RIP Adam West
 

Ugh :(

Took long enough for that shark to get him

/me goes to his corner

Bat signal launched in Charleston after death of Adam West

Speaking of the bat-logo/sign/signal, I think the version on the Nolan films was excellent. The one on Batman vs Superman, on the other hand, was FAT ASS. :mad:

Page 6 has a huge write up today - apparently he was really into sex...with adult women!

It was the free love 60's and women just threw themselves at West. He and the Riddler got kicked out of an orgy.

Hmmm, I thought TINY was gonna reply to this post... :D

Am I TINY? I don't get it.

But I agree about the logos.

Adam West was my batman for the longest. I loved how he was a true moral compass. superheros are supposed to be that. the morally grey superhero shit is a slippery slope in storytelling, leading to the acceptance of murderers and sociopaths as heroes. They are NOT heroes. Batman was a hero because he had a strict moral code. he would never ever kill, because that would make him the same as the murderer that orphaned him. superman would always save lives, because he knew he had the power to do so, and no one else did. Spiderman learned this becaus through his inaction he allowed his uncle to be killed.

the Punisher was an anti-hero, not meant to be emulated, but pitied.

I hate how the Frank Miller Batman (a what-if? response to the question of what happens when Batman gets old and his efforts appear to not achieve the ends he wanted) is used to excuse the sociopath angle on the new batman films. In Dark Knight returns He becomes more of a violent vigilante, but he still did not kill, not even the Joker, who kills himself by twisting his own broken back.

Thanks for telling me a bunch of stuff about Batman that I didn't know. :rolleyes:

Just kidding. I know all this stuff and so much more.

And Adam West did a great job as Batman for that era. The '60s were corny as fuck for everyone, and Batman got down and corny too. People will tell you "corny, campy" Batman "isn't Batman," but ... he kinda was, at least for a while.

Frank Miller's Batman (barring, possibly, the fantastic Year One) should not be used as fodder for Bat-daptations, because the Mad Max-type dystopian Batman represents the actual long-term character even less than the campy '60s guy. Darker is probably better when you're going for Batman, but that doesn't mean it needs to be more violent... the villains are violent. Batman is violent, but he certainly doesn't shoot the fuck out of people.

Adam West was my man when I was a kid. I didn't realize how stupid that show was until much much later. But it meant something to be for a long ass time.

What do you think about the one here? From Batman Returns, I'd say... if I had to guess.

I like it, but I don't really think the hard black against bright yellow shield was a great look for Batman. It looked good enough in Burton's movies, but RARELY has any approximation of t been attempted in the comics, because it just does not look good in ink.

The way I see it, you can make Batman all black half the time by using silhouettes. The other half of the time, though, make him gray with black or blue boots, or some kind of full-body matte black with no patches of yellow to totally fuck up his stealth look.

So how come you're such a big fan of the Watchmen comics?

Well, in Rob's defense, the Watchmen really aren't superheroes, and that's part of the point of the story. They are imperfect, even when capable of literally anything, and they should not be held to the same moral standards as the ideals depicted by Superman and Batman and so on.

But that said, yeah... it's funny that he's pro-Watchmen but anti-morally gray stuff.

Still, I think Watchmen is kind of a parable about what theoretical problems and conflicts "superheroism" would encounter if superheroes were real, and were easily manipulated and moved by their instincts like all humans, instead of being unrealistically idealistic. So, I think one can be into that without being into the darker versions of superheroes.

But whatever... EXPLAIN, ROB! :D

At the time, the Tim Burton films were considered a yuge improvement over the '60s stupidity, and they were. "Now this is a bat I can dig", said the casual fans. But when the Nolan films came along, it was Burton's work which was considered camp. "All right, NOW we're cooking with gas", said the comic book fans. But after Batman vs Superman and that bloody suit that DOES NOT FIT, I find trouble believing they're "taking it to the next level" — it's a step back, actually.


I'm a major fan of black-on-black ER WAIT THAT CAME OUT WRONG I'm still talking about visual design, not porn. White Light/White Heat, the black vinyl edition of Blackstar, that's where it's at!

Back to BvS, the other major fuckup there is Superman's whole kamikaze sequence. How in all that is F could Kal-El fly holding a Kryptonite-pointed spear? And why didn't he pass it to Gal Gadot so she could stab Doomsday in the dick?

Or Batman. Like... literally there was no reason for him to be the one to do it. None. The reason given, "I have to," doesn't pass muster. Bullshit.

Batman was the villain of that movie. And yes, it was a MAJOR step backward from the Nolan films.

However, the Nolan films have had such a tremendous impact on film culture that they can stand on their own, and D.C.'s "Extended Universe" can crumble and fall into hell without tarnishing the legacy of those theee movies.

Frankly, I don't think Batman or the Joker or ANYONE in the Batverse shoukd even be attempted until the Dark Knight Trilogy is given at LEAST 10 years to settle.

I love Watchmen. Everything Watchmen. Just saying.

As much as I defended BvS, especially extended cut, the one scene that bothers me was Bats w guns. Even if a nightmare it turned me off.

Having just watched Superman Doomsday that was a way better Doomsday than BvS.

because Watchmen was specifically about WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN? It was not didactic morality (superman good, darkseid bad!) or simple motivations (Wayne parents murdered, son becomes a bat-man to fight crime!). It was an exploration of why some types may get into vigilanteism, and why they do, and what happens when they do. it actually serves as an example of what happens now with cops. some are do-gooders, some want to help, some it is just a job, others want to not lose that military rigid schedule, others just WANT TO KILL SOMEONE LEGALLY!!!!

watchmen explore all this shit, society's reaction to it, the way comics became obsessed with pirates because superheroes were actually around and real... that shit is as far removed from the marvel DC sup[erhero trope shit as possible and still be in the same "world."

I love morally grey stuff when it explores the TRUTH Lots of curfrent morally grey stuff is there purely for titillation and to program the masses to accept slightly evil people as President. it worked. people voted for Trump because they want Tony Soprano to run shit. hahahahha

If anything I see Trump's rise as representing a populist backlash to the very moral greyness you talk about: offering black and white solutions to what his political opponents occupying the centre-ground would probably consider inherently grey problems (and which therefore require inherently grey solutions). If Trump is the equivalent of any comic character it's probably Judge Dredd, for whom any kind of moral uncertainty/greyness is an absolute anathema. Equally, rather than the doubt-ridden Tony Soprano, I suspect most Trump supporters were looking for the cold black v white morality of someone like Dirty Harry.

Awww man don't do the Judge like that!

Judge Dredd is and always has been a satire. I think the character gets a bad wrap because people think he's RoboCop/Dirty Harry, and while he kind of is, it's missing the point of the series as a whole to take the "I am the law!" stuff at face value.

Judge Dredd is like 60-79% political satire at all times.

I mean, it's a British comic about American authoritarianism, written by folks who clearly think the entire system they're writing about it absurd. Judge Dredd himself is never a glowing example of humanity, but he's also not a mindless follower. He battles the system. He questions it. Especially as time goes on and he gets older (kinda cool that he gets older... he's gotta be 65 by now, because the comics take place in real time).

Anyhoo, if Trump has a comic book analogue, it's Lex Luthor. Trump is Luther without the genius IQ. Read some Superman... witness Lex running for and eventually winning the presidency despite being a known sceezbag by the entire world. His name is on everything, he's a bully and a child, he's rich as fuck, and arrogant to no end.

Trump = Luthor... not Joseph Dredd

Don't you mean "run 'tings?" :D

Batman also had guns in the Batmobile scene. Oh, and in the Batplane scene. Just, like, shit tons of guns.

I didn't really have a problem with it because Michael Keaton had a similar setup in Burton's Batman movies, so it seemed stupid to cry foul. But the more I think about it, the less I like it. That Batman (from BvS) just isn't my Batman. One thing among many that Nolan did right was to make Batman a fists-and-technology guy. EMPs, nets, cables, well-structured plans, a little bit of Big Brother spying on the world when it was necessary, but no killing.

That's my Batman.

hahahah. trump no rock no styles, he strictly roots.

the most amoral people are ussually the ones shouting most lopudly about family values and morality. it is their costume. It allows them to be as evil and base as possible without tipping anyone off, because most the average person is fairly dumb, and half the population is EVEN DUMBER THAN THAT!

Cosby had a great costume, so did Catholic Priests, rapist and murderer police....

Yes, if anything 100%, but there's an interesting story there. I remember reading an interview with someone at 2000AD talking about the reasons why they created him, which were exactly as you describe. What they soon discovered, though, going to conventions and reading fan-mail, was that fans overwhelmingly took him straight, and loved him for it. The more fascist the writers made him in an attempt to try and stop the hero-worship, the more popular he became, to the extent they even toyed with dropping him altogether.

Heath Ledger's Joker was so off the fucking charts I simply cannot even BEGIN TO BEGIN to imagine how anybody could measure up to his performance. (And talk about range: from Ennis Del Mar to The Joker — WHO has that kind of scope nowadays?).

Jack Nicholson, by the by, was a PATHETIC Joker, probably the worst performance of his career (well, he did do that horseshit with Adam Sandler...), and my take on why is that he simply didn't understand the character — he read the script, which, retrospectively, was pretty goddamn weak; he talked to Burton, who obviously wouldn't tell Jack fuckin' Nicholson what to do; and maybe one of his minions slip him a Batman comic book of the shitty kind.

I also always thought nicholson's Joker was half-assed.

Ledger's Joker was good, but the Joker is supposed to be inscrutable, and the Batman is never ever aware of his motivations or what makes him tick, which is why he is such an irrational foe...Ledger's joker was portrayed awesome. Too bad Christian Bale has no real menace in his portrayal of batman, and I HATE HIS FUCKING SHIT VOICE GROWL especially since I never thought Batman had a lisp.

Adam West saved the batman comics. they were tanking in sales and importance until the TV show.

That late 50's early 60's silver age era stuff really isn't very good!

Must spread reputation around before giving it to The Soup Nazi again.

GODDAMN RIGHT!

Well, at least you recognize the brilliance of Ledger.

It's no contest. No Fucking contest. Nicholson might even have been worse than Leto. Doesn't matter. They're not even in Heath's fucking GALAXY. Fuckers.

I'm gonna answer my own question: Vincent D'Onofrio. Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence -> Detective Robert Goren -> Edgar the Bug.

He's played a lot of different roles, but he's settled into type at this point. And he never played any of them particularly well. I mean, he's not bad, but he's not great.

Daniel Day Lewis has the kind of range you're talking about.

Christian Bale is not to be overlooked either. I think he's going for kind of a modern Deniro kind of thing. Or maybe Pacino. His Batman role was his most boring and straight-forward by far. Look at American Psycho > The Machinist > the Fighter > American Hustle > the Big Short. He's really quite something.

There was another actor who came to mind, but I lost the thread when I was masturbating all over Christian Bale just now. Hmm...

Private "Gomer Pyle" wasn't played particularly well?! Fuck you and your whole family, TINY! D'Onofrio is a GOD.


Never been a huge fan, but he's a fine actor, yes.


Agreed, really great actor. (Great mumblecore actor, too. :)). True story: when James Lipton asked Amy Adams (we're being chauvinist pigs here, by the way — Adams destroys at least 90 to 95% of male actors out there) what working with Bale was, she said she had met him, and he was "lovely", but she felt she had worked with Dicky and Irving, not with Christian Bale. There's a Method man for ya.

Anyway, as for who truly is THE MAN in this day and age, there can be only one answer:

D'onofrio was excellent in Full Metal Jacket, but that's more because everything in that film was excellent. He did what he was told, and he did it well. Still not a brilliant performance, just a really memorable character and a particularly mind-blowing segment of a near-perfect film.

Re: Shannon (that is Michael Shannon, yeah?) he's very good, but not the best out there.

And yeah, Amy Adams annihilates just about everyone. Tidal Swinton is something else too. As is Cate Blanchet. But Amy... oh, Amy.

SACRILEGE.

Can you for ONCE not refer to something linked to Jay-Z and his buddies? It's TILDA Swinton, you sick kanyewestfreudianslip degenerate! :D

Wait, how is Tilda Swinton linked to Jay-Z? I genuinely have no idea, or if I do I've forgotten and it's been pushed to the absolute back of my brain. I known of no degrees of Kevin Bacon between Tilda and Jay or between Tilda and Kanye.

:confused:

Also, I'm really not that big into Jay anymore, and I don't think I talk about him much at all anymore. He has a new album coming, so I'm fervently hoping it isn't a disappointment, so I've mentioned him recently, but it's not as though I talk about Jay Z with any kind of regularity here. Kanye? Yeah. Kendrick? But Jay Z? Not in a while mon frere... not in a while.

Also shut up! :D

I honestly don't know whether you've finally lost it or what the fuck. You typed/"tapped" :rolleyes: "TIDAL Swinton".

Amy rules.

Oh you dickhead. I'm using my phone, and the last word I typed that was similar to that was TIDAL.

Haha. That is funny that I did that though.

Here I thought you were going to point out some connection between Tilda (it just auto-corrected to "Tulsa" this time) and Jay Z -- like maybe Tilda was in this or that video, or is suspected of having slept with Jay behind Beyoncé's back... and I was totally going to be like, "Looks like YOU'RE the one who's obsessed... I had no clue about any of that!"

Bahahaha!

Also, it seems weird that the only possible explanations you're willing to entertain for this typo are that
A) I've "finally lost it" due to my obvious Tell Tale Heart-level psychotic obsession with... Jay Z and his dumb music service that I don't use,
OR B) "what the fuck."

Dickhead. :D

What the hell man? Go beat up Soup Nazi and defend my honor!

How come you never have my back, bra?

Is it because I, like, literally never have yours?

:(