The Penguin: A TV Review - We Have a Frontrunner for the Best Show of the Year

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE. IT. NOW. The best show of the year and easily the greatest comic book IP series since Daredevil.

The Penguin, which stars Colin Farrell in the titular role, chronicles the rise of one of Gotham’s most infamous villains. It is the first tv series in filmmaker Matt Reeves’, director of The Batman (2022), DC Cinematic Universe.

The series, which premiered on HBO and the streaming service MAX on September 19th with its eight-episode season ending on November 10th, is set in the immediate aftermath of the events of The Batman (2022), but also serves as an origin story for Oswald Cobb - The Penguin.

For a variety of reasons, one of which is that I’ve had to sit through a cavalcade of terribly disappointing Marvel tv shows over the last bunch of years, I had low expectations when I sat down to watch the first episode of The Penguin.

I assumed the series would just be another watered-down piece of IP nonsense with little meaning or purpose beyond momentarily distracting me from the mundanity and minutia of life.  

Then I watched the first episode…and goodness gracious was I proven dead wrong.

The first episode of The Penguin hits like Bat Kick to the chest. It reveals a creative team that is dead serious about the subject matter and an artistic and cinematic sensibility and quality that is exceedingly rare in any television show…never mind a comic book television show. Put simply The Penguin is comic book series as elite prestige tv.

The credit for the show’s success goes first to the series’ creator and showrunner Lauren LeFranc, who expertly brought the cinematic vision of Matt Reeves to life on the small screen.

LeFranc’s fearless approach never allowed for winking at the audience or cutting creative corners. LeFranc set out to make a devastatingly dramatic television series that just so happened to be set in a comic book universe, and she succeeded spectacularly.  

LeFranc is loyal to the cinematic style of Reeves, and her ground-level view of Gotham is gloriously gritty, grimy, grungy and gruesome. As a result, The Penguin seems like a slightly lesser version of HBO prestige dramas The Sopranos and The Wire, as it looks cinematic and feels authentic.

For all eight episodes, LeFranc masterfully toys with audience expectations and conditioning. She subverts audience expectations so expertly at every turn that viewers are kept continually off-balance through the course of the narrative. And the finale is as perfect a piece of villain origin story as you’ll ever see.

The second person responsible for the success of The Penguin is the Penguin himself, Colin Farrell.

Farrell’s performance as Oswald Cobb, aka The Penguin, is as great a performance as we’ve seen in television in years. Under mountains of makeup which render him unrecognizable, Farrell is able to imbue his character with a vivid and frantic inner life that pulsates and radiates incessantly.

Farrell’s Penguin is a vulnerable, yet vile, violent and vicious villain. His relentless quest for power and his insatiable hunger for love are inexorably intertwined, and fuel his grinding ascent from lowlife street thug to high level mobster.

It is an absolute joy to watch Farrell in the last decade or so blossom into such a terrific actor. He has always been a naturally magnetic screen presence, but in recent years his skill has matured and made him into one of the best actors we’ve got. If he doesn’t win an Emmy for his work on The Penguin then there is no justice in this crazy world.

The rest of the cast are almost as fantastic as Farrell.

Cristin Milioti is essentially the co-lead in the series as she stars as Sofia Falcone, the troubled adult daughter of mob boss Carmine Falcone. Milioti is an absolute revelation in the role. She radiates an unnerving energy every time she’s on-screen…one that is both fragile and furiously fierce. Milioti too should garner Emmy recognition as she had a lot of heavy lifting to do in the series and does it with aplomb.

Deirdra O’Connell plays Francis Cobb, the Penguin’s mom. O’Connell is spectacular in the role of the scheming mother. In lesser hands this role had the potential to scuttle the whole show, but O’Connell gives a powerhouse performance that elevates the already superb series.

Rhenzy Feliz plays Victor, a homeless teenager who Oswald/The Penguin takes under his wing. Feliz at first seems like the weak link in the show. His performance feels a little thin and a bit shallow and showy…but as the series went on his work got stronger until in the final few episodes, he really came into his own. Ultimately, Feliz shows himself to be a very worthy actor.

The rest of the cast, which includes a few notable actors, like Mark Strong, Clancy Brown and Michael Kelly, all bring a gravitas and professionalism to the festivities that only adds to the quality of the show.

A bunch of years ago one of my friend’s father, the incomparable “Hollywood” Gary, made the astute observation that the reason why the Dark Knight trilogy was so successful and so good was because if Batman really existed in the world, that’s how it would be. I concur. The same exact thing is what makes The Penguin so good.

It is almost irrelevant that The Penguin is set in a comic book universe because it feels like a story about low level and low life mobsters set in the real world. This could be a spin-off from a Scorsese series like Boardwalk Empire for crissakes.

The battle between the cinematic universes of DC and Marvel haven’t been much of a fight for the last fourteen years or so. Marvel has dominated the cultural landscape and DC has stumbled through the failures that was the Snyderverse.

But since 2019, things have begun to slowly change.

That year Marvel capped its incredible run with the two-billion-dollar box office darling, Avengers: Endgame. But that same year DC came out with Joker…which was a prestige comic book movie that garnered a Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor Oscar nominations (and a win for Best Actor and Best Original Score) and made a billion dollars.

Marvel since then has churned out a plethora of movies and tv series, most of which were mediocrities and some of which were considerably less than mediocre.

DC on the other hand, gave us Matt Reeves’ The Batman, and now The Penguin. Both of these pieces of work are vastly superior to anything Marvel has put out since Endgame. And even though Joker and Joker: Folie a Deux are not connected to the Matt Reeves cinematic universe, both of those films (yes, even the near universally panned Folie a Deux – which I actually loved) are undeniably more artistically daring and dynamic than anything Marvel has EVER done.

The best thing about DC at the moment is that cinematically, artistically and thematically, its cinematic universe is much darker than Marvel’s. This has been a complaint by some, but never by me. I like the darker material, and the Marvel material in comparison seems, frankly silly to the point of ridiculousness.

Visually the same is true. DC is making real movies with a distinct and artistically compelling cinematic aesthetic, while Marvel churns out the flattest and most visually bland movies and tv shows imaginable that look, frankly, unconscionably cheap.

The battle for comic book IP supremacy may be irrelevant at this point as the superhero genre seems to be in a recession which may head into a depression. But if we are measuring it in artistic terms, DC is winning right now and it isn’t even close, and that winning may lead to more cultural cache.

One can only hope DC keeps going in this direction…although I must say that James Gunn being in charge at DC and making a Superman movie does not fill me with much confidence that the ship will stay headed in the right direction.

Regardless of all that, The Penguin is undeniably the best TV series I’ve seen this entire year, and tied with Netflix’s Daredevil (2015-2018) as the best comic book series ever made.

If you have a passing interest in comic book IP or in mob movies and tv shows, you have to watch The Penguin because it isn’t just what a great comic book tv series should be, it is what a great tv series should be.

©2024

The 9th Annual Mickey™® Awards: 2022 Edition

THE MICKEYS – 2022

The god-awful Oscars have finally come and gone and now it’s time for the final and most prestigious awards in cinema to commence.

The Mickey™® Awards aren’t just the most prestigious award in cinema, but are undeniably the most prestigious award on the planet, easily topping those wannabe poseurs at the overrated Nobel Prize.

Unfortunately, in recent years the art of cinema has not been worthy of such an esteemed and distinguished honor. You see, since the halcyon days of 2019 when great movies like Parasite, Joker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman, and significant arthouse films like Ad Astra, A Hidden Life, The Last Black Man in San Francisco and High Life, as well as quality middle-brow entertainment like the finely-crafted 1917 and Ford v Ferrari, graced our big screens, we’ve been in a dramatic and dire cinema drought. Not only has greatness not come to the big screen (or small screen) in the last three years, goodness has been an absolute rarity as well.

On the bright side, it must be said that 2022 was definitely better than 2021, but that isn’t saying much as 2021 was easily the worst year for movies in my entire life. To give an indication of how bad things were in 2021, last year The Mickeys™® were almost cancelled because the nominating committee couldn’t make a list of top five films due to the fact that there weren’t five good films that came out all year.

As far as the future is concerned, one can only cling to the hope that the ever-so-slight upward trend in cinema quality from 2021 to 2022 continues and that the three years ahead of us end up being better than the three unbelievably shitty years we’ve just slogged through.

Am I optimistic? God no! But at least as I wallow in my depression I’m setting myself up for the wondrous experience of being pleasantly surprised. As my cavalcade of girlfriends can attest, I am extremely fond of saying, “the key to happiness is low expectations.”

Before we get started…a quick rundown of the rules and regulations of The Mickeys™®. The Mickeys™® are selected by me. I am judge, jury and executioner. The only films eligible are films I have actually seen, be it in the theatre, via screener, cable, streamer or VOD. I do not see every film because as we all know, the overwhelming majority of films are God-awful, and I am a working man so I must be pretty selective. So that means that just getting me to actually watch your movie is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself…never mind being nominated or winning!

The Prizes!! The winners of The Mickey™® award will receive one acting coaching session with me FOR FREE!!! Yes…you read that right…FOR FREE!! Non-acting category winners receive a free lunch* with me at Fatburger (*lunch is considered one "sandwich" item, one order of small fries, you aren't actors so I know you can eat carbs, and one beverage….yes, your beverage can be a shake, you fat bastards). Actors who win and don't want an acting coaching session but would prefer the lunch…can still go straight to hell…but I am legally obligated to inform you that, yes, there WILL BE SUBSTITUTIONS allowed with The Mickey™® Awards prizes. If you want to go to lunch, I will gladly pay for your meal…and the sterling conversation will be entirely free of charge.

Enough with the formalities…let's start the festivities!!

Popcorn Movie of the Year

The Batman – Matt Reeves wrote and directed the most recent sojourn into the world of the Batman and his film is a unique and original venture in a genre worn thin by its relentless and ridiculous repetition.

The Northman – Robert Eggers attempt at a Norse action movie is as weird as you’d expect it to be. While uneven, the film is a gloriously ambitious and smart action film that audiences were too stupid to understand.

Prey – I assumed Prey was going to be just another empty-headed franchise movie. It wasn’t. It was an original take on the well-worn Predator movies that revitalized the franchise.

And The Mickey™® goes to…THE BATMAN

Best Cinematography

All Quiet on the Western Front – James Friend – Friend’s work on All Quiet is simply astounding as he captured the scope and scale of war while also conveying the deeply intimate impact of it. Just beautifully photographed.

The Batman – Grieg Fraser – Fraser’s work on The Batman is at times absolutely stunning. His use of light in darkness paints some of the most extraordinary visuals in any film this year.

The Banshees of Inisherin – Ben Davis – Davis makes the most of his Irish setting through the use of fundamentally sound cinematography.

Tar – Florian Hoffmeister – Hoffmeister’s framing is simply exquisite as he turns the mundane into delicious pieces of cinema.

And The Mickey™® goes to…ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

Best Supporting Actor

Brendan Gleeson – The Banshees of Inisherin: Gleeson is one of the best actors around and he brings the full force of his skill to his role of Colm, the dissatisfied musician tired of the ordinary life. Gleeson elevates every scene he inhabits.

Barry Keoghan – The Banshees of Inisherin: Keoghan’s work as Dominic, the fragile and combustible young man trapped in his life on the small isle of Inisherin, is at times stunning. The scene where he asks a girl to be with him is one of the very best captured on film this year.

And The Mickey™® goes to…BRENDAN GLEESON

Best Supporting Actress

Kerry Condon – The Banshees of Inisherin: Condon perfectly captures the frustration and futility of life as an Irish woman surrounded by the hell that is Irish men.

And The Mickey™® goes to…KERRY CONDON

Best Screenplay

The Banshees of Inisherin – Martin McDonagh: McDonagh’s screenplay is ridiculous and absurd at times, but it never fails to perfectly capture the civil war raging in the hearts and minds of every Irishman.

Triangle of Sadness – Ruben Ostlund: On its surface, Triangle of Sadness is a rather banal and somewhat predictable criticism of American capitalism (a criticism I agree with by the way), but just beneath this surface is as smart, savvy and savage a social satire as seen on big screens in ages.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: Del Toro turns the well-worn story of the puppet come to life into a fascinating tale of love, loss and fascism. As relevant a story as we saw all year.

And The Mickey goes to…TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

Best Scene of the Year

The Banshees of Inisherin – When Barry Keoghan’s Dominic professes his love for Kerry Condon’s Siobhan, it is absolutely heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. Both Keoghan and Condon absolutely crush this scene.

Tar – When Cate Blanchett’s Lydia Tar tries to teach a simple-minded social justice woke warrior about the complexity of life and music in this ten-minute uncut scene, it is simply mesmerizing. The actor playing opposite Blanchett, Zethphan Smith-Gneist, is so uncomfortable (either intentionally or unintentionally) in the role as to be glorious. Just one of those unbelievably magical scenes that make cinema so wondrous.

All Quiet on the Western Front – The scene where Paul is stuck in a bomb crater with a French soldier is absolutely hellacious as it shows war as a humanity crushing machine. It is a perfect encapsulation of this film and its anti-war message.

And The Mickey goes to…TAR

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett – Tar : There is no other option in this category. Blanchett is the best actress of her generation and maybe every other generation too. Blanchett’s skill and mastery of craft are sublime, and her raw talent is undeniable. Just a master class of master classes in terms of great acting.

And The Mickey goes to…CATE BLANCHETT – TAR

Best Actor

Felix Kammerer – All Quiet on the Western Front: A deft portrayal of the horrors of war that hollows out the human soul. Kammerer never loses his edge or his innate sense of humanity in this role.

Colin Farrell – The Banshees of Inisherin: Farrell’s work as the dim-witted, sad-sack Padraic is astonishing considering he was little more than a rather dim-witted, Hollywood pretty boy not that long ago. Farrell has grown into a terrific actor of quality and worth over the last decade or so and he puts it all together in this most subtle and deft portrayal.

And The Mickey™® goes to…COLIN FARRELL – THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

Actor/Actress of the Year

COLIN FARRELL – In 2022 Farrell not only excelled as the lead in The Banshees of Inisherin, but he was also terrific in The Batman as the Penguin, and even elevated a rather mundane Ron Howard movie with a simple yet subtle turn as one of the divers who saves kids trapped in a cave in Thirteen Lives. Farrell has come a long way, and he now has not one but two Mickey™® awards to prove his greatness.

Best Director

Ruben Ostlund – Triangle of Sadness: Ostlund the director had to somehow bring to the screen the wild, unwieldly, sprawling story written by Ostlund the screenwriter…and he does it with a panache and deft touch that is breathtaking to behold.

Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin: McDonagh is a better writer than he is a director, but on Banshees he lets simplicity be his guide and the result is an extremely well-made movie that never gets in its own way.

Guillermo del Toro – Pinocchio: Del Toro infuses such life and energy into this old story, and does it with the most beautiful stop-motion animation imaginable, that one can only bow to his enormous talent and extraordinary artistic vision.

Edward Berger – All Quiet on the Western Front: Berger perfectly captures the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual hell that is war. An unrelenting film that is as relevant today as the stellar original was back in 1930.

And The Mickey™® goes to…Edward Berger – All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Picture

8. Barbarian – The first two acts of this film are spectacularly well-made, but the third act falters. Still, was a pleasant surprise to see such a well-crafted horror film.

7. The Menu – A crisp and entertaining bit of class warfare moviemaking that featured some solid performances. Not a perfect movie but compelling.

6. The Batman – Matt Reeves proves himself to be a solid captain for the good ship Caped Crusader. His unorthodox approach and storytelling are a bit of fresh air in the oversaturated superhero genre.

5. Tar – 2/3rd of a great movie. The final act falls short but Blanchett’s brilliance is undeniable.

4. Triangle of Sadness – So much more than it appears to be. A funny, but insightful and incisive social satire that pulls no punches towards anyone.

3. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – A deeply moving, mournful meditation on life and loss.

2. The Banshees of Inisherin – Fantastically acted story that speaks to our current time and to the burden of Irishness.

1. All Quiet on the Western Front – Astonishingly well-made film. It isn’t perfect, but it overcomes its shortcomings by brutally conveying the fact that war is hell and only demons want it.

Most Important Film of the Year

All Quiet on the Western Front – In case you haven’t heard, there’s a war going on In Ukraine. Most Americans have been so thoroughly propagandized and indoctrinated that they are chomping at the bit to get the U.S. even more entangled in this bloody war.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a powerful reminder that that idea is a very bad one. War is hell, and only demons want it…and the U.S. has nothing but demonic elites running the show.

Watching liberals, with whom I proudly marched against the Iraq War in 2003, now be so blinded by relentless propaganda, misinformation, disinformation…is both astonishing and infuriating.

These dupes, dopes and dumb asses have been thoroughly manipulated into a myopic, vicious anti-Russian mania that is breathtaking to behold.

The reality is that all these dipshits who proudly display the Ukrainian flag in their bios don’t have half a fucking clue when it comes to Russia, Ukraine and this awful war.

Most of these morons, and most of Americans, have absolutely no idea what started this war – the U.S. backed coup in 2014.

Americans think their Ukrainian flag waving is in support of “democracy”, but they’re ignorant to the fact that a democratically elected Ukrainian government was overthrown in the coup that the U.S. instigated and fueled in 2014. They also have no knowledge of the 46 ethnic Russians burned alive in the Odessa Union House – and no clue that the burning alive of Russians is particularly triggering since the Nazis did the same thing in occupied Soviet territories back in the day.

These same Americans are ignorant to the fact that the newly installed, U.S. backed, post-coup Ukrainian government proceeded to shell ethnic Russians in the Donbas, killing 14,000 men, women and children. They are also blissfully unaware that this U.S. backed Ukrainian government signed a peace accord, the Minsk Agreements, with Russia in 2014 and then intentionally violated these agreements breaking the peace. These same fools are also unaware that Ukraine, the alleged bastion of democracy, outlawed the Russian language, Russian language media, and opposition parties after the 2014 coup that toppled a democratically elected government.

Americans don’t know any of this, or they reflexively call it “Russian propaganda”, because they’ve been sold a narrative and are too stupid or too cowardly to push back against it.

How many lies about the war in Ukraine have these idiots swallowed whole? There’s the Ghost of Kiev bullshit, the Snake Island nonsense, the continuous claims of Russian massacres and war crimes – like Bucha – which are obvious pieces of unsubstantiated propaganda.

Then there’s the endless stories of massive Russian defeats and retreats, with hundreds of thousands of dead Russian soldiers…except the actual numbers are the exact opposite of what the U.S. media claims. The truth is that for every one Russian soldier killed there are ten Ukrainian soldiers killed.

Then there’s the breathless stories the U.S. media keeps telling Americans about Putin on death’s door, suffering from cancer or Parkinsons or both.

The U.S. media report Russian retreats as catastrophic failures and turn around and call Ukrainian retreats “strategic withdrawals”.

Then there’s the media deification of a two-bit twat like Zelensky, who is the new Fauci…in other words a con artist and bullshitter used to front a phony narrative.

The coverage of this war has been the most blatantly dishonest propaganda spewed by the American misinformation machine I’ve ever witnessed…which is quite an accomplishment.

Which brings us to All Quiet on the Western Front. This movie lays bare the atrocity that is war and how it is a money-making machine that devours any humanity within its reach. The problem now is that Americans are so stupid and so ill-informed and so indoctrinated, that they are yearning for the U.S. to get more involved…which will only lead to copious amounts of misery for everyone involved.

We never learn. We didn’t learn from Vietnam. We didn’t learn from Afghanistan. We didn’t learn from Iraq. And now we are sleepwalking into a ground war with a nuclear power over what it deems to be a pivotal piece of property directly on its border.

The same is true of China and Taiwan by the way, which is next up on our propaganda list. There are already establishment geniuses and flag-waving fools banging the drums of war against China. I mean, why start one major ground war when you can lose on two fronts while your empire crumbles?

The reality is that the U.S. is not the good guy in the world…and most certainly not in the war in Ukraine. That doesn’t mean the Russians are the good guys…or the bad guys…they are just the guys fighting for their existential survival in a vital part of their neighborhood. What this all means for Americans is that this is a very complex, very dangerous situation which we are much too obtuse and too narcissistic to ever fully comprehend.

The truth is that Russia is winning in Ukraine…and has been winning all along. The truth is also that the U.S. empire is flailing and falling, and the BRICS are ascendant and will be the counter balance in a multi-polar, post-U.S. empire world. We need to understand this thoroughly in order to navigate it and not end up living in a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max world.

I’m not optimistic. And after watching All Quiet on the Western Front and seeing the astonishing gullibility and brutal barbarity of mankind, you shouldn’t be either.

And thus ends my rant and the 2022 Mickey Awards, the most prestigious of all cinema awards shows.

Thanks for reading and we’ll see you at the after-party!!

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: @MPMActingCo

©2023

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

On this special episode of everybody’s favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I don our bat capes and cowls and do battle over all things Batman, first and foremost Matt Reeves' new movie The Batman. We have a heated debate about the new Bat-film and rank our all-time top Batmans, Batman villains and Batman movies, with some shocking results.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

Thanks for listening!

©2022

The Batman: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (this is more a psychological character study than an action movie)

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An audaciously unorthodox comic book movie that is really a film-noir detective picture. This somewhat flawed homage to Fincher’s Seven and Zodiac, which boasts solid performances from Robert Pattinson and Paul Dano, is a satisfying superhero story for those with darker tastes.

Early on in writer/director Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which opened nationwide in theatres on Thursday March 3rd, the melancholy and morose lament of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” establishes itself not only as an anthem for the film, but also as an accurate representation of the withered and wounded state of Batman/Bruce Wayne’s heart and soul.

This musical cultural symbol makes it clear from the get go that The Batman is not the nostalgic, family-friendly, fun fan service of Spider-Man: No Way Home, this is a very different beast entirely, as well it should be.

Some critics have lambasted The Batman for its “humorlessness” and “joylessness” and for being “too dark” and “too gritty”. Critics said the same thing about Nirvana when they hit the scene in the early 90’s too.

Who do these people think Batman is? He isn’t the goofy campiness of Adam West’s tv show, or Tim Burton’s and Joel Schumacher’s 90’s films. As the Batman comics of note, like The Dark Knight series, Year One, Year Two, The Killing Joke and Ego to name just a few, teach us, Batman is one dark, twisted son of a bitch.

This guy is a billionaire who dresses in a bat costume and goes out every night and beats the living shit out of criminals. Like a black clad Santa Claus, this badass brute wants you to think he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sakes, or he’s gonna jump out of the shadows and crack your fucking head open.

So yeah, Batman isn’t Spider-Man, he’s a “dark and gritty” character who lives in a “dark and gritty” world, which is why so many people connect with the archetype, since most of us live in a brutal world and wish we too could beat the hell out of everybody who deserves it.

The pop-grunge band Garbage’s breakthrough hit, “I’m Only Happy When It Rains”, came out in 1995, and the song’s catchy but dour Gen X lament was and still is a very accurate description of me. You see, I’m one of those people who revels in inclement weather and is seemingly allergic to both sunlight and human interaction, so much so that I prefer to spend the majority of my time alone, brooding in shadow and darkness.

According to The Batman, my meteorological and misanthropic proclivities would make me right at home in the Caped Crusader’s hometown of Gotham City.

While Robert Pattinson is the lead actor in The Batman, the real star of the movie is the gloriously decrepit city of Gotham.

The Gotham of The Batman is a bleak, rain-soaked, sun deprived, corrupt and crime infested shithole. If you’re a criminal or a morally conflicted crime fighter, Gotham is both Rome and Mecca as all roads lead there and you must make a pilgrimage.

As far as I know, The Batman is a stand-alone film not connected to any other previous DC properties, but it’s Gotham is eerily reminiscent of the Gotham in the masterful 2019 Todd Philips’ film Joker, just with more precipitation. But unfortunately for the denizens of Gotham, that precipitation, or even a biblical flood, won’t, as Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle once said, “wash all the scum off the street”, that job falls to Batman.

Batman, played with constrained intensity by the teen heartthrob turned indy-movie artiste Pattinson, is a vigilante less concerned with justice than with vengeance, so much so that he actually says, “I am vengeance” when asked who he is.

In the trailer for The Batman, it looked as if Pattinson’s crime fighter, with his dark eye make-up and perfectly tussled hair, were the love child of Morrissey and The Cure’s Robert Smith, but thankfully, in the actual film, the performance is much more masculine and magnetic than the trailer would have you believe.

Pattinson’s Dark Knight lacks the broad-chested physical presence of say a Bale or Affleck, but he does bring a vibrant and vivid inner life to the character that all previous Batman’s have lacked.

Pattinson’s glare and distant stare aren’t vacuous emo posing, but rather are filled with intentionality, which makes them both believable and compelling.

It’s intriguing that in The Batman, Bruce Wayne barely gets any screen time, as Batman dominates the festivities, which no doubt is an accurate reflection of Mr. Wayne’s disturbed state of mind.

The most compelling thing about the film though is that it is as staggeringly ambitious and audacious a super a hero movie as has ever been made. What makes The Batman so unique is that it’s a superhero movie that isn’t a superhero movie, it’s actually a film noir detective picture. Batman being a superhero is entirely incidental to the story of The Batman. It is in many ways to comic book movies what Blade Runner was to science fiction films.

Director Matt Reeves, who’s previous films include two stellar Planet of the Apes movies and the monster movie Cloverfield, has basically taken the David Fincher movies Seven and Zodiac and installed Batman as the protagonist. It would be absurd if it weren’t so mesmerizing.

The Batman looks and feels like a Fincher film, and Reeves is one of the few directors able to pull off such a feat. The key to doing so is that Reeves sets The Batman in as real and visceral a world as any superhero film has ever been set.

Years ago, when Christopher Nolan’s iconic Dark Knight trilogy came out, an older friend of mine, the inimitable Hollywood Gary, remarked that what made the film so compelling was that it dramatized what it would be like if Batman were actually real. I concur with Hollywood Gary’s assessment, but after seeing The Batman I can say that it is more ‘realistic’ than even Nolan’s films. That’s not to say it's better, just more grounded.

Nolan is as great a blockbuster auteur as we’ve ever seen, and his populist sensibilities served him and his audience extremely well on the Dark Knight movies. Reeves though eschews such an approach, and turns his superhero movie into a gritty and grunge infused character study and psychological thriller.

That’s not to say that the film is perfect though, as it can often-times be at cross purposes with itself as the nature of the genre forces upon the filmmaker restraints.

For instance, The Batman is constrained by its PG-13 rating, as the violence seems subdued and anti-septic, which undermines the power of the story, myth and archetype of Batman. If the movie showed in gory detail Batman breaking bad guy bones and smashing heads in response to gruesomely displayed murders committed by the Riddler, then the story and the characters would have had more depth and profundity to them.

Another issue is that Reeves feels the need to explain to a wider audience what comic book readers already know, namely the backstory of certain people and Gotham’s organized crime, using clunky exposition-laden dialogue.

These shortcomings are overcome by the film’s gloriously gritty aesthetic, most notably Greig Fraser’s cinematography, where sunlight is anathema, as well as with a superb cast.

Paul Dano is a formidable acting talent and a skilled artist. His Riddler, part Zodiac Killer and part Unabomber, would be right at home with Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix’s Jokers. He isn’t as good as those two astonishing performances, but he’d definitely fit right in in their neighborhood.

Colin Farrell’s Penguin too is a nice piece of work from an often-overlooked actor, and he looks to be a pivotal piece in the Gotham-verse going forward.

Zoe Kravitz may lack the playfulness of previous Catwomen, but she holds her own when it comes to being sexy, that’s for sure.

And you can never go wrong with Jeffrey Wright, and sure enough, he gives a sturdy and solid performance as good cop James Gordon.

The Batman is also interesting because of its subtle and nuanced politics. Class is an issue rarely brought forth in major movies, but in The Batman, the only thing separating Batman from Catwoman or the Riddler, is that Batman was born into wealth, and the other two were born into desperation and depravity.

In the 2017 film Justice League, Ben Affleck’s Batman is asked by The Flash, “what are your super powers again?” Affleck’s Batman turns and deadpans his answer, “I’m rich”. Damn right. And it’s fascinating that Reeves’ Batman feels the weight of his wealth and the frightening possibility of what he would’ve become if he grew up without it.

As for the potential outlook for The Batman, the bottom line is that this movie is not for everybody, which is a strange thing for a piece of comic book IP. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, but that’s because I’m both pretty well-versed in the comic books and have a cinematic palate that runs toward the dark.

I would be surprised, pleasantly so, if this movie makes beaucoup bucks at the box office. I think it will have a big opening weekend, but it being so unorthodox for a superhero movie and its three-hour run time will dampen word of mouth and thus substantially slow its box office in the following weeks.

In conclusion, my only wish for The Batman was that it be good enough for Matt Reeves to be allowed to make a second and hopefully third film, as I assume he will, just like with his Planet of the Apes movies, get better as he goes along. I think the film succeeded in that endeavor, and I think Warner Brothers/DC will make the wise choice and go all in with Reeves and Pattinson going forward.

If WB/DC wants to take on the Marvel behemoth, now is the time, as the post-Endgame cinematic Marvel-verse is floundering. And by going grittier and giving the keys to the kingdom to auteurs like Reeves instead of lackeys and hacks, WB/DC can gain some ground and maybe turn the tide against the Marvelization of modern cinema. Both Joker and The Batman, are quality first steps in the march towards toppling Mickey Mouse and his Marvel minions.

©2022

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 60: Oscar Nominations 2022

On this episode, Barry and I pontificate on the upcoming Oscars and this week's premier of The Batman. Topics discussed include the sorry state of cinema, the thankless job of hosting the Oscars, and cautious optimism over The Batman.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 60: Oscar Nominations 2022

Thanks for listening!

©2022