"You should feel lucky. Eddie's the only fella in town who doesn't pass judgement on others." "That's right, if I did I wouldn't have any friends."
Funniest line I've heard all week. It's from the wonderfully quirky movie Ed Wood.
Johnny Depp is amazing. The range of mannerisms and personalities he can adapt. Awesome.
Here's another funny line. A very pompous announcer in a trailer for one of Ed's movies says: "We are all interested in the future, for that is where we will spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friends: future events such as these will affect you in the future."
Ed Wood was made by Tim Burton, the man who gave us the best two of the Batman movies. In the second one (with Michelle Pfeiffer as the ssssexy Catwoman), when the Penguin walks in a grave yard, a head stone moves, obviously fake. I heard people making fun of it because of this, and understandably so, but I sensed it was an homage to Ed Wood, who was "not bothered by details". And I was right, in Ed Wood, a fake headstone moves in the making of Plan Nine From Outer Space, and Wood is not bothered, unlike the backers. I must say it's rather crazy and gutsy to sacrifice the believability of such a big movie for an homage that only a very tiny percentage of the audience would get. I'm surprised the studio let him get away with it.
By the way, I find it amazing that, apparently, a B/W movie will attract a much smaller audience than a color one. For me it's no issue. As a matter of fact I had seen ten minutes of Ed Wood before I noticed, "hey, this is a black and white movie".
Talking about Batman II, isn't it odd how Dany Devito as the Penguin just didn't work? He's a good actor, the make-up was cool, I can't put my finger on what was wrong, but it just didn't work.
One might say it is because they had made the Penguin a scary character instead of camp and silly one like he was in the comics. And that's true, but that's no reason it couldn't have worked in its own right. I don't know.
7 comments:
DeVito as The Penguin might not have worked for you, but it did for me. I read a book about the history of the Batman character by Les Daniels, and the funny, campy Batman first came about because of Frederick Wertham and the Comics Code Authority, but of course everyone thinks of the 60's TV show.
It was originally - and apparently has since become again - much darker. Maybe it takes itself too seriously now, I don't know. (One interesting thing is that in the early days Batman had a gun.)
I didn't notice that moving headstone in Batman Returns. These days that is probably the kind of scene that would have been left out of the theatrical release but put in on the DVD.
What I thought the Batman movies lack most of all is the Batusi. And Adam West never needed molded plastic to improve his physique. Pure. West.
Check out the BBC version of Batman, ran on Radio 4 back around 92. It was definitely on the dark side. Directed by Dirk Maggs, who later did the last 3 Hitchhikers series.
I still need to see the 1930's "The Batman".
As for Burton, loved Ed Wood, loved Corpse Bride, Planet ofthe Apes was pretty good too.
I didn't care too much for corpse bride. Seeing puppets doing a musical is just too silly, even for me. :)
You mean, you don't like Wallace & Gromit or Chicken Run, either?
Puppets having hardcore sex in Team America World Police, now THAT was silly.
And meant to be. :-D
"You mean, you don't like Wallace & Gromit or Chicken Run, either?"
I loved those! But notice they weren't musicals.
Now that you mention it... :-)
I've missed countless interesting films these last years, including Corpse Bride.
Modern life, what a plague.
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