Things may look bright here at the
Cleveland Movie Blog, with our purchase of the Erieview Tower for $1
in a foreclosure auction, Toledo's own Katie Holmes leaving Tom
Cruise for us, and good notices for our erotic novel Eleven Shades
of Gray (Downsized in Cleveland From Fifty Shades). But behind
the scenes it's all backstabbing and betrayal like in any other local
media. Example: Bob Ignizio assigned me to do a piece reflecting upon
the most despised Batman adaptation this side of Arkham Asylum,
1997's campfest BATMAN & ROBIN, which shares some
super-characters with the upcoming superhero blockbuster THE DARK
KNIGHT RISES.
But I'm not. I've got a book deadline,
mortgage woes, other assignments that might even pay a little money -
and anything I might say about BATMAN & ROBIN will already
be said - and shown - much more entertainingly, at the Akron Public
Library's Main Branch on July 12 at 6:30 p.m.
That's when the library will screen
BATMAN & ROBIN digitally, with one added bonus that gives
digital-projection a decided advantage over analog-celluloid. Thanks
to computer wizardry that Warner Bros. executives of 1997 could never
have imagined, viewers with text-messaging mobile devices will be
able to do a Mystery Science Theatre/Rifftrax deal, live. During the
picture viewers can text-message their comments, gags and insults to
a special account. And the words will appear onscreen, like
subtitles.
Sample: "THESE BATMAN, ROBIN
COSTUMES HAVE NIPPLES. BATGIRLS DOES NOT. OMFG!"
For you 21st-century kids who don't
even know that there were Jokers before Heath Ledger, the Joel
Schumacher-directed BATMAN & ROBIN, in its time,
represented an enormous (but perhaps Hollywood-kitsch inevitable)
Bat-reversal 180-degrees from the strikingly operatic Tim Burton
Batman pictures and Frank Miller's ultra-serious "Dark Knight"
graphic novels. Yes, the tag-team of Batman, Robin and Batgirl vs.
Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze and Bane got away from the dark, brooding
psychotic Batman of the 1990s, and went right back to the silly
Batman of the 1960s. An over-the-top orgy of the sort of nerdcore
exaggerations, pun-strewn dialogue, awful science, bad astronomy,
impossible physics and gaudy color that gives the superhero
comics a bad name (at least for me, and, I strongly suspect, Adam
West).
One critic called BATMAN & ROBIN
a "gay FANTASIA" and didn't mean it in a good way.
George Clooney could turn in Oscar-worthy performances in every
outing and he'd still have to apologize for his Bruce Wayne at every
Comic-Con.
Oh sure, there are some moments in
which (as in Mike Hodge's FLASH GORDON) the cartooniness
touches genius. Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy making her musical
archvillain entrance in a takeoff on Marlene Dietrich's
gorilla-costume striptease in BLONDE VENUS - now that's
weirdly brilliant. Even though it's so gay I think Westboro Baptist
Church membership spiked with it. Most of the rest of Joel
Schumacher's, er, vision recalls what THIS IS SPINAL TAP said
about the fine line between clever and stupid. Mr. Freeze has an evil
hockey team as henchmen? One played by...rapper Coolio?
If the genesis of BATMAN & ROBIN
were a Justice League story, superheroes would dedicate the rest of
their careers fighting for truth, justice and the prevention of
further superhero movies. And Lex Luthor would start a film
studio.
This is the first time the Akron Public
Library has done an audience-interactive mockery of this nature (I'm
told they got the idea off the Web), so how it will go is anyone's
guess. I entreat the Cleveland Movie Blog readership to call off your
dead-end night jobs (I know I sure can't afford to) and head down to
Akron with your handhelds charged and wits sharper than the
Riddler's. It's free to the public and, whilst initiated under the
Teen Programs division, it is indeed open to all ages. Note, though,
that the usual policies applying to a PG-13-rated film will be
applied; any Boy Wonder under 13 must be accompanied by
parent/guardian.
(Frankly, in the case of BATMAN &
ROBIN, they should have restricted viewing by anyone over 13, but
that's just me.)
For more information call the Akron
Public Library at 330-643-9000. The website is www.akronlibrary.org.
The Main Branch is located at 60 S. High St. in downtown Akron.
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