Comments on: Blu-ray Review: “Batman: 20th Anniversary Edition”

By: DwDunphy

DwDunphy — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:01:49 +0000

Exactly. I remember standing on a wraparound line to get into the theater for Raiders Of The Lost Ark, buying a commemorative program for the movie (remember those?) chit-chatting with other people while waiting to get in, basically giving in to the hype. Now, it doesn't matter when you arrive. They don't sell programs anymore but they do sell pizza, cappuccino, hot dogs, hamburgers, sushi, curly fries, Haagen Daaz ice cream…

..Oh, and there wasn't an effin' cell phone back then.

By: DwDunphy

DwDunphy — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:01:49 +0000

..Oh, and there wasn't an effin' cell phone back then.

By: DwDunphy

DwDunphy — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:01:49 +0000

..Oh, and there wasn't an effin' cell phone back then.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:38:28 +0000

Yeah, wouldn’t want to see this one on Blu-Ray.

I was around your age when this came out, and the release of this film couldn’t have been any more larger than life in my world. Epic.

Watching it earlier this year, I’ll agree that it hasn’t aged well, but it still brings back a lot of the memories of seeing it in the theater for the first time, and how cool it was. Batman has to hold the record for one of the fastest franchise flameouts with the diminishing returns offered up in the form of Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and then Batman + Robin. I’m not even sure I bothered to see Batman + Robin. I think the series could have held together if they had been able to hold on to Michael Keaton wearing the Batsuit.

But these days with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I think that the Batman franchise has carried on quite nicely!

By: Arend Anton

Arend Anton — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:30:30 +0000

Come to think of it, the Batman Way does sound like a bit like a kama sutra position.

By: BobCashill

BobCashill — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:21:08 +0000

Standard DVD is bad enough at revealing the effects limitations of older films; Blu-Ray must be terrible, unless a lot of effort and sensitivity is put into the transfer.

Batman '89 was a compromise between Burton and co-producer Jon Peters, who ordered that Ninja assassins pop out of the bell tower and other "crowd-pleasing" foolishness, some of which Burton was able to ignore. Batman Returns is Burton's all the way and by far my favorite of any Batman film to date; Nolan's "realist" approach works in some ways but his films fall flat as fantasy for me.

But, ah, the good old days when you had to wait hours to see an event movie. The vastly increased number of screens, and round-the-clock showtimes, took care of that--the experience was sacrificed for convenience, and lost its specialness.

By: DwDunphy

DwDunphy — Tue, 19 May 2009 10:34:26 +0000

Does “the Batman Way” mean he likes it in the cave?

By: Arend Anton

Arend Anton — Tue, 19 May 2009 04:16:30 +0000

The neighbor kid had a “BATMAN WAY” street sign in his room. I never quite understood why there would be a Batman Way. Damn only child got every toy imaginable.

By: DwDunphy

DwDunphy — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:35:28 +0000

This just reminded me of some other stupid nostalgia… I miss the old 2-screen theater when you had to rush to stake out a spot on the line, and you built up anticipation for a movie. With multiplexes devoting two to three screens for a single big film, it has probably been more than a decade that I've had to actually work at seeing a movie.

By: jefito

jefito — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:48:15 +0000

I know, right?