Thoughts On The Dead

Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: batman (Page 3 of 3)

An Important Decision

March 29, 2016 / / 1 Comment

Where you been, buddy?

Doing stuff.

Yeah? How’d it go?

Doing stuff is hard. I truly hate it.

You aspire to agoraphobia.

It’s a lofty goal. Or an apartmenty goal. Maybe a houseboaty goal.

Thinking about getting a houseboat?

I was scared of a cloud today; you think I’m getting near a boat?

Sure. Wait. It’s Tuesday. Half-price day at the movies. Did you see Punching Butt-chins?

No, and I’ve decided to boycott it.

You can’t boycott something by yourself. That’s just not going to a movie.

There’s an ethical and moral reasoning behind my non-participation, so it is a boycott.

Fine. Why?

Too many people went. If the film–which is universally derided–was a bomb and we definitely weren’t getting fifteen more of these dim and shitty turds, then I’d go to watch the trainwreck. But since everyone’s an idiot and gave Warner Brothers their money, I can’t support it.

Jesus.

This way, when Aquaman: Damp Justice and Wonder Woman: Boob Armor of Themiscyra and Green Lantern: Let’s Try This Again come out, I’ll have a clear conscience.

You’re weird.

…

Fucking Aquaman.

I know, right? And he’s got dreads and a beard and tattoos.

He’s not your father’s Aquaman.

They rastafied him by twenty percent, yeah.

Thoughts On A Final Trailer

February 11, 2016 / / 0 Comments

  • There is a great deal of punching.
  • In fact, there is punching not previously alluded to: we begin with Batman leaping off a plane into a building though plate-glass.
  • That seems like a lot of effort to go through just to punch people, but that’s why I’m not the goddamned Batman.
  • Batman is aided in this pursuit by Alfred, who has been given a promotion from butler to butler/drone pilot.
  • Alfred also no longer sounds like Michael Caine.
  • “Oy. Cahn’t. Lose you. Master Wayne. I bet. You didn’t know that.”
  • Alfred now sounds like Scar.
  • Plus, he’s in this enormous and elaborate flight simulator; the thing is clearly stupidly expensive and purpose-built.
  • Who built that?
  • Because that guy knows you’re Batman now, Bruce.
  • Same thing with the guy who installed the T-Rex and the giant penny.
  • Who does Batman’s IT?
  • The only thing Batman–in not just this movie, but overall–has going for him is that he’s cool; he’s just so dopey.
  • I’m more willing to believe in a universe where Superman is an alien that looks exactly like a human who flies around and is super-strong than I am willing to believe Batman could keep his identity a secret for fifteen minutes.
  • Aquaman is easier to accept than the entire world not knowing Bruce Wayne is Batman.
  • Being Batman just requires too much infrastructure; someone’s gonna talk.
  • Anyway, Batman hurls himself through some windows and begins punching the bad guys, who all forget to shoot him.
  • Maybe Batman does have super-powers, after all: the ability to make people forget they have rifles.
  • Batman goes from one goon to the next.
  • Punching them.
  • Some of them he kicks.
  • And the goons who are not being currently beaten by Batman do not shoot him.
  • Which is a terrible plan.
  • Were I the leader of the goons, I would have made sure to advise them numerous times before the operation, “If you see Batman, just start firing in his general direction. Don’t worry about shooting any of the team. I’ll forgive you. Open fire immediately. Also, if you hit him, shoot him again. Do not trust a chest shot. Aim well, from a safe distance, and shoot him in the head until he no longer has a head.”
  • “What if we see Superman?”
  • “Just surrender politely, Jenkins. He’s Superman.”
  • “Almost be worth getting caught to meet Superman, boss.”
  • “Just shut up and shoot Batman, Jenkins.”
  • “Gotcha.”
  • And then we have our final piece of evidence in the “Zack Snyder doesn’t understand these characters” court case.
  • Ben Affleck growls something about how if there’s even a “1% chance” of Superman going all nuttykookooberries and molesting the planet, then you have to treat it as an absolute given.
  • Which is not how percentages work.
  • Ben Affleck uses the concept of percentages, and probability, and he’s Batman: you would think he would know that if something is a 1% chance, then it is not an absolute given.
  • It’s one percent away from being the exact opposite, as a matter of fact.
  • Is Batman a moron now?
  • That line is maybe one block over from “60% of the time, it works every time.”
  • He’s the World’s Greatest Detective, Zack Snyder: why is Batman a moron?
  • Then Batman drives his car into Superman.
  • Moron.
  • Batman and Superman are very mad at each other: Batman at Superman because the whole “gonna destroy the earth” thing; and Superman is mad at Batman because Batman is a dick.
  • Which is actually keeping in character: Batman has always been a complete dick.
  • Batman is the Lou Reed of superheroes: cool, but a dick.
  • Besides watching Superman demolish half of Metropolis in Man of Steel, Batman is basing his attack on a dream he had.
  • The part of the trailer that’s filmed in color, where Batman is wearing a trenchcoat like he’s Chow Yun Fat?
  • That’s a dream.
  • Batman builds himself an Iron Man suit and picks a fight with a Kryptonian because of bad math and a bad dream.
  • I told you: this man is a moron.
  • A more cynical man would say that film–and I have not seen the finished product, of course, and could be wrong about all of this–is merely a $200 million dollar version of a man-child smashing his Mego action figures into one another.
  • (You should not do that: Megos are held together with a rubber band. Plus, they are vintage toys and someone would love them if you don’t want them, so do not smash them into each other. Thank you.)
  • Amy Adams is back.
  • I think that should be the entire marketing message.
  • “Amy Adams is BACK!”
  • She’s like a baked potato without butter or salt.
  • There are many quick shots of super-punching and explosions and rain.
  • DC stands for Damp Comic.
  • Bullets are caught, by Superman.
  • Batman uses the Batarmor to Batkick Superman.
  • Then, Wonder Woman shows up, and Ben Affleck says, “I’ve known a few woman like you.”
  • And, credit Zack Snyder’s restraint, Wonder Woman does not respond, “Have you? I wonder.”
  • That’s a tempting line right there, but good for you Zack: tasteful.
  • Then some more shots of Batman in his robot suit kicking Superman’s ass, and it is raining much harder now because DC stands for Downpour, Climactic.
  • Diane Lane, who you forgot played Superman’s mother in the last one, drops a coffee cup.
  • This is important: here is my prediction.
  • Superman dies at the end.
  • Justice League forms to keep the world safe in his absence.
  • He comes back in the next one.
  • If I’m right, everyone remember.
  • If not, not.

Thoughts On A Trailer

December 3, 2015 / / 15 Comments

  • I thought it was a joke the first time I saw it.
  • Like one of those fan-made things people cobble together from other movies and video games and whatever.
  • The film’s release is six months away and there is time to polish special effects, but right now the action scenes look like an ad for one of those stupid freemium games for your phone that play during NFL games.
  • Within ten seconds, a discerning viewer can tell that the situation has gotten completely out of hand.
  • Bruce Wayne pulls up to some sort of shindig in a vintage Aston-Martin DB 2, which is already wrong: he would have pulled up in the passenger seat of a flatbed truck with a vintage Aston-Martin DB 2 on it.
  • And Clark Kent, who is played by a wax-covered bicep, asks who it is and when the answer comes back, there is a musical cue that is somehow less subtle than the old record-scratch bit.
  • It is literally the chord they used to play as the mustache-twirler tied the woman to the tracks.
  • Plus the question makes no fucking sense: Bruce Wayne is a very famous person.
  • There are buildings named after him, at least one of which Superman knocked over during his slapfight with General Nod. (I call the new one Nod because it’s short for “Not Zod.” All that guy did was yell and not make people kneel before him. All the special effects in the world can’t match a classically-trained British guy hamming it up.)
  • And even if he weren’t really famous, a reporter from a major metropolitan newspaper would know who he was.
  • He hasn’t–in this universe–just gotten back from his travels and became Batman because Ben Affleck is in his forties and that’s too late to start Batmanning.
  • Plus, he has been at it long enough to have killed at least one Robin.
  • The trailer hints that the Joker did the actual murdering, but the blame lies on Bruce Wayne’s becaped shoulders.
  • “I should bring a teenager to fight the Insane Clown Person.”
  • Good plan, dickhead.
  • Batman has killed so many Robins that you could easily retell the stories with Batman as the serial killer and not have to change the facts.
  • Anyway, then Superman and Batman start having a good, old-fashioned Butt-chin Showdown.
  • Both of these men have deeply clefted chins and they waggle them at each other and then Superman is all, “So what do you think of Batman?”
  • And Ben Affleck makes a face that can only be interpreted as “Oh, Batman? That’s me.”
  • Go back and look again.
  • Wait, you don’t have to.
  • This face:
  • [PDF] Batman v Superman Trailer-
  • How else can that expression be read?
  • Superman may be an alien, but he was raised by humans and therefore has seen a human face before.
  • Batman might as well have his cape sticking out the back out his suit jacket, this is so obvious.
  • And then Jesse Eisenberg shows up and makes terrible acting choices at both of the handsome men.
  • After that, we are shown the rest of the movie.
  • Remember the bit in Three Amigos?
  • “You meet Cochise, you think he’s a bad guy. You fight. But then you grow to respect him. By the end of the film, you’re friends. We fly you down to Baja and shoot it in eight days!”
  • That is the precise plot to this film.
  • Batman is so mad at Superman for destroying a city that he picks a fight with him in a different city.
  • Which also gets destroyed.
  • DC stands for Destroyed City.
  • Say what you will about the last Avengers movie, but at least they tried save some civilians.
  • Membership in the Justice League seems to require knocking down an office tower or two full of innocent people.
  • Leisure-Suit Larry hooks the corpse of General Space up to a Frankenstein machine and makes a monster called Dimsdale to attack SuperDuperMan and Batface, but White Beyoncé shows up and does Blue Steel at the monster.
  • God, this shit’s dumb.

Batman Versus Superman Versus Quality

December 3, 2015 / / 4 Comments

“Zack, what is your vision for the Batman and Superman film?”

“I’d like to make it terrible.”

“Sure. How so?”

“Aggressively.”

“I like it so far. What are you thinking for visuals?”

“Cut-scene from a 2012 video game.”

“Nice. Who plays Superman?”

“Same block of wood from the last one.”

“Batman?”

“Affleck doing a growly voice.”

“Perfect. What’s the story?”

“Punching.”

“Here’s all the money in the world.”

“YAAAAY!”

Hulk vs. Superman

January 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

1977 is something that must be dealt with; its little brother is ’73. Speak to me not of 1974, when Billy decided that they were gonna be a damn jazz band if he had anything to do with it. Leave ’76 in your pocket, when tempos dragged and everything was a dirge. Yes, the Beacon shows were outstanding, but they were still figuring out what to do now that they were less of a fighter jet and more of a bomber.

You’re going to bring up the Old Shit, the Primal Dead Shit. The before-they-learned-how-to-write-songs Dead. The Dead that had, like, four riffs that went with three different sets of lyrics, each more ridiculous than the last, and would just trip their balls off while holding instruments in front of audiences really loud? We all love that Dead. You can’t not love that Dead. It’s like the Baby Jesus. We love the Baby Jesus simply because he’s gonna be Jesus, but right now: he’s a baby! Yay, we love babies! And that’s what the Pigpen era was: Baby Jesus.

If the Dead hadn’t learned how to write songs, they would have ben the Quicksilver Messenger Whatever. Or Jefferson Airplane. Just endlessly jamming with some nonsense lyrics about The Man, or the Shire.

So we must leave Primal Dead, to refocus on 1977 and 1973.  1977 and 1973. They are the Batman and Robin of the Grateful Dead’s output.

Some will say it is the historic availability of the high-quality Betty Boards that bias the long-time Grateful Dead listener: these shows were taped so well that they were invariably the best sounding thing in anyone’s collection. Huge bass, crisp separation–these tapes were a joy to listen to, as opposed to the murky 4th and 5th gen Maxell’s cluttering up your basement. No matter how “warts and all” your stance, you couldn’t help appreciate the sound that rivaled some of the Dead’s official releases. (I’m looking at you, Skull & Roses.)

Perhaps ’77 is so esteemed simply because listening to it doesn’t give you a headache? This would have been a valid argument years ago, but after 32 Dick’s Picks, two dozen Road Trips and Digital Downloads, we have fearful amounts of Dead available, all at a sound quality that any one of us would have once killed for. Yes, you can quibble over the “punchiness” of this release versus that, but these are, when it comes to using the Dead to feed the hunger of your burgeoning OCD, light years beyond what we used to deem acceptable

We have not mentioned any year past 1977. There is a reason for that. (We’ll get to Brent later, you can be assured.)

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