stole it from me it's weird to talk about a cultural thing while the cultural thing is still evolving I've been talking about Batman for a while now in many ways Mr Batman is perfect litmus test for the moment the world is basting in he's getting up there broseph is 84 years old a lot can happen while the world is currently moving forward around him Batman comes from a period of time where World War II was just heating up he comes from literally a different world than the one he exists in now I
want to do something different for this episode for this episode I want to talk about Batman's villains the reasons you went to the movie in the first place the Rogues Gallery I think 2022's the Batman does an outstanding job of creating a complex world where the existence of Batman is required but he hasn't really quite figured stuff out yet this new Batman brilliantly helmed by Matt Reeves is building a world world around our chioptera themed friend a world of Filth and crime and unsavable mes
s that is too far gone to heal a Batman with no winning scenario yeah that's right baby we're venturing back back to the world of Newark no more a world shaded in Grays there are no absolutes everyone is miserable hot emo Noir Batman I thought you'd never ask for free [Music] [Music] what makes a good villain that's a mostly rhetorical question but I think it's a wise one to consider when thinking about how to paint the flawed and grisly world of Gotham City in the Cinematic landscape and maybe
Kana Batman is the least important piece of the Batman puzzle because he's mostly just a wild card reacting emphatically at uh people make it sound like he had to come no no have a seat Bruce let us begin with the Riddler in this movie Born an orphan of Gotham City who believed his life might be turning around he watched Thomas Wayne give his famous speech about renewal in Gotham a fun to help the people who aren't up on their feet at the moment a grand promise with a tragic conclusion Thomas an
d Martha Wayne were both killed a week later and that renewal fund became a money laundering device for corrupt politicians cops and Carmine Falcon the none for Gretchen Wieners five this is Noir there is no good guy though there is kind of objectively a terrorist serial killer uh bad guy there is definitely a bad guy in this movie yeah Edward gnashed in not yet going by the moniker your dad knows e Enigma it's you bud and this Central Point is where this movie does something insanely clever Edw
ard is so delusional and obsessed David Fincher villene of a dude that he thinks Batman is going to team up with him the day the great Thomas Wayne announced he was running for mayor made all those promises well a week later he was dead and everybody just forgot about us but we got the rest of them didn't we allow me to illustrate this from a slightly different perspective Edward a terror thinks Batman will be his new best friend because he thinks Batman is just like him exhibit a the corruption
that ruined his life the siphoning of funds from his literal childhood protection system for the purposes of wildly lucrative money laundering for the mob uh well he's pretty upset about that rightfully so okay so get ready for a bunch of was the Riddler right videos uh I'm sorry about this ahead of time they're definitely coming The Riddler killed the mayor because the mayor caused him harm he saw Batman and went I'm gonna do what you do it's actually the thing that illustrates to Batman that
he doesn't have to be a prisoner to specifically and only violence kinda like Batman needs the villains in his life which has been true at the box office for like 35 years now so take of that which you will Edward in this movie is just Batman endlessly tormented by his traumatic childhood with uncontainable grief who also you know happens to be a total sociopath increase the Dave Adventure noise exhibit B it is no secret to anyone that Lieutenant Jim Gordon seems to only trust the Vigilante who
goes around screaming Vengeance at people and then beating the absolute out of them so anyway Riddler takes out Jim's boss making Jim Gordon open the new commissioner an absolute total win for Batman and earnestly fighting the widely documented uh corruption in the Gotham police force is kind of the whole thing here's a hot take a prerequisite for Batman to exist is a corrupt and genuinely untrustworthy police force paired against there being no upward Mobility for any citizen on the streets dow
n below Exhibit C oh Corson oh Carlson you gotta learn to handle your my man my guy my soon-to-be saw victim see Edward is saw coded anyway the corrupt soon to be X district attorney knows some pretty huge secrets about the inner workings of corruption within this city like literally who all the players on all sides are and the one name he refuses to give up and results in his immediate death is Carmine Falcone brings us to exhibit D Edward then shoots Carmine Falcone Dead He's solving puzzles f
aster than anyone else keep up I thought y'all were detectives exhibit e Riddler tries to kill Bruce Wayne because he certainly doesn't know that he is Batman but what he does know is that this Bruce kid went around calling himself an orphan in but he didn't live at the slowly deteriorating orphanage in town like our buddy Edward who suffered that specific fate Bruce is a lingering symbol through no fault of his own of everything wrong in Edward's life I thought this was such a thoughtful take o
n the character and hello welcome to criticism corner where I point out a thing that could never be true in the first place but it will punctuate my point here Riddler is teamed up with Batman this whole movie advancing the plot in front of our very eyes he makes Batman and Gordon the heroes of the story in the end huh Bruce you formed some super unhealthy codependent relationships My Guy where toxicity is like beneficial for you it's weird Edward does everything in this film before Batman can d
o it removing roadblocks for Bruce Mr riddlesticks goes so far at the end shows Bruce that he himself is more than a terrifying shape in the night that punches people and throws them off balconies The Riddler makes him Believe In Hope and change Edward clears out the obstacles before bats can even discover what they are which brings us to Catwoman meow Hello thank you so much for all the kind words and uh support on the last video It's been it's been a year yeah but we're still working hard to k
eep going and we're back with another uh banger Banger slash update our next video is out on nebula right now and it's about Space Jam 2 and Warner Brothers I watched that movie over 10 times [Music] uh Space Jam 2 is symptomatic of a lot of problems in Hollywood right now at least to me so I wanted to talk about that and if you want to see a spicy me go on over two you can head on over to go.nebula.tv film joy for more information on nebula yes and we actually had to pretty heavily edit this ep
isode yeah the Batman video yeah uh it took seven passes yeah to get through the copyright system uh and be able to monetize this video it took a second but the original version of it is up on nebula and it's always ad free and it was up a month ago and if you want to support the channel in a more direct way you can go over to patreon.com movies of Mikey and sign up in one of our three tiers yeah they get you access to cool things like Discord monthly editing streams and your name in the movies
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crawling across the fence looking for a free meal the first time I saw her I did a goofy squee face when she walked into the room I was getting in trouble and maybe it was Selena that was the one leading me into it chasing a killer through the rain-soaked streets of Crime Alley nothing makes sense there's three completely different takes on Batman villains in this movie and they all work together astonishingly well a triangle of perfection a romantic tragedy should we we cannot let's talk about
Catwoman specifically the Catwoman from this movie Selena Kyle absent a kidnapped roommate got a job at a place run by let's just say a hungry On The Rise mob guy who may know a thing or two about a thing or two she made a Tactical Defensive decision in a cesspool she's a cat burglar abandoned by her own father struggling to survive and keep those around her alive that murderous absentee father well Carmine Falcone what a Twist here's the skinny this weird bat puncher guy will continually stop h
er for doing it the wrong way while simultaneously never explaining or really even understanding what the right way even is I'm gonna find him and I'm gonna make him pay you're gonna help me help you yeah I thought you were Vengeance your friend got involved with the wrong people she didn't know any better maybe you should have explained it to her what the hell is that supposed to mean I appreciate that Bruce is just a violent brawler who thinks all problems are solved by violence he bottles up
inside of himself like Rocket Fuel and I equally appreciate that Selena a person not protected by hilariously infinite wealth takes Justice into her own hands in strikingly the same way she straight up wants to continue to look for her roommate and Batman over here screaming in her ear about some where are you going she knows Annika no stay on the D.A I told you I'm looking for my friend these two people really like each other they have infinite chemistry but they are absolutely doomed and neith
er one of them really knows what they want which is also kind of why they like each other this movie feels huge it is photographed extremely grandly when it needs to remind you every character in the movie that Sunshine is a thing that exists soak it in Bud a doomed romance at the end of the world two people that in the film going their separate ways [Music] this is maybe the only time in my life a Batman romance felt like a big summer blockbuster kind of Romance I'm so sorry Rachel that this he
aving Maelstrom of grief can only find normalcy and solace in this other shattered person that's poetic only to fall short in the end because unstable people don't make good partners anyway [Music] I like it when Batman movies are this big universe of interacting people all jockeying imperfectly for any position in a sinking ship that's when it's magic Bruce is everything wrong for Selena he's a dude that just made himself a cop this romance has always been an interesting one in literature becau
se it's always been doomed there is no winning scenario for Bruce and Selena they are who they are a crook and a cop the doomed romanced set against a mob film oh he's speaking of mob films the best character in this movie is the Penguin thank you for coming to my film essay good night okay let me be more direct I guess uh my apologies I'm gonna catch you up on the story of how the studio system is affecting storytelling of artists in real time let's get real with it during covid currently on fi
re Warner Brothers Executives previewed this movie before it comes out and the Batman Cinematic Universe is born right there full stop it was a good movie but I think a good movie means a good Universe exploitation in the Hollywood speak at the moment while this is going on Matt Reeves reveals plans for cinematically what he wants to do with the penguin moving forward and Zip Zap Zooey they made a penguin TV show I'm pretty sure from the idea Matt gave them about what he wanted to do in the sequ
el it's weird so Color Me slightly skeptical of the show though I think it looks pretty friggin rad laughs I'm sure the penguin show will be the gangster mob we've been lamenting being gone from this world since The Sopranos went off the air I bring all of this up to say what I originally came here to say about the penguin in this movie in the first place what a Charming version of the penguin who actually feels like a real person Oswald as cobblepot in this particular Cinematic Universe how you
doing I'm us as he calls himself as when the penguin is a derogative term about his scars and weight Colin Farrell does absolutely masterful work here I've seen actors disappear in roles before but the performance in tandem with an unbelievable makeup job come on comes a performance from the backup to the backup to the backup to the backup villain of this movie like talk about doing a lot with nothing the penguin was a character introduced in the comics in 1941 based on a Cool cigarettes mascot
used in advertising I think it's interesting in adaptations how you can take old characters and use them in new ways to say new things penguin has traditionally been a dude who is doing everything he can to be part of high society to be proper he's mean but he's endearing he's cruel but he has a code he's powerful but it's an unquenchable thirst for further power he has been wronged so many times over that he will be doing the wronging from here on out I appreciate that the pulsing lifeblood of
this film is that of a mob movie The up-and-comer who's hungry for more it's Proto penguin the man who took over the under grounds we can take over High societies so to speak he's already got pretty much the entirety of the Gotham legal system doing drugs in his bar you know to take the edge off so he's he's he's pretty much already there Oz really only has one more guy to take care of whoa in an empty suit spray paint your ass [Applause] oh well I guess that's done then penguin is the top bras
s of the underworld now Batman and Gordon don't even arrest him when they pull that Armageddon on the highway they just kidnap him and leave him tied up in a murder garage penguin is an extremely accommodating host for bat friend when he rolls up in the bar less so Batman being a good guest and then toward the end of the film The Penguin we all know and love triumphantly emerges newly made the mob boss with the coolest club and Gotham purple suits all day he walked away from a number of tussles
with the bat which really only bolsters his street cred the villains in Batman's life more than any other superhero on Earth make the person behind the cow the Batman that they are Penguin shows him the actual shape of things in the city that may be punching the stuffing out of every low-level teenage Street game in this city isn't actually cleaning up the streets in any meaningful way the D.A is under penguin's arm a fact that the Riddler takes care of not Bruce perhaps Batman cannot fix himsel
f perhaps there is something in the way to him ever being a functioning member of society we've talked about the brilliant use of all the Legacy Batman villains in this movie so I think now we must turn our telescope to the man of the hour foreign [Music] there was always something in the way and a movable obstruction a stubborn Obstacle of seemingly no one can clear is a carmine Falcone in the way bro OCH spoilers is it codifying your concepts of Justice in a damned land is it Batman in his own
dang way yes but also who's to say it's a damned land some in people on the ground need someone there's a zodiac convention in town and somebody forgot to turn the water off there's always something in the way a song that exemplifies the feeling of hopelessness that sure seems to permeate this film a light Motif how quaint [Music] Nirvana history lesson let's go when the band recorded something in the way for the album never mind I'm sure you've heard of it they had to record Kurt first which w
as just guitar and vocals something in the way yeah the rest of the band actually found it's quite difficult to play their parts during their separate recording sessions because the tuning of Kurt's guitar is just you know whatever also keeping corporeal time was a thing that wasn't terribly important to Kurt's recording I'm saying it's to the credit of Dave Grohl and Chris novuselik that they play out of time and Out Of Tune in precisely the same way that Kurt did the song existing is a miracle
it is imperfect by Design the song is one of a lonely existence not really a literal exploration of any specific biographical detail it is a song about living under a bridge and eating fish because they don't have feelings [Music] but the author do have feelings so I wrote this haunting plea to the uncaring void the Batman is a film composed of things that are in the way my boy you are in your own way and also Riddler kills some of the biggest obstacles in your way but let's not focus on the be
nefiting of state-sponsored violence uh hello [Music] relevant era poetic context to punctuate a vision of Gotham City crippled by the problems of modern society a reflection of us sanitized for Mass consumption of course but Noir has always found a way to say things that maybe slip past the code or the sensors so to speak this is nakedly a film drenched in film Noir where a bunch of people who are objectively breaking the law kind of together you know help each other out [Applause] Batman leepl
e out of the literal Darkness or perhaps we fancy a more literal interpretation the cinematographer on this film the mind that photographed to both Dune and Rogue one Greek Frazier for a moment think about how this film was shot looking through textured surfaces painting an unrelenting and seemingly endless Reign we catch mere glimpses of things never a full picture interview into the world is often obscured in some way we ate an image of a hopeless Gotham City where Batman in turn kind of needs
the villains in his life hey the water's murky but also he works with lieutenant Jim Gordon commissioner Pete Savage maybe spoke up a little too much hey hey coincidences happen of course my condolences to the bereaved congratulations on the promotion though haha bada bing gangster a metaphor for the age we live in I can get behind that there is something in the way that's life in a dystopia baby Gotham is haunted by the ghosts of things it cannot change and prisoner to the whims of tyrants it
cannot afford here's an interesting way to look at it Batman uses all kinds of people in this movie cops or criminals people you could possibly be dating if you weren't entirely incapable of compromising self-reflection we'll get there really makes no difference to this volatile Powder Keg this dude who voluntarily wants to be the police of the police in the most corrupt city in the world using mic to make right shh don't think about it at the end of the day he's just trying to help people and h
e spends this first movie finding a better way to do that which means kind of splitting the difference a real true neutral on the alignment chart he follows the law when it benefits him maybe it's not always the train ride to punchtown but on the flip side I've never seen Batman really be like a first responder type hero in a movie I thought that was cool like actually having Batman Walk Away in a movie being like the answer isn't always violence is like interesting protecting people doesn't alw
ays mean hurting someone almost like this movie had to Rack its brain a little bit to provide a big impactful finale in a movie that never had a giant army for Batman to fight well here's one here you go it is our modern era Riddler's a twitch streamer okay wait actually let's if we're being honest Riddler is a streamer on Kik but anyway he also he took out literally every single major issue even tangentially in Batman's way in this movie Paul Dano deserves praise for the unhinged meltdown that
Riddler goes through and he realizes his extremely fruitful parasocial relationship with Batman isn't shared he takes out both the corrupt Police Commissioner installing the famously not corrupt one but he also takes out the head of crime in the city of Gotham Batman cut a wire to a big TV I can't say their contributions were the same on this one and through all of time Batman has maintained a co-dependent relationship with both the law and the people breaking it which does include him that's a
pretty subtle take on a historically pretty unhinged crime boxer or allow me to put it in another way the Batman is a Noir film about finding yourself [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]
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