Transcript of 70mm’s The Batman (2022) Episode.
SLIM Hey, it’s your old pal Slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film lovers. Every Monday I sit down to talk about recently watched movies with my dear friend and artist Danny Haas.
DANNY Robert Pattinson being what I will consider the best movie version of Batman that we’ve ever had.
SLIM And our spiritual advisor, Protolexus.
PROTO For the first 20 minutes of this movie, I was like on the verge of tears… honestly.
SLIM We are finishing our Bat Journey, finally, with Matt Reeves’ film, The Batman. Was this a religious experience for us? Did we cry in the theater? Or did we fall asleep? Join us… now.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM The Batman, it’s time for us to talk about — well, we’re not gonna talk about it now. We’re gonna talk about it later in the show. So use the chapters to skip ahead if you want to just get to the nitty gritty, okay? We have a lot to get to before we get to the actual movie this episode. One of the main things on my list, maybe we won’t get into it right now but gambling is officially legal in our Discord.
DANNY Oh gosh.
PROTO Finally. [Slim laughs]
SLIM We’ll talk about that as well. But there’s one thing I want to get to right now. And that’s Obi-Wan Kenobi teaser trailer dropped.
PROTO Oh wow.
SLIM Proto, did you watch it? Were you absorbed in it? Tell me.
PROTO I did watch it. Yeah. I watched it.
SLIM Yeah?
PROTO Yeah. I did.
SLIM What’d you think? What’d you think? [Danny laughs]
DANNY Keeping it close to the chest?
SLIM You gonna tell us about it?
PROTO I mean, I’ve been trying to avoid talking about it.
DANNY Ohhhh. Not here you’re not.
SLIM Why are you trying to avoid it? We’re your friend. We’re like your best friends right now.
DANNY It’s just us.
SLIM The three of us, we want to talk about Star Wars. We love Star Wars. We grew up on Star Wars. We’re getting the dream. Obi is back.
PROTO I mean, it’s very clear that we’re getting domed in Obi-Wan. [Slim & Danny laugh]
SLIM The dome is back! The Disney dome!
PROTO The dome strikes again.
DANNY The dome is here.
SLIM Yeah, but they build that one town. They built that clay town that he was walking around. Right? That couldn’t have been domed.
PROTO Yeah, I don’t know. You know, just put your seatbelt on. You know, hope for the best.
DANNY Wow, you sound defeated. I’m sorry.
SLIM Proto, just for the record. Proto is referencing the technology that The Mandalorian was built around, that like dome screen, it’s like the Franklin Institute. They can put whatever they want on that dome in the background. So it looks like they’re filming wherever. And it’s like not CGI. It’s like a screen.
PROTO I saw Mando make that same walk out into the desert. I saw Boba Fett do the same walk out into the desert. So… we’ll see.
SLIM Danny, are you are you comfortable enough to give any kind of opinion on the teaser trailer?
DANNY I mean, our boy looks good. Ewan looks so good. Other than that, them firing up Duel of Fates was impressive. I didn’t expect to hear so much John Williams in it, even though he did do some of the, I think most of the music for the show, if I remember correctly. I mean, I’m excited. How can you not be excited?
SLIM You gotta be sick in the head.
DANNY Sick in the head. What about you?
SLIM I watched it. I wasn’t gonna, you know, talk about it. I did watch it.
DANNY You brought it up!
PROTO Oh yeah, you weren’t gonna talk about it, huh?! [Danny laughs]
SLIM Proto’s pissed that he had to reveal his lukewarm thoughts on the Obi-Wan trailer. I did get some dome vibes and I’m trying not to get sucked into the dome, the downer space of the dome. But I’m on the record as saying Rebels is one of the most incredible Star Wars products ever made and the Inquisitors in Rebels. Like, there is some of the coolest stuff ever in Rebels. Them using those lightsabers as helicopters zipping around after the Jedi, after I’m not going to name who it is in Rebels, but like let’s get some of that on Disney+ babyyy! Let’s go! Grand Inquisitor’s head looks kind of dumb, but I’m still ready. I wish Obi-Wan had some more greys. I think that’s probably one of my only other notes. You know? Because he’s like fully grey in like nine years right? Like let’s get a little bit of grey.
DANNY The shot of Luke is interesting, that they already are showing that. Impressive.
SLIM I wonder how much of the show is going to be the Inquisitors maybe chasing Obi-Wan because, you know, nothing really bad happens because all those Inquisitors except for one in that trailer are still alive in Rebels.
DANNY Maybe they’re not actually after Obi.
SLIM Right, they do meet what’s-his-face in town.
DANNY Lars.
PROTO I’m kind of guessing too that like Hayden’s not going to show up until like episode six and then just —
DANNY Episode five and six are gonna be slapping.
PROTO And then like the last episode. And that’s it.
DANNY We follow trends.
SLIM We need to move — Proto’s rapidly losing energy as we talk about Obi-Wan. He’s so distraught that with that trailer, let’s move forward. I was gonna ask about Elden Ring, but I don’t feel like it. [Danny & Slim laugh] Proto has done one thing for the last two weeks. And I don’t know if Proto has a job.
PROTO THAT’S NOT TRUE!
SLIM I’m minutes away from IG DMing Proto’s wife to ask if he has a job! It’s all he’s doing is playing this video game. Proto, can you tell me right now on air, do you have a job still?
PROTO I have a job! What I do at that job is my business! [Danny & Slim laugh]
SLIM Did you watch any movies this weekend between leveling up your character?
PROTO I did watch a movie. I promised that I would watch Titane.
DANNY Ohhh. I forgot.
PROTO From 2021, the movie about a biomechanical relationships between human flesh and machines, among other things. I gave it one star. Yeah, I mean it’s just not for me. This movie is so horrific in the body horror, like, I had to like turn away and not look at the screen four or five times. It was that intense and disgusting. Like just like painful to watch. So and I heard that, but I mean I make this — I’ve done this — how many times have I done this? How many Cronenberg movies have I watched? It’s the same story over and over again? I think it’ll be different. It never is.
SLIM I mean you’d like to Under The Skin, I would kind of see Under The Skin being similar in tone to Titane.
DANNY Way less gore. I’ve seen Under The Skin. I wouldn’t consider that gory.
SLIM Did you watch Titane?
DANNY No, God no. [Danny laughs]
SLIM In my review, I thought the body horror aspect was a little bit false. I didn’t feel like there was like any in it. I just didn’t really connect with the story that much. I just want to point out that chat is having their own Marcie Hercules moment, the Titane fans in chat are crumbling.
DANNY If this is the hill they want to die on… that’s fine.
SLIM A lot of love for Titane.
DANNY We haven’t even gotten into The Batman yet.
SLIM There’s a lot of love out there for that movie, I’ll tell you that much.
PROTO Go in peace if you love that movie.
SLIM Yeah, this was on Hulu for you. So when does your Hulu trial expire at this point? [Danny laughs]
PROTO I’ll cancel it tonight. [Danny & Slim laugh]
SLIM Got his money’s worth. We should say hello to some new friends on Patreon before we move on to Danny’s movies. You can join us at 70mmpod.com, get access to uncut episodes. We don’t talk about that too much but from our live shows in Discord. You get access to discounts on Danny’s print, our discord itself, and our library of exclusive episodes just for supporters. Roadhouse is the most recent addition to the 70mm vault. Love that movie. Opinion spoilers, sorry. But if you want to hear us talk about it, and that hot porking scene, please do so. New friends this week that joined us: Chase, Logan, Matt, Sarah and Ron. All joined us this week on our Patreon, so thanks for your support.
DANNY Thank you.
PROTO Welcome.
SLIM Danny, what did you watch this week?
DANNY I’m going to lower the bar from Proto’s one star and go to a half star review. I was bamboozled this week by the Village into thinking that the Unlimited and whatever edition of Batman vs. Superman was some sort of better version of the original cut of this horrifically bad film. It’s not. It’s a longer horrifically bad film and I honestly hate this movie so much. I mean, I gave it half a star just because half a star looks worse than no stars on Letterboxd.
SLIM Who else can we alienate this episode? [Slim laughs]
DANNY I know, let’s just keep going.
SLIM I warned you though. I warned you.
DANNY You did. And you knew. I should have listened to you, Slim. That’s my first mistake.
SLIM The biggest scam in cinema in the last 20 years is people saying the ultimate edition of Batman vs Superman is better than the theatrical.
DANNY It’s frustrating too, because it’s got such a good beginning. Bruce witnessing the destruction of Metropolis from the end of Man of Steel is genius. Everything after that, well, no. Bruce landing in a private helicopter to drive a Jeep Compass. through metropolis —
SLIM That was dumb as hell.
DANNY Is the dumber shit I’ve ever seen. But then the rest of the movie is just absolutely horrible. I can’t get over how bad this film is.
PROTO Sheesh.
SLIM It defies logic the how Zack Snyder could have blown it harder with Batman vs Superman. Ah boy. Because Man of Steel is very good. And his Justice League is pretty good. As we well know from our Justice League episode.
PROTO What an ep. Did that really happen?
DANNY Ten years ago.
SLIM That was not a gummy infused fever dream that episode. That happened.
PROTO That was like the reverse Dune ep. [Danny & Slim laugh]
SLIM Oh my god. I need to go back and listen to that. Because our conversation, some of the musical cues I had in that episode.
DANNY I know, you’re brilliant.
SLIM I’m not gonna lie to you.
PROTO Speaking of genius. [Slim laugh]
DANNY He knew what he was doing.
SLIM And you also saw another movie. You saw The Batman twice. You went to see it in theaters a second time.
DANNY I did. Luckily I had friends coming in town. Friends from the Village, friends from Discords, friends from life. To see an AW live taping here in Orlando. We had an amazing time at that. And then we watched Batman together for the first time. Former producer Ian was with us. It was a second time because he got a screener because he’s special.
SLIM Big shot.
DANNY Big shot. Saw it in my favorite theater here in Orlando. Had a great time. And then Wednesday I took my oldest child Olive, she’s 14, to see it as well. Got a matinee for Batman. So I saw it twice this week. Six hours spent on this movie.
SLIM Wowowow.
DANNY We’ll get into it.
SLIM Is Olive the artist?
DANNY Olive is the artist.
SLIM I saw some of Olive’s work and she is incredibly talented.
DANNY She’s better than I was at 14. I can tell you that right now.
SLIM She’s better than you are now!
DANNY Well, okay, calm down. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Very good.
DANNY Olive walking out, Megan asked in chat, what did she think? Olive walking out said, I know I’m a big Marvel fan, but this was something special. That’s what Olive said.
SLIM Is that an opinion spoiler from Danny? Could we be figuring out Danny’s rating from that review from Olivie?
PROTO Gabb, can you triangulate? [Slim laughs]
SLIM So what was it like for you, you saw The Batman with a bunch of our close friends. They were probably asking you “Hey, Danny, what’d you think? What’d you think?”
DANNY They wanted spoilers, they wanted all my thoughts and I just sat in quiet as they rambled and rambled and rambled as I drove them around Orlando in my minivan, listening to them talk about this movie, so yeah, it was fun. It was fun. I don’t like talking about a movie right after I see it anyway with anybody. I mean, except Casey, but she listens to me ramble about everything all the time anyway. But yeah, Olive is like my mini me. It’s actually incredible. I can’t wait for her to watch Batman vs Superman.
SLIM I don’t know why you would subject anyone to that torture.
DANNY That’s her punishment.
SLIM Every week we give away a free year of Letterboxd Pro, gets rid of those third party ads. Disclaimer, I’m a Letterboxd employee. And if you share the show on social media, tell your friends. Tell your friends that you want them to listen to the show just like you. “A photo of 70mmpod on vacation about to play some WoW.” And it’s the cast of Cocoon. [Danny laughs]
PROTO That’s good.
DANNY It’s good. It’s real good.
SLIM So you just won a free year of Letterboxd Pro. We’re not there yet! Maybe we’ll be podcasting in our 50s, who know what the future holds?
DANNY If we’re still doing this show in our 50s…
PROTO Doing it in VR.
SLIM What are you gonna do if we’re still doing this in our 50s?
DANNY I don’t even want to think about it.
PROTO You’ll be doing art for it!
DANNY I know, seriously. [Slim laughs] Olive will be doing it. Pass the baton.
SLIM Also, later in the show after The Batman talk, we’ll be announcing our next themed month. We’re doing it early, April is around the corner. We have to do it early because we have some big stuff ahead of April. And just sit tight. It’s gonna be big. This episode is so big, I just liked the amount of voicemails we have. So I don’t think we should talk about any movies that I watched this week. I think we need to get into The Batman.
DANNY Say one real quick. Go.
PROTO Ultrasound.
SLIM Ultrasound, lo-fi sci-fi, three and a half stars.
DANNY Trailer looked good.
SLIM I liked it. You know?
DANNY Maybe I’ll make a lo-fi sci-fi shirt for our shop. We need a lo-fi sci-fi shirt.
SLIM I’d wear the hell out of that.
PROTO It’s time.
DANNY I got one sale. That’s one. [Slim laughs] Dozens of us.
SLIM Alright, this is time. Biggest release of the year. So far. Matt Reeves’ The Batman, 2022 We’ve been waiting for this movie for like three years since they first did that teaser trailer. Back when I was watching trailers. I watched that trailer. And that was all I knew about this movie up until I went in the theaters to see it. Proto, what is The Batman?
[music from The Batman plays]
PROTO There is a serial killer loose in Gotham City. But his targets aren’t random. The mayor turns up dead with a riddle left behind specifically for the Batman, who now faces an ever growing victim list that hints at something more sinister going on beneath the surface. With the help of Selina Kyle, that man must find the Riddler and end his killing spree before the whole system comes crashing down. The Batman.
SLIM I didn’t hear one joke in that synopsis. We’re getting very real right now.
PROTO It’s nothing to joke about.
DANNY This is very serious. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Proto, do you remember a couple years ago when this trailer came out? Were you excited at all for a new take on the Batman?
PROTO I was. I somehow managed to not watch the teaser trailer. Not watch any of the trailers. When I saw Dune in theater, you know, Jenna, she said what are you doing? As I closed my eyes and averted my gaze from the screen. You know, so I avoided everything I could and yeah, thinking back to when this was first announced and like those pictures came out. And the teaser. Yeah, I was itching. You know, I wanted to watch it because I was so excited for it. And just the look and just knowing you know Robert Pattinson, but I remember at the time thinking also that, like the production of it seemed kind of wonky of like them being able to I know like with like, COVID and just, you know, being able to do it, and it seemed like, well, is this even going to happen? So I remember there was like some concern with that.
SLIM I can’t remember who posted it, but there was a, Dolby has a YouTube channel where they interviewed Matt Reeves and a host of other people related to the movie about the sound design and there’s a cinematography version of it. And Matt Reeves mentioned how they shut down maybe, he filmed like a quarter of the movie. And he actually didn’t even know if they were going to be able to film again, because of COVID. I think because of how insurance, like the insurance ramifications of them halting production for that long, they might even just scrap the whole movie.
DANNY Even Robert got COVID in the middle of it.
SLIM Were you excited seeing the teaser?
DANNY Oh, very much excited. And I watch, I’m a definite trailer watcher. I can’t get enough of being spoiled. And I was excited. I remember that first kind of Batman walking in the red kind of smoke. You see the suit for the first time, the slow pan and it’s hard to not be excited because of how good the suit looks on Robert. And it felt different. This whole movie didn’t, I didn’t feel like it was trying to be a Nolan film or even a Burton or a Schumacher this felt like it was standing on its own feet. And it felt intentional. Like we’re gonna make our own voice with this film. And you could feel that throughout the whole three hour length of this very long movie.
SLIM Yeah Daniel just posted some of those teaser photos. I had forgotten about those, like the red and him in the suit just from like chest up. Holy cow that feels like an eternity ago. I remember getting so amped seeing those things, just red. Like you literally, use a red light. And it’s like, I’ve never seen this before. Batman in red light, Matt Reeves?! I’m ready right now.
PROTO Innovating. [Slim laughs]
PROTO Danny? Did you guys watch that Dolby interview?
DANNY And watched both, yeah, both the cinematography one and the sound design one.
PROTO Okay. I only watched the sound design one. But I thought that was interesting how when Matt Reeves was talking about getting to do Batman, he talked about going in for the interview. And he thought he was just going to go and be declined it because he said, You know, I don’t want to make an you know, another action Batman movie, I want to do something different. So I’m assuming I’m going to go to this meeting and just say no. Which is really interesting that he just really, you know, thinking of doing Batman, he knew what he wanted to do and assumed that he wasn’t going to be able to do it. But they were open to it.
DANNY Yeah, it’s really fascinating. And he was in the middle of doing the last Planet of the Apes when he kept getting the calls from Warner to come in. And what I love about that story is that it’s kind of mirrors what happened to Nolan. Nolan, kind of, this is how I want to make my Batman movies. And they took the chance on him. And then you have Reeves coming in, making a Batman movie that we haven’t seen before. And they’re taking a chance on Reeves as well. Who doesn’t have like Nolan, I mean, I guess you can consider Planet of the Apes and Cloverfield. I mean, I don’t know if Matt Reeves has missed. I didn’t see Let the Right One In, I don’t know what that other one was called. But it does feel like a risky take nowadays for a director that’s not like super big to do a Batman. So yeah, that Dolby interview is very great. It’s fascinating to watch them talk because he’s very open about everything that he did sound wise, and then cinematography, it’s very special.
SLIM He’s quite a talker, I watched about an hour of the sound design one.
DANNY He does like talking.
SLIM He is quite a storyteller, that Matt Reeves. You almost, I don’t want to drift too far. But I would love for Marvel to kind of try and experiment a little bit, like having a director come in. And you kind of just be like, oh, you don’t want to do what we want to do? What do you want to do? Like, Has that ever happened in the last 10 years of a Marvel movie? I feel like, you know, it hasn’t.
DANNY Yeah, I mean, when I think about the Marvel would have to be guardians, or anything Taika has done at this point. He feels like the gamble for Marvel. But other than that, I mean, I even still feel like it’s, it’s those movies turn out to be kind of a safe, in the vein of Marvel Universe.
My first note, we usually go around the room, every host has three things that they want to get off their chest about this feeling, and then we’ll give her final rating afterward. But I don’t want to really harp on the fact that I’m not a trailer watcher. But what a delight to go into this movie. And having only seen the teaser trailer from like, two and a half years ago. Like I can’t recommend that enough for blockbuster movies like this if you’re at all able. So the introduction to Batman in this movie, when he’s doing his speech, about the shadows and you’re seeing Gotham City. Like, are you effing kidding me? I was in the theater, I started to like ascend off my chair. [Danny & Slim & Proto laugh] When Robert Pattinson is speaking about the shadows and says he is the shadows and everyone is scared. If Batman is around, you see people doing crime, and then they’re like second guessing themselves. Because is he over there? Like that is maybe the best intro to Batman I’ve ever seen. Not just like in film, but that is the coolest shit ever. And then he comes, you hear him stomping up the steps.
DANNY Stop.
SLIM Wuuuut? [Danny & Slim laugh] I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
DANNY It’s really crazy too. Because there’s so many different vibes that this beginning gives you. When Robert is doing the voiceover it’s that old noir detective kind of feel. And then there’s the fear aspect of them seeing the bat signal while they’re doing their crime, and then they look over their shoulder into the dark, shadowy corners and they’re just afraid of Batman coming out. But then when you hear his footsteps. I mean, I’m thinking like, I wanted like some Old Spaghetti Western music to start playing because it just felt like this duel Western about to happen. I mean, I got the chills, him walking out of those shadows. I mean, you see it in the trailer, that’s the thing that scenes in the trailer but to hear it and have it in, in the story in place it is. It is a this is an amazing intro to this film.
PROTO For the first 20 minutes of this movie, I was like on the verge of tears, honestly. [Slim & Danny & Proto laugh] When I mean, the narration, the score, like the first, like I had no recollection, because I didn’t I don’t know if the score is even in the trailer, but that main theme, the fact that it’s like also a play on the animated series theme, where it’s like the same. But this is just kind of like a, you know, a different take on that, was like plugging at my heartstrings. Yeah, I mean, his introduction, the way he fights too, like this Batman is it’s it’s, it’s different in a lot of ways, which is cool. The way he fights I thought was really cool too, like that first scene where he’s just like, he’s very much like a man who’s like in armor. You know, he’s like a real brawler in this.He’s not avoiding gunshots. He’s just like taking them in the chest. Like crazy. And then when he fights those thugs, it’s so cool. Like, I just, I just didn’t there was so much like that was thought out about this, just to give it and I don’t know if that’s what they were actively doing of like, hey, let’s try to make this feel different in every way or if they just had like a vision for how they wanted to tell a story. But it did manage to feel fresh. Especially this beginning scene and the way that they introduced him.
SLIM And I almost was like shocked about how fresh it did feel. Because you see the other Batman movies, you’re like, you know, we’re gonna go through this again? But it just felt so fresh. Like even the trailer, I think, the teaser trailer when it first came out kind of got some negative vibes because it was like the violent dark Batman. We haven’t seen this enough in the past, but it was so badass when I was sitting there watching it. And the idea also that like a detective Batman, like yes! Finally! In feature film that a Batman who is like literally solving crimes as a detective. And Soph pointed out, he’s like journaling everything. And Hannah even points out like, yeah, it feels like the animated series. Like we’re doing a version of the animated series, which is every frickin nerds dream on the planet. Like if you boil it down, it’s insane. Danny, what’s your number one?
DANNY Number one is Robert Pattinson being what I will consider the best movie version of Batman that we’ve ever had.
SLIM Ohhhhh.
PROTO Wuuuut?
DANNY I couldn’t get enough of him on the screen. The quietness of his character when he’s Batman, walking in and out of crime scenes. Solving the Riddler stuff, there’s so much that Robert does, acting with his eyes that just kind of, you know, it conveys so much emotion. I mean, we’ve joked about emo Batman, but there is something about you know, year two, Bruce Wayne, just kind of you know, not the Playboy yet. He hasn’t figured out that persona aside of the life that he has to lead to be the you know the two time Batman. But there’s just something about Robert that I’m easily connected to this character watching, wanting him on screen every second. I don’t feel like there was anything that I would at all want changed from what his performance was as Bruce and as Batman.
SLIM I am going to go out on a limb and also agree that Robert Pattinson is the greatest on-screen Batman that we have ever gotten. Like he’s he’s not even like doing a voice. He’s on screen so much in this movie, which blew me away. But not only that, visually, every shot of Batman, is like knocking my pants off across the movie theatre. [Danny & Proto laugh] Like the angle of him turning his head towards the camera. And every you know, shot everything’s, you know, behind him, you can’t see, those shots are incredible. Like, visually, visually, this might be the best looking Batman movie ever made too. Like Matt Reeves and Greg Fraser. Like, hell yes. Give me two more Batman movies from the both of you. Like, let’s go.
DANNY Give me five.
PROTO You know, it was pointed out at some point of just there was like a meme going around or like a viral video of what was wrong with Christian Bale’s mask. They like fix that, and this where it’s not, you know, it’s just like, it’s the mask is just for the top part of his face. And it makes it when he’s in full view, it just makes him look so much cooler. But looking back at like this, you know, the Nolan Batman’s, whenever I saw it, like, I made those jokes about seeing Batman in full light, because he just looked goofy to me, where this just looks entirely badass at every moment. And like, his methodical movements of that when he first goes into the crime scene, you know, and the cops are turning and looking at him, and he just never changes his pace. And the thing I love about this character, I love about Pattison’s take on him, is just the consistency of it. I know some people don’t like the aspect that, you know, you’re not getting Playboy Bruce Wayne to kind of cover the Batman persona. But I love how this version can’t help but be the same as Bruce Wayne as he is when he’s Batman. Just he’s like this recluse, sullen, depressed, even, like, kind of like ugly dude. Like that scene at the memorial, like he does not look like a healthy person. You know, he looks like he has some issues. But I just love that because that feels like legitimate to who this character is at this time, which makes it exciting to see where they would go with the sequel, you know, how does this character evolve?
SLIM Yeah, I was wondering that too. You know, as we progress in the movie, he kind of realizes that he can’t be this Batman anymore. And he has to kind of adapt and become, you know, for better or worse a symbol and save people instead of stopping crime. So I’m curious, I mean, there has to be a second movie and a third movie. I feel like it’s gonna happen. But I am super curious about like, what the evolution of the character is going to be. You know, will he realized that he can maybe actually do good work as with a Bruce Wayne persona? Like will Wayne Manor be opened up and not look like Dracula’s lair? And I’m just fascinated to see what the heck is going to happen in the second movie.
DANNY I mean, three hours in a film when you’re when you’re looking at that on paper, it’s a daunting, but this movie is felt, I mean, I kind of felt it, but the amount of character at least development they do for Batman and Bruce from beginning to end of this is astonishing because we have, you know, we have the Batman walking out of shadows to beat up the bad guys. And then we end up, we literally end the film with him walking into the light saving people and it’s just this giant 180 that we get from the storyline leading us, I mean, there has to be sequels at this point.
SLIM I will riot if we do not get a Batman sequel.
PROTO I will burn the city down. [Slim laughs]
DANNY We will find ourselves a new Batman.
SLIM We talked about the character development of Batman Bruce Wayne, but we haven’t even mentioned Selina Kyle has what could be considered an entire movies worth up story just for herself in this thing. Pretty bonkers. And I mean, I was listening to our dear friends of the Film Hags on the Tapedeck group of friends podcasts, they did a Batman episode and they really pointed out that Selina Kyle, vastly different from Anne Hathaway. But her backstory is so full in this movie, like I was blown away that how full featured she was as a character. I mean, they run through like many comic book storylines in this movie about Catwoman and it’s pretty seamless in my opinion. Proto, what did you think?
PROTO Yeah, well, that was gonna be my first point. It’s just Selina Kyle. Yeah, I agree. This is I mean, this is the best Catwoman we’ve gotten I think. I think Kravitz is like an amazing performance as her. Like this is Catwoman to me like watching this. She nails the role. Yeah, and just like the way they weaved it in and out with with Batman, it didn’t feel like tacked. It didn’t feel like a subplot like that the writing is just like really solid in this to develop Bruce Wayne but then also develop Selina Kyle as well. And just like how they were working together. Like it felt like, it sounds silly to say realistic, but it felt like this would make sense almost like in the real world of how would you know how would a person like this be involved with Batman? Well yeah she’s a cat burglar she you know she can steal but then she also has these connections with the mob and with Penguin and whatnot. So, yeah no point that I you know like cringe or anything really. Like I never, I don’t think I really had like a corny comic book moment in this movie.
SLIM I thought the humor was pretty spot on too, some of the Batman jokes. Like the thumb drive line was funny. And they were all delivered like, as perfect as you can get with it not being out of place, I feel like. Even with like some of the Gordon lines. Even though I felt like Commissioner Gordon could have been replaced by broomstick in this movie.
DANNY No! [Slim laughs] No! Slim. Let’s not move on from Selina just yet.
SLIM Sorry, continue on with Selina.
DANNY One of the things that I loved about Selina, especially, I definitely agree with Proto talking about how she’s such a fully, you know, fleshed out character in this film. And she does feel like she has her storyline. But also I loved how they allowed her to be not controlled by Batman in this film. I feel like the Selina’s that we’ve gotten, even I you know, I never saw the Halle Berry one. So I can’t speak on that film. I don’t think we will. But even only back to Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway both were always at the mercy of like, whatever Batman was doing. This film Selina had, she had her goals. And she was gonna do them with or without Batman, and where we are kind of allowed to see that and we were in Batman just kind of also allowed those things to happen. He never, I don’t know. I never felt like he was this kind of, you know, controlling psychopath that he kind of is, that we’ve seen. And so it just kind of, I don’t know, I really enjoyed that aspect of the film. And I really enjoyed Selina. I mean, Zoe’s performance in this, she’s amazing. I mean, yeah, it’s hard to it’s crazy, because I don’t want her off the screen. And I don’t want Robert off the screen. Paul Dano is so much fun. Like it’s just these characters are so well written. So well performed, that it’s incredible.
SLIM I mean, how awesome was it for Batman to just walk into that club and interrogate the Penguin?
DANNY Three times! In three different forms!
SLIM Just seeing him walk into a club, is, you know, like, theatrically last 20 years, like an impossibility. And he’s walking around with cops. He’s walking on the crime scene. He’s in the police station. It’s just so many scenes with Batman that we’ve only seen in the animated series we’re seeing in real life. So cool. I think it is my turn for number two. The Batmobile scene.
DANNY Mhmm. Speak on it, brother. [Danny laughs]
PROTO Let it out.
SLIM You talk about being on the verge of tears. When he’s lighting up that thing in the alley. I can’t even explain what I felt in the theater in that moment. But not only that, but the chase scene after that. The entire chase scene is freaking insane. It’s incredible. And after that, the upside down shot of him like that. It’s like all time moment. All time Batman moment in anything and we get it on screen. In 2022. Unbelievable.
DANNY I don’t remember a time in any cinematic experience where I felt what I was watching in my core, like when it fires up. And the entire chase, like you could feel it in your chest and in your guts. It was such an incredible scene. I couldn’t get over it. And even the design of the Batmobile itself is sexual.
SLIM Extremely sexual.
PROTO And the way it’s teased before where you know he’s doing this detective work. There it is, it’s up on the lift. You know, you’re getting you have like the chassis at different points. The engine, because he’s working on it. Which is so cool. It’s so cool. It’s just the this Batman. He’s just on his own. And I love that it’s not it’s not explained, you know, because like Nolan took a different route with this, right, like Nolan said, I’m gonna have fun with explaining how Batman makes all this stuff possible, you know, where he gets all this gear, which is fine, like that’s that’s a legitimate way to do it. It’s fun, you know the whole you know, Morgan Freeman character, you know making sense of how to see finance this and have the tools. In this though, Matt Reeves just said he’s Batman. He has this stuff. I’m not going to explain anything to you here you know you can see it in the background you know, he’s he built the car himself, what else you want for me? And that works really well. There’s a lot that like goes unsaid in this. And surprise! No one cares that it’s not explained. Because it’s Batman, like you don’t have to explain that stuff. Just give us an amazing car. And that’s what we got in this. Because I, and you know that scene, I mean again, I’m so thankful I didn’t see the trailer because that scene was dynamite. Also sitting in the Dolby Theater, sounded amazing!
SLIM I was thinking just in the moment you describing the Nolan movies. And Bruce is like, “Does it come in black?” And I was thinking of like the scene from Toy Story where Andy drops the toy and the toy is the Nolan movies. [Slim & Danny & Proto laugh] It was just so like, it’s such a 180 and such a different universe. That this is like the hot thing right now for me. Like just the world. Gotham. Gotham City in this movie is out of sight, like how they even had Gotham Square Garden. They literally just redid the Madison Square Garden logo with Gotham on it. And it looked freaking cool as hell. Everything about Gotham is so cool. I mean, maybe it looked even better because, not to bring up Pittsburgh again. From last episode Dark Knight Rises, Pittsburgh Gotham looks like total dog-s compared to what Matt Reeves was doing in this movie! It’s not even the same league!
DANNY Not een close.
SLIM Not even close.
DANNY You know what’s crazy though? I mean, we’re a decade out from Rises, right? And what that trilogy felt like it did to comic book, you know, cinema is what I’m feeling like Reeves is doing again to comic book cinema. Like this feels like another shift in how we’re going to tell, you know, the superhero stories.
PROTO Back to Gotham. I love that. in Gotham, it rains 95% of the time. And there’s another thing it’s like, it doesn’t totally make sense, but who cares? It fits the vibe so well. It’s so cool. When he’s on his motorcycle tracking people down you know, doing detective work because it’s like he doesn’t need to be in the suit at that time. Right? You know, I mean, here’s so much Batman in this movie of him in the suit it’s incredible much but then the scenes when he’s not when he’s like he’s still doing his thing in plainclothes on his bike, that’s so cool as well him and you know Selina riding around in the rain. All those shots are amazing.
SLIM Oh my god, them next to each other riding the bikes. And that shot of them with the wheels like just ahead of each other going back and forth.
DANNY Criiipes.
SLIM You kidding me right now?
DANNY Before we move on from the tech, I think the single greatest piece of Batman tech we’ve ever gotten, are these contact lenses. I could not get over how smart those were. For him to have created not only to you know, talk and see through Selina’s eyes, but just to keep record of his detective work. And to be able to look back, see what he saw. decipher the code. Take his journals, like that tech is genius.
SLIM I also love their Interplay during that scene. She barely wants to do that to help out. And he’s just kind of like talking back and forth. And she just like quits halfway through. So fun.
PROTO Yeah, that opening scene. I was wondering like, I was waiting for him to pull out a camera or something. Like how is he going to keep track of all this? And then when he gets back, he gets back to the, you know, the cave. And of course the Nirvana’s track kicks in and he’s reviewing the footage. I mean, are you kidding me, Nirvana?
[Something in the Way by Nirvana plays]
SLIM God, I wish we were all able to watch this together oin theatre.
DANNY I know.
SLIM We hold our hands up in the air on the armrests, we’re interlocking with our hands for three hours. [Danny & Slim & Proto laugh] Danny, what is your number two?
DANNY Let’s talk Paul Dano’s Riddler. I will say, if I have any complaints about this film, it’s not really Paul Danto as the Riddler, it’s about how my mind always wandered to the Zodiac movie while watching all of his bits. I just kind of wish that there was a way to tell Riddler in a realistic way that’s not the Jim Carrey Riddler, but in this kind of grounded, gritty Batman that wasn’t so hamfisted Zodiac Killer-esque, you know what I mean? It kind of, it just kind of took me out of it a little bit, because I kept thinking about this is just the Zodiac Killer, when I always felt like the Riddler was goofy, and kind of not all there, but there was just something about it that kind of, I don’t know, I don’t know how you guys felt about the Riddler. I liked Dano’s performance. I especially like him in the gel cell outside of the mask and that kind of you know, seeing him perform was great, but I don’t know how if you guys felt the same or how your vibes were, with the style of the Riddler that we got.
SLIM I thought was insane, so good in the film, but I don’t love the Riddler’s design. Like I didn’t love the Riddler’s you know incel character in like the live stream stuff and like inspiring other right wing D-bags. Like I don’t know, I just wasn’t in the mood for that. And in a Batman movie, I guess. I don’t know how, what other direction you could have gone maybe just like a legit nut bag and make it less tied to real life in 2022. Proto, what did you think?
PROTO I didn’t really mind that design. I don’t know if I love Paul Dano’s performance. I feel like Paul Dano was a little just too much Paul Dano in anything I’ve seen him in. Like he gets excited and he does that that Paul Dano voice, it just felt like this doesn’t really feel like a different character. It just feels like Paul Dano on the screen. So I don’t know if I love that. But I do see like in a sequel, I could see him becoming much nuttier or more comic book-ish. You know, spending time in Arkham you know, rubbing shoulders with you know, other villains. I think they could lean into that some more. Which could be cool, because I think he could even evolve in some ways. So yeah, I don’t know. I didn’t really mind. I guess I didn’t mind like the whole Zodiac thing. It was pretty dark. I wasn’t expecting to see someone’s face getting eaten off by rats.
DANNY Well, yeah. I think the riddles and the killing off of the corrupt people, I liked those bits. But there was just something that, the whole Zodiac vibe of him kind of threw me off for a bit.
SLIM It was almost like Saw, he was also like Saw a villain.
DANNY Yeah. That’s true. Yeah, like yeah, they’re definitely felt inspired by something. I mean, the Zodiac just was on the like, forefront of my, you know, mind watching it.
SLIM Yeah, Megan points out that it got real during the end with the snipers. I’m sure we’ll get into that in a little bit, the climax of the film, but Danny referenced the like, quote unquote, Joker scene at the end of the movie. Get that out of here.
DANNY I was so mad.
SLIM Matt Reeves, get it out of here brooo!
DANNY Stop. That was so necessary.
SLIM And then there’s like stories about he’s going around like oh, it’s actually necessary because I needed to show know how crazy things are gonna get. You could have done that with anyone that does not resemble the Joker. Like literally, Batman’s rogues gallery. Put Victor Freeze in there, have like mist come out of a cell or something.
DANNY Anything. Anything but the Joker.
SLIM Enough! Enough!
PROTO Well, I don’t know if I’m Matt Reeves, the most important villain is the Joker. I would want to get my shot at making a Joker movie too. So I mean, I can’t blame him. And to me, I think that’s the natural evolution of Batman movies, like you got to show the Joker because it’s, they go hand in hand. You can’t have a trilogy, you couldn’t have a trilogy of Batman movies without the Joker. It just doesn’t make any sense.
DANNY I don’t disagree with that at all. But there’s just something was off. I mean, it definitely felt forced, that scene.
PROTO Well, I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but I didn’t realize it was, I thought it was Two-Face because like the scarred face but then apparently I read online that it was confirmed that Matt Reeves said it was the Joker.
SLIM Yeah, I also thought it might have been Two-Face at one point.
DANNY They call him a clown.
PROTO Yeah, I thought that was a misdirection though.
SLIM It’s hour three of the film, I don’t need that. It’s time to end the movie. [Slim laughs] Number two, Proto?
PROTO Well, how about just another character, Jim Gordon.
DANNY Jim Gordon.
PROTO Jeffrey Wright.
SLIM Jeffrey Wright.
PROTO Jim Gordon doing the heavy lifting of keeping the audience up to date with what was going on, you know, by reading all the dialogue on the screen, asking any question that anyone might have had while watching this movie. [Slim laughs] It felt like very, like he was the training wheels for anybody who got up and got some popcorn and wasn’t totally paying attention. Yeah, I don’t know if I like loved his performance. I guess it was okay. I don’t know if I like loved his take on it. I don’t know. What did you guys think of Jim? Old Jim.
SLIM I thought he was a dud. In my notes, it says Gordon, I put Gordon kind of a nothing burger. I don’t know what it was, if I’m just so used to Gordon’s being so involved, so into it, and maybe, maybe it will be in the second movie. Like maybe Gordon will have been different. Maybe he realizes he needs to change to change the police force from the inside. The scene inside the the cell where he helps him get out was cool. But I don’t know. I just didn’t get any energy from this Gordon.
DANNY To that note, I felt the same about Alfred. I was really disappointed in the lack of Alfred that we get in this because when you think of Batman, you kind of have to have Alfred. And then you kind of have to have a solid gourd and like that feels like the three kind of pillars of a Batman story. And for me, A, I don’t think Andy Serkis, I mean, I don’t really want to talk ill of his acting chops, but I don’t really enjoy him in stuff that I’ve seen. And so I didn’t really like his take on Alfred at all. But then we don’t really get a lot of Alfred in this in a three hour movie, which kind of was interesting to me.
SLIM He’s also kind of like a dick to Alfred the whole time. Anytime they have a conversation, I felt like pretty bad. I was like, Bruce cut him some slack, he raised you.
DANNY Bruce isn’t doing good in this.
PROTO I love this take on Alfred. I thought it was so different. And just their relationship, like the tension between it the way Bruce doesn’t really care for him. You know, they’re, they’re at odds. I thought it was just like a fresh approach. You know, rather than getting you know, getting speeches, you know, monologues from Alfred about what Batman needs to do. It was just like they have a tenuous relationship. And I think there’s there could be a lot of cool things that they could do in movies down the road with that like where it could be kind of a slow burn in terms of how their relationship develops. So I thought it was a nice, you know, something different.
SLIM Sophs in chat says it was the best version of a grown man having a butlet that it could be. [Slim laughs] What was the old lady’s name that was also working there? That answered, remember the phone where she’s like, “Oh, you’re actually too late, it exploded an hour ago.”
DANNY You’re an hour late, idiot! [Slim laughs]
PROTO Your butlers dead.
SLIM What a strange scene. Proto, oh you gave Alfred. My final one. My third one is the length of the film. I actually started to feel the length by the final act, like the scene in Gotham Square Garden. I started to be like, how are they going to wrap this up because they arrest Riddler by like hour, like two and a half hours in. I’m like, wait a minute, how much time is left here? And there’s like a whole other thing that happens after that. I thought the Gotham Square Garden finale was kind of a letdown, like with the sniper Riddlers that join up and there’s like taking potshots at people. I don’t know if maybe they didn’t build up that like there was this big event happening or alluding to this could potentially be the final phase of the movie. I don’t know, it just for whatever reason it didn’t really work for me. It didn’t feel big enough for Batman to have this like awesome moment to save the day. And maybe that’s combined with the fact that I didn’t love the design of Riddler as like this right wing a-hole and him recruiting people to do his bidding. I don’t know. Proto, what did you think of the final act?
PROTO Yeah, I was feeling ending fatigue because this has the symptom of feeling like it has five or six different endings that, you know, comic book movies can do at times. So yeah, it felt, it didn’t feel like there’s you know, there’s a flow in a rhythm to a movie into a story. It felt like the ending was like Falcon coming out of the lounge and getting shot in the street, that felt to me like the end of the movie. But at that point, there was like, a half hour 45 minutes more to go. And then there’s then after that, it’s like, when is the end? I think Jenna turned to me at that point. She’s like, how much more movie is there? So yeah, I felt that too. I was starting to kind of, like I lost sense of like, where we were in the movie. And yet just that like there wasn’t any there wasn’t any momentum going towards that. It kind of felt like this part of the plot was solved, but now here’s this other surprise thing that’s going to happen as well. And it kind of like lost its rhythm for me.
SLIM And it could be connected to an existing Batman storyline, Year Zero, where Riddler flooded the city. And they had to deal with the fallout of that for like an entire year. And that’s when really character evolution really happened in a certain storyline. And I was thinking of the scene where you’re kind of wondering if Riddler knows his secret identity, because he’s talking about Bruce Wayne, which I thought that scene was really cool. And I was actually wondering if that was going to be the ending, because there’s another comic book storyline that Danny hates bringing up where the Riddler does knows his secret identity. And he tells Batman that like I’m going to tell the world and Batman alludes to you know what what point is a riddle if you explain the answer to everyone? And Riddler like craps his pants. He’s like, oh shit, I can’t tell anyone your secret identity because then I don’t have any power. And that’s how he shuts him up and keeps his identity, so I was actually hoping for something like that to end the movie, but it didn’t happen. Danny, what did you think?
DANNY I definitely felt the you know ending fatigue for sure at the end. I do enjoy a good final Batman fight and I loved him using like the Bane serum-esque, for him to shock himself back to save Selina for that one last time. I don’t know, I really did kind of like the ending but yeah, maybe it was, it could have been changed a bit. For me, I kept getting, there were so many times where Bruce had the long pauses or took, you know, there was there was a lot of shots of the Mayor’s son that was killed. And how, I would just kept getting this like, could this be a Robin character in the next couple films? Could this be a Jason Todd type character when the next film Joker kills him? Are we going to jump that far into the future? Because you know Hush is blasted across the screen really big, Hush my favorite Batman comic and it deals a lot with Jason Todd. And I don’t know there’s a lot of really subtle nods to comics in this that I was surprised about. Yeah, the ending it just felt a bit long a been, I was a bit winded at the end to be honest. I do like the ending with him and Selina a lot. A lot, a lot.
SLIM Oh yeah.
DANNY Such a great ending.
SLIM What’s your number three, Danny?
DANNY Music was my number three. I’m a self proclaimed Michael Giacchino fanboy, you know how much I love him in Rogue One and his stuff with Pixar. But this felt, this felt next level. I mean, every single piece in this film. There were moments, not only with Batman’s the beats but even Catwoman’s, Selina’s score is incredible. It almost felt like sexy James Bond, kind of, like strings and it was incredibly beautiful. And at the end of the soundtrack, there’s a track called Sona in Darkness, it’s a 12 minute track. It’s just some of Giacchino’s best work. I mean, this film alone is some of his best work, if not the best. I just couldn’t get over how good the score was.
SLIM I liked how on that YouTube special, he produced the main piece of music without even seeing anything and he presented it to Matt Reeves and Matt Reeves just started crying together listening to it. [Slim & Danny laugh] I want to hang out with these two. Soph is asking would you turn left?
DANNY To follow Selina?
SLIM Would you follow Selina Kyle, Proto, at the end of that movie instead of going back to Gotham?
PROTO No, the city needs me. [Silm & Danny laugh]
SLIM Your final point, Proto?
PROTO I guess my final point is more of like a question about like the the plot. So when Batman is in Arkham talking to Riddler and Riddler asked him like oh, you didn’t solve this portion of my plan yet and then Batman goes back and then he sees the carpet scraper or whatever, his tool and then he pulls back the carpet in the map was there. Were there like clues before that that he was supposed to be able to figure out the Riddler’s greater plan?
DANNY I think he was supposed to figure out the carpet tool way early on.
PROTO That he was supposed to use it to pull up the carpet?
DANNY I mean yeah, I think that’s, not that I’m saying that is very well told. I think that’s the mindset of the Riddler, that he should have figured that out sooner.
PROTO Okay, yeah, I think I was like a little disappointed that there wasn’t, I don’t know. I guess the detective stuff was cool. Like the riddle stuff was was fun. But I don’t think it like had a great payoff by the end of it. Where it was like, oh, you should, I use the scraper to kill a guy, you should’ve found my map. Like, okay. I don’t know. I thought that was pretty weak.
SLIM I mean, maybe something about like all the points that were destroyed were somehow related to the people he murdered. Or maybe like he blew up their office and that let the water come in and then so and so. I don’t know, that was another thing that it wasn’t very riddle-ish. Like that big thing of him like cleansing the city. That one felt a little bit of a —
DANNY Renewal.
SLIM Right. Oh, we haven’t even talked about how like the Wayne’s are politicians and he made a really bad decision in trying to quiet a reporter, the reporter was murdered and that was supposed to be the big reveal. I was fine with them being like not like the main draw for Bruce in this movie.
PROTO I kind of, I like them hinting at just like the mental issues within the Wayne family a little bit and just like what that could be. My thoughts about a sequel, I was just thinking about it. Like, how what if like the city’s flooded, Penguin starts like taking over and then I guess Joker and Riddler are working out of Arkham and then you know Batman has to go into Arkham you know to get those stooges out of there.
SLIM How about Arkham City being the title like the next movie or something?
PROTO Ah god. Arkham Knight?
SLIM Remember when Arkham Knight was the greatest game ever made? I was so hardcore into that game.
DANNY Hardcore.
PROTO But I mean Arkham is such, like that would be awesome. Just to explore more of that stuff.
SLIM Yeah. Honorable mentions. I actually thought that the Riddler might be revealed as his long lost brother. I thought that was going to be the storyline like up and literally up until towards the end of the movie. When he finally says it that he’s, you know, a Wayne. So I was curious how hard they were gonna go and just kind of change things around. Final rating. This is tough. This is real tough. Our conversation has been five stars, if I can be frank with you. Our conversation alone, five stars. But my initial viewing of the movie is four and a half stars. I did feel some hardcore fatigue at the end of the movie. I didn’t like the finale. I didn’t love the Riddler character. Everything else was just like, off the charts insane. Like I’m so excited that this exists. This viewing just made the Nolan stuff look like poop in my opinion. Like hardcore poop.
DANNY It’s been 20 years, Matt.
SLIM I know it’s been 20 years but we just watched it over the last three weeks.
DANNY Cripes.
SLIM So I’m so ecstatic for Matt Reeves to just do whatever the heck he wants. Problems aside. I’m ready. My body is fully ready. Danny, final thoughts, rating?
DANNY Final thought. Honorable mentions, we didn’t talk too much about Penguin, and how unrecognizable what’s his name as in that —
PROTO Colin Ferrell?
DANNY Collin, in the entire performance, never once was like, oh, this is Colin Farrell. Like, it was incredible. Also, when he’s tied up and does the penguin walk, I laughed because that was funny. Like he’s just waddling like a penguin. So hilarious. This is a five star movie, easily five star. I had an incredible time watching it twice, with my friends with my daughter.
DANNY This is easily the best Batman movie that’s been made so far.
SLIM Ohhhhh!
DANNY And Matt Reeves if you’re listening, I need you to develop a Robin storyline for me. I need my Robin storyline. Please! Matt!
SLIM Matt Reeves, if you’re listening still, don’t listen to him. Keep Robin outta here. Don’t get a 12 year old, Bruce Wayne signing up, fighting crime. I don’t want it.
DANNY I need you to write all the wrongs that have been of Robin in the past. And do not listen to my wife. We do not need Timothee Chalamet in this franchise, ever.
SLIM Timothee Chalamet as the Boy Wonder.
DANNY No.
SLIM Could it happen? There’s a lot of buzz right now. What is they did do the Hush storyline as the second movie?
DANNY Listen. I don’t want to go there. Like my brain cannot go there if they do the Hush story.
SLIM What if, Danny? He goes through like the Rogues?
DANNY Stop.
PROTO Eeeeh! [Slim & Danny laugh]
SLIM Matt Reeves, if you’re still listening!
DANNY If you’re still listening to this point!
SLIM I know you’ve read Hush. Make it happen. I will go five stars for you right now, Matt Reeves if you do Hush. [Danny laughs]
DANNY We will up our stars for you right now!
SLIM Proto, final thoughts before we get to 30 minutes of VMs?
PROTO Final thoughts? I feel like we covered everything. I love the Batman suit. I love how it’s a gray suit up close. I think he looks amazing. Oh, we didn’t talk about the squirrel suit when he jumps off the building. That was great. Man, he would have broke his neck and his back in that moment.
DANNY He would’ve snapped his neck.
SLIM That was cool.
PROTO Roll credits right there. The opening of this movie, yeah, like I said first 20 minutes, religious experience watching this. I loved it. Loved so much of this. I did feel the length though. And the multiple endings, You know talking about it, man, you guys make me… but I’m at four stars. That’s how I felt coming out of the movie. So I’m at four stars for this.
SLIM I can’t remember the last time, I think we talked about this last week. We did like a theatrical movie. Like I saw this last week. And I couldn’t get to the theater again to watch it again before release. Usually when we do these movies I watch it like the day before or the weekend before, but long time. I was like frantic writing notes out of the theater. I was like, I’m gonna forget all this. Now we alluded to it earlier but pro launched legal gambling in our Discord. Can you explain that a little bit to some of our listeners, Proto?
PROTO Yes, so we have this idea, you know, people like to try to predict what our ratings are going to be and usually added rating, you know, add all of our stars together and what will it be? So I thought what if I added a feature to VGER where villagers could wager on that.
DANNY A feager.
PROTO Yeah, thank you Danny. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Stupid ass! [Danny laughs] VGER, the supercomputer that Proto built. The supercomputer that loves movies.
PROTO Yeah. So all villagers get an allowance of some feature coins the start of the month and they can place a wager you know on it to try to to hit what our rating will be that see who can predict the best. So if you nail it you double your winnings. If you’re within one star, you get your winnings and a half if you’re within two stars, you breakeven and then anybody outside of that range, they get nothing. They lose it all. So yeah, so this is the first attempt, I think we had, let me see if I can look at how many wagers did we have?
SLIM Gabb, did you nail it? Did you bet it all on the real ratings that took place? Did anyone get it exactly?
PROTO Well here. Let me close out the bet. Let’s see if this works.
DANNY Oh god.
PROTO I don’t know, I’ve never done it live it here.
SLIM Imagine it crashed right now.
PROTO Yeah this could be the end of VGER.
SLIM PHP.
PROTO What was our, so it’s 13 and a half right? Five, four and then four and a half. That sounds right. Alright, here we go. We’ll see if this works. Oh, you know what, I broke it. [Slim laughs]
DANNY Oh!
SLIM Deleted all records of all this.
PROTO I closed it. Yeah, let’s try that again.
SLIM Slash commit. Oh there you go!
DANNY Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
SLIM Whoa! Whoa! VGER’s going nuts right now.
PROTO Oh, so a lot of a lot of winners tonight.
DANNY Look at these winners!
SLIM My god, I can’t even keep up with that right now. Gonna stroke out.
DANNY That’s awesome.
SLIM What a night. Proto continues to iterate, innovate, you name it. He never stops. Before we move on to the VMs. you know, last couple of weeks we’ve been hearing from a dear friend of ours and we were hoping he dial in right now but I don’t know — [alarm sounds] Oh. Hold on. Hold on. Everyone hold on. Cut it. Cut it. Let’s see if we have a VM right now from a dear friend of ours the Batman.
[voicemail plays]
SLIM What a run of VMs from quote, “the Batman”.
PROTO Thank you Batman.
DANNY Appreciate you.
SLIM Christian Bale Batman, probably. Nicolas Cage Batman. Whatever you want to call him.
DANNY You pick.
SLIM You decide. You can leave us an audio file email, you name it at 70mmpod.com. And the Batman awakened something in many people this week. So buckle up, baby. Let’s get to some emails first. Brian emails in, “Hey 70mm, it’s Brian again. My girlfriend Lily and I took the journey and watched all the Batman movies together. Keaton’s hairline, Kilmer his lips, Clooney’s sigh and Bale’s voice. Can you rank on all the movies? Love you guys. I think Danny you already said The Batman is now number one. What’s number two and three?
DANNY I said it’s the best Batman movie, it’s not my favorite. I need to clarify.
SLIM Oh wait a minute here. Waaait a minute.
DANNY I still love The Dark Knight the most, please.
SLIM Check the tapes.
DANNY Stop. As my favorite but this I mean —
SLIM Check the tapes.
DANNY If I’m doing 1, 2, 3, it’s gonna go Dark Knight, The Batman and Batman 1989.
SLIM If I had to do it right now.
DANNY Do it right now.
SLIM If I had to do it right now. It might be The Batman, Batman 89, And then Dark Knight.
DANNY Same three, let’s do it. Proto?
PROTO Ah. I hadn’t really thought, I really thought of this. Probably Dark Knight. The Batman. And I think I’ll just do two. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Thank you, Brian. Next letter. Break in case of sadness is the subject.
DANNY Oh gosh.
SLIM Matthew in chat says Batman Returns erasure.
DANNY That’s number four. “Fellas, Rude Boy Pete here. I just wanted to request that you commissioned a sad version of the new theme song. The Brokeback episode had me bawling because I’m a dad and that has made me soft. But Proto was rapping on the short story exerpt which was so beautiful. And then y’all exited on your neon lights and 80s synth glam outro and I was unable to linger in my despair properly. Clearly you need a piano or violin only stripped down version of that killer theme riff so when you end on a sad note, you can play us out to properly think about our feelings for the next seven days until you record again. I would volunteer to lead the charge other fundraise for this commission or make it sloppily in GarageBand, your choice. Eternally yours, Rude boy Pete.
DANNY Is that a threat?
SLIM Sounded like a threat a little bit. We know a pianist. We know a very talented musician.
DANNY That’s true.
SLIM His name is vonmer. Should we commission vonmer?
DANNY for a sad version of our theme song.
SLIM Sad boy of our new outro.
PROTO Did you hear his new single?
DANNY Oh, did I?
SLIM If you don’t follow vontmer on Spotify right now, I’ll ban you.
DANNY He’s in our Discord.
SLIM I will ban you from the show. Thank you Peter.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Sorry, guys, I just got back from a run. Hey, 70mm. It’s your pal Ben aka no soul. And just calling in to say a couple of things about Matt Reeves Batman. Biggest note I want to say guys, I feel like this movie does Gotham right? And I don’t think I’ve ever experienced fear inside of a theater. Like I have with this movie. I’m not doing anything illegal. But I’m very, very worried that Batman is coming for me. The main story of my call tonight is so I go and see this movie. I get home by midnight, my wife is still awake. And I want to assess whether she would like this movie or not. My wife has a very particular tastes. So I start off by asking her Hey, did you like the Christian Bale trilogy? And she goes, yeah, I did like that trilogy quite a bit. But that’s because Christian Bale is a hottie and he’s very cute twitch. I looked her point blank in the eye and said, and Robert Pattinson isn’t? To which she scrunched up her nose and said, ooh, no. So if anybody in the VHS village knows a good marriage counselor, just go ahead and send it my way cuz we’re gonna do therapy. Last thing I want to ask is if you were a Batman villain, what a villain would you be? I feel like I would be Ras Al Ghoul predominantly because I like to orchestrate things and I like to teach love you guys. Thanks for covering this movie. Talk to you soon. Peace!
SLIM What villain would you be, Protolexus?
PROTO What villain would I be? Ah. I don’t know, man, that’s a good question.
SLIM It’s an easy answer. It’s Clayface. 100%. Remember Clayface from the animated series? He could be anyone.
PROTO True, true.
SLIM The king. Danny, who would you be?
DANNY Harley Quinn. I like tights.
PROTO Slom? [Slim laughs]
SLIM Did you say Slom? Ah, cripes. Alright, next VM.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hello 70mm, Master Stone is away on holiday, but he sends his regards to the village. I thought it would be prudent for me to call in with a quick hello from San Diego. Despite Andy Serkis his recent casting the true output Pennyworth must always keep up appearances. It has been quite the commotion in discord this week with news of the Batman. It’s good I think we needed another Dark Knight Never did I think it was possible for Reese to go darker than Nolan or Snyder. Never do I love Batman’s flashy new threads and fabulous new car. You can bloody well believe it. As for Selina Kyle. Well, I’m asleep you know to pour myself a fernet Branca. With love, Alfred.
DANNY My god!
SLIM That came from Andy, but that was not Andy. So I don’t know.
DANNY That was incredible.
SLIM That might have been the real Michael Caine.
DANNY I’m gonna believe it was.
SLIM I will also believe that that was a real Michael Caine. Can you imagine?
PROTO He’s been hearing all the honorable statements that I was given to in the past few weeks. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Not one reference to your insults for the last three weeks. Imagine the real Michael Caine talking with the real Batman on this show? Imagine what they could pull together.
DANNY What could what could be? Too bad the journeys over.
SLIM Orlandy, you’re up next.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey, it’s Andy from Orlando and I thought I was all done with the voicemails, but I had to call this week because you guys are talking about The Batman. I saw it last weekend, I gave it a four, I was flirting with a three and a half, four star but I landed on four just because they were more things that I enjoyed about the movie, from the movie. And so I landed with the four. Probably the biggest thing I enjoyed was the the feel of the movie, the feel of Gotham. It just felt different than what we’ve seen before in other Batman movies. I got a lot of Arkham video game vibes from the movie, especially the suit, the suit looks really, really close to the Batman Arkham City games and whatnot. And so anyways, I gave it a four, a four out of five. But the real reason why I called this week is just to show my love and my appreciation for the VHS Village. I had the honor this past week to watch it with some of the members, some of the the villagers, and it was just great. And it was great to finally meet some of you guys in person. And again, if you’re listening to this podcast and you are not a supporter, you’re not part of the family. It’s time. It’s time to join us. It’s the real deal. I’m just so thankful for this community and that, the experience was a five star experience. So I love you guys so much. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the movie, alright. Bye.
SLIM Andy.
PROTO Love Andy.
SLIM What kind of snacks did Andy at the theater?
DANNY The loud kind. I could hear him on the other end of the hall just chomping away. Extra crunchy popcorn.
SLIM Was he like handing over his like bag of snacks and like shaking it in your direction to see if you wanted any?
DANNY In like a trench coat he like opened his trench coat like lined with gummy snacks. It was weird.
SLIM Andy, Andy, Andy. One day we’ll all go see a movie together/ When is the first 70mm meetup?
DANNY It’s a good question.
SLIM Is it gonna be in Chicago? I’m hearing whispers that it might be in Chicago. Do we know any kind of event planners? Is anyone married to an event planner? Or any former producers married to an event planner?
DANNY I don’t know. Let’s not doxx them.
SLIM Please! Final VM I think of the week, unless I’m missing anyone.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey guys, this is GhostHunterDave, just scrambling to get this in just under the wire actually had to duck out of a work event to get this sent off. So I hope to God you can play this tonight on your fire. I’d be remiss if I missed the chance to praise what I think is the best movie I’ve seen in years, the only film and not only met my very high expectations set by a truly astonishing trailer. But also beat those expectations into the ground by Dare I say the best Batman film to date. I really enjoyed your back journey these last couple weeks. Even though I’m not entirely convinced that Proto has been watching the same movies as everyone else. I also just hope that this atmospheric storytelling and the raw sexual energy of the Batmobile, and the Kravitz Pattison chemistry when I’m over on this go around. So great work as always guys, and if your bat phone is still ringing, we just kicked off our very own bat year extravaganza over on Imperious Wreck so check that out if you’re still aching for some more bat action. But until then, thanks so much guys. Love you. Have a great evening.
SLIM How about that plug for his youtube channel at the end of that VM? Proto, your thoughts?
PROTO It’s professional. Yeah, I mean, tune into that, cause GhostHunterDave probably dressing up as Selina Kyle for that show, which is exciting.
SLIM Recent video he was dressed as Batwoman, the classic purple one, from TV show. He can do it all. Thank you ghosthunterdave for that VM and check out their YouTube channel. I think it might be time to announce our next theme for April. This is big for us. We did it last year we’re doing it again. The Batman, The Road to The Batman ate up a lot of time in March. You know we planned this event two years ago. Okay? Last year. We did it was a big success. We covered some amazing films and this year we’re doing it again. Couldn’t time it right from March but Leading Ladies Month Volume Two is happening in April. It’s official. We’re back in the saddle again.
DANNY We’re back.
SLIM Proto, are you ready to reveal your pick for April right now?
PROTO I am not. I got to put on my thinking cap. This is a big pick.
SLIM This is a biiig pick. I might know my pick already.
DANNY I do too.
PROTO Oh, you know what? I think I did have an idea of a pick. Let me see. Did I write this down somewhere?
DANNY Don’t say it though.
SLIM Do we remember what our movies? I think we had Contact was one of my picks for leading ladies. I think Aliens was one of the movies that we did.
DANNY Orlando. My gosh.
SLIM Oh, the Orlando pick!
DANNY The Tilda Journey.
SLIM A Woman Under the Influence.
DANNY Oh, that’s playing at my local indie movie theater right now.
SLIM Contact. House! We had Soph on in May.
DANNY To announce Hags.
SLIM Of 2021 and that’s when we announced the Film Hags podcast with Soph.
DANNY Oh my gosh, House, what a month.
SLIM Oh my god. This doesn’t even feel like that long ago because we started our Indiana Junes right after that.
DANNY Two years ago easily.
SLIM So we have two weeks before we officially kick that off. And to get everyone into the spirit of Leading Ladies Month, we will be covering a movie that’s on HBO Max next week. This is the big one. Thelma and Louise is our next movie next week. Get these Batmen out of here.
DANNY Get them out.
SLIM I’ve had it.
DANNY Get them out.
SLIM So we’re kicking things off, this is a teaser for April. Proto, have you ever seen Thelma and Louise?
PROTO I have seen this. So I’m excited to return. This is a BLB. So I have no idea how I thought about this movie.
DANNY I’ve never seen this. I’m very excited.
SLIM Do we announce the movie after that?
DANNY Say it.
SLIM Oh my. Has this ever been done? We announce and the next two movies. This is, it’s not related to Leading Ladies Month. How can we kill the buzz of Leading Ladies Month. The week before ladies kick things off. There’s a big release happening in March. And this is a movie that was originally on our list.
DANNY Day one.
SLIM This is a day one add for this podcast. And there’s a 4k box set coming out. It’s finally time for us to sit down and watch this movie. I’ve physically never seen it. The Godfather is the movie that’s happening in two weeks on this podcast. We’ll do Thelma & Louise, The Godfather. And then Leading Ladies Volume 2 kicks off.
DANNY 50th anniversary of Godfather. Do you believe? It’s our time.
SLIM It was set in stone that we would cover this movie.
DANNY They knew we would be here 50 years from now.
SLIM Proto, your thoughts on the Godfather?
PROTO The Godfather? Well, I mean if you’re going to try to balance out Leading Ladies Month, this is the most bro dude movie of all time. [Slim & Danny laugh] So I guess that’s something!
SLIM Shoot. So Thelma and Louise is next week. Thanks everyone for going on the Road to the Batman with us. It’s been a lot of fun. A lot of friends of ours joining us on this journey. It means a lot. Closing thoughts Proto as we head into next week with Thelma and Louise?
PROTO Thanks, everybody for coming on the Bat journey. You know there was a lot of misses in there. I think we got out batting 500. Right? We got two good ones, two bad ones. And you know what? That’s life.
DANNY That’s life.
SLIM We’ll see everyone next week.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
