Batman
Remember the uproar amongst Batman fans when Michael Keaton was set to play the role of the Dark Knight? It was a moral outrage akin to what happened at the Superbowl. Geeks, freaks and sci-fi comic book moles - I am going to say that because I am one - were talking about boycotting the film before it was even shot.
It didn’t upset me quite as much because I have secret love for Michael Keaton that I cannot deny nor explain. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I went out with this guy just because he looked like him. He was this dude that just happened to be around. My friends would go off like - “Where’s Mr. Mom? What does he do when you are at work? Where is MR. MOM?!” I am glad people have settled down. Mr. Mom was actually a great Batman. I think the DC/Marvel crowd sort of reluctantly embraced him after a while and everything seemed ok.
I got really worried when I saw that Liam Neeson was added to the cast of the new Batman film because I could see the protesters lining up to picket. Oh, I don’t know where they would go - Golden Apple - but it turns out he’s just a supporting cast member, not the superhero.
I am convinced the best Batman was Dr. Dre, but he only played him in a video for Eminem, to Marshall’s Robin, so it doesn’t really count.
The newest Batman is Christian Bale, long overlooked hottie from “American Psycho” and a lot of space movies that I never saw. He’s the bomb and I am really glad for him. Christian Bale is hell of fine. Plus, his stepmother is Gloria Steinem. His father recently passed away, and I hope that it was not too painful for either of them, but how could it not be?
All I know is that I am big fans of both of them, and I just hope that they can move on from this with a lightness of heart that we all need to have at one time or another when a loved one is removed from our lives and the river of life has to rush in to fill up the space they leave behind. River river river.
No thumbs up or down for the newest choice for Bruce Wayne since the jury is still debating about the last two installments of Lord of the Rings. I have to say I am late in all the hoopla surrounding the LOTR phenomenon. All I know is that once you have the leatherbound 4 DVD set with additional footage and omitted scenes, you cannot stop watching it. I find the whole thing incredibly exciting, because I love computer animation and motion capture and the elves’ gowns and chain mail. I think that the good wizard needs to condition his hair more because it tends to frizz and get split ends and the bad wizard, even though he is clearly evil, has healthier hair, which at times he even over-conditions, because it is too fine and gets very flat. I want to tell him not to use shampoo AND conditioner, but rather a shampoo with conditioner in it, like a Pantene or something. Sometimes you just need to let go of the notion that you absolutely have to have a crème rinse to feel like you have completed your toilette.
Gandalf, the good wizard, my husband pointed out, has a lot of heat damage to his locks, after having gone to hell and back in the big sword battle with a fiery dragon, and so I reckoned that it is no one’s fault that his hair is so dry. It is just a sad fact of his profession/fate. If only I could give him a good hot oil treatment, like very old school VO5 or even Kolesterol. Remember that unfortunately named hair product? I am not saying that it would make him a more powerful wizard, just that I could give him a blunt cut that would make this entire conversation over and done with. Which I think it is anyway.
I have seen two Hobbits in different places doing entirely different activities, one at the Bowie show and one at the Grammys. Neither are particularly short men, nor did they have the Ring - not even the big Barney Rubble feet that they have in the film. It disappoints me that they aren’t real. And that the entire trilogy isn’t real. And that there really are no superheroes, just actors that get fought over on message boards and fansites. There really is no such thing as escapist entertainment because there is no way to rid yourself of the knowledge that what we are truly seeing is storyboards put into motion, the latest in special effects, and that there is nonesuch never neverland - only Neverland Ranch.
Sometimes this world is too hard to be in, and the river seems so tempting to dive into, to escape all this. The war that is played out on the screen seems like a better one, a more hopeful one, a more noble one than the one that is fought today in reality. The real struggle between good and evil is terrifying and inexplicable and happening, not in Middle Earth, but on just plain old regular earth and there is no jewelry that will save any of us from our fate.