Want to readily and quickly identify a faggot online?
He's the one who says Cesar Romero is still the very best Joker interpretation out there.
Assholes.
People who are now pissing all over Jack Nicholson for HIS selfish take on the Joker aren't getting it. That movie, Batman, was directed by Tim Burton, who has always been fascinated with finding and focusing on the darker side of what seems to be children-oriented fare. Burton likes taking what should be bedtime stories and twisting them into ironic darkness.
In Burton's movies, the oddballs are the heroes and the normal people are the bad guys. Pee Wee's Big Adventure is Burton's first major movie and a classic example... So, yeah, this was just Paul Reubens taking his character to the big screen, but the way Burton built it, a film that walked, talked, smelled, and behaved like a kids movie... but I remember the grown-ups laughing the loudest.
but then there is Beetlejuice. A musing on the afterlife where the deadest character was alive (Winona Ryder's pre-goth goth-chick) and the liveliest character was dead (Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice)
So now we have Burton's Batman. Jack's Joker was perfect for the film. It took a few decades, but finally, the comic books got the Batman/Joker dynamic right. Two complete and total opposites doing the same type of work, just approaching it from completely different directions. The irony of the Joker is that he has always been more likeable, charismatic than the Batman. Batman does his work in the shadows at 3 a.m. while the Joker will cheerfully shoot someone at 3:00 pm in the middle of downtown with all the newscameras rolling... Batman is mean, and nasty, and never cracks a smile while the Joker comes across as carefree and jovial and you can hear him laugh and laugh and laugh.
The Joker is demented while the Batman is obsessed, but they both want to fuck with people. Basically, that's all they do... screw with people.
All of this was touched on in The Dark Knight. I'm not making any new revelations.
But getting back to Jack... this was 1989 and the movie studios wanted a Batman for kids and adults... and there always has been two types of Jokers in the Batman comics: The Clown Prince of Crime whose idea of fun was filling the city with laughing gas and the psychopathic terrorist who would fill the city with bombs. Nicholson gave us the Clown Prince of Crime. And Burton gave us a villian more fun and outgoing than the hero. He let Jack go off and be the Clown Prince of Crime.
Heath Ledger gave us the psychopath terrorist.
Two different takes on the same character almost 20 years apart by two directors with very different viewpoints.
No comparison, other than anyone who think that fruit Cesar Romero did the best Joker needs to die... TODAY!!
About this Heath Ledger guy... what a loser.
Here's this guy, barely handsome enough to suck a few producers off and snag a debut role in Mel Gibson's The Patriot... or the Shakespeare "Taming of the Shrew" re-interpretation Ten Things I Hate About You... whichever came first. He became one of those pretty boy actors and later was given the lead in some silly period piece called The Four Feathers... plus a few more stupid movies where he did stupid things and no one paid to see them.
So he was about to call it quits and go back to Australia when Ang Lee decided he looked like a good gay cowboy and got him in Brokeback Mountain... which resurrected his career and made Chris Nolan give him the Joker lead. Two high profile roles back to back.
And the irony is... in Brokeback Mountain he basically played a guy who kept his emotions so bottled that he looked like he was about to explode... and with the Joker he looked like he did explode and was now all jittery with all these emotions that he can't control anymore.
Heath Ledger was quite good at playing different types of anti-social people.
But anyway, his career FINALLY exploded in its own right, he was in line to be getting the types of scripts Leo DiCaprio gets... and he had to go and overdose it away. Except this guy ain't no James Dean-like figure. This was just a waste of talent and one dumb asshole.
And for those wondering how they can keep doing Batman movies without bringing the Joker back... well, this franchise has one, maybe two more movies left before the director gets bored... or Bale wants more money... or they just run out of stories they want to tell with featured "acting assignments" for its regular cast (Mike Cane and Morgan Freeman are smart enough to take the money, do a few days of shooting, and then run to Bermuda to blow all the millions they got just for showing up... they know they'll have plenty of movie roles available to get some kick-ass acting in) and the franchise will go quiet for ten years or so... then they'll bring in a new cast and a new vision and the nmext Joker will be just as cool as Jack and Ledger... there's plenty of Batman stories to be told without the Joker.
besides, its never a could thing to give a director too much power over these franchises... Tim Burton waaaay over-indulged his fetishes by making the Penguin in Batman Returns sympathatic (and ran Michael Keaton right off the franchise in the process). Joel Schumacher replaced Burton, directed two more Batmans off the original franchise, and decided to turn the whole thing into the Wizard of Oz for flaming homosexuals.
And Christopher Reeve's Superman decided to rid the world of nukes.
And George Lucas couldn't leave well enough alone... nor was he humble enough to hire a director who could do something with those scripts.
That all being said, The Dark Knight was magnificent, well worth the money, Ledger was amazing, and you needed two and a half hours to give all those actors a suitable amount of screentime.
And D.C. effectively took all the heat Marvel had with Iron Man away... what does Marvel have coming? Ant-Man? Captain America?? Spider-Man 4? Bah!!
Now the question is will they try to salvage that Superman Returns disaster with a kick-ass second round? I hope so. BRING BACK ZOD!!!
Oh, and Two Face might not be dead... there's a character that can handle being the sole bad guy.
FINALLY, Sooper-Hero comic movies are in for a MAJOR kick in the face in March... when one of THE most defining books in comics history finally gets a movie treatment.
In the middle of the 80's, Alan Moore wrote a long-form graphic novel that is as close to pure literature as I've ever read... and it deconstructed the super-hero genre in a way that was never done before and seldom done well since. It was called The Watchmen and... well... here's the trailer:
If this is done right (and the novel writer, Alan Moore, isn't confident about it)... it will be THE best comic book movie ever... period.
Although... heh... they'll need a three hour movie to do it right. I think HBO should've signed it out for a 7 part mini-series or something.
ANYWAY, let's catch up on a few comments for this month.
1) July 8, 2008 4:44 AM... Anonymous said... Hiya CG. I'm back. I found you again. You know where to find me. A x
A? x?
AMANDA!!!! OH THANK GOD!! I MISSED YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!
Errmmm.... nice try, cumstain... funny, tho'. But Amanda would never reach out like this. And she would never reach out, period. That ship has sailed.
2) July 8, 2008 12:06 PM... Anonymous said... Treadmill or eliptical?
Both. Eliptical because its easy on the knees and you can get some arm strength in while easing pressure on the knees, then the treadmill at sprinting/walking/running intervals for about 15 minutes. Sweet little circuit training.
I never found the appeal to stationary bike riding.
3) July 10, 2008 10:31 AM... Anonymous said... Queen Mum? I fucked her.
Hey, Hyatte -- I still feel morally obligated to bug ya about sharing your uplifting words of wisdom on an MMA website. (Yeah, I know -- the fact that you haven't responded to the earlier inquiries probably signals your lack of interest... but not unlike the clumsy too-soon grab for the breast on a first date, I gotta push forward until I'm kicked in the balls & maced in the eyes.)
You don't need to be a hardcore MMA fan. Basically, we just want Hyatte to be f'n Hyatte. And within the rapidly-growing MMA universe, you'll have an ENTIRE NEW GENERATION of cyber-blowhards to torment, educate & titilate. And maybe -- just maybe -- a change in scenery might get your juices (creative and otherwise) flowing again...
BTW, our last MMA show in June drew over 10.7K. So we ain't UFC, but we're definitely moving in the right direction.
Want me to drop it, or should I reach for your second breast?
First of all, I appreciate the tenacity here. You've been on me about this for a while... I haven't answered because I thought it over.
But, the problem is a few things: A: I ain't into MMA other than I like Kimbo Slice and I can pick Tito Ortiz and a few other guys out of a line-up. I'm not a guy to be writing a column on a sport that I know next to nothing about... and I don't have the time to learn.
I also don't have the desire to buy those $50 PPVs which are crucial for me if I was to do this properly.
And... well, you seem to be asking me to do a Mop-Up like column. That's not going to happen, ever. I can't do the Mop-Ups anymore... believe me, I tried. It doesn't matter what the theme is or who I am talking to, that gimmick has dried up for me.
Plus, the Mop-Up... or a Mop-Up type of column... humor oriented where I bust on what I see... that works in Pro Wrestling because of the absolute STUPIDITY of pro wrestling. This is jacked up boys banging against one another in simulated fights and in between, you had really poor writers creating really bad storylines with really terrible non-actors reading their lines really, really awkwardly. What I did was enter a world where people took this business so seriously and said, "Hey, isn't this retarded??" and people said, "Shit... he's right!"
MMA isn't retarded. The storylines aren't silly. And it doesn't lend itself to comedy writings. I wouldn't last and I'd come off as a goofy know-it-all.
If I tried to bust balls on MMA, I'd come across like Scooter Keith whenever he tries to be funny while "ranting" about wrestling. At that point I would have no choice but to take my computer and throw it in the bathtub with me in it.
Dude... I just don't have the motivation or the moxie, OR the fresh ideas to do a column on MMA.
So no thank you, but thanks for the offer.
4) July 21, 2008 8:36 AM... Anonymous said... The "Money In The Bank" gimmick was elevated? What? Winners have always taken the belt the way C.M. did, it's nothing new. What is with Hyatte and this Punk obsession? He's been on the guy's ass since BEFORE he came into the WWE. The IWC marks are high on the guy? So what, they're high on a lot of people. I mean I'm not defending Punk here, I don't give a shit, it's just kinda weird that Hyatte is on the guy's ass. I think his reaction to the Ledger incident coupled with Punk's "clean" image adds up to something we don't know about.
Well, there's a lot about me that you people don't know about.
Obsession... HA!! I don't obsess about anything or anyone... and there are more then a few people reading this who can attest to the fact that I can go a LOOOOONG time without contacting them... much to their shock.
A couple of months ago, someone here accused me of obsessing over that little fairy Alex Lucard... (and take a guess which Joker he thinks was the end-all/be-all)
I'm not obsessed with Punk, I don't care about Punk... I'm "down" on the guy because I'm not impressed and never was. I like Joe. Samoa Joe is awesome. Punk ain't.
I was down on him in my column because all the marks loved him. I like pissing on the marks parade. I like all this Ring of Honor groupies who will travel 200 miles to see a show, but will whine like a broke-ass bitch about the WWE PPV prices (the Torch's Sean Radican does this constantly).
I'm being the clear-head in this Punk mania at the moment. I swear to Christ I read on a message board somewhere, "THANK GOD PUNK WON THE BELT, FINALLY THE WWE IS ON THE RIGHT PATH!!" he was being serious too.
Punk is not going to last the summer as champ. He can't. He's not getting the long-term champ push like Cena got. They aren't backing him. Are YOU getting the sense that the WWE is saying, "Meet Our New Torch Bearer!!" with the guy? He's not being pushed, marketed, or built around. He's just... he's just part of the big ol' re-do that they needed when the ratings started dropping at alarming rates and million dollar give-aways weren't helping. He is a kick in the pants to make people look.
He won't last as champ. He's a lame duck placeholder.
Sorry, but the only way Punk will start getting groomed for the long haul is if these marks who will blow all that gas money on traveling to ROH shows and buy their DVDs will cough up for WWE PPVs and buy WWE advertisers wares and fill up the building just for him and buy his merchandise and blow the roof off the place whenever he walks out and screams, "ITS CLOBBERIN' TIME" (the irony being... he's usually the one who ends up getting clobbered),
Plus his legs look like they are filled with Yorkshire pudding... and I've used this joke before.
Plus he can take a god damned shower for once BEFORE stepping out.
And Straight Edge my ass... he's been there long enough... he's taking pain pills.
Nothing against the guy... but you can't honestly believe in your heart that Punk is being groomed for a long, comfortable stretch as a champion. He's the WWE's new Rob Van Dam. Flashy, well liked, always pushed solidly, but will never be on top for the long haul.
5) July 18, 2008 12:08 AM... Anonymous said... NPP is calling you!www.Nopantsprovided.com/forums. Teach 'em a lesson!
Ooo, get into another AWESOME net feud on a message board?????
I taught them a lesson once already... where I was single handidly responsible for their most famous thread ever... something called, "Ever wanted to prank Blade and or Hyatte?" They never saw so much traffic before or since.
So, naturally, they lost the whole thread.
They got nothing over there I'm interested in.
Next time... PORN... and some other things...
