"You don't really think you'll win, do you?"
You ALWAYS win at my blog! *ahem*
Welcome one and all to an event I'm excited to present to you. Starting today, and for the next two weeks, I will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of Batman Returns! The movie seems to be a favorite among my social media friends, so I think it's appropriate to spend extra time on the film.
The pop culture success of the first Batman film in 1989 can't be understated, but fans had to wait three long years for this hotly anticipated sequel. As big as the first movie was, the filmmakers went even bigger with this one, with new production design and not one but three villains in Catwoman and The Penquin, as well as murderous millionaire Max Shreck, an original character created for the film.
Batman Returns was darker (literally and figuratively), more explosive, and had, well--thousands of penguins with rockets attached to them. 'Nuff said.
My relationship with the movie is a bit complicated--there are things I like about it and things I wish had been done differently--but I can't deny it had a strong impact on my superhero-movie-loving self. I had just graduated high school two weeks before the release of the movie, and my friends saw it together as a sort of post-graduation celebration, and I have fond memories of seeing it with them. I'd love to hear your memories of this film in the comments.
Expect fun stuff the next two Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, leading up to the exact anniversary date of Sunday, June 19th (which this year is Fathers Day, coincidentally enough).
Below are the two trailers Warner Bros. made for the movie. Enjoy!
And remember--mistletoe is deadly if you eat it; a kiss is even deadlier if you mean it.
With Spider-Man: No Way Home being an enormous box office success--the first really successful film opening in theaters since the start of the pandemic--and after seeing the film for the first time on DVD the past week, it helped me realized that today, May 3rd 2022, is the 20th anniversary of the release of the first live action Spider-Man movie!
Directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, and Willem Dafoe, the movie was a long time coming. The rights to a Spider-Man feature were first held by notorious 80s schlock studio Cannon Films, then held by James Cameron for much of the 90s. When Cameron lost the rights, Marvel went to Sony and the rest is history.
Spidey fans had waited what seemed like a lifetime for a big budget film treatment of the superhero icon, and with the success of the Batman films and a slew of other comic-book-based releases throughout the 90s, it's very surprising that it took so long for a big-name superhero like Spider-Man to get the treatment. When the film was finally released, it was a critical and commercial success.
Here is a teaser trailer that was released early in the summer of 2001, a full year before the film's release, with a scene made exclusively for the trailer. It was pulled from circulation later that year for...obvious reasons.
