Carol of the Muppets

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Director: Brian Henson

Cast: Michael Caine, Steven Mackintosh, the Muppets  

Released: December 11, 1992

I remember going to see this film as a kid with my dad and older brother, but the projector broke and they weren't able to show it. They either let people get a refund or go see another movie that was showing around the same time. We went to see Aladdin which was starting just a few minutes later. We did eventually see this one, probably the next weekend.

In my review of Scrooged, I mention that this is my favorite version of A Christmas Carol. Now, to be fair, I really haven't seen many renditions of the Dickens classic. And there's been A LOT of them, both theatrical and TV adaptations. I think the only other version I've seen is Mickey's Christmas Carol where Scrooge McDuck plays Scrooge (who else would play him??) Even if I did see all 100 (I may be exaggerating a little there, but not much!) adaptations of A Christmas Carol, this one would still remain my favorite because of the nostalgia factor, and, c'mon, who doesn't love the Muppets? Not only is it my favorite version of A Christmas Carol, it's also my favorite Muppet movie.

The movie breaks the fourth wall with Gonzo as Charles Dickens talking to the audience and narrating the story. He even says, "Hello and welcome to The Muppet Christmas Carol", acknowledging that this is a story within a story. I watched the commentary with the director, Brian Henson (who, as you probably guessed, is the son of Jim Henson) and he said they took much of the dialogue from the novel, so this retelling is pretty faithful to the original. Gonzo/Dickens is joined by Rizzo the Rat who plays "himself" and is there to be the comic sidekick and to ask "Charles Dickens" any questions the audience might have. He is the only Muppet (well, maybe besides Animal) who plays himself. The other Muppets are characters from the novel, the main ones being Kermit as Bob Cratchit and Miss Piggy as his wife, Emily.

Ebenezer Scrooge is not played by a Muppet, he is played by Michael Caine. It amused me that in this world real humans and Muppets interacted together, as did real animals and muppet animals (and when I say muppet animals, I do not mean the likes of Kermit or Miss Piggy even though they are technically a frog and a pig, respectively, I am talking about the likes of Muppets that don't talk and act like their real life counterpart, much like the Muppet cat that attacks Rizzo. It only meows and walks on all four legs, instead of two like the other humanoid Muppets). In the commentary, Henson said when they created the sets, they built it up a level because they needed the puppeteers to hide underground and control the puppets. There were both floors and open spaces on the set.  Since they also had real actors, they had to choreograph where they could walk, as they obviously couldn't walk in an open space where the Muppets were. There are a few shots where Michael Caine walks with Muppets on either side of him and he did that by walking on a wooden plank.

There is a scene that made me laugh very hard, even though it's not suppose to be funny. A Muppet named Mr. Applegate has come to talk to Mr. Scrooge about falling behind on his payment on his mortgage and Scrooge picks him up and throws him out the door. It was a terrible thing to do, but it just made me laugh because it's just Michael Caine picking up a Muppet and throwing it out the door. Maybe I'm just easily amused. On second thought, even though it does show us what a horrible person Scrooge is, maybe it was suppose to be funny.

Scrooge is a curmudgeon who doesn't care about anyone. His nephew, Fred (Steven Mackintosh), stops by to invite him to Christmas dinner, but he refuses. Two charity collectors (played by Dr. Bunsen and my personal favorite Muppet, Beaker) come to ask him for money to give to the poor and homeless and he refuses to give them anything (even though he has the means to give) and basically tells them it would be better if they just died to "decrease the surplus population". ("Oh dear, oh dear!") He also almost doesn't let Kermit/Bob Cratchit and the rest of his employees get a day off on Christmas. When he tells Kermit/Bob he'll see him tomorrow at 8, Kermit/Bob says, "Tomorrow is Christmas" and Scrooge replies with "8:30 then." He does reluctantly let his employees have the whole day off when Kermit/Bob tells him no other business will be open that day.

That night, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of his former business partners, Jacob and Robert Marley, played by the two old geezer Muppets, Statler and Waldforf (yeah, I had to look up their names) who are always heckling and jeering other Muppets. They tell Scrooge (through song, as this IS a musical!) that he will be visited by three ghosts that night and the first one will arrive at the strike of one. I laughed when Scrooge says, "Can't I meet them all at once to get it over with?"

Eesh!

The Ghost of Christmas Past is a creepy child apparition with red hair and blue eyes and has a flowing white gown. Obviously, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is suppose to be the scariest, but honestly, if I saw this ghost, it would haunt my nightmares forever. Even though she is a child and suppose to represent innocence and childlike wonder, she is hella creepy. Henson said she was a puppet that they submerged in a tank of baby oil (and later, water) to get that flowing effect. She takes Scrooge on a journey to the past and they come upon the school he attended as a young boy. He tries to say hello to his old chums (I was surprised he actually had friends as a child), but she tells him they can neither see nor hear him. It made me laugh when we see the busts of famous scholars such as Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, and Aristotle and they all have Muppet features. All the students are real boys and the headmaster is played by the Muppet Sam the Eagle. There's a funny fourth wall-breaking moment where the Headmaster is telling the young Scrooge that he needs to work and study hard and will become a man of business and that "It is the American way". Gonzo (for some unknown logic the people in Scrooge's past can't see him, but they can see and hear the narrator of the story), takes him aside, calls him "Sam" and whispers something to him. The Headmaster corrects himself and says, "It is the British way!"

Even as a young lad, we see that Scrooge had no interest in playing with other kids his age and didn't care about Christmas and just wanted to study and read all the time. The creepy child ghost next takes Scrooge to a Christmas party thrown by his then employee, Mr. Fozziwig (played, of course, by Fozzie Bear. The real name of the character from the novel is Mr. Fezziwig, so they lucked out with the similar names!) he attended as a young man. This is the only scene Animal is in. He screams at everyone to be quiet when Mr. Fozziwig is trying to make a speech. A young Jacob and Robert Marley are there as well and they heckle their boss. We also see Rowlf the dog (playing the piano, of course) and the Swedish Chef make cameos in this scene. At this time, Scrooge is a young man and this is where he meets and falls in love with a young woman named Belle (played by a real woman; would be a bit unsettling if she was played by a Muppet!) Scrooge begs Christmas Past not to show him the next Christmas he spent with Belle because that was the one where he chose money over her. Scrooge starts crying and begs her not to show him anymore. Still crying, he finds himself back in his bedroom and the first ghost is gone.

The Ghost of Christmas Present was obviously a human inside a Muppet costume. He starts out as a giant, but then shrinks so he is the same height as Scrooge and is able to walk alongside him. He's very jolly with a red beard. Think Santa Claus mixed with Hagrid. He shows Scrooge how his family and employees are spending Christmas. They first go to Fred's home where and his wife, Clara, are having a Christmas party. They are playing a yes or no game where everyone is trying to guess of the thing Fred is thinking of. The clues have been narrowed down to it's an "unwanted creature" but it's not a mouse, rat, leech, or cockroach. Clara excitedly says she knows the answer and that it's "Ebenezer Scrooge". You feel really bad for Scrooge in this scene as his face falls. He begs Christmas Present not to show him anymore, but he is next taken to the Cratchit home where he will hear more of people talking badly about him (mainly Miss Piggy/Emily). Scrooge sees the meager Christmas meal Kermit/Bob and Miss Piggy/Emily are having with their children (twin girls who are pigs, an older boy frog and a younger boy frog with crutches who is obviously Tiny Tim). Kermit/Bob raises his glass as a toast to his employer and calls him "the founder of the feast." This does not make Miss Piggy/Emily happy and she rips into her husband's employer.

The last ghost to visit Scrooge is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, or the Ghost of Christmas Future. He takes Scrooge on a bleak journey to the future where he is dead and nobody is too upset about it. He's not the only one who has died, though. He visits the Cratchit home where Tiny Tim has died and Kermit/Bob returns home after putting flowers on his grave on the hill that overlooks the river because he loved watching the ducks on the river. It is a pretty bleak moment for a Muppet movie! The entire segment with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is bleak and even Gonzo/Dickens and Rizzo tell the audience they can't be part of the narration anymore because it's gotten to be too scary and tell the audience, "See you at the finale." I do love the moment when Scrooge has woken the next morning and everything has gone back to normal and Gonzo/Dickens and Rizzo return and Rizzo says, "We're back!" and Gonzo/Dickens adds, "We promised we would be!"

Ebenezer Scrooge is now a changed man. He declares, "I will live my live in the past, the present, and the future" and "I'm as light as a feather! I'm as happy as an angel! I'm as merry as a schoolboy!" He also decides to buy the biggest turkey (which is twice as big as Tiny Tim, which, if you think of it, isn't that big since Tiny Tim is a little frog!) for the Cratchit family AND to give Kermit/Bob a raise. On the way there, he sees the two charity collectors and gives them money. In return, Beaker gives him his red scarf and that got me a little teary eyed. Also, on his way to the Cratchit home, Scrooge makes a couple of stops along the way to give gifts to Fred and Clara, Mr. Fozziwig (who they made look older by adding a white wig) and his old school headmaster. He even gives cheese to the mice who live in the walls of the buildings. While this is going on, he is singing a catchy merry little tune that all the other Muppets walking along with him are also singing. The film has a handful of songs, and the first ("Scrooge") and the last one are my favorite and the most catchy. The movie ends with Scrooge and every Muppet in town all around the Cratchit dinner table ready to eat the turkey (good thing they got a huge turkey!) and Tiny Tim saying, "God bless us" and Scrooge agreeing and saying, "God bless us, everyone!"

She's Miss United States

Miss Congeniality

Director: Donald Petrie

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, William Shatner

Released: December 22, 2000

Viewed in theaters: December  28, 2000

Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) is an FBI agent who is a little on the crass side. She snorts when she laughs; she doesn't care how she looks as she doesn't wear makeup and has unkempt hair; and she says and does whatever she wants without thinking of the consequences first. So when they find out the Miss United States pageant (I guess they didn't have the rights to use the Miss America or Miss USA pageants!) is being targeted by a madman who calls himself The Citizen, they need an agent to go undercover. The only viable person is on maternity leave so she can't do it. Even though Gracie is a woman and the right age, nobody even considers her as she is not beauty queen material at all. She has no poise or manners and her looks are all wrong. But when they discover she doesn't look half bad in an evening gown, they decide to use her as their under cover agent. She has now replaced Miss New Jersey (as she was involved in a scandal and pulled from the competition) and is using the alias Gracie Lou Freebush. Kathy Morningside (Candice Bergen) is the head of the pageant and is incredulous about the idea of Gracie being in the pageant but she enlists her pageant coach, Victor (Michael Caine), who gives Gracie a much needed makeover and teaches her how to act like a lady including saying "yes" instead of "yeah" and how to glide. Rounding out the Miss United States panel is the host played by William Shatner.

Gracie's makeover includes a lot of waxing, dental care, skin care, hair styling, and makeup. Of course she looks good - she's Sandra Bullock! Her partner, Eric (Benjamin Bratt), is amazed at what he sees and you know by the end of the movie they're going to become an item. I loved when Gracie taunted him with her singsongy, "You want to kiss me....you want to hug me...you want to date me." Bullock is great and hilarious with the physical comedy. Yeah, she probably falls one too many times when she's wearing high heels, but to me, it never gets old. And the scene where she's mocking the pageant winners receiving the crown is so funny. I would say the funniest scene is when she's having trouble walking so she gives Victor all these guns and holsters that are hidden under her dress and it goes on for a few minutes! Victor makes a quip about if she has an armed car under her dress as well. Although I also love the scene where they show a montage of the girls saying world peace is the one thing they want most, but when Gracie is asked the same question, she says, "Harsher punishment for parole violators" and then after a very silent pause she says, "And world peace!"

Gracie spends her time with the same women throughout the movie, the most notable one being Miss Rhode Island, a sweet and naive young girl named Cheryl (when asked what her perfect date would be, she replies with, "April 25th because it's not too hot or too cold"), who Gracie encourages to be more confident. The girls representing New York, California, Hawaii, and Texas are really the only ones who have dialogue and we see throughout the movie. Not surprisingly, they all make it far into the competition along with Gracie and Cheryl. It is totally random when Miss Nebraska, of all the states, makes it into the top five and is third runner up!

There are a few things that don't make sense. Gracie has had a bad day and wants to quit but Victor and Eric encourage her not to. We learn she hasn't been on a date in many years and doesn't have many friends and she has a line where she tells Victor or Eric (I can't remember who) that they don't know why she is the way she is...but we never do learn why she is the way she is. Although at the beginning there is a scene of her as a grade schooler where she punches a boy for beating up another boy she likes, then when that boy is mad that a girl defended him, ends up punching him too. So I guess we are just suppose to figure she's always been like that, but why we don't ever find out why. There's a scene where Cheryl is suspected of being the Citizen but Gracie doesn't think such a sweet, innocent girl could ever do anything illegal so she takes her out to a club to have some "girl talk" with her and Cheryl tells her that she was "attacked" by a college professor once and while Gracie offers to teach her some self defense moves, we never hear about the incident again. Like, was she raped? It was just really random especially for not having anything to do with the movie. And Cheryl comes off as a very bubbly, friendly girl...not someone who has ever been "attacked" before. It was bizarre! And this is revealed when Gracie asks her if she's ever done anything illegal. She confesses she once shop lifted, then mentions that...which really has nothing to do with doing anything illegal, so I have no idea why they even had it in there.

The pageant takes place in San Antonio so Miss Texas has a lot of supporters in the audience. The look on her face when she learns she's second runner up is hilarious. I am about to reveal who is behind the Miss United States attack plot, so stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled (although who hasn't seen the movie yet?). It is Kathy Morningside and her son, Frank. She is being fired for fixing past competitions and she vows to give them a "show they won't forget" as she has replaced the crown with another crown that has a bomb in it (don't ask me how that's possible). Gracie realizes this right before the crown is to be placed on Cheryl, who has won the competition. It's very loud and Cheryl can't hear Gracie tell her not to take the crown so instead she has to pounce on Cheryl and claw the crown away from her. This results in a hilarious scene where Cheryl slaps her bouquet of flowers at her. Somehow Gracie punches Miss Texas in the nose (and we later see her with a nose bandage!). It's just a chaotic scene and ends with Gracie flinging the crown into the air towards the large Statue of Liberty replica as Kathy pushes the button that controls the bomb and ends up blowing up part of the statue.

The next morning Gracie is awarded Miss Congeniality by the other women in the pageant for saving their lives.

There was a sequel to this called Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. While watching the ten minute look at it on the DVD, I had no recollection of it whatsoever even though I was pretty sure I saw it since I liked the first one so much. However, when I looked at my movie journal for 2005 (this is a journal where I keep track of all the movies I've seen in the theater since 1999), it was not in there! Then I checked my online journal where I've kept track of all the DVDs I've seen since 2003 (I know, I'm a major nerd!) and discovered I saw it on DVD in June 2005. I probably don't remember anything about it because it's been nearly ten years since I saw it and it was awful as it was an unnecessary sequel. Sorry, but I won't be reviewing it!

A Very Long Review

Um spoilers...and please ignore how crappy this looks (especially towards the end)! I have not mastered Blogspot yet; why can't it be simple to use like LiveJournal?

Batman

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger

Released: 6/23/89

Oscar nominations:

Best Art Direction (won)

Batman Forever

Director: Joel Schumacher

Cast: Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnell

Released: 6/16/95

Viewed in theaters: 6-7/?/95

Oscar nominations:

Best Cinematography (lost to Braveheart)

Best Sound (lost to Apollo 13)

Best Sound Effects (lost to Braveheart)

The Dark Knight

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman

Released: 7/18/08

Viewed in theaters: 7/20/08 (Um, my first viewing)

Oscar nominations:

Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger (won)

Best Sound Editing (won)

Best Art Direction (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Cinematography (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)

Best Editing (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)

Best Makeup (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Visual Effects (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Best Sound (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)

As you can see, I watched three different Batman films. Three different decades, three different directors, three different Batmans (sorry, Clooney, you didn't make the cut - there's no way you can make me watch that dreck!). Now I should preface this by saying that I'm not a Batman fan in the least; I know nothing when it comes to the world of Batman. In fact, for the longest time, I had no idea he was referred to as the Dark Knight. When I first heard of Nolan's title, I thought he was the one who came up with it (I'm being serious, people) and thought it was a catchy title and could totally see Batman being called the Dark Knight. Little did I know... Actually, they refer to him as the Dark Knight twice in Batman Forever, but I didn't remember that since it's been at least ten years since I've seen that movie. I also didn't know that Harvey Dent and Two Face were the same person. I remember Eckhart doing press before TDK was released and didn't understand why all the interviewers kept bringing up the character of Two Face and then I put two and two together. Aha! So in this review I'm going to compare and contrast the different elements of these three movies. I totally won't discriminate - oh, who am I kidding? I so have a clear favorite and you might be surprised by which one it is. Or not. Probably not.

Director: Burton v. Schumacher v. Nolan

All three movies are very different in style. Burton's has a certain athestic where you definitely feel like you're watching one of his films. There's a very gritty and almost nostalgic feel to '89. It kind of reminds me of an old mafia movie, especially with the way the men dress: trenchcoats, bowties, vests, fedoras. Watching it is almost the equivalent of watching a comic book come to life.

Then there's Schumacher who took over when Burton's movies were deemed too dark. (While I didn't find '89 scary, Batman Returns is pretty twisted and dark.) Forever is a flashy summer blockbuster. It's almost like watching a live-action cartoon. Most of the characters are caricatures with over the top performances and it's clear Schumacher chose the actors based on their attractiveness or popularity at the time. Watching this is like eating a bag filled with fun-sized candy bars: enjoyable at first, but the more you have, you start to get sick of it and want to stop and make it go away. It gets very tiring very fast.

Nolan's version is the most realistic and I mean this as a compliment when I say it's like I wasn't even watching a Batman movie (except when Bale showed up in costume). All the characters felt real, not as though they were taken from Saturday morning cartoons and there was no dialogue that sounded like it came from a balloon bubble. It's insane how well this movie did. Look at it this way: according to IMDb.com, it made more money in the first six days of its release than Batman Begins made in its ENTIRE run. As Brian Fellows would say, That's crazy! Oh yeah, you should know Begins made $205 million. Crazy! (By the way, TDK made over a billion dollars around the world.)

Gotham:

Obviously, the look and feel of Batman's hometown differs in all three films. There's a very 1930s New York vibe to it in '89. It doesn't look like a place I'd visit because of its dark and gritty appearance. I read a review that said the exterior shots of the city looks like "a diagram of an artificial city" and yeah, I have to agree. Of course, this film came out twenty years ago, so of course the special effects are going to be outdated and crappy. I'm sure twenty years from now we'll all have a good laugh over how big the cell phones are in TDK.

If Burton's Gotham looks like a place I wouldn't want to visit, then Schumacher's vision is a city I would avoid at all costs. Good Lord. His Gotham makes Las Vegas look like the small Iowa town where my mom grew up. There are neon lights everywhere and the GCI exterior just looks cheap. Forever's Gotham gave me a huge headache and can you imagine living there? Ugh! Nolan's Gotham is a real place where real people live. Of course, that's because it's Chicago, but they film it so it's not obviously Chicago and it works. No stupid and cheap made-up Gotham.

Batman/Bruce Wayne: Keaton v. Kilmer v. Bale:

In all three movies, I prefer Bruce Wayne to Batman because I cannot take a grown man in a bat costume seriously and all three actors are way better when playing Wayne. Keaton is charismatic as Wayne but it bugs me he didn't alter his voice as Batman and the delivery of the line about "dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight" to the Joker is just awful. Another thing that bugs me is the scene where he's sleeping hanging upside down. There are so many things wrong with that. First of all, Batman is human, not a bat, so WTF? And if he was a bat-human, wouldn't he be sleeping during the day? Duh! And second of all, Vicki Vale was there and saw him; wouldn't she be suspicious? It was just stupid.

Kilmer at least attempts to change his voice as Batman, but he gives off a very metrosexual vibe (perhaps it's the nipples on the Batsuit?) as Bruce Wayne as in he wouldn't want to break a nail. With Bale, you could totally see him taking some names and not afraid to pull a punch. Now his Batman voice is unintentionally funny but you have to give the guy credit for at least trying. Maybe he should've used his natural accent as Batman, though people would all be "why the f--- does Batman have a British accent?"

The Women: Basinger v. Kidman V. Gyllenhaal:

The love story in the Batman films always seem like filler to me and they're just thrown in there to fill a quota. As photographer Vicki Vale in '89, I thought Kim Basinger looked better with her hair pulled back and wearing glasses then when she was "glammed up" in those ugly pouffy dresses. She has so much hair that it's almost her supporting co-star.

As Chase Meridian, Kidman's role in Forever is pretty much only to seduce Batman and make booty calls and come off as desperate. See, she's in love with Batman, but Bruce is in love with her (she's his psychiatrist - and whose therapist looks like that anyway? Please!) and she doesn't know her patient is the Caped Crusader. Hijinks! So of course everyone knows Katie Holmes played Rachel Dawes, Bruce's childhood friend and love interest in Batman Begins, but due to "schedule conflicts" (please, Joey Potter, we weren't born yesterday!), Maggie Gyllenhaal stepped in for her in its sequel. So here are my thoughts about TomKatGate:

I like Maggie, but I found her to be the weakest link in TDK only because I didn't really care for the character of Rachel and found any scenes with her to be boring. While I was semi-spoiled about her death (when I was walking into the theater, I walked past these guys who said, "I can't believe they did that to Batman's girlfriend!" So yeah, it wasn't that hard to figure out something terrible was going to happen to her), and while I felt bad for Bruce, I was kinda glad she was gone from the movie at that point. Oh, well, at least a certain someone's sister played her so I can write hilarious captions like this:

"Hey, didn't I make out with your brother once?"

The Joker: Nicholson v. Ledger

It's the age-old question that's been going on for decades (okay, under two years): who was the better Joker? Who do I prefer? I was a teenager when 10 Things I Hate About You came out, so who do you think? Hey, I don't discriminate...against hot Australians. Okay, I may be a bit biased with my decision. I've always been a Ledger fan (and yes, that was an awful day for me). Plus I heard that Nicholson said that he would only be cast as the Joker if only Burton billed him first? Uh, shouldn't the guy playing the MAIN TITLE CHARACTER be billed first? Dude, get over yourself!

But actor preference aside, let's just focus on the acting aspect. Now I have no idea whose Joker is more like the original one (probably Jack's since his is more like a comic-book character), but if I watched a clip from '89 without knowing who played the Joker, I would have said Nicholson in a second. His schtick is he falls in a vat of chemicals and his skin turns white (not burned as you might think) and he has a permanent smile. He kills people by using a cute array of deadly gags like hand buzzers that electrocute and acid-squirting flower pens. He's a happy clown! He likes to twirl his cane and dance to Prince. (WTF, I know). Creepy, yes. Scary, um, not really. He plays it very campy. Now I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but I really don't see what the big deal about his Joker is and I remember when it was announced Heath was playing the new Joker and everybody was saying he would never do Jack justice and how he was going to suck and ruin the movie. I'm sorry, but if John Lithgow (who was actually considered for the part; I bet he wouldn't have demanded to be filled first!) had played the Joker the EXACT same way as Jack did, nobody would be saying anything about his performance. And now it's funny that people are saying Heath was the better Joker (except for the stubborn Burton fanboys). Now if I saw TDK and didn't know who played the Joker, I would have never guessed in a million years who it was. (Well, except for the three second he's not wearing make-up, then it's pretty obvious). I think the voice he used (which Entertainment Weekly described as "Al Franken mixed with a nerdish pedophile" - thank you, EW, I couldn't have said it better myself) was the big reason that made Ledger almost unrecognizable. In real life, Heath's voice was like buttah, but his Joker voice is so damn creepy! Now, undoubtedly, he is scarier than '89 Joker, but I would dare say that he is funnier too...and he didn't even have all those cutesy gags. I laughed when he overheard one of his goons describe him as "the crazy clown in the cheap purple suit" and tells him "Oh, by the way, my suit wasn't cheap. You should know; you paid for it." And by the fourth time he asked somebody if they wanted to know how he got his scars, all I could think of was '08 Joker at some dinner party, asking guests that same question and people thinking, Oh, God, not this schmuck again!" Also, did anyone else think he rigged those detonators on the boats so they would blow up their own boat instead of the other one?

Two Face: Jones v. Eckhart:

In Forever, Two Face is every bit the comic book caricature with his 

"normal" side and his 

"wild" side. Not only is his appearance and suit divided into

two, but also his headquarters and he has two, uh,

concubines, I guess: Sugar and Spice. We never see him as D.A.

Harvey Dent, although there is a quick explanation of how he

turned evil, but I didn't really understood what happened to him 

physically. 

In TDK, Eckhart doesn't actually become Two

Face until the third act; we see him as good guy Dent for the

first two. His Two Face makeup is definitely more gruesome

than Jones'. In

fact, the only thing I would say is not very realistic about TDK (well, besides, some of the Joker's 24-style terrorist activities; seriously, you would need to know some serious access codes to pull off what he does in that movie), is the fact that this man is walking around with half of his FACE burned off right in the open. Even if you lived to survive that, there's no way anybody could go out in the open like that and not get infected. But that said, it is still a Batman movie. I have to give Eckhart props, because even though Heath Ledger steals the movie, he definitely held his own. Harvey Dent is also featured (in a very small role) in '89 and played by Billy Dee Williams. Burton never got to use him as Two Face, but there was some serious foreshadowing when he reads a letter from Batman at the end of the film and states, "If the forces of evil should rise again, call me." Hmmmmm....he was talking about himself! And speaking of foreshadowing, there was some of that in TDK when Fox tells Bruce that his newest weapon of choice "should do well against cats". Whoever could he be referring to?

The Riddler and Robin:

To get a good sense of Jim Carrey as the Riddler in Forever, take Ace Ventura and the Grinch and smash them together, multiply that by ten and you have the Riddler. Carrey is ridiculously over the top and I have a feeling that Schumacher was encouraging him to be as obnoxious as possible. Unlike '89 and TDK where the villains are feared, I never got that sense with the Riddler or Two Face. They were used more for comic relief, and honestly, they weren't that funny. While I wanted more scenes with the Joker when I watched TDK, the Riddler couldn't get off my screen soon enough when I watched Forever. Now I've seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I know Carrey is a capable actor, but man, he is awful in this. There's even a scene where he says something to Batman, then asks, "What that over the top?" YES! Yes, it was! The real person we should feel sorry for, though, in

this movie (after all, Carrey laughed his way to the bank), is Chris O'Donnell. Not 

only did he have to play the useless Robin (who is Batman's answer to Scrappy-Doo), 

but he is the only one from this film who went on to be in the even worse Batman and Robin - which I've never seen and never want to judging from the few clips of it I have seen.

Okay, to wrap things up, because I'm sure nobody is reading

this anymore, I actually preferred

Michael Gough's Alfred in '89 and Forever to Michael Caine's in TDK because with the former

that's the only character I've ever seen him play, so he is

Alfred to me. With the latter, I've seen

Caine in other movies and at award shows, so I just saw

Michael Caine. (Though he did have

some funny lines). Commissioner Gordon is hardly used in

'89 and Forever, but is very much

used in a great storyline in TDK and Gary Oldman is right

behind Ledger and Echkart in terms

of performance.

Why so...Sirius?
Somehow my font keeps changing and and I have no idea why and this review is going to look really messed up and I'm about to go all Christian Bale on this stupid site, so I better wrap this up. Anyway, here is my final evaluation of the movies: Batman: See it if only for it's a classic and it did jump start the whole franchise (which is a good and bad thing). And if you don't compare Nicholson's Joker to Ledger's, he's not entirely that bad. I still think Lithgow would have make a better '89 Joker, though. Batman Forever: This movie sucks. Don't see it if you haven't already. The Dark Knight: This movie is awesome and if you haven't already seen it, you must live under a rock. There's a reason this movie made a boatload of money: because everyone and their grandma went to see it...multiple times!

Princes of Maine and Kings of New England

The Cider House Rules

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Michael Caine

Released: 10/21/99

Viewed in theaters: 3/25/00

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to American Beauty)

Best Director - Lasse Hallstrom (lost to Sam Mendes for American Beauty)

Best Supporting Actor - Michael Caine (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - John Irving (won)

Best Score - Rachel Portman (lost to John Corigliano for The Red Violin)

Best Editing (lost to The Matrix)

Best Art Direction (lost to Sleepy Hallow)

I don't love this movie, but I don't hate it either. I think it tried to hard to be Oscar-bait and is a bit over-rated. This was my third time seeing the movie, and honestly, I was kinda bored through the whole movie.

The Cider House Rules is a film that can get a little sappy even though it deals with themes such as abortion, incest, suicide, and adultery, but they kinda skim over all those or they just don't make them as big a deal as they should be. Caine plays the proprietor or an orphanage in Maine (the locations in the film are gorgeous) who also gives abortions if the mother asks for them and throughout the first hour of the movie you're bombarded with so many cute orphan children that it makes you want to do a Jolie-Pitt and adopt all of them. Look, there's Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle who needs a breathing machine! And poor Curly; that nice couple won't adopt him because he's a boy and they chose Mel Gibson's daughter from The Patriot instead. And there's Keiran Culkin being all emo!

Tobey Maguire, who was about 23 when he filmed the movie (which means he looks 15 in the movie) plays Homer who also grew up as an orphan and Dr. Larch wants him to take over for him when he retires, but Homer has other ideas and wants to see life outside of the orphanage. So he decides to work on an orchard. Actually, that's when the movie started getting a little slow for me...I guess I missed seeing all the cute orphan children.

Do I think Michael Caine should have won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar? Find out here! (Those of you who know me already know my answer!)