A couple of new release tuesdays back was a very Batman week for new dvd's. Besides Batman - The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997, which contains the previous 4 bat films, there were two more releases. Batman Begins and the 1943 Batman serial.
I saw Batman Begins a month ago at the Riverview. I really enjoyed it, and thought the dvd would make a nice new addition to the Batman section of my film library. Two discs, a 72 page dvd case size comic book, and the added bonus of a great 3-D wiggle picture of Batman and some swirling bats. I liked Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and the rest of the cast was really fun to watch. Many nice moments from Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Katie Holmes as some girl, Micheal Caine as Alfred, Liam Neeson as that fighty guy, and whoever that guy was who played the Scarecrow. Morgan Freedman is always the bomb.
I still haven't watched either of the two Christopher Nolan film I have on dvd, Momento and Insomnia. I been meanin' to. I am interested in Following, Nolan's film before Momento. Just too many to see, and my movie viewin' for October sure done took a nose dive. I was watching too many tv dvd's, well, mostly Dead Like Me, now 4 complete run-throughs, and Wonderfalls.
I did watch Batman Begins on dvd yesterday and liked it all over again. The extras on the movie disc are few, a trailer and the MTV tankman parody. The second disc is loaded with lots of extras, unfortunately hidden in the pages of an interactive comic book. That format really sucks. You have to look for hidden icons on each page to get to the featurettes. There is a menu to get to each featuette but it's at the end of the comic. I guess I should have read it first.
The 72 page mini comic wasn't anything to write home about either. The first Batman story, nice and small, and a couple of modern ones that I wouldn't bother to read, one of which is only a section of the longer piece. I might be interested in reading some of the Batman comics of the 50's but that's mostly nostalgic. I recently saw a 50's reprint book of Superman and there were some stories I vaguely remember reading. At least some of the art panels were familiar. I liked Wayne Boring from that period, his characteristic way of drawing Superman is very memorable. The cover on this collection is by Curt Swan and George Klien. Swan was a good Superman artist.
Batman Begins sure looked good, they spent the money on nice sets and great locations. Iceland pretending to be Asia, huge studio sets in England pretending to be America, Chicago pretending to be Gotham City. It's all good, and there are some nice featurettes to tell you how they did it.
I didn't think that the 1943 serial The Batman was very good. The 1949 Batman serial was released on dvd a few months back and that's the one that I thought I had seen back in the late 60's at the Lyceum Theatre in Winnipeg, but it wasn't. It was the 1943 serial. I recognize the Museum of Japanese War Horrors. That wax museum turns out to be the entrance to the hideout of The League of the New Order. That group of fifth columnists should be called the League of Incompetent Petty Criminals. Even with a radium powered destructo ray they can't win. J. Carrol Nash is the Japanese Dr. Daka. He recruits criminals to betray the US and take over when the Japanese win. You know how that turned out. I thought when I saw the 1949 serial that I was just having a bit-o-forgetfulness. And that Batman is pretty forgettable. I thought 1943 Batman was just too goofy and Alfred was just a goof. It did make me laugh out loud on occasion but I don't think those laughs were put there by the filmmakers. The box cover art is much more dramatic than anything in the serial. I don't remember them ever getting into the air nor looking so cool, nor being so yellow.