On Batmen

I think the reason I never liked the Tim Burton Batman movies is that Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne looks exactly like Billy Joel circa "An Innocent Man." I like my Batmen brooding and seething. I do not like to picture them singing "Uptown Girl."


The great Chuck Klosterman once interviewed Val Kilmer at the latter Batman's New Mexico buffalo ranch. He asked then-thirteen year old Mercedes Kilmer what her favorite Val Kilmer movie was and she replied "Oh, probably Batman Forever, but only because it seems like it was secretly made by Andrew Lloyd Webber." ["Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas." Follow on Twitter @CKlosterman.]

As for Batmen I prefer, I was alright with Clooney on the grounds that he can play the bored playboy well enough to pull off Wayne, but that movie's of course forfeit as result of its use of just awful, awful acting, direction, writing, costumes, sets and sound production. If it not entirely obvious, I believe Batman Begins/The Dark Knight were pretty much perfect what with the Frank Miller base and actual, talented thespians. Oh, and scoring not by Danny Elfman. Sure, Boingo Alive, but I wish you wouldn't.

But man, Billy Dee Williams could have had a sweet cameo.