Tag: Batman

The More I See of Marion Cotillard

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the more I am fascinated by her.  Loved her in Mann’s Public Enemies and as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.  I was even impressed by her Vanity Fair Psycho photoshoot (Marion Cotillard as Marion Crane, above).  She’s not just posing in these shots.  She’s giving a real performance — and a far more [...]

Happy 96th Birthday, Michael Gough!

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Michael Gough (above) was born 96 years ago today in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia, and remarkably, he is still alive. An incredibly sly and versatile English character actor – equally at home reading the dialogue of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Pinter, Berthold Brecht, or Jimmy Sangster (the principal scribe of Hammer horror) – Mr. Gough has worked with [...]

Poster Comparison No. 4

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How close are these two images? When I first glimpsed the poster for Friday the 13th (2009) at a bus stop, I thought it WAS a poster for The Dark Knight. Both posters employ dark blue backgrounds to set off a darker blue figure centered in the foreground. Both figures are wearing masks. The fiery [...]

It Came From the Blogosphere – The Batman Penguin Debate

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In which one of America’s most creative character actors, Burgess Meredith, does an uncanny impression of Presidential Candidate John Sidney McCain forty-two years before the fact. Next – someone figures out a way to put Meredith’s McCain/Penguin in the same frame as Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin. HENGH. HENGH. Via Bartcop.

This November, VOTE JOKER!

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Now more than ever, we need heroes like the Joker to show us the error of our ways. As we approach 2012, let us attempt to remember our deaths are waiting for us around the next corner, and no amount of “hear no evil see no evil” sensory deprivation, or bling wrangling, or money stock [...]

A PERSISTENCE OF IMAGERY

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Certain images have such resonance that they seem to leap from film to film. Do these recurring images represent stirrings in the collective unconscious? Or are they merely motes in the eye of the beholder? THE BLUE FLOWER is one of the central images in the book and film versions of A Scanner Darkly. It [...]

Reinvention vs. Resurrection (Superman Reanimated)

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Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins is probably the smartest super-hero film ever made, a complete reinvention of the Batman franchise, taking out the dumb parts (e.g., Robin), and seriously attempting to answer the question, “Why would a grown man dress as a bat?” By way of contrast, Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns (from the same studio) adds [...]