell me everything and so I’m telling you.

Matt (01:05:38):

He’s good at what he does. He’s keeping minutes even in his sleep. Whenever we do anything, whenever we record in the studio with Wade or when Wade comes over to record our James Bond podcast- He has

Laci (01:05:51):

His notebook.

Matt (01:05:51):

The entire time we’ve known Wade, he will then pull out his notebook and write something down and both of us have always been like, “What’s he doing?” No,

Laci (01:05:57):

I know what he’s doing. He’s so sweet. He does it in real time. He wants to remember everything and we watch him record it. I

Matt (01:06:05):

Feel like if I stole the notebook from him, it would just be like clock symbols and stuff.

Laci (01:06:10):

Or just the number 23

Matt (01:06:11):

Over the weeks. Yes. I drop it in horror. So Bruce Wayne, he’s like Leonardo DiCaprio in the beach. He’s just like, “I want to do tourism among the real people of the world.”

Laci (01:06:23):

First time I felt hunger pains. Okay. Oh my God. All right, Aladdin. That line. Fuck off.

Matt (01:06:30):

We will get to that. The

Laci (01:06:30):

First time I really felt it, I still shared my bread. I’m so nice. I’m such a good man.

Matt (01:06:35):

He’s going over to Asia to live amongst the poor people and what is it like over there? Or no, not the poor people. The criminals, because there’s a difference. Oh, of course. They treat criminal like it’s a species, a criminal.

Laci (01:06:49):

Right. He’s breaking legs, he’s ruining lives in these big giant fights that he’s allowing to happen over and over again. But then he goes up the mountain and he finds out that because that man they captured as just a murderer that he should be put to death and all of a sudden now he’s like, “No, that’s wrong.

Matt (01:07:08):

I’m not

Laci (01:07:08):

That.

Matt (01:07:09):

” I’m not an executioner. He needs to be tried.

Laci (01:07:12):

I just want to paralyze a person who’s probably only skill is manual labor for the rest of their lives so that when they get out of this prison where they do get food, they’ll be indigent and starved to death. That’s all I want to do.

Matt (01:07:23):

If the movie could examine, even if his moral code makes no sense, which doesn’t make sense to me, just let me understand it a little bit rather than it seeming totally arbitrary. One of the ways it seems arbitrary is just this definition of criminal that exists completely independently of politics, of economics. What is a criminal is someone who breaks the law? Who determines what the law is?

Laci (01:07:45):

Right.

Matt (01:07:45):

Is that a question worth asking? No, it’s not.

Laci (01:07:47):

And typically are criminals billionaires who are going around trying to get life lessons? Probably not. Probably people with not great means and got themselves into a situation. You think crime is different here than it is in metropolis? Yo understand the poverty and the crime there, but not here. Jerk. Do I mean metropolis?

Matt (01:08:12):

Gotham City.

Laci (01:08:13):

I mean Metropolis.

Matt (01:08:15):

So he gets in a fight at the prison and he’s the bestest at fighting so he fights off 25 guys. There were

Laci (01:08:21):

Six.

Matt (01:08:21):

And they’re like, “We’re taking you away. Why? For protection. I don’t need protection.” Protection from you or protection for them.

Laci (01:08:30):

I don’t fucking blame him. It costs money to bandage these fuckers up every single time you decide to break limbs. It’s hard enough feeding them.

Matt (01:08:38):

So he’s brought into a cell where he meets a mysterious visitor, Liam Neeson. I am honor you to God. And he just immediately starts hectoring him. Are you so desperate to fight criminals that you lock yourself in to fight them one at a time? Mr. Wayne. How do you know my name? So

Laci (01:08:54):

I don’t know.

Matt (01:08:55):

Ducard speaks for a man named Rosal Goul, a man greatly feared by the criminal underworld. People who smuggle CDs out of CD factories to upload them to the internet. People who escort women across state lines to obtain abortions, the criminal underworld everywhere.

Laci (01:09:12):

Real underbelly. Yeah. Because of pregnancy.

Matt (01:09:15):

A man who can offer you a path. You’ve been trying to understand the criminal mind by entering the criminal fraternity, but whatever your intentions, you’ve become truly lost. So we’ve already talked about the criminal thing. It’s so stupid.

Laci (01:09:28):

Both of these men seem to think they have some kind of strong ideology and they’re searching and they think they’re going to, when they find it, they’ll know it. Liam Neeson seems to think he’s found it and this is definitely it. I think he’s just got buyer’s remorse or like time sunking time fallacy. I think he win. He got the flower. He went up the mountain. He did all the fighting.

Matt (01:09:49):

Liam Neeson. Yeah.

Laci (01:09:50):

He did all the training. He worked his way up the ranks. He became that guy’s secondhand man and then he started recruiting. He’s real important in this movement. And then some fucking snot-nosed kid comes up here and goes, “Y’all are doing it wrong.” Liam Neeson would be so upset. I haven’t had cable television in seven years and you’re telling me this isn’t the right way.

Matt (01:10:11):

He tells them later, “You are my greatest student. My proudest accomplishment was you. ” You’re

Laci (01:10:17):

Number three because I am 35 years old.

Matt (01:10:20):

It’s just if they didn’t say criminal so much, if they instead said, “We fight for justice or whatever.” Something that isn’t so-

Laci (01:10:28):

Broad.

Matt (01:10:29):

Yes. As we fight crime.

Laci (01:10:32):

Implying that people employed to fight crime are corrupt across the world. We need these vigilante types.

Matt (01:10:41):

Yeah, but we’re not vigilantes. A vigilante is just a man lost in a scramble for his own gratification. If you make yourself more than a man, you make yourself an ideal. Something that can’t stop. What’s that? That sounds

Laci (01:10:52):

Like you want some more gratification. Something

Matt (01:10:55):

That annoys me about Nolan’s screenwriting, I think he’s gotten better, but characters will say things to set up other people to ask the question so they can say the cool line. Right. Something they can’t stop. Like what? Yeah.

Laci (01:11:07):

If you wanted to say a second line, what would that be? A

Matt (01:11:09):

Legend, Mr.

Laci (01:11:11):

Way. Oh, yes, yes. Punchy.

Matt (01:11:13):

Go find a fucking blue flower and climb Mount K2 and meet me at a temple, okay? You

Laci (01:11:17):

Already snuck into this prison. You already found me. Can we just

Matt (01:11:20):

Go together? Nope. Find the blue flower. Come meet me on K2.

Laci (01:11:24):

See, because they’re betting on the sunken cost fallacy. They want everyone to have committed a lot of energy and a lot of shit and gotten their hopes up. I wonder what’s at the top of the mountain. I can’t wait to see. And it’s for me. He came to find me. So I’m special. I found the flower. I’m going to prove them special because I got the flower, Mr.. And then I’m going to get there and it’s going to be like, “Yeah, my best friends are here.”

Matt (01:11:44):

But you’re serious about that. That’s how colts work.

Laci (01:11:46):

I know.

Matt (01:11:47):

Yeah, you put in completely serious so much. Yeah.

Laci (01:11:49):

You feel special, you’re love bombed. It’s not easy for you to hide. I think I’m doing a pretty good fucking job of hiding for seven years. No, you’re too special. Go find a flower I know you can find. Yeah, love bomb and then starve, take away literally drug and control their food and then tell them what the actual goal is.

Matt (01:12:12):

Now this was all filmed in Iceland. It’s Iceland doubling as Bhutan or whatever Himalayan country this is, but testament to Nolan, he uses his power to go film in these awesome locations and he doesn’t do second unit. He shoots all this stuff himself. So normally you’d have your co-director or you’d have what’s called a second unit director go out and just find some glaciers and shoot them for me. He wants to go find them himself and bring his actors to these locations and shoot them and that’s-

Laci (01:12:42):

You feel it.

Matt (01:12:43):

You do, yes. I

Laci (01:12:44):

Mean, if that thing on the side of a mountain is real, it’s amazing looking.

Matt (01:12:47):

Yeah.

Laci (01:12:48):

And it’s a real temple, like a religious temple?

Matt (01:12:51):

I don’t know. I don’t know. The actual exterior of the … It probably is real. They probably did find this somewhere in Asia.

Laci (01:13:00):

Just probably didn’t go in there and

Matt (01:13:01):

Film there. It

Laci (01:13:03):

Immediately falls apart when you touch it like a cookie.

Matt (01:13:05):

The League of Shadows is here and we see the League of Shadows there, multiracial and multi-ethnic. But Raza Gul played by Ken Watanabe, who had just been nominated for an Oscar for the Last Samurai the year before. So when you see him, he has all this gravitas and you watching the movie in 2005 know that. Oh, that guy. Oh yes, he was so good. He must be very important in this movie. I can’t wait. Oh, this

Laci (01:13:24):

Direct.

Matt (01:13:26):

So Bale hands the flower to Niesen. Ah, the flower. Yes. Now it’s time to fight you. But I’m so tired. Criminals will not wait.

Laci (01:13:38):

Flower. Activate. I

Matt (01:13:40):

Can’t believe the flower becomes so significant in the movie. They even have to tell … I felt these effects before.

Laci (01:13:46):

You’re right. It’s called dripping balls.

Matt (01:13:50):

But you know, Lemonison very physical in this movie when he fights. He always is. But this is before he was an action star. So it’s kind of foreshadowing that like, oh, this giant guy, he’s not just a good actor.

Laci (01:14:01):

What fuck did he do before action? That’s all I associated him with.

Matt (01:14:03):

Dramatic. Oscar Schindler very much.

Laci (01:14:07):

That’s pretty action.

Matt (01:14:08):

He’s a man

Laci (01:14:09):

Of action.

Matt (01:14:09):

The guy who wants to have sex with Mia Pharaoh and Woody Allen’s husbands and wives, have you ever seen that?

Laci (01:14:15):

No.

Matt (01:14:16):

He was in Star Wars episode one. He did fight in that movie. Okay.

Laci (01:14:19):

All right. So my point is made.

Matt (01:14:20):

So now Neeson, as Ducard starts lecturing him about fear. You’re afraid, Mr. Wayne, you have so much fear. Fear, fear, fear, fear. Your fear. What do you fear, Mr. Wayne? Tell me what do you fear? I fear bats and death. So let’s flashback and look at it. Let’s look at Bruce’s amazing father, Thomas Wayne, played by Linus Roach. And we also meet Alfred played by Michael Kane for the first time. And that is the movie- MVP. I agree. That’s the movie signaling of the trology, I think, is Michael Kane.

Laci (01:14:59):

He grounds all of it.

Matt (01:15:01):

Yes. And he disappears for a lot of the dark night rises and when he reappears at the end, I’ve seen the movie so many times I will get like, oh no, when I see him again at the end of that movie, we’ll get to it. But this-

Laci (01:15:15):

Sorry, does Morgan Freeman make it to other movies?

Matt (01:15:17):

Okay, good. But that’s the movie signaling to you. Michael Goff had played Alfred in the previous four movies and he’s good. He’s good as Alfred in those four movies, but here we have one of the greatest actors who ever lived. This is important. In fact, Alfred is the most important character in Bruce Wayne’s life. This is the central relationship of the series.

Laci (01:15:33):

And it’s the X-Men approach. Just give me two wonderful old men and I’m going to love this movie.

Matt (01:15:38):

Well, that’s true. Yes. That’s true. It

Laci (01:15:41):

Almost worked.

Matt (01:15:42):

Need some more. I think we just need a few more or we just need more time with Alfred and- There needs to be

Laci (01:15:46):

More sexual tension between them.

Matt (01:15:48):

We could amp up. There’s only one scene between Alfred and Lucius Fox and Laci. And it is

Laci (01:15:54):

Hot.

Matt (01:15:55):

He has been talking about it nonstop.

Laci (01:15:56):

No, I’m talking about Xfinity. I wish there were a lover’s backstory with these two.

Matt (01:16:01):

Plus we’ve seen all the cute videos that Patrick Stewart and I and McKellen make together.

Laci (01:16:06):

Let’s show them right now. Roll that tape.

Matt (01:16:09):

Thomas Wayne, who’s just the embodiment of goodness, this 12th generation gajillionaire, as if he wouldn’t be like a deformed inbred hob goblin. I

Laci (01:16:17):

Mean, tell me how. Tell me the lore of his father. It must be Jesus Christ.

Matt (01:16:25):

You haven’t seen the Robert Pattonson Batman, but they sort of start to make it seem like, “Ooh, actually the Wayne family’s not so good.” And then it turns out like, no, they are. They’re just like, there were some bad eggs.

Laci (01:16:40):

Okay. So every family.

Matt (01:16:41):

Thank you. Yeah. So Bruce fell down the well and his dad belongs down to get him. And as he’s carrying him back into the house, Alfred is following him and Bruce’s father says, “Bruce, why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up. And then later Bruce is in bed and his father comes and he’s like, Hey son, don’t be so down. Look at these pearls I got for your mom. What do you think of these pearls? Yeah,

Laci (01:17:11):

Your kid has warned me. I thought you were about to give me a Lego set and you’re like, what do you think of this? It’s going to look stupid on me, Father.

Matt (01:17:17):

And as if the pearls weren’t good enough, we’re going out to do your favorite thing tonight. Go to the opera.

Laci (01:17:22):

Which is going to feature a show about human sized bats and I’m not going to warn you about that.

Matt (01:17:27):

Well, they didn’t-

Laci (01:17:29):

There wasn’t a good playbill out there. There’s no way

Matt (01:17:31):

To know. There was not like a, what are those websites where you can go to look at like, what am I going to see in this movie? Should I watch it with my kids?

Laci (01:17:38):

Yeah, but this is Broadway.

Matt (01:17:41):

This is Bats the opera.

Laci (01:17:42):

You’re telling … Okay. I don’t know what

Matt (01:17:44):

It is. And you think there was

Laci (01:17:44):

Just no indication?

Matt (01:17:46):

Yeah. No, I think his dad didn’t know. In the classic Batman story, he and his family go to the movies to see Zorro, which is how Batman gets the idea. That Zoro guy’s got some good ideas that I can copy.

Laci (01:17:57):

Same. Graffling hooks.

Matt (01:18:00):

But on the way to the opera, they’re riding the train, which I think it’s pretty bad. CGI grafted onto downtown Chicago. But you mentioned it kind of like mixing in the sort of retro future idea of this giant monorail and I do think that’s cool, but Thomas Wayne is just go, “You know I built this train. I built this train so that the poor people of Gotham would have a way to move about their pathetical artist. To go to my

Laci (01:18:25):

House parties

Matt (01:18:26):

And

Laci (01:18:27):

To their shit apartments.

Matt (01:18:29):

This city’s been suffering so we built this cheap train to help them. And at the center of it all, Wayne Tower. Is that where you work, dad? No son. I work at the hospital because I’m a good man.

Laci (01:18:40):

And because I’m a doctor, you fucking idiot.

Matt (01:18:43):

I leave the company to be run by better men. Better man. Well, more interested men.

Laci (01:18:50):

John Betterman. That’s literally his name. I

Matt (01:18:53):

Had always thought he said more interesting men. No. No, he says more interested men.

Laci (01:18:59):

Okay.

Matt (01:19:00):

Which is like, okay, so you’re leaving your company to guys who are making weapons and stuff. They’re the ones who are like, okay, how can we be the most evil with this company? They’re interested in using it to be as evil as … You’re not doing a good thing. What does

Laci (01:19:13):

He think he makes? What could you compare him to? Amazon?

Matt (01:19:19):

Yeah. Well, to like Halliburton or-

Laci (01:19:24):

So Haliburton makes everyday stuff, but also weapons

Matt (01:19:26):

Of war. Weapons. And Amazon, the way they actually make their money is web services and their biggest customer is the defense

Laci (01:19:33):

Department. But they also have an entire line of products. So what I’m trying to say is if you’re going to go up and down Wayne Towers and find different kinds of things being made in completely different related stuff, what company is that? I guess I doesn’t see Wayne toilet paper. So I mean, I guess it could just all be weapons and tactical gear.

Matt (01:19:50):

No, like General Electric or these companies that are like Honeywell, these companies that make consumer products really make most of their money by making weapons. Got it. And as we find out, this company … Yeah, we made a microwave emitter to decimate the water supply of a genocide machine.

Laci (01:20:05):

That we lost track of.

Matt (01:20:06):

Literally a genocide, because you could only do that to kill civilians, innocent civilians. There’s

Laci (01:20:10):

No water we don’t need.

Matt (01:20:12):

Right. Somebody needs that water.

Laci (01:20:15):

Even if it were Hurricane Katrina where there’s just a lot of flooding, would we not need that machine?

Matt (01:20:20):

That’s

Laci (01:20:20):

Not the way.

Matt (01:20:21):

Yeah. And maybe the movie’s trying to make him seem naive. Yes, I’ve left it to more interested men, but you are saying I’m not guarding the ship. I’m letting them do whatever they want.

Laci (01:20:36):

Yeah, okay.

Matt (01:20:37):

But they go to the opera, it’s got fucking bats and so Bruce freaks out and he’s like, “We got to get out of here.” And they go out through the alley. And his dad

Laci (01:20:43):

Covers for him and says that I wanted to leave. He really is a dream of a dad.

Matt (01:20:50):

It is a very nice thing to do and to the-

Laci (01:20:53):

You think they’d let him use the front door?

Matt (01:20:55):

One would think, yeah, but I love going out the back way of a movie. I refuse to go out the front. If I can go directly from the … I like to park as close to the thing as possible. It’s so satisfying. Just walk out of the theater. It’s not a

Laci (01:21:10):

Trash can. It’s my only complaint.

Matt (01:21:12):

You just leave that in the seat.

Laci (01:21:14):

That’s fucked.

Matt (01:21:15):

They want to do it. They need something to do. Okay. So we get the scene, capital T, capital S, the scene. This is like our generations to be or not to be. You have to constantly relive this scene. It’s the only scene that matters is Bruce Wayne’s parents dying in an alley shot by this guy, Joe Chill and Thomas Wayne and his unnamed bride.

Laci (01:21:40):

Who has no lines.

Matt (01:21:41):

No lines whatsoever. Do you know his wife’s name?

Laci (01:21:46):

Mom. Lois.

Matt (01:21:50):

I was just seeing if you- In Batman versus Superman, the thing that makes Batman and Superman stop fighting is they realize both of their moms are named Martha. And that’s because up until about 60 years ago, every woman in America was named Martha. Oh,

Laci (01:22:06):

I thought you just said Martha.

Matt (01:22:07):

Martha. No, Martha.

Laci (01:22:09):

Got it.

Matt (01:22:09):

That’s because they were such non-characters that are just like, “I don’t know. Martha, Martha. Martha’s a woman.”

Laci (01:22:15):

I agree with that. I know one Martha.

Matt (01:22:19):

As Bruce’s dad is dying, he’s like, “Bruce, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid because everybody’s got to talk about fear.”

Laci (01:22:25):

Bruce, you got your pussy face on.

Matt (01:22:29):

Meet Jim Gordon, Gary Oldman.

Laci (01:22:31):

Who is touching the boy too much?

Matt (01:22:33):

Oh, he’s not.

Laci (01:22:33):

Yeah, he’s all up on him.

Matt (01:22:34):

No, he’s good. He’s good. I know

Laci (01:22:37):

He’s

Matt (01:22:38):

Good. He’s being comforting here. Even in, he doesn’t know what to say. He just keeps … It’s okay. It’s okay. You want to put your dad’s coat on? Okay. Yes. I’ll put your dad’s coat on you. It’s nice. And Gary, this is inspired casting by Nolan and his casting director who I don’t know.

Laci (01:22:56):

I love him as this.

Matt (01:22:57):

But this

Laci (01:22:58):

Is what we were saying about Nolan movies. This is part of why they do so well. His casting is great and I can’t even exactly put my finger on what he’s tapping into. My only complaint is …

Matt (01:23:13):

Is Neeson.

Laci (01:23:15):

Oh, nah, not even that. No, no.

Matt (01:23:18):

Is Katie Holmes? Yeah,

Laci (01:23:19):

Katie Holmes.

Matt (01:23:20):

Great at casting and when you hear Gary Oldman’s playing Gordon, that’s a great idea because Gary- Because he’ll get

Laci (01:23:26):

There the whole

Matt (01:23:26):

Time. But also Gary Oldman was villains. That was what he did. The hammiest villains. That’s what he did for the first 30 years before.

Laci (01:23:34):

That’s his true

Matt (01:23:35):

Romance. That’s all Leon the professional.

Laci (01:23:39):

But look, he got such a sweet face.

Matt (01:23:41):

Yeah. He’s like, “You know, I can also be nice.” So very nice with little Bruce and then the police chief, Commissioner Loeb comes in and he’s like, “Son, I have wonderful life changing newspapers.”

Laci (01:23:52):

Yeah. This is just what every little point needs to know. We got them, kid.

Matt (01:23:57):

Good news, son.

Laci (01:23:59):

Way to not understand children because in a kid’s mind, it doesn’t ever cross their mind that police don’t get a bad guy. Why would they even think about

Matt (01:24:06):

That? That’s a good point. Yeah.

Laci (01:24:07):

Yeah. He comes in and says that and he’s like, “Yeah, you’re a cop. Who else is going to fucking get him?”

Matt (01:24:16):

Good news. We reduced our paperwork load. No, you’re so right. Yes, this is like we- It’s

Laci (01:24:20):

Like a fireman busting in me like, “Good news. You found fluffy? No, we put the fire out. “

Matt (01:24:26):

Someone was going to. That’s the point of

Laci (01:24:29):

You.

Matt (01:24:29):

Yeah. Greg, yo, well, you won a freaking medal. Right. But it’s like when the politician, the incumbent’s like, “Here’s my accomplishments. I built this bridge and I’ve repaved that road.” And most people think like, “Well, that’s what you’re there for. ” Someone was going to do it.

Laci (01:24:45):

Though those things are hard, you just don’t understand to actually get the funds to go there and then for the project to actually happen and go and happen on time. It’s just not very sexy.

Matt (01:24:56):

So then it’s the funeral and Rutger Hower, who we meet, he plays the CEO of Wayne Enterprises.

Laci (01:25:03):

He’s a good villain.

Matt (01:25:04):

He is. Or

Laci (01:25:05):

Like a good CEO villain.

Matt (01:25:06):

Yeah, a good villain who’s not going to be a Batman villain. A

Laci (01:25:09):

Good white collar villain.

Matt (01:25:11):

Yes. A cast because Christopher Nolan worships Ridley Scott and worships Blade Runner and he of course was the bad guy in Blade Runner.

Laci (01:25:20):

And this movie has some Blade Runner

Matt (01:25:22):

Moments

Laci (01:25:23):

And it also has some AI artificial intelligence stuff.

Matt (01:25:26):

Ooh, tell me when we get there.

Laci (01:25:28):

Well, no, the way the train enters the city, it just looks like both like, oh, a great place and a horrific place. And just reminds me of that everything goes place that they go to try to find the machine that will tell them where his father is. I can’t-

Matt (01:25:46):

Where they go to see Dr. No. Can you tell me how to find the blue fiery?

Laci (01:25:49):

Yeah, that.

Matt (01:25:49):

Oh, I’m Dr. No. I’ll help you. You mean the Blue

Laci (01:25:52):

Flower? That’s Batman.

Matt (01:25:55):

So Rutgerhower’s like, “Hey son, I’ll leave you an excellent hands here with your hired help and I’ll be guarding the empire until you come of age. Good luck to you. ” Gives him a fern handshake. But then Batman is Bruce Wayne is left alone here with Alfred and he starts crying and says, “It was all my fault. It was all my fault. I got scared we left the opera and Alfred is so … ” No, Master Bang, don’t have a checkup. It was him and him alone. Okay. So he says, “I miss them so much.” And I love that he says, “So do I. “

Laci (01:26:23):

Yeah. Right.

Matt (01:26:24):

Completely

Laci (01:26:25):

Validating the feeling.

Matt (01:26:26):

Yeah. I miss them too. We’re in this together, you and I. I’m like a father who you pay.

Laci (01:26:32):

I’m your sugar, baby.

Matt (01:26:34):

In the present, Christian Bale is talking to Liam Neeson, “Do you still feel guilty for your parents’ death? My anger outweighs my guilt.”

Laci (01:26:42):

So that answer is yes.

Matt (01:26:44):

But you can channel your anger into a boring training montage where I continue to lecture you about fear. Boring. And I know people love this shit. Why is this not working for us? I don’t know.

Laci (01:26:55):

The only part I kind of like is when the other soldiers have to be involved and they’re doing that weird formation thing to hide them and that he literally cuts two of them. They say nothing so that he can hide amongst them with his cut on his arm. But even that gets boring because Liam Neeson’s being bored. I don’t know if it’s the delivery. They don’t have enough to do. They spend too much time doing whatever the fuck this is.

Matt (01:27:16):

I think part of it is the editing. I think his editing is very weird. It’s gotten better, but he always seems to cut too early and cut too much

Laci (01:27:25):

And

Matt (01:27:26):

Nothing. There’s no propulsive momentum builds

Laci (01:27:30):

Within this. In a montage, you’re expecting only the most interesting parts, only the parts that are going to come back at some kind of important moment and the quippy fun parts. That’s it. Other than that, this isn’t … I don’t even know that it’s a montage because it’s taking too long.

Matt (01:27:46):

Well, when I saw this movie in theaters and I ended up seeing it three times in theaters, I loved it. What was so exciting for me was seeing things like the fucking hooks on the side of the gloves and seeing the things where it’s like, “Oh, that’ll be Batman later, but not yet.” And that was really powerful. And it’s very smart of Nolan not to show … It’s not like it starts with him as Batman and then flashes back. He’s not Batman. We’re not going to see Batman for an hour. So it’s almost like …

Laci (01:28:15):

Well, it’s like Spider-Man that way. Watching him make his first outfits before Tony Starks in his life and gives him a real spidersuit.

Matt (01:28:24):

Yeah.

Laci (01:28:25):

He looks real stupid for a long time.

Matt (01:28:27):

He does. But I’m saying that seeing the genesis of these things without him ever pointing out, Masterwind, why you put all those fucking hooks on the side of your gloves? Because when I was in Bhutan, I trained with the League of Shep. Yo make the connections in your head, but it’s kind of like later when they’ll have the bat signal with Falcone on the police search light and it makes a version of the bat signal in the sky. I wrote in my notes, that’s like the moment in the musical biopic where the guy starts writing the song and they don’t know that it’s an iconic song yet, but you watching the movie know. That’s always exciting to see is you don’t understand what a moment you’re about to make. Anyway, I found that so exciting when I used to really love this movie, now I don’t care.

Matt (01:29:18):

“Theatricality, distraction will be your weapons. Ninjas use smoking shit. You should do that too. Okay, I will.

Laci (01:29:25):

“Where do you?

Matt (01:29:26):

He’s

Laci (01:29:27):

Smoking a cigarette.

Matt (01:29:31):

They get a look at this prisoner that they’ve taken. What’ll happen to him? He must be punished. Crime cannot be tolerated.

Laci (01:29:37):

All crime.

Matt (01:29:38):

All crime. So

Laci (01:29:39):

We’re giving everybody the resources they need so that they don’t have to steal food or give that

Matt (01:29:44):

Alley abortion. No, not doing that. No. Just something’s illegal. Click it or tick it.

Laci (01:29:51):

Gotcha.

Matt (01:29:52):

Your parents’ death was not your fault. It was your father’s.

Laci (01:29:56):

Okay. All right.That does happen over and over Again, in this movie is people bringing up his dad to get him real mad.

Matt (01:30:05):

He’s like a George Zimmerman guy. He’s like, “Your father didn’t stand his ground. He needed to be prepared. She built that tree. He needed to be packing. Yeah. But later they’re talking around a fire and Niesen, let me tell you my tale. I had a wife, my great love. Just kind of like I’m a Christopher Nolan character. She was my wife.

Laci (01:30:23):

Oh, like that. Yeah.

Matt (01:30:24):

But she was taken from me. So this was five years before taken and three or four years before Neeson’s actual wife died. So it is that- How did she die? Liam Neeson’s wife, Natasha Richardson. She was the- Oh,

Laci (01:30:38):

The mom from …

Matt (01:30:39):

Mom from the parents rap.

Laci (01:30:40):

Let me see her. No, I can picture her.

Matt (01:30:43):

Died of a skiing accident in 2009.

Laci (01:30:47):

Snow or water?

Matt (01:30:47):

Snow. Stay off those slopes people.

Laci (01:30:52):

Seriously, her and Sonny Bono.

Matt (01:30:54):

Look at her with Liam Nice. Look at Leo.

Laci (01:30:56):

Dork.

Matt (01:30:57):

Such a dork.

Laci (01:30:58):

Oh.

Matt (01:30:59):

Looks kind of normal there. That’s

Laci (01:31:00):

Old as shit.

Matt (01:31:01):

He

Laci (01:31:01):

Got younger.

Matt (01:31:02):

He did get younger. So my wife, she was taken from me. I channeled my anger into vengeance, and Bruce is like, “But vengeance won’t help me. ” Why? Tell me the story of why you can’t avenge your parents. Okay. So flashback now to the hearing when Christian Bale was Bruce Wayne in college with his haircut. Then he returned home and Alfred’s like, “Oh, I’ve made up the master bed for you, sure.” He’s like- I won’t

Laci (01:31:27):

Be standing.

Matt (01:31:27):

No, fix up my old room, please.

Laci (01:31:30):

I want my carvet bed.

Matt (01:31:32):

That’ll take a few more hours, sir. I’ve already done all the … You could just not be such a old bitch and go move into the … Oh, anyway. Sleep

Laci (01:31:39):

On the sofa.

Matt (01:31:40):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make up my old room instead. I hate this house. I want to burn it to the ground. So the Alfred gives him the first of many lectures. “Hey, show family’s house, your family. “And he’s like, ” Why do you care? It’s not your family. “And he’s like-

Laci (01:31:54):

Ouch.

Matt (01:31:55):

Yeah. Well, a good man wants me responsible for the thing. That’s most precious in the world to him. I’m talking about your dad and you. Your precious to your dad. Katie Holmes is now the grown up Rachel Dawes. Katie Holmes, pretty bad in this movie. Very weird. Very weird that she’s in this movie. She does not come back for the dark night. She is replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal. Going to look into more about what the story is there. I glanced at it and it seems like it was Katie Holmes’s choice. I always thought that was because the role in the dark night requires a more serious actress. We shall see, but yeah. Maybe

Laci (01:32:29):

She knew she wasn’t the right fit. What is the next movie we’re doing?

Matt (01:32:35):

The Prestige is next. And then The Dark Night.

Laci (01:32:39):

Okay.

Matt (01:32:39):

The Dark Night, our 200th episode.

Laci (01:32:42):

Wow. It’ll be a dark night indeed.

Matt (01:32:45):

Katie Holmes, as Rachel is a prosecutor and there’s a hearing for the guy who killed Bruce’s parents. He was in the clink with Carmine Falcone, Gotham’s biggest mob boss. And apparently Carmine Falcone told him all these secrets late at night. They’d whisper secrets to each other. And Joe Chill, the killer has cut a deal, parole in exchange for me spilling the beans on.

Laci (01:33:11):

Yeah, that’s going to go great since the entire city is run by Falcone. Chill, you’re making another great decision.

Matt (01:33:18):

And at the hearing, the prosecutor’s like, Your Honor, this crime took place during the depression. Now, the first time we hear of this depression and you might be watching this movie and think, like the great depression? No, it’s a different reality. It’s a different depression. It’s really bad. Oh, it was bad. We’re not going to tell you about it.

Laci (01:33:38):

All of them are bad.

Matt (01:33:39):

We’re not going to tell you why it was … Any specifics? No, it’s just bad. It was bad.

Laci (01:33:43):

But what do they need to tell you, Matt? It’s immense poverty. You can see the poverty is still all over the place. We

Matt (01:33:48):

Can go on and see. How is it different? What does it mean? How is it diferent from anything else that happens in our world or in this world?

Laci (01:33:53):

What does it matter? That’s the point, is that a depression means the same thing everywhere. Job loss, people are starving, don’t have any

Matt (01:34:00):

Choices.

Laci (01:34:02):

They’re

Matt (01:34:02):

Implying- 10 years earlier in the world of this movie, it was like the 1930s of our world.

Laci (01:34:08):

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can assume that people don’t have a lot of options, are desperate and are committing more crime. A depression is the same every time. It’s just to what degree?

Matt (01:34:20):

Was it only contained to Gotham or was it worldwide?

Laci (01:34:22):

Who cares?

Matt (01:34:23):

I care. I want to know this.

Laci (01:34:24):

This is just like a fucking Civil War where you cared.

Matt (01:34:26):

Oh, don’t you fucking start. Oh,

Laci (01:34:28):

Fuck. It’s not about that.

Matt (01:34:30):

Yeah. It’s about radical centrism. We all need to get away.

Laci (01:34:33):

No, it’s not. It’s just about what would it look like if that fucking happened? What would just the day-to-day life be? What would be important? What would happen to people?

Matt (01:34:41):

All the movies

Laci (01:34:41):

About.

Matt (01:34:42):

Wars happen everywhere. So the point of that movie is it’s really bad if it happens in America.

Laci (01:34:46):

It’s just trying to bring it to your front door so maybe that people will care a little bit more when it happens around the world. It’s so obvious what that movie was for.

Matt (01:34:53):

So stupid. Joe Chill. Not a good day goes by that I don’t feel sorry for what I did. The Depression doesn’t excuse it, but I’m so sorry. Does anybody want to speak up for the Wayne family? Bruce Wayne stands up and then walks out.

Laci (01:35:07):

Cox’s gun.

Matt (01:35:09):

Oh, sorry. He brought a gun. He was going to go shoot the guy.

Laci (01:35:12):

Bought a revolver.

Matt (01:35:14):

Yeah.

Laci (01:35:14):

Just like a trained assessment.

Matt (01:35:15):

But he’s going to go do it outside the courtroom, but a woman does a Jack Ruby. Hey, Joe. A Janice Ruby. Says hi. My name’s Janice Ruby. Shoots him dead. And then Katie Holmes grabs Bruce epscons with him, says Judge Fagan, he must have been paid off to have this in an open hearing. And Bruce is like, “Yeah, that guy got to him before I could. I was going to shoot him dead and she’s like- ” Slap

Laci (01:35:42):

Your

Matt (01:35:42):

Face. Slaps him.

Laci (01:35:43):

Slap it twice.

Matt (01:35:44):

Twice. It’s the best moment in the movie. I like that she slept him twice.

Laci (01:35:47):

Yeah, me too.

Matt (01:35:48):

So she’s like, “You don’t get it, Bruce. People out on the streets are suffering. You have to do good important work like me at the DA’s office, prosecuting criminals, being tough on crime.” And then they have- And fair

Laci (01:36:01):

On criminals who don’t need a whole lot of punishment. That’s part of it.

Matt (01:36:07):

I never say that though.

Laci (01:36:08):

But that’s what I feel like she understands that Joe Chill should be able to leave, right? She’s on the other side. She doesn’t think he should go.

Matt (01:36:18):

Her boss is the one who wants him to go free. Her lover. But because that can get them closer to prosecuting Falcone, it’s not like he’s suffered enough. He’s also a victim, a victim of poverty and horrible circumstances. It also bring up the

Laci (01:36:33):

Depression, but okay.

Matt (01:36:34):

But it’s just in all three of these movies, the response to deteriorating conditions is we have to be tough on crime.That

Laci (01:36:41):

Is odd.

Matt (01:36:42):

And Batman-

Laci (01:36:43):

It’s like a child wrote it. It just seems to completely not understand how politics are. It’s just bad guy, good guy crime, criminal fear.

Matt (01:36:50):

Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. And it gets worse in the dark night, which I think is a better movie, but this Batman is like, “My mission will be complete if I can find somebody who could prosecute well enough and maybe Harvey Dent, Aaron Eckhart in the next movie is the guy to do that.

Laci (01:37:05):

” I mean, at least Bruce Wayne, you understand he is a stunted traumatized person who is still very boy-like. He’s not mature. So his response to all this, if you give someone like that with lots and lots of money and some enabling adults and access to a weapons manufacturing company, you get a Batman. I think that’s realistic enough. And the fact that his reason for doing everything is kind of stupid and childish makes sense to me. But everything else being stupid and childish around him does not.

Matt (01:37:39):

I agree. It’s just that the movies are on his side. The movies think he’s right, that he’s doing the right thing. Tim Burton’s take was, this guy’s insane.

Laci (01:37:47):

Right. He’s more like these other crazy people then. Let’s just watch him do stuff.

Matt (01:37:52):

So we go down to the narrows, which it’s like an island in the river that this is just a segregated crime area. Falcone floods the streets with drugs and crime. Crime. Crime is the product of evil people doing evil things like drugs. It’s not anything else. Not an effective capitalism, not an effective politics.

Laci (01:38:13):

Yeah. Prostitutes love committing crime. That’s why they sell their bodies. It’s just their way of being like, criminals. So fucking insightful.

Matt (01:38:21):

They made a decision to be a criminal. One day I look at it. Criminal today. It’s so

Laci (01:38:25):

Empowering to them.

Matt (01:38:26):

Oh, I had a job and then the factory closed because the company decided it was more problem. None of that exists. None of that exists. Anyway, he now feels bad so he throws his gun into the river and he’s going to go confront Falcone. He just

Laci (01:38:42):

Fed it to a criminal. That river goes to the narrows.

Matt (01:38:46):

Decides to go confront Falcone in this dive bar. Played hilariously by Tom Wilkinson, who I love so much. And I do like this scene because he comes in and- It’s very

Laci (01:38:58):

Godfather.

Matt (01:38:59):

Well, he’s like, oh, you’re a little fucking rich twat. You’re just trying to prove how fucking tough you are, but you haven’t thought it through. You think you have power, you don’t have power. You think you

Laci (01:39:09):

Have nothing to lose. That’s not true.

Matt (01:39:11):

Yeah. You got a fucking butler who’s like your dad that you pay. And that girl at the DA’s office.

Laci (01:39:16):

She’s a minx.

Matt (01:39:18):

And everything he says is correct and cool. But then he has to add on because … Oh, right, fear. This movie’s … And you will always fear what you don’t understand. Why is he saying that? I

Laci (01:39:29):

Don’t know.

Matt (01:39:30):

He’s saying that because he read the spark notes of this movie. Themes and motifs. Fear. You fear, Bruce Wayne. It’s like I’m a bat. Anyway, get out of my

Laci (01:39:39):

Face.

Matt (01:39:39):

You got spirit kid. Oh,

Laci (01:39:41):

He’s holding his gun.

Matt (01:39:42):

More than your father anyway.

Laci (01:39:44):

He’s holding the gun like a man with the arthritis.

Matt (01:39:47):

He does. He does. He’s

Laci (01:39:48):

Got a support hand.

Matt (01:39:49):

That’s why Wilkinson’s a great actor. He’s built this backstory. I think my character has arthritis. I got

Laci (01:39:53):

Sciatica. I lean forward to shoot.

Matt (01:39:56):

A lot of characters I play have arthritis. More than your father anyway. And the joint Chill told me about the 90 killed year old man. Said he begged for his life. Begged like a dog. I’m always saying like a dog. I guess I get it from this movie and not from Donald Trump. Okay. But it is one of my favorite things to say. Like a dog. Anyway, he gets kicked out of this bar and then he decides I’m done. I’m leaving, burning my life down and running away. So he pays a homeless guy for his clothes.

Laci (01:40:25):

His coat.

Matt (01:40:26):

His coat. Let

Laci (01:40:27):

Me see your wiener.

Matt (01:40:29):

I’ll take your wiener now. And then like it’s the 1930s runs and jumps on a cargo freighter.

Laci (01:40:34):

Wherever it’s going. Where’s

Matt (01:40:36):

This boat going, sir?

Laci (01:40:37):

We just parked. We’ll

Matt (01:40:39):

Be here for

Laci (01:40:39):

Two weeks. That’s

Matt (01:40:41):

What I think. Yeah, the boat’s not leaving. They just got in.

Laci (01:40:45):

Hope you have a sandwich. The first time I learned what it was like to starve was when I hopped on that freighter that was going to still be there for two weeks. And

Matt (01:40:54):

The meal service wouldn’t resume for two weeks. So in the present, Neeson’s like, when you lived among the criminals, did you begin to pity them? And then this is the stupidest line in the movie. “The first time I stole food so that I wouldn’t starve. I lost many of my previously held assumptions about the nature of right and wrong.” He a fucking child. I

Laci (01:41:16):

Mean, that’s essentially what Liam Neeson is asking him, right? Do you start to understand why people rationalize crime? And his answer is yes.

Matt (01:41:28):

Yes. Once I was hungry and stole food-

Laci (01:41:31):

Yes, but don’t you think Leo Neeson is testing him for weaknesses? He wants them to say no. He wants them to be like, “You should have out of just honor, you should have laid there and starved to death.” What else is Leo Neeson asking? He doesn’t want the answer to be … Yes, they’re my best friends now. No, you

Matt (01:41:51):

Got to understand the criminal mind.

Laci (01:41:53):

They’re hungry.

Matt (01:41:55):

They’re

Laci (01:41:55):

Poor?

Matt (01:41:56):

Yeah.

Laci (01:41:56):

Let’s kill them.

Matt (01:41:57):

I don’t know.

Laci (01:41:59):

Yes, that’s what Leoniuson wants. I

Matt (01:42:01):

Guess that is what he wants. Yeah. Right.

Laci (01:42:03):

So Christian Bale’s saying the wrong thing, damn.

Matt (01:42:06):

Okay.

Laci (01:42:07):

They’re not so different from you and me as long as we’re hungry and poor and they’re hungry and poor.

Matt (01:42:12):

But it goes from him doing a … I was hungry so I stole to … Now he’s in like a heist, a fun fast and furious heist. And he’s like, “The thrill of the chase. I was among them but I never became one of them.”

Laci (01:42:24):

How’s that different?

Matt (01:42:25):

Again, criminal is a species and my- You’re

Laci (01:42:27):

Facilitating it.

Matt (01:42:29):

If you gave me a DNA test, you will see it does not say criminal. So again, just crime and criminal is just so fucking dumb.

Laci (01:42:38):

It doesn’t know what it thinks. His politics are all over the fucking place.

Matt (01:42:42):

Neeson squirts some hallucinogens from the flower into Christian Bale’s face and then he disappears in no crowd. Ninjas and Christian Bale has to find him. Where are you, Liam? Oh no, it’s not you. Just get a lot of future Batman things, Batman costume ideas, Batman moves, and they have a treasure chest full of bats that swarms Batman and-

Laci (01:43:00):

We’ve been saving these for weeks.

Matt (01:43:01):

But actually turns out, oh, there’s- You

Laci (01:43:03):

Know how hard is to put one in and close it?

Matt (01:43:04):

Oh my God. Yeah. The noise. Break it up. But finally I’m Niesen. No, not here. Not here. Oh, you found me. And so Ken Watanabe applauds. Wow, good, good work. You are now ready to lead our organization, young man.

Laci (01:43:22):

Liam Neeson’s like, “But I was going to … “

Matt (01:43:24):

But just one final test. Execute this criminal piece of shit.

Laci (01:43:28):

One final test, do you buy into our entire fucking philosophy and goals here? And yet this is the first time he’s learning of them. Maybe don’t front load the training. Maybe make sure he’s into the whole thing first.

Matt (01:43:41):

No, it’s like what you said.That’s how it works. That’s Scientology. You spend years and years before they tell you about Zenu and you’re like, “God damn it. ” And plus they recorded me saying all that shit and all those sessions. Bail’s very good right here. They’re trying to hand him the sword and he just shakes, “I’m not an executioner. This man should be tried.” And Landmeason’s like, “By whom? Corrupt bureaucrats.” See,

Laci (01:44:07):

That’s the only through line to all of it is that we do not trust the people in power to make these decisions just.

Matt (01:44:13):

Criminals thrive on society’s weaknesses. But now can Matinambi is like, “Hey, the thing is, maybe you think it’s weird that you would get to lead us, but we actually chose you because our next mission is to take over Gotham City and you’ll be the perfect guy to do it. ” It’s

Laci (01:44:28):

Actually just super convenient

Matt (01:44:31):

That

Laci (01:44:31):

You were kind of close by and we were thinking Gotham City.

Matt (01:44:37):

The League of Shadows is a cleansing fire, a forest fire to take … When society has reached their height of decadence, we come in and hit the reset button. We did it before in Roman in Constantinople.

Laci (01:44:48):

Again, Gotham is a society.

Matt (01:44:51):

Yeah. It’s like an island nation. There’s nothing connected to it. That’s the other thing.

Laci (01:44:56):

They don’t even have the internet yet. They just got little trolls all over the place.

Matt (01:45:00):

Does the rest of America exist? I know. What is this? What do you think a city is?

Laci (01:45:04):

Right.

Matt (01:45:06):

Is it part of- That all

Laci (01:45:07):

Of New York has to go or just is one?

Matt (01:45:09):

And cities get their budgets from states anyway as the people of New York are always complaining.

Laci (01:45:13):

Also, if you think you’re going to actually execute every single person inside of that city, are you totally sure? Because are you not going to get little fractions of people who do escape? Become your ISIS and your Taliban.That’s how fractions happen. You’re just spreading it.

Matt (01:45:26):

Yeah, it’s not smart.

Laci (01:45:27):

It’s not smart.

Matt (01:45:28):

We did it to Constantinople. I know you thought that it was the Turks who Constantinople. No, it was us. The League of Shadows, we did it. Yeah. And Gotham decadent, you may not have ever seen what makes it decadent because again, if in this world Two Face and the Riddler and stuff already existed, you’d be like, okay, yeah. I

Laci (01:45:47):

Guess decadent.

Matt (01:45:48):

If there’s always a fucking penguin and a cat lady popping up to control everything, yeah, I can see what you’re saying. But it’s like, this city’s so decadent. It has drugs.

Laci (01:45:56):

The mafia.

Matt (01:45:57):

Yeah. A

Laci (01:45:59):

Train.

Matt (01:46:00):

Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. Anyway, he’s like, “I refuse to comply with your mission to kill my people. ” From my

Laci (01:46:10):

Planet.

Matt (01:46:11):

So they’re going to kill him so he attacks and single-handedly fights off all of them instantly kills Ken Watanabe.

Laci (01:46:17):

Right. And they really do. It’s very willy-nilly with their resources and their time. Like you train this guy up and so the next thing you’re going to do is just kill him. Why not brainwash him?

Matt (01:46:27):

Spend

Laci (01:46:28):

Some more time.

Matt (01:46:29):

Well, they made him too good. Yeah. They did too good a job. But Liam Neeson gets knocked out so he picks him up and carries him off to some guy’s hut and the guy’s like, “I will tell him that you saved his life.” And bail-

Laci (01:46:42):

I’m starting to think that guy did not deliver the

Matt (01:46:44):

Message. I’ve always wondered about that. What did he say? Some guy. So then he just makes a phone, “Hey, Alfred. Hey, Leka Shadows, come get me. Okay, thanks.

Laci (01:46:55):

I just want a fucking jet wave with his thumb up. Any billionaires want

Matt (01:46:59):

To- Ruce Wayne here. I do like this reunion a lot. Now I think Nolan is obsessed with-

Laci (01:47:06):

Reunions.

Matt (01:47:06):

Men who can’t return home, but he loves once they do return home and how it’s not exactly going as I thought it would be. I think one of the reasons he’s excited about making the Odyssey is when Odysseus finally gets home, his home has been taken over and now he has to get into disguise and beat all the people.

Laci (01:47:23):

I’m already tired.

Matt (01:47:24):

So Alfred picks him up in the plane and he’s like, ” Alfred, I come up with a plan. I’m going to be a vigilante guy. “Okay.

Laci (01:47:31):

Okay. You’ve been gone for seven years. I need you to settle down.

Matt (01:47:35):

Yeah.

Laci (01:47:36):

Fuck. All right.

Matt (01:47:37):

No, no, no. Listen. Okay. I’ll be a symbol. As Bruce Wayne, I can’t do shit, but as a symbol, I can be more. Be inspired. What do

Laci (01:47:45):

You think Alfred’s been doing this whole time? He’s just in Bermuda shorts, like a coconut drink. Him and Morgan Freeman. And then he gets on his … Fuck, he’s alive. Yet. That’s why he’s all gung ho, because he feels real guilty about the past seven years, just fucking all over that mansion naked. And now he’s like, ” Yeah, no, no. Whatever you want, Governor, yeah.

Matt (01:48:07):

“We’ve all been here. We’ve been kind of a shitty friend or a shitty partner and so now we’re really indulgent. We’re all in, yes. Yo should get your nose pierced. Yeah.

Laci (01:48:17):

When I asked you for $50 yesterday or the day before and asked, and you didn’t even ask what it was for. I said,” Zelle this phone number, $50. “And you said,” Done. “And I went,” Okay, that motherfucker bought something?

Matt (01:48:31):

No. I don’t buy any. Folks, I had just been in the doghouse. I was sleeping on the sofa. What? I give Laci an allowance. It’s like a Lucy Ricky thing.

Laci (01:48:42):

Ricky.

Matt (01:48:44):

Alfred’s like, during the depression, your father nearly bankrupted his company trying to fight poverty. Hoping to set an example. Did it help? In a way. Damn murder, shock to wealthy and powerful into action. “What does

Laci (01:48:56):

That mean? So what? How do you feel about this, Alfred? So do you think we should do this again or do you think it was the wrong thing to do? Are you a historian or do you have a point?

Matt (01:49:08):

I think he’s just happy to have his boy back. I’ve been

Laci (01:49:10):

Wanting to tell you stories for so far.

Matt (01:49:13):

Okay. But then Bruce gives his speech with a symbol. I can be a symbol. Nothing more powerful than a symbol. This is a thing. This is a poison that infects directors is I devote my life to telling stories so then all my movies become about how important stories are because it’s the only thing you can think about. The series finale of Game of Thrones, the big climax, Peter Dinklich gives his speech. There’s nothing more powerful than a story. Of course you think that. Yo make your living telling stories, but it ignores that there’s anything else to the world, like material conditions, financial self-interest. No, I’ll be a symbol and it’ll inspire action.

Laci (01:49:47):

It’ll inspire more people to write stories.

Matt (01:49:50):

Story,

Laci (01:49:51):

Story, story.

Matt (01:49:52):

Yeah. It’s the end of Ferngali all over. I’ll go back and tell them what we’re doing to the rainforest. Alfred being very, very understanding here, but he’s like, ” But you know, Master Wang, you’re legally dead and I own all your assets now. So you could borrow a roll with you if you want.

Laci (01:50:04):

“That is funny.

Matt (01:50:06):

Bruce is back at home and he sees a bat in the house and Alfred’s being very blase. Oh, I own a batchet in a hash so I’m telling her master of my attack. I’m

Laci (01:50:11):

Just going to go do some serious exposure therapy right now.

Matt (01:50:15):

I’m

Laci (01:50:15):

Going in the cave that I fell in and I’m going to touch some bats. There is a very huge lack of bat poo and anyone that’s seen fucking Ace Ventura pet detective the second one, Guano. For every bat, there is a white piece of shit on the ground.

Matt (01:50:33):

It’s true. It should

Laci (01:50:33):

Be covered in Guano.

Matt (01:50:35):

Do you like bats? I love bats. I think bats are neat. I know

Laci (01:50:38):

You love bats. They freak me out. I’ve got no qualms with them. They’ve never touched me. I

Matt (01:50:42):

Have no qualms with the bat. Sometimes-

Laci (01:50:45):

I like them when they’re up high. I don’t like them when they’re down low.

Matt (01:50:48):

Well, like how you can’t look at that wasp nest, but you want it to still be

Laci (01:50:51):

There.

Matt (01:50:52):

I will sometimes watch the YouTube videos where they pull like a shingle off a roof and tend to be back.

Laci (01:50:57):

Why do you think that I want to hear that?

Matt (01:50:59):

You don’t, but other people do.

Laci (01:51:00):

I don’t want

Matt (01:51:01):

To. I don’t want to either, but sometimes I make myself watch it. And he’s like, ” Oh, right, bats. Okay. I’ll go confront my fears. Goes down that well that he went down at the beginning of the

Laci (01:51:10):

Movie. He kind of put some gloves on or

Matt (01:51:12):

Like

Laci (01:51:12):

A hat.

Matt (01:51:13):

Nope, just a boat toe rope and goes down further into the well and finds the billions of bats and lets them fly by him. A billion bats would smack him in the face and he’d be cut all over, covered in shit, but he’s fine. Stan solemnly lets the bats engulf him.

Laci (01:51:29):

If his hair were messed up and he had tiny cuts everywhere, that’d be so cute. That’d be such a nice touch. Just wash in the fire of the chaos of bats. They’re not trying to scare you. You’re scaring them. You’re in their space. They’re responding how they’re supposed to. And look, they’re not harmless, but I’m alive.

Matt (01:51:49):

I’m still here. I’m fine. It’s

Laci (01:51:50):

Only flesh wounds.

Matt (01:51:52):

But at least it’s the movie Taking Bat Series. When they invented Batman, it was just like, what can he be? What can he be that’s cool? A Batman.

Laci (01:51:58):

What’s at night? Armadilla Matt.

Matt (01:52:01):

And Batman was a blatant rip off of characters that already existed. There was the shadow and the like. I love the idea. I would love to …

Laci (01:52:10):

Is that nocturnal?

Matt (01:52:11):

It is nocturnal. Maybe

Laci (01:52:12):

A mean possum

Matt (01:52:13):

Man. No, no. Well, you famously can’t get them confused with bunnies. But Armadillos also carry leprosy so he could weaponize his leprosy. Yeah. Armadillo. Now we meet Jonathan Crane. Cillian Murphy, who auditioned for the role of Batman. He said very early in his- But shit.

Laci (01:52:33):

Pathetic. No, and he’s all eyes. You need his eyes. You need your top face and your fat lips. You need the whole package. Sorry. You’re a real McCulley Culkin.

Matt (01:52:43):

Well, he’s …

Laci (01:52:45):

We need the whole thing. I need him to deliver that face. I also don’t want to be a voice actor. Bored.

Matt (01:52:52):

Stick to on camera acting, Cillian. Don’t resist the temptation. Give

Laci (01:52:56):

Me those peepers.

Matt (01:52:57):

Don’t follow the McCauley Calkin example that Laci keeps bringing up the one time he did that.

Laci (01:53:02):

Don’t do it.

Matt (01:53:05):

Auditioned for the role of Bruce Wayne, he said both he and Nolan realized very soon into the meeting, you’re not right for the role, but you got something.

Laci (01:53:12):

Because he put on the batsuit and he’s just rattling around because he’s telling me.

Matt (01:53:16):

You got something so you can play the fucking scarecrow. I hadn’t seen 28 years later or 28 days later yet, but this was my first time seeing this guy. And I remember thinking, “This guy’s…” This guy’s something. This guy’s got something. Yeah. And boy does he, he’s a good actor.

Laci (01:53:32):

And you think he’s going to go into heart throb territory, but the older he gets just the crazier looking he gets and it’s like, I can’t look away. It’s not atractive, but it ain’t no heart throb. He’s just an alien.

Matt (01:53:46):

He’s kind of weird looking.

Laci (01:53:47):

Yeah. He’s from a different kind

Matt (01:53:51):

Of- Dr. Jonathan Crane. He keeps having Falcone’s thugs declared insane so that they don’t go to prison. And Rachel, the prosecutor’s like, “That’s not fair. They can’t all be insane.” He’s like, “Can Tug, look, I just wrote that they can. ” They are. And then he goes and meets with Carmine Falcone and he alludes to having a boss who even Falcone is intimidated by. But there’s a big deal going down. There’s a deal going down, folks. What is that deal? We’ll find out. Meanwhile, Wayne Enterprises, what’s been going on there? Rutgerhower, he’s been running the company in a way that Thomas Wayne would not approve of. He’s taken the company public as he announces at this big business meeting.

Laci (01:54:25):

How’s that bad?

Matt (01:54:27):

Thomas Wayne wouldn’t have wanted it to go public because once you go public, then you have to answer to shareholders who are going to demand things like you need to be making more weapons and declaring more wars. I

Laci (01:54:35):

Thought cuts both ways though, because when you keep it private, it just depends on who’s at the helm.

Matt (01:54:40):

Yeah. And when it’s private, you can do whatever the fuck you want. To your employees. Exactly. They’re both bad. They’re both bad.

Laci (01:54:45):

Yeah.

Matt (01:54:49):

There’s more accountability if you’re public, but there’s the thing where if you’re in charge of a public company, you’re legally required to maximize the value for the shareholders and so that justifies anything you want to do. So Bruce Wayne comes in and he’s like, “Hey, I’m Bruce Wayne. I think I own the place.”

Laci (01:55:07):

Let me play put put with the fucking secretary for some goddamn reason.

Matt (01:55:11):

Yeah, because they’ve done the, you need to play the part of Bruce Wayne, the billionaire political way. That’s what

Laci (01:55:15):

That’s for?

Matt (01:55:15):

I think so.

Laci (01:55:16):

It’s out of place. They need at least three of these things and

Matt (01:55:21):

They

Laci (01:55:22):

Only have two and they break the rule of three because the third should be his birthday party, but then he acts like a litle twat in a different way.

Matt (01:55:28):

There needs to be a scene where he and Alfred are out getting coffee and a hot lady comes up to him and he’s like, “Oh, no thanks. Go away, lady.” And Alfred’s like, “Mr. Wang, remember, you’re like a guy who’s like a big fucking billionaire.”

Laci (01:55:38):

Something.

Matt (01:55:39):

Tells him, “I don’t want to interfere with this company. I just want to get to know this company. I’ve been thinking about doing applied sciences, and that’s where Lucius Fox works. He runs the defense manufacturing division, which Lucius Fox, Morgan Freeman says is a dead end. They put me down in this dead end.

Laci (01:55:55):

Tells this a dead end.

Matt (01:55:56):

Yes, this would be your most profitable point. This is the company. Yes. This is the point of Wayne, whatever. They put him down here. He used to be on the board, but he was asking too many questions.

Laci (01:56:05):

Maybe the rest of the company just produces slot machines and maybe they’re right.

Matt (01:56:09):

Or maybe just-

Laci (01:56:10):

This is more lucrative.

Matt (01:56:11):

Or just buttons for slot machines. Something very boring like that. I asked him many questions, Mr. Wine. And so they put him down here and so he shows Mr. Wayne all this cool shit and Bruce is like, “Hey, listen, I need this for cave diving and stuff.” And he’s like, “Mr. Wayne, if you don’t tell me what you’re doing, I don’t have to lie about it. ” But that means that for a while, Morgan Freeman, I guess, is under the impression that he’s doing what? He’s fucking hunting tigers, doing Epstein shit. What does he think this billionaire’s doing?

Laci (01:56:47):

He doesn’t say that line until after the first night that the bat does stuff in the city. So

Matt (01:56:53):

He already knows.

Laci (01:56:54):

Yeah.

Matt (01:56:56):

It would be hard not to know.

Laci (01:56:57):

Right. Oh, someone was able to get away with a graffling hook and a fucking thing. Yeah.

Matt (01:57:01):

Okay. Yes. That

Laci (01:57:02):

Sounds like our products.

Matt (01:57:04):

It’s time for Batman’s first mission. His suit isn’t complete yet, but Jim Gordon hanging out with his corrupt partner, our old friend, Mark Boone Jr. And Gordon goes into his office and Batman is waiting for him, holds a stapler to his head. He’s like, “Tell me, what do we need to do to take down Falcone?” And Gordon says, “We need leverage against the judge. We need a lot of evidence and we need one brave DA to take him on, but you can’t do it. You’re just one man.” And Batman says, “Now we’re two.” Oh,

Laci (01:57:36):

You guys.

Matt (01:57:36):

Yeah.

Laci (01:57:37):

And it’s very Commissioner Gordon of him to tattle at first, just like he is a good guy and he never tettles again.

Matt (01:57:47):

Yeah, because they chase him, but then they’re like, “Who was that guy? Some nut.” So the big deal now is going down at the docks between Falcone and Jonathan Crane’s people and now Batman makes his first proper appearance. It’s one hour into the movie. Batman in his full costume and he’s abducting these thugs. They get really scared and this is edited like shit, you can’t see him do anything. He fights off everybody in a circle, you don’t see any of it. It’s really bad. No

Laci (01:58:15):

Idea what the fuck’s happening.

Matt (01:58:16):

All

Laci (01:58:16):

I know is there’s some stuffed animals.

Matt (01:58:18):

But then he gets Falcone, who the hell are you? And he says, “I’m Batman.” And then he sees the homeless guy and he’s like, “Oh, hey, nice coat.” And then goes and finds Rachel at the train station, gives her a bunch of evidence. He gives her compromising photos on the judge and tells her, “Go ahead, rattle a few cages.” And he’s chained Falcone up to the searchlight so we can see the primordial bat symbol in the sky.

Laci (01:58:41):

Now a random American psycho moment.

Matt (01:58:44):

Yeah, because Alfred’s like, “Hey, you need to go do more society stuff.” You need to buy

Laci (01:58:48):

Things that aren’t for sale. I do like that he buys the hotel at

Matt (01:58:51):

The end of it. Alfred told me to buy stuff that isn’t for sale. Takes two sexy ladies out to a restaurant and they decide we’re Russian, so we’re going to go swim in this fountain. And the waiter’s like, “Sir, your Russian prostitutes can’t do that. ” And he’s like, “Okay.” My favorite Christian bale is the, I’m playing the shitty Bruce Wayne. And that’s why he was cast for the role because of American psycho, or he was also cosplaying as a, “I’m trying to be a human being.” What do humans do? So they’re making a big show. He gets to the fountain with him and then he’s leaving and he runs into Rachel. This is their first time seeing each other and she starts completing, “Bruce, you’re back in town, but you’re not helping me save the world. You’re too busy with the fucking Russian prostitutes in the fountain.”

Laci (01:59:38):

Okay. Well, why are you dressed up in at this fucking hotel?

Matt (01:59:40):

What are you fucking doing?

Laci (01:59:42):

What are you doing?

Matt (01:59:43):

I’m meeting important people to do deals.

Laci (01:59:46):

In that outfit?

Matt (01:59:47):

Rachel, honestly, on the inside, I’m still the same boy that you fell in love with as a little girl. And she’s like, “No, Bruce, you might be the same on the inside, but it’s what we show to the outside world that defines us. Remember that

Laci (02:00:00):

And I can see that you’re the same twat as you’ve ever been.

Matt (02:00:03):

Jonathan Crane visits Falcone in prison because he’s been arrested and he’s like, “Hey, I’m in prison, but I know there’s another big drug deal going down so let me in on it. ” And Crane’s like, “No, we’ve decided we’re done with you. ” So he sprays him with some drugs and now reveals himself to be the scarecrow and puts a sack over his head. Do you like Laci, the scarecrow vision?

Laci (02:00:21):

Yeah.

Matt (02:00:22):

Yeah. I

Laci (02:00:22):

Mean, it’s effective. It would scare the fuck out of me. And it’s small scale enough that it makes sense how he got his hands on it. I like how practical it is. Everything else seems real expensive.

Matt (02:00:31):

Yeah. And it’s a way that Batman is supposed to be grounded. There’s not supposed to be supernatural stuff. This is a thing from the comics that you can translate and make it grounded in the movie and the movie does a good job of it. And

Laci (02:00:45):

We’re all super fragile this way. Anyone can be taken … I mean, just look at the use of pepper spray and different things that the cops use on protestors.

Matt (02:00:57):

Or look at what happened to … The afore mentioned Jack Ruby right before he was going to go talk to the Warren Commission. They fucking LSDed the shit out of him and he went insane. This is an actual thing that happens. Clock

Laci (02:01:08):

Oranged him, clockwork oranged.

Matt (02:01:10):

No, yeah. Or ultra … This is what you can do to problematic witnesses. You MK ultra them and now they’re no good to anybody. The narrows-

Laci (02:01:18):

Is this shit CGI crap?

Matt (02:01:20):

Yep. It

Laci (02:01:20):

Looks like shit.

Matt (02:01:21):

Yeah. It really does look bad. Now, when you’re down on street level, they built all of this in a studio and it looks cool as hell. It is cool, but the rain. But they

Laci (02:01:27):

Keep showing this shot and I hate it.

Matt (02:01:29):

Yeah. It’s just CGI PlayStation inserted into Manhattan Skyline. And it just

Laci (02:01:32):

Reminds you of Ready Player go for some reason in a bad way.

Matt (02:01:35):

Ready Player One.

Laci (02:01:36):

Yep.

Matt (02:01:37):

And then Geoffrey Barathian is there. It’s very weird. The actor who will go on to play him is there and he’s like, “Batman, are you here? I’m the one.”

Laci (02:01:45):

I’m outside because my dad’s hating my mom.

Matt (02:01:47):

Yeah, because he’s a criminal, but I’m a good one, but I’ll be a criminal one day. The only person we meet in the whole narrows. You

Laci (02:01:55):

Know he’s good because he’s blonde.

Matt (02:01:57):

Batman gets attacked by scarecrow here attacked with the pepper spray and Batman goes a little cuckoo.

Laci (02:02:04):

You mean the tripping spray?

Matt (02:02:06):

Yeah. Is that

Laci (02:02:07):

What you mean? Yeah.

Matt (02:02:07):

Why

Laci (02:02:07):

Are we calling it pepper spray? The flower spray.

Matt (02:02:11):

Whatever. The flower spray.

Laci (02:02:12):

It’s a psychedelic. It’s very different, Matt. You understand it?

Matt (02:02:16):

Now we arrive at the most important scene in the movie for Laci Alfred and Lucas in the shot together. Lucius wakes Master Wayne wakes up in his bed and he’s like, “Terrance Masterwind.” And he’s like, “What the heck brought me back to life?” And Morgan Freeman’s like, “Wow, I concocted a cocktail as to mine, blah, blah, blah.” And Laci gets so excited by the … What’s so good about this scene?

Laci (02:02:43):

I just like all these guys. There’s nothing … Just feel like I’m in capable hands. How can this be a bad scene? These guys in here.

Matt (02:02:51):

Yep. And we get the just very, very casual. Alfred. Yes.

Laci (02:02:57):

See? Indicating some sort of tournament

Matt (02:03:01):

Fair clearly. They kissed after a party one time, like 25 years ago.That’s

Laci (02:03:05):

What that’ll do.

Matt (02:03:06):

And they don’t talk about it.

Laci (02:03:07):

Well, they

Matt (02:03:08):

Should. But they know, but they both know.

Laci (02:03:10):

That Master Wayne did not allow homosexuality.

Matt (02:03:14):

It wasn’t that. It’s just your college.

Laci (02:03:16):

Of pure respect, they continue to not be homosexuals after his death.

Matt (02:03:21):

So then Rachel comes over and she’s like, “I brought you your birthday present. Happy birthday. It’s the arrowhead.”

Laci (02:03:27):

I had time to take a fucking train all the way to the fucking countryside

Matt (02:03:31):

To

Laci (02:03:31):

Bring you this box. You mean nothing to me goodbye.

Matt (02:03:34):

My boss is missing.

Laci (02:03:35):

My boss. The one you kiss?

Matt (02:03:38):

Your

Laci (02:03:38):

Partner?

Matt (02:03:39):

The local mob boss. We’re prosecuting him right now, but you had to come deliver you this stupid arrowhead.

Laci (02:03:44):

And they never mention her lover boss

Matt (02:03:48):

Ever again. Never again. He’s gone. It’s fine.

Laci (02:03:50):

He’s a totally good looking fine.

Matt (02:03:52):

And by the way, in the next movie, she’s also dating her district attorney boss. Is

Laci (02:03:56):

It just the same guy? He came back?

Matt (02:03:58):

No, it’s twoface. He’s not too face yet.

Laci (02:04:01):

Ah, that’s it.

Matt (02:04:03):

But she’s like, “Hey Bris, I brought you this era. I got to go because my boss is missing an Arkham asylum Dr. Crane is meeting Falcone. Got to go deal with it. ” And he’s like, “Thank you for all that information, Rachel. Okay.” And then-

Laci (02:04:17):

You sure are kind of a chatty girl for being someone with all this confidential and aren’t these people under investigation?

Matt (02:04:26):

Well, he runs to Alfred, he’s like, “I got to get to Arkham asylum quick.” And Alfred’s like, “But you have your birthday party, Marsh wine.”

Laci (02:04:32):

You got to act like a real trilop. You

Matt (02:04:35):

Got to

Laci (02:04:35):

Show you dick and peas.

Matt (02:04:37):

Well, now it’s a sitcom plot. I’ve got two dates.

Laci (02:04:40):

He’s misses Dowfire. He’s

Matt (02:04:42):

Just

Laci (02:04:42):

Running from one party. No,

Matt (02:04:43):

I’m

Laci (02:04:44):

Not. And then, “Hey, I’m cool guy.” No,

Matt (02:04:46):

I’m not. He’s got to go pretend to be Batman at Arkham asylum and figure out what’s going on there where Falcone has gone nuts and he’s just mutering about scarecrow. Scarcrow, scarecrow, scarecrow. And Rachel’s like, “He’s faking it. ” I demand my own psychiatrist to come evaluate him and Cillian Murphy’s like, “Okay, no problem. Absolutely. But hey, why don’t you come down to the basement? No reason. Just want to show you something.” She’s like, “Yeah, okay. I got to go.

Laci (02:05:11):

” You ever dance with the devil in a basement?

Matt (02:05:13):

No, I never have. What’s it like? I want to try and find out.

Laci (02:05:16):

Come see all my pharmaceuticals.

Matt (02:05:18):

Yep. And he’s just like, “Oh, look at my vast criminal enterprise.” Cooking up drugs and pouring it into the water small.

Laci (02:05:23):

I’ve been made.

Matt (02:05:25):

And then-

Laci (02:05:25):

Now you’re dead.

Matt (02:05:26):

Poof, sprays her with the spray.

Laci (02:05:29):

Gave her a mega dose. Just kill her. If you’re going to kill her, just kill her.

Matt (02:05:32):

Well, I bother. I sprayed her with a mega dose. No need to- That’s

Laci (02:05:35):

Rude.

Matt (02:05:36):

No need to kill her. She’s going to die of- She’s

Laci (02:05:37):

Going to die of insanity.

Matt (02:05:39):

Of being freaked out. Yeah. What

Laci (02:05:41):

A terribly sad way to go.

Matt (02:05:43):

But then Batman arrives and Cillian Murphy-

Laci (02:05:45):

And he’s just like, “Shush.

Matt (02:05:46):

He’s great.

Laci (02:05:47):

Shush Rachel.

Matt (02:05:48):

He’s here. Who?” And they’re like, “What do we do, boss?” And he’s like, “What you always do when there’s an intruder? Call the cops. Call the cops. We’re pouring all these drugs into this water supply.” And he’s like, “Well, they can’t stop us, can they? ” But Batman beats up all the goons. It’s very easy for him to do because he’s had all that League of Shadows training, of course.

Laci (02:06:09):

But just you retelling what is happening here. I know. I mean, I didn’t check out or anything, but it’s just like a couple words, couple words. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, couple words here and there. Action, action, action. And all the action so bad.

Matt (02:06:23):

Yeah. It’s almost video gamey. It’s like cut scene and then-

Laci (02:06:27):

It’s almost like they’re throwing it away. He just needs to be Batmaning around. He’s got a Batman a bit. Show those martial arts, but there’s no craft in it. They went to all the trouble of showing what an amazing fighter he is and yet I feel like I saw no really interesting hand-to-hand combat the entire time.

Matt (02:06:44):

No, I know. Once

Laci (02:06:44):

He’s in the suit, you lose all of it. If John Wick were in a giant rubber, freaking inflatable suit or whatever, I would not care about his martial arts.

Matt (02:06:53):

Well, and Liam Neeson even later says, Batman’s like, “I could easily fight two of you guys.” He’s like, “Oh yeah, we’ll try four.” But it’s very easy. And you should get a sense of like, this is difficult. How’s he going to do it? Oh, that’s how he’s doing it. And it’s thrilling to see him do it.

Laci (02:07:07):

What’s awesome about John Wick? He does it, but it doesn’t look easy.

Matt (02:07:11):

Yeah, but it’s all just fodder for Batman. It’s just easy.

Laci (02:07:16):

Shink.

Matt (02:07:17):

So he interrogates Scarecrow. Who do you work for? And he says Razagul. Roz O’Gool is dirt. But Scarecrow is now scarecrowing out. He’s all crazy. I mean, one would think he would have inoculated himself.

Laci (02:07:30):

You would think. Is he admitting … Okay. He’s admitting it because he’s been gassed. Sorry. Okay.

Matt (02:07:35):

So Batman, he summons his bats via his bat summoning device. He blows a bat whistle and they all come.

Laci (02:07:42):

He’s just torturing bats just to make a

Matt (02:07:45):

Show. It’s

Laci (02:07:45):

Just a frequency only they can hear. They’re like, “Stop

Matt (02:07:48):

It. ” Yeah, just subtitle and bat ease. It’s just pain, pain, pain. But these bats provide the distraction that Batman needs to get his friend Mr. Gordon, because he’s not commissioner, Lieutenant Sergeant Gordon, whatever his rank is now. I want to show respect to the rank and the badge, but he comes in and he’s like, “Get this fucking girl to my car now, okay? Yeah, okay. They get Rachel out into the Batmobile and Batman takes off. This is our first batmobile scene, The Tumblr. And of course, to honor the occasion, Gordon says the classic line.

Laci (02:08:20):

Where does he get all these cool toys?

Matt (02:08:22):

I got to get me one of those.

Laci (02:08:24):

Oh, that. Okay. But I know he’s trying to be understanding about what she’s going through because he has already gone through this horrible hallucinating before himself, but the whole time he’s just like … Shut up, Rachel. What is her name?

Matt (02:08:39):

Rachel. Yeah. Yeah.

Laci (02:08:39):

Okay.

Matt (02:08:41):

She’s

Laci (02:08:42):

Tripping such balls that he’s melt.You think you’re what she needs to see right now? Why not put her in the car with the normal man?

Matt (02:08:50):

That’s a good point. Here, I’m going to put you in the car with Gary Oldman. Dove with a bat.

Laci (02:08:56):

Hey. Stop right off. Yeah,

Matt (02:08:57):

You’re really tripping balls right now. You’ll be okay.

Laci (02:08:59):

I’ve been where you’ve been, sister.

Matt (02:09:00):

Okay. But this car chase, I think it’s okay. What do you think? You don’t like the action scenes of this movie. I

Laci (02:09:05):

Like the car. I can follow the car.

Matt (02:09:09):

Yeah. It’s pretty well done as a car chase because the geography’s pretty simple. It’s a relatively straightforward A to B to C. You understand the obstacles. I think it’s pretty well done. And

Laci (02:09:19):

It’s a real car that has real … It has motion that makes sense. So I’m following physics. Yeah. It looks like one of those things you put on a moon. A Rambler. A

Matt (02:09:31):

Rover?

Laci (02:09:32):

A Rambo Rover.

Matt (02:09:34):

The Dark Night escalates this and also has some great car chases that are like, they’re simpler than you see in other movies, but it’s all done in camera and that’s what makes it so affected.

Laci (02:09:42):

I mean, the Batmobile is … It’s very unique to have a separate entity from the superhero that is like the thing. I need to look at the thing that he’s got. Spider-Man doesn’t have any exterior thing where it’s like, oh, the shit’s out here now. Wonder Woman’s Plane’s invisible, so what the fuck do you do with that? Right. And then Superman, what’s he got? Batman’s got a babomile. You got to give the Batmobile a moment. There’s a Batmo meal, if you

Matt (02:10:12):

Will. Make

Laci (02:10:13):

A meal of it. Yeah. I feel like in every movie and every show, you do have to give the car its moment.

Matt (02:10:19):

So he gets Rachel back to the bat cave and gives her the antidote. She wakes up. Well, he gives her the anecdote. She wakes up and she’s like, “What’s going on? ” And he’s like, “Listen very carefully. You got to go back to your house now. And as soon as you wake up, because I’m about to give you a sedative that’s going to make you sleep for a long time. And as soon as you wake up, you need to go give Gordon these two things.” And he’s barely even finished talking when he shoots her.

Laci (02:10:40):

He’s got no medical training. He doesn’t know how long it takes for her. She doesn’t even know how online she is right now. She’s just going to wake up with a bloody hand because she’s crushed fucking vials of shit in her hand while she’s freaking out on the sedative.

Matt (02:10:54):

Yeah. I’m not good at taking any information before I go to sleep. Also not good when I wake up from sleep. Also not great at any other moments, but I’m bad at these. I’m really, really horrendous at these grades. These are wrong

Laci (02:11:06):

Times to be giving the codes to the saving of the city. They don’t end up using it though, right?

Matt (02:11:14):

No, she does. She gives one to Gordon.

Laci (02:11:15):

And he takes it,

Matt (02:11:16):

But the

Laci (02:11:16):

Other one.

Matt (02:11:17):

The other one is for mass production.

Laci (02:11:19):

Right.

Matt (02:11:19):

We don’t see them do … You’re right, because instead what we hear him say is, “The Narrows is lost.” What does that mean? They’re all dead.

Laci (02:11:26):

Fuck it.

Matt (02:11:26):

They’re all fucking each other. Let’s

Laci (02:11:28):

Just hold onto this then. We might need something for the good people later.

Matt (02:11:32):

Bruce makes it back in time for his big birthday party. The Mrs. Doutfire has succeeded.

Laci (02:11:37):

Then he blows it all up, but he is just trying to get everybody to leave. Leave. He’s trying to help them by being like, “Fuck y’all. Stupid, stupid fucks.”

Matt (02:11:49):

Well, I want to note a couple things. No, this troubled you. He walks down into his birthday party and they’re already mid singing happy birthday. Well,

Laci (02:11:57):

Because I was like, they just make them sing over and over until he comes and has the birthday. They’re

Matt (02:12:06):

Like audio animatronics. Yeah. And he’s now passing them on the roller coaster.

Laci (02:12:10):

It’s worse than that. They’re so tired. They’ve been drinking champagne for three hours. They think that’ll get them to … We’ll coax them down.

Matt (02:12:19):

And then he finds Morgan Freeman and he’s like, “Hey, can you mass produce that antidote?”

Laci (02:12:23):

Give me three fucking months. Yeah.

Matt (02:12:25):

Yeah, I can do it. And he’s like, “Okay, good, because there’s this little airborne hallucinogen and they put it in the water supply.” And he’s like, “Ah, well, put it in the water supplies. No good. You have to vaporize it. ” Oh, shit. Unless you have a microwave, I met unlike the one that Wage has lost. Oh no. And he’s like, “Well, go back to Wayne Enterprises and get to work on an anecdote.” And he’s like, “Okay, I will.” So then Bruce is about to, I don’t know, go do something else. And then this woman comes up and she’s like, “Brucey, you absolutely must meet Mr. Raza Algoo.” No, right,

Laci (02:12:54):

Right.

Matt (02:12:56):

And then it’s another Asian guy who’s not Ken Watanabe and he’s like, “I saw Raza Gulda. You are not Rosal Gulle.”

Laci (02:13:02):

You’re fucking phony.

Matt (02:13:04):

You’re just a big fat phony. You’re on

Laci (02:13:05):

Such all your poozer ass.

Matt (02:13:07):

This is why he’s so good at giving the phony speech in a second. He’s channeling what he just felt. And then Liam Neeson. She polytrics to conceal your true identity. Liam Neeson is Raza Algo. Holy shit. Oh

Laci (02:13:23):

My God. Reveal. The prestige has happened.

Matt (02:13:27):

This truly did rock my world when I saw the movie. And the lady I was on a date with, she shouted-

Laci (02:13:32):

The lady.

Matt (02:13:32):

No. His

Laci (02:13:33):

Fucking friend. Didn’t even kiss her. I’m so sick of hearing about this stupid fucking date. This lady, I was on a date when you were 14.

Matt (02:13:43):

17. Oh,

Laci (02:13:44):

Excuse me.

Matt (02:13:44):

Almost 18. You

Laci (02:13:45):

Kissed when you were 18 and it

Matt (02:13:47):

Wasn’t her. No. Was with this?

Laci (02:13:50):

It’s not a dating. You went to the movies with someone.

Matt (02:13:52):

And it’s a date. We were dating. What do you think a date is?

Laci (02:13:55):

I just bet you weren’t dating.

Matt (02:13:57):

We were dating. This was dating. Just because we didn’t fucking finger each other’s butt holes at the movies like you and your

Laci (02:14:03):

Boyfriends. Well, that’s for me. I only ever fingered my own butthole at a movie before you. Okay?

Matt (02:14:09):

Yeah, right.

Laci (02:14:10):

That’s how you give it the stinky popcorn. You reach over after you fingered your own buttle.

Matt (02:14:15):

Giving it a name doesn’t make it any more pleasant. Nope. Yeah. Raza Gul. He’s like, “Hey, I’m here to finish the job.” And I sound like Margaret- Should we

Laci (02:14:23):

Ninja right here or later?

Matt (02:14:26):

Should we ninja right here?

Laci (02:14:28):

Should

Matt (02:14:28):

We

Laci (02:14:29):

Be dragging club right now?

Matt (02:14:30):

So then the best moment in the movie, Bruce Wayne has to give a Patrick Bateman speech about how everyone here’s just a big fucking phony. No. Please leave. How is this? It’s not a joke. It’s funny and he’s so good at it.

Laci (02:14:45):

It makes me so uncomfortable. They’re all so upset.

Matt (02:14:47):

They are- You put on

Laci (02:14:48):

Outfits.

Matt (02:14:49):

It’s not a joke. I’m serious. Get the fuck out. And then the guy’s like, “The apple has fallen very far from the tree, Mr. Wayne.”

Laci (02:14:57):

He lives not in a convenient location. These people had to travel from the city.

Matt (02:15:00):

All these poor people. Oh, I hope they’re okay. You

Laci (02:15:02):

Think it’s easy for a woman my age to get a bus all the way to … I can never stop thinking about the Catch Me if you can substitute teacher.

Matt (02:15:10):

Oh, now I’m thinking about her.

Laci (02:15:13):

He’s sad every time.

Matt (02:15:16):

So Liam Neeson’s like amusing, but we’re going to … What does he sound like? We’re going to drug the whole city. Burn the town to the ground. Man was not meant to live like this. Crime despair. Is this even a life we sacked Rome, burnt? London to the ground, loaded cargo shit. Her speech before. The plague.

Laci (02:15:33):

Liam.

Matt (02:15:33):

If you’ve heard of historical event, we did it and we’re going to do it now to Gotham and now an even stupider lying.

Laci (02:15:40):

He is so fucking psyched for it to be his time, his era. All those things are ancient. Now I get to do the Gotham one.

Matt (02:15:46):

It’s like when-

Laci (02:15:47):

I trained for years. I’m going to do a city inside of a state inside of a country. Not any of these cool ones.

Matt (02:15:54):

He’s like a reformer. We need to go back to the glory days of League of Shadows. So here’s what he says. He says, “We tried. We nearly did destroy Gotham in the 80s. We tried a new weapon this time. Economics. But the good people like your billionaire parents, they fought back. He’s literally saying poverty is not caused by anything other than the League of Shadows. That’s what causes it. We tried to destroy the city in the 80s with economics. We caused the depression.” Right,

Laci (02:16:22):

Right, right. It’s a shadowy shadowy figures, a shadowy cabal. It’s just a few bad apples. It’s definitely not capitalism.

Matt (02:16:31):

No, you can’t come anywhere close to critiquing capitalism. You have to say-

Laci (02:16:35):

No, those are just good businessmen trying to help.Like Wayne. We just did it wrong because he gave away his money. You’re supposed to be a good businessman and keep all your money.

Matt (02:16:43):

Keep all your money, put a bat cow on, punch guys who smoke weed. That’s what you do.

Laci (02:16:48):

Smell like an eraser.

Matt (02:16:50):

So then they light Bruce Wayne’s house on fire and leave him for dead. They do.

Laci (02:16:56):

It’s a really big house. He was always probably going to be okay.

Matt (02:16:58):

But there’s a lot of leaving for dead in this movie. Should we kill him boss? Don’t bother.

Laci (02:17:04):

He puts a man from Tibet in the house. You tell him. You tell him I killed him. But this is a billionaire living way the fuck outside the city limits. What are the odds he doesn’t have a tunnel system? Kind of stupid. Kind of stupid. H didn’t bet on the tunnel system.

Matt (02:17:20):

So thousands of cops are mobilizing into the narrows. Now, as we will see, especially in the sequels, Nolan has a weird thing with cop, a weird fetishization of cops, of cops as quasi soldiers. In the third movie, there’s literally a noble army of cops who fight the bad guys with their nightsticks. But here, this army of cops is mobilizing to go fight the scarecrow or whatever in the narrows. The water supply is going to get vaporized. People are going to go nuts, but Rachel’s- And thirsty. Maybe even more importantly. And people, when you’re doing drugs, make sure to hydrate.

Laci (02:17:58):

You got to hydrate.

Matt (02:18:00):

Rachel wakes up and goes on her mission. She goes and finds Gordon’s like, “Here, shoot yourself with this and then do this a thing with this. ” Okay, good. Goes into the narrows, finds Joffrey. It’s like, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you, little boy.” Meanwhile, at Bruce Wayne’s house, Alfred saves him, picks him up, lifts a log off of him. And the house is burning down, but they run into the bat cave. And as they go down in the elevator, Bruce says, “I wanted to save Gotham. I failed.” And now Alfred’s been waiting his whole fucking life to say the line that he heard Bruce’s dad say. I want

Laci (02:18:32):

To idea when you fail and you go down. I can’t do the voice.

Matt (02:18:36):

Why do I fall? We can learn to pick off back up.

Laci (02:18:40):

Then why are we going

Matt (02:18:41):

Down? You haven’t give up upon me.

Laci (02:18:45):

Never. But do you see the parallels? He’s giving them that line going down into the bat cave, just like the dad went down into the-

Matt (02:18:52):

Oh, you’re right. Yes. Alfred has now become his father. Yes. But in many ways …

Laci (02:18:59):

Better. No? Worse.

Matt (02:19:03):

About the same.

Laci (02:19:04):

They’re the same.

Matt (02:19:06):

Katie Holmes, she’s inoculated against the fucking the scarecrow virus even as the whole narrows is going insane. So the scarecrow runs by on a horse and I do like that she just very easily dispatches him by shooting him with her taser and that’s it for the scarecrow.

Laci (02:19:21):

Bye-bye. Who’s scared now?

Matt (02:19:24):

And then Liam Neeson puts the microwave emitter onto the train and these very helpful water supply employees. Dude,

Laci (02:19:31):

Who we have not met yet, but they are crucial to the rest of

Matt (02:19:35):

The

Laci (02:19:35):

Fucking movie. And let’s check in with three random guys. They’re getting closer.

Matt (02:19:41):

And this drove Laci fucking nuts. You so mad.

Laci (02:19:43):

They are nobody. I don’t know these guys from Adam. They have not been in the movie. If you’re going to introduce three new people and just keep cutting to them, at least have one good character actor in there for me to be like, this was needed. Otherwise, there’s other ways to figure out how close things are coming. Plus they’re not even saying it. They’re just saying closer.

Matt (02:20:04):

No. No. Jeff Goldblue. Here they go. Getting closer. It’s getting closer. Or

Laci (02:20:08):

Wayneight.

Matt (02:20:08):

Let’s faster. Let’s find out. Somebody that’s usually in a

Laci (02:20:10):

Control room.

Matt (02:20:11):

Oh, Samuel L. Jackson.

Laci (02:20:13):

Yes.

Matt (02:20:13):

There you go.

Laci (02:20:14):

Them.

Matt (02:20:15):

Oh, John Hammond. Richard Attenborough. Who else is at Dress Park?

Laci (02:20:18):

I accept this movie in two different ways and

Matt (02:20:20):

I can’t

Laci (02:20:20):

Remember the first one.

Matt (02:20:22):

Well, remember, the train runs along the water tower. So it’s like until it hits its eventual target at Wayne Tower, it’ll cause a jam reaction that makes the water supply of the whole town give aprise. Oh my God. Okay. So Batman’s like, “Commissioner Gordon, you take my Batmobile and go blow up the train tracks, please.” And he’s like, “Hell fucking yeah, I want to do that. ” And he figures out how to drive this insane military vehicle. Meanwhile, Bruce hops onto the train.

Laci (02:20:45):

It’s powered by hate.

Matt (02:20:47):

Gets into a little fistfight with Liam Neeson and decisively beats him. It’s like that.

Laci (02:20:54):

No.

Matt (02:20:56):

Gordon shoots down the train tracks and fucking Niesen’s like, “Well, you finally learned not to be such a pussy and you’re going to kill me after all. ” But Batman of course has his code. It’s a definitive code. He doesn’t kill people, but he says, “I’m not going to kill you, but it doesn’t mean I have to let you live. It doesn’t mean I have to save you. ” Save

Laci (02:21:15):

You. Right. I’m going to leave you for dead.

Matt (02:21:17):

So yeah, totally not the same thing, Batman.

Laci (02:21:20):

Nope. You stick him in a hole and he can’t climb out. No food, no water.

Matt (02:21:25):

That’s not killing. I didn’t do anything. That’s

Laci (02:21:26):

Not killing. I figured a way out. If I can do it, where’s your dad? Where’s your dad, Liam? Maybe you should have had a

Matt (02:21:33):

Death. The bullet killed you. I didn’t kill you. Batman flies off the train. I do like Liam Neeson’s death. He just like, well fucking just closes his eyes.

Laci (02:21:43):

Nice old couple in the Titanic.

Matt (02:21:45):

Yes. It’s just as sweet too. This train crash is great. It’s all done practically, just all in the camera known this is what he excels at. But the Narrows is poisoned and we only know one person down there and Gordon will say in a minute. Yeah, the Narrows is lost. Something like two million people dead, but you’ll win some, you’ll lose some. I don’t know.

Laci (02:22:08):

I feel like the League of Shadows did what they came to do.

Matt (02:22:11):

Yeah, I think they succeeded. Also, it seems like the movie maybe doesn’t care about the poor people.

Laci (02:22:16):

Right. Okay, so you destroyed where all the poverty was.

Matt (02:22:21):

Ooh, we ended poverty in our lifetime. Great. Yes.

Laci (02:22:24):

If you see all those high rises, lights on, looking pretty, they look really good in the background, haven’t been touched. Manhattan is fine.

Matt (02:22:33):

Yeah. Harlem

Laci (02:22:34):

Is down.

Matt (02:22:36):

The Simpsons thing where it’s like, imagine a town that works and they have a footage of a homeless man and then it transitions and the homeless man turns into a mailbox. So they’re going to rebuild. Bruce is over at his house and he’s like, “Look at all the devastation of my house. Wow.” And he just picks up a brick. He’s like, “Better get to work.” And Katie Holmes comes in. She’s like, “Bruce, your house has bent down.” He’s like, “Yeah, but we’re going to rebuild it brick by brick.” And Laci shouted, “Ew.” Why did you shout ooh at that?

Laci (02:23:07):

Because don’t be all sentimental and like, ooh, my mom, my paw and tradition and it’s going to be exactly the same with our bare hands. Number one, no, you’re not. After you’ve touched that brick, you’re fucking done. You’re hiring people. Number two, you didn’t care about the manner before and all the shit. Now you’re doing something different anyways.

Matt (02:23:25):

Why don’t you just build it a litle different? He’s grown. He

Laci (02:23:28):

Has not. He’s been on psychedelics.

Matt (02:23:30):

Alfred this whole time has been trying to teach him. I much made a promise to a good man. Help you hold y’all family. And now Bruce is finally-

Laci (02:23:37):

I’m just saying it’s a bit wasteful that you’re going to rebuild a mansion exactly as it was Brick Brywake. Do you know how expensive

Matt (02:23:43):

That is? His family’s legacy. They saved- Who cares? It’s just- They ended slavery.

Laci (02:23:47):

Build it cheaper. You’re telling me Italian marble’s going to cost just as much now as it did back when your dad fucking installed it. You’re being an idiot. Use your funds for other things.

Matt (02:23:55):

Well, that’s the whole thing with … Yeah. Hey, Bruce Wayne, use your funds for other things. That’s the Batman story.

Laci (02:24:02):

Just don’t act like it’s fucking noble. I’ve

Matt (02:24:04):

Learned my lesson. Between now and when we record our Dark Night episode, I want you to come up with a plan that makes sense of how Bruce Wayne can use his money and not be evil.

Laci (02:24:15):

Okay. I’m on it.

Matt (02:24:16):

I made a video about this and people hated it, but you do it. How can you actually not be criminal and use your money for good? You can’t. Who are you going to give it to? No,

Laci (02:24:28):

None.

Matt (02:24:29):

Okay. Anyway. You’re

Laci (02:24:30):

Going to fund something.

Matt (02:24:31):

Cade Holmes is like, “I know that you’re Batman and that means we can’t be together because you’re Batman.” And it’s

Laci (02:24:36):

Fine because I don’t even really like you anyway.

Matt (02:24:37):

And then the final scene when everybody in the audience is fucking-Just

Laci (02:24:43):

Creaming their corn.

Matt (02:24:44):

Throw in the comment at the screen.

Laci (02:24:47):

They come inside their popcorn, they call it cream in the corn.

Matt (02:24:49):

That’s what they call it?

Laci (02:24:49):

Yeah, a stingky palm and then a cream in the corn. This is all the stuff I do at the movie.

Matt (02:24:53):

That’s how you hit for the cycle of when you get both of those. And then you give your date a strawberry shortcake.

Laci (02:24:58):

And then you go up to the fucking person at the counter and you say, “I’m a member.” And then they type in your phone number and they say-

Matt (02:25:06):

You have a free popcorn and you’re like, “Yes.” You’ve

Laci (02:25:08):

Done the round

Matt (02:25:09):

Up. There’s happy days and happy days. So Batman meets with Gordon at the newly built bat signal and Gordon’s like, “Wow, you rattled their cages, but what about escalation?” “Escalation? Yeah, we wear Kevlar vests. They buy armor piercing rounds. You’re going to attract some real nut jobs, Mr. Batman. Take, for example, this guy, this nut job. He’s robbed a bake. He’s a

Laci (02:25:34):

Roll nutter.

Matt (02:25:35):

“And he left his calling card and he hands Batman a playing card and we all know what it’s going to say.

Laci (02:25:40):

Queen of Diamonds.

Matt (02:25:42):

No, it’s the Joker. And Batman says-

Laci (02:25:46):

It’s the instruction card that no one keeps inside the deck.

Matt (02:25:51):

What if he was that guy? I’m the instructor. I’m the instructor, Batman. Well, they need to be Jigsaw, gets mad at people for not following the rules.

Laci (02:26:01):

You shouldn’t throw me away. It’s really 53 pickups saying.

Matt (02:26:05):

Y’all never benefit me, Batman, the instructor. Now, Batman says,” I’ll look into it, “which you always think is the last line of the movie, but no, Gordon says-

Laci (02:26:17):

Flashline.

Matt (02:26:19):

“I never said thank you. ” And you’ll never have to.

Laci (02:26:26):

Because I’ll always already be gone.

Matt (02:26:28):

This is my point with the Christopher Nolan dialogue. You know what you could say instead, Gary Oldman’s just, “Hey, thank you, Batman.”

Laci (02:26:35):

Right.

Matt (02:26:35):

I never said thank you. Now you say something.

Laci (02:26:40):

What do you suppose we do about that?

Matt (02:26:43):

Well,

Laci (02:26:46):

Come over to my place.

Matt (02:26:48):

We’ll

Laci (02:26:48):

Have a Brewske.

Matt (02:26:52):

And this has got to be like maybe this is the Oppenheimer moment because this is great and even now it has some power, but you’re like, “Yeah, of course The Joker’s going to be in a Batman movie.” But in 2005, you’d never seen a movie tee up a sequel like this and now you have to tee it up like this.

Laci (02:27:14):

I see. This is the thing.

Matt (02:27:18):

He

Laci (02:27:18):

Makes a lot of new shit.

Matt (02:27:19):

And remember, the Jack Nicholson Joker was 16 years old at the time. Way more time has passed between this movie, Batman Begins and us right now.

Laci (02:27:30):

Well, now why was the Joker an inevitability not the Penguin?

Matt (02:27:34):

Because the Joker’s the villain. I mean, he’s the villain of comic books. He’s like the character of American comic books. I mean, no, you don’t think so?

Laci (02:27:43):

No, I’m just making a face.

Matt (02:27:44):

Oh, okay.

Laci (02:27:46):

For those of you not watching, it was quite a face. Imagine Reese Witherspoon in a car with Ryan Felipe, that level of fac.

Matt (02:27:54):

Yeah, exactly. But it’s like, I’m coming out of my shell.

Laci (02:27:59):

Coming into my show. So you’re

Matt (02:28:03):

Saying he should have turned over the card and it should be a penguin?

Laci (02:28:07):

He should open an aquarium and inside if it’s a penguin. Oh my God. No, I just didn’t know why you thought it would be … I mean, there’s a lot of iconic villains from the previous Batman movies that I know. So to me, those were all just as likely. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I didn’t know The Joker was a midnight star. I didn’t know it was the big deal. I thought he pleasure made him a big deal. Although of course, Jack Engelson was amazing as him. All credit be to him. I feel like I need to be very careful.

Matt (02:28:42):

You haven’t noticed that actors keep playing the Joker and winning Oscars?

Laci (02:28:46):

After he let

Matt (02:28:47):

Joe. Okay. So you’re saying, okay, it’s Heath Ledger that- Then

Laci (02:28:49):

It’s obvious.

Matt (02:28:50):

I got you. I got

Laci (02:28:51):

You. Okay. Well, fantastic. Maybe we should memento this shit so I can get some goddamn respect.

Matt (02:28:56):

So I was just shitting my fucking pants in the movie theater. The Joker. They’re going to do The Joker in a Batman movie. I can’t believe it.

Laci (02:29:02):

That’s why I didn’t get a sucking date. Shit himself.

Matt (02:29:05):

This was like my fifth date with this lady.

Laci (02:29:07):

And I think it was about time to be done.

Matt (02:29:11):

Did

Laci (02:29:11):

The shit pants on date five.

Matt (02:29:13):

I mean, you’re not wrong, but-

Laci (02:29:16):

Hurricane Katrina happened, boom, boom. Was it Karen Katrina?

Matt (02:29:21):

That’s a long story. Batman begins. Batman begins Final Thoughts and Star Ratings for Batman begins a beloved movie by all, but not by us. And frankly, I’m giving it three stars and that is by the skin of its teeth because there are some scenes that I love and I think a lot of garbage, I think a lot What about this movie really sucks?

Laci (02:30:01):

I’m going to give it three stars because of the patriarchy. I don’t need people being mean to me unletter boxed. When I go give my review, I hardly ever give it lower than three. Two and a half means it’s pretty bad. Means I’m going out on a limb to say, I’m not the only one, right?

Matt (02:30:22):

But the performances are good. Michael Kane’s great. Morgan Freeman’s great, but Christian Bale is very good and this is a movie star performance. He is kind of carrying the movie. He’s carrying a lot of the movie and Nolan directs everything but the fight scenes well. It’s just I think this screenplay is terrible. Well,

Laci (02:30:40):

And if you’re going to do action movies, maybe just get someone who’s good at directing action and partner.You got all this power, you got all this money. Give some of it to someone else who knows to do how to do things you’re not …

Matt (02:30:53):

He hadn’t done anything like this before so this is how you learn like, oh okay, I need to work with people in empowerment. So he does

Laci (02:30:59):

Going forward?

Matt (02:31:00):

I think he improves. The knock on him has always been he can’t direct fight scenes, but he is good at directing big action spectacle. And next week The Prestige, a great movie, a movie I love, although maybe I’ll not like it this

Laci (02:31:13):

Way. Looking forward to it. And look, the ethereal angel thought of a woman is just right there on the fucking poster.

Matt (02:31:18):

Scarlet Johansson is a wish.

Laci (02:31:19):

She’s not even full.

Matt (02:31:21):

And she’s neither of their wives. Both of them have angel wives.

Laci (02:31:25):

Got it.

Matt (02:31:26):

Yeah.

Laci (02:31:26):

That

Matt (02:31:27):

Sucks. Have you seen the prestige?

Laci (02:31:29):

Yeah, you showed it to me.

Matt (02:31:30):

I showed it to you. You

Laci (02:31:31):

Real it to me.

Matt (02:31:31):

Look at this, Laci, I said. Okay. I don’t remember that.

Laci (02:31:35):

It was really early in the

Matt (02:31:37):

Relationship. Very excited about this one. This is one of my favorites and then people can see we don’t hate Nolan.

Laci (02:31:46):

Yeah. Who’s that guy?

Matt (02:31:47):

Hugh Jackman. And Christian Bale. That’s

Laci (02:31:49):

Christian Bale.

Matt (02:31:50):

That’s Christian Bale. It’s a movie about the two sides of Nolan as a director. He’s Hugh Jackman, the showman and Christian Bale who’s like the serious artist who will lose a thousand pounds for a role.

Laci (02:32:02):

Okay. All right. I didn’t know this.

Matt (02:32:06):

Everyone follow us on social media, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Blue Sky, Instagram, and YouTube and check out my band Rural Route nine. We do the music for the show. We do the theme song to Summer of Nolan, thanks to TJ and Wade for helping us make that song. Check out Laci’s art channel on YouTube.

Laci (02:32:24):

Check it out.

Matt (02:32:25):

And check out the summer of Nolan. We’ll be here all summer long giving you the stink bucket.

Laci (02:32:31):

Okay. I love you.