Academy Awards and Batman
It’s a quiet Saturday morning. I have iced coffee and soft music playing. Dani and the kitten are asleep together on the couch behind me. It is a gorgeous day out.
I should be sending out resumes. I should be writing The Painted Man. I should be practicing my .HMTL. I should be out in the sun.
But fuck it. It’s been a long week.
I went to see Batman Begins last night. I have gone to great lengths to avoid anything related to this movie. I didn’t want to know if it was good. I didn’t want to know if it was bad. I didn’t want to know who the villains were, or what the batsuit looked like. I didn’t wanna know nothin’.
I fast forwarded all the commercials. I skipped reading the reviews. That big 10 minute preview on the WB? Avoided it like the plague. My friends who wanted to talk about it? I changed the subject. My friend to got to go to a screening a week ago? Haven’t talked to him since.
I knew i wanted to see the movie already, and I wanted to go in clean and unbiased.
So last night I called my friend Amelia and asked if she wanted to go to the movie. She and her husband Craig met me and Dani and Neil to see the show.
It was clear that Amelia and Craig wanted to fuck with me right from the start. They had already seen the movie, and despite my clear statement that I didn’t want to know anything about it, good or bad, they kept yelling to each other “Wasn’t it amazing when Batman..!”
I know they were making half of it up. They just wanted to get my goat. And they did.
Finally, I turned to Amelia and said, “Why do you have to ruin this for me? I’ve loved Batman stories my whole life, and this is a special night for me. I want to go in cold, and you raving about how great it is will only make me look at it with a more critical eye, and that will make me find flaws that will kill it for me. Don’t you know me well enough by now to know that? We each have our own way of enjoying the things we love; why to you have to take such pleasure in destroying mine?”
Then I stormed off and went to talk to someone else from our group.
A few minutes later, Amelia comes up to me, obviously upset. “I’m really sorry,” she said, “You’re totally right. It was wrong of me to try and ruin this for you by mocking you.”
I laughed, because of course, I wasn’t mad at all. I was just fucking with her because she had been trying to fuck with me. She was furious when she found out, and sat as far from me in the theater as she could. “I hope you hate this movie and choke on it!” she yelled.
Point: Peat.
The truth is, once I was in the theater, all my ‘go in cold and impartial’ shit went right out the window. I was bouncing in my seat waiting for the movie to start, daring to hope against hope that this time, FINALLY, they would get it right.
Because I love Batman. Of all the superheros in all the world who have enhanced my life over the years, Batman’s my guy.
I hated the Adam West Batman. That was the worst goddamn show ever, and it made Batman into a joke. I will never forgive the creators of that show for what they did.
The first Tim Burton Batman movie was so-so. I know that’s sacrelidge, but fuck you. Michael Keaton is no Bruce Wayne, Batman doen’t wear rubber, and Prince music sucks. It wasn’t a BAD movie, but it wasn’t all that, either.
The second Tim Burton movie was just plain shit.
The third movie, with Joel Schumacker directing and Val Kilmer starring, was just gay.
The fourth movie gave me hope for a second, because I had just seen From Dusk Till Dawn with George Clooney, and I thought he could pull it off. And shit, they were getting Patrick Stewart to play Mister Freeze, and there was a rumor of Howard Stern as the Scarecrow!
But then all that shit fell through. They brought in Arnie and that Clueless chick, and made the Batsuit silver and I just said “You know what? I don’t even need to see this movie.”
And I never have.
Frankly, there has never been a Batman movie to even APPROACH the worst episode of the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm cartoon, Batman: The Animated series. The movies THEY made, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, were some of the best shit ever made. 
We all have our own ideas about what Batman should be, and those ideas are different for everyone. It’s inevitable, when dealing with an iconic character that’s been around for over 50 years, and has changed to fit the trends and mores of each decade. More likely than not, the Batman I love and the Batman YOU love are totally different.
Without any spoilers, I tell you that the Batman in THIS movie was the Batman I love. There were a handful of flaws in the film, but they are easily dismissed for the plot devices they are. What matters is that they got the core feel and drive of Batman right. I enjoyed every minute of the movie, and plan to see it at least once more in the theaters before buying the DVD.
On the way out of the movie, I kept a poker face. Amelia went to the bathroom, and while she was gone, I turned to Dani and whispered “Watch this, I’m going to convince her I didn’t like it.”
“No way,” Dani said. “She kept looking to see if you were enjoying it. She knows.”
“Just watch,” I said.
SPOILER ALERT!
As we all walked from the theater, I was quiet for a few moments, keeping my poker face in place. Finally, I turned to Neil and said (loudly), “Dude, scientifically, if you were hit by a microwave gun that turned all water into gas, wouldn’t you totally just die?”
“Duh,” Neil said, or something to that effect.
“And wouldn’t all that steam burn you to death even if the microwaves didn’t kill you?”
“Yep.”
“Gah! I can’t believe that shit!” I cried. “So stupid!”
Amelia looked at me. “You didn’t like it?” she asked. I gave her a disapproving glare. “Did you and I see the same movie?” I asked in my best I-am-so-superior voice.
“Shit, I really thought you’d like it,” Amelia said. “Craig! You were right! Peat hated it!”
“No way,” Craig said, coming over. “You really hated it?”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Every second of that movie was fucking AWESOME!”
Needless to say, Amelia got all mad again. I deserve an Academy Award.
Final score: Peat 2, Amelia 0
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