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MOV103: “They Be Climbin In Yo Windows Slicin’ Yo People Up”

In this reel of COL Movies, the boys head back in time to revive the original “Batman” movie from 1966. After that serving of cheese for starters, they head to the theater for a little murder mystery dinner as John Cusack plays Edgar Allen Poe in “The Raven”. Then, dessert is straight up beefcake as they review the trailer for Channing Tatum’s stripper movie, “Magic Mike”. In movie news, we’ve got some Avengers news, new pics of Spiderman’s Lizard, and some upcoming movie projects in discussion. It’s reel 103 of COL Movies.“They Be Climbin In Yo Windows Slicin’ Yo People Up”

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News:

The Past: Batman: The Movie (1966)
Rotten Tomatoes: 83% Fresh, 51% Audience

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Director: Leslie H. Martinson

Starring: Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Alan Napier, Neil Hamilton, Stafford Repp

Trivia:

  • ​Originally planned as the pilot film for the Batman TV series, the movie was instead produced between the show’s first and second seasons. The producers took advantage of the larger budget to have a number of new Bat-gadgets constructed, such as the BatBoat.
  • The BatBoat was built especially for the film by the Glastron boat company. In exchange for their cooperation, the producers agreed to hold the film’s world premiere in Austin, Texas, Glastron’s headquarters.
  • The original trailer includes specially-shot footage of the 4 supervillains outlining their plans for the Dynamic Duo. Still frames from these sequences are visible when Batman and Commissioner Gordon watch a closed-circuit TV update on villains at large. The trailer also includes specially-shot footage of Batman and Robin addressing the audience about their first motion picture.
  • Julie Newmar (Catwoman in the TV series) does not appear in this film because she did not know about it and had signed to do another project. By the time she was informed, she could not get out of the other commitment in time to do this movie.
  • The entire second season had already been shot before the movie was, even though it actually came out before the second season.
  • Reginald Denny’s last movie.
  • “Plaisir D’Amour” by Johann Martini, is sung by a chanteuse in the cabaret scene, but neither the song nor the singer are listed in the credits.
  • The supporting character Aunt Harriet (Madge Blake) does not have a single line in the picture.
  • First movie project of Burt Ward.
  • Inside joke: Burgess Meredith’s line, “Run Silent, Run Deep” is the title of a 1958 submarine movie in which Frank Gorshin might have played a role had he been able to make it to the screen test.
  • In the final fight scene, a stuntman playing one of the villains’ henchmen dove into the water and hit his head on a metal stud at the bottom of the pond. He was knocked unconscious and had to be rushed to the hospital.
  • At the end of the film one of the delegates is seen banging his shoe on the table while yelling. This is a parody of Nikita Khrushchev’s famous behavior during a debate in the United Nations General Assembly in 1960.
  • The Penguin’s line “We shall hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately” was a humorous phrase spoken by Benjamin Franklin when he was in danger of being accused of high treason by his fellow delegates.
  • Lee Meriwether was Miss America in 1955.
  • During his date with Miss Kitka, Bruce quotes Edgar Allan Poe, the first stanza of “To One in Paradise”.
  • The faking of sea outside a phony yacht window was a clever ruse inspiring a Hogan’s Heroes scene in which a kidnapped general is tricked into thinking he is aboard a plane flying at night to England.
  • Scenes shot in the arch-criminals’ headquarters lair were filmed at an angle. Rumors at the time were that this was intentional and was meant to show that the four (Catwoman, Penguin, Joker, and Riddler) were crooked.
  • As of 2010, this is the only live-action feature-length Batman film in which Alfred is not played by an actor named Michael. Michael Gough played the part in Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin. Michael Caine took over for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
  • Bruce Wayne drives a Chrysler Imperial convertible, while the Batmobile is a 1955 Lincoln Futura prototype car customized by George Barris Inc.
  • The opening criminal lair, “Ye Olde Benbow Tavern” is an allusion to name of the tavern in which the the Robert Louis Stevenson novel “Treasure Island” begins, “Admiral Benbow Inn”. Commodore Schmidlapp is abducted by the fiendish foursome. The next novel by R. L. Stevenson is “Kidnapped”.
  • Filming of the movie began before Lee Meriwether was cast for the movie. As a result, Catwoman does not appear with the other villains in the first scene aboard the Penguin’s submarine.
  • The movie was originally intended to be an introduction to the TV series. When the series wound up being produced and aired months ahead of schedule, the movie was made to cash in on the show’s popularity.
  • A follow up film was at one point considered. The film would have been released between seasons two and three, and would have been used to introduce Barbara Gordon/Bat Girl, and make use of a Batplane. Due to waning interest in the series during season two, which resulted in budget cuts, plans for a second film were scratched.
  • Penguin’s line “Everyone of them has a Mother” (said as he and Catwoman swept up and collected the dehydrated pirates) was ad-libbed by Burgess Meredith.
  • Adam West agreed to do the film partly with a stipulation to have more screen time as Bruce Wayne.
  • Dick Grayson appears outside of his Robin persona only twice and very briefly in the film. First, at the very beginning, and later when Bruce returns to Wayne Manor after being kidnapped. Dick’s only spoken lines are in the latter scene.
  • Frank Gorshin’s last appearance as The Riddler for well over a year. Gorshin sat out of the TV series during the show’s entire second season, which preceded the film’s release.
  • Reginald Denny had previously played a separate character on an episode of the TV series. Lee Meriwether, Milton Frome and Maurice Dallimore would later play guest roles on the series.
  • First broadcast on Television in 1971 on the Fourth of July.

Talking Points:

  • ​Originally made to introduce the series…but wound up not being released until the 2nd season
  • Cheesiness…do you think it’s intentional?
  • This, Burton, or Nolan?
  • Critic Notes: Positives: Classic ,clever, campy, colorful, fun Negatives: too campy, unappealing to today’s youth

What We Learned:

  • ​In the 60’s everything was labeled.
  • Don’t get your shark repellent bat spray and your whale repellent bat spray confused.
  • Robin was packin’ some heat!
  • Salt and Corrosion are the enemies of crime fighting.
  • Some days, there’s just nowhere to get rid of a bomb.

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: I love this movie. Not because it’s good, but because it’s the super cheesy 60s Batman. He’s not my Batman but love this classic.
Ray: Pure cheese.. I know some people love it, but I have a real hard time watching this now. I used to love watching the TV show when I was a kid.. Perhaps if we turned this into some sort of drinking game.
Steve: I have never really cared for much than an episode of Batman at a time – so watching this was like forcing me to watch several episodes in a row, which hurt a little. Cute and campy, but just not how I want to see my superheros.

Add Batman To Flickchart

The Present: The Raven
Rotten Tomatoes: 21% Rotten ; 60% Audience

Director: James McTeigue

Starring: John Cusack, Alice Eve, Luke Evans

Trivia:

  • ​Ewan McGregor (as Edgar Allan Poe) and Jeremy Renner (as Inspector Emmet Fields) were originally attached to star, but dropped out.
  • Joaquin Phoenix was at one point in negotiations to star in the project together with Jeremy Renner. Phoenix would have played Poe to Renner’s police inspector Fields, but the deal fell through when Renner decided to do Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol instead. The Poe role later went to John Cusack, while Luke Evans was cast as Fields .
  • Noomi Rapace was offered the role of Emily.

Talking Points:

  • ​Was Poe really necessary for the story
  • Was his character like-able?
  • Critic Notes: Positive: Not much…well researched? Negatives: Not compelling enough, gory, formulaic, John Cusack

What We Learned:

  • ​The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways
  • What Brandy cannot cure, has no cure
  • People love the gory ones
  • God gave Poe the spark of genius and quenched it in misery.
  • Life is so much less satisfying than fiction.

Trailer:

Recommendations :
Jeff: I was a little disappointed in the movie, didn’t feel as murder mysteryish as I would have like. However, it wasn’t half bad. Probably not worth seeing in the theaters though.
Ray: I liked this much more than the Sherlock Holmes movies, however I felt Cusack was the weakest link in the whole thing, and perhaps it would have been more entertaining without his character even in it. I’d drop $5 on it to see it in a matinee.
Steve: Very beginning and 2nd half of the movie were ok. But for a good 30 mins in the middle, I completely checked out. It wasn’t a total disappointment, but not as exciting as I thought it would be. Beginning felt very 1800’s SAW, then turned into a wannabe Sherlock Holmes (complete with some bullet time). Just didn’t get me.

The Future: Magic Mike

Release: June 29, 2012

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Starring: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Munn

Summary:

Mike, an experienced stripper, takes a younger performer called The Kid under his wing and schools him in the arts of partying, picking up women, and making easy money. Mike also learns about life outside the world of stripping with the help of his protege’s sister. They work at the club Xquisite, which is owned by the former stripper, Dallas.

Talking Points

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: It’s a Channing Tatum movie where he does what he does best, looks like a hunk. . . . . That’s it. I’ll pass.
Ray: McConaughey looks amusing. Thats about it as far as excitement goes.
Steve: Looks cute. I’ll probably see it just because it was filmed in Tampa and so I can see all the places they went. It’s not going to win any awards from what I can tell…but might be a good mental escape. The gays will flock simply because it’s a male stripper movie (and knowing Tampa people…just to see if they’re in it since some parts were filmed in Ybor – one of the gayborhoods here).

The Past:

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The Present:

The Future:

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MOV039: “Hello…Pretty, Pretty”

It’s a random week at the movies when the boys hit he wayback machine to groove with the 1968 cult classic, “Barbarella”.  It’s a slow week for new releases, which forces them to see “The Roommate”.  After moving out of the dorm, the boys take on the upcoming “I Am Number Four”.  Will we hope for a quick death for him?  We’ll see!  All this, an intro to Flickchart, and more random movie news.

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News:

The Past: Barbarella (1968)

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Director: Roger Vadim

Starring: Jane Fonda, John Philip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O’Shea, David Hemmings, Marcel Marceau

Trivia:

  • When Virna Lisi was told to play the part of Barbarella, she terminated her contract with United Artists and returned to Italy.
  • SoGo, the evil city Barbarella travels to, is a reference to Biblical cities Sodom and Gomorrah.
  • Future Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was one of the session musicians who performed the film’s original score.
  • The scenes during the opening credits where Barbarella seems to float around her spaceship were filmed by having Jane Fonda lie on a huge piece of plexiglass with a picture of the spaceship underneath her. It was then filmed from above, creating the illusion that she is in zero gravity. (If you look carefully, you can see the reflection in the glass as she removes her gloves.)
  • Anita Pallenberg was dubbed by Joan Greenwood.
  • Dildano’s password, “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch”, is the name of a real village in Wales, United Kingdom (unsurprisingly, it’s the longest place name in the UK).
  • The names “Stomoxys” and “Glossina”, the Great Tyrant’s nieces, are actually the names of flies. Stomoxys calcitrans is the stable fly, and glossina is the African (or tsetse) fly.
  • The film’s missing scientist character famously inspired the band name of 1980s pop stars Duran Duran.
  • Barbarella’s costume was inspired by designer Paco Rabanne
  • Barbarella was the first science fiction hero from the comics to be adapted into a feature film as opposed to a serial (Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, her male predecessors, had only appeared in serials up to this point).
  • This film is listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson’s book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.
  • The original author Jean-Claude Forest based the character of Barbarella on Brigitte Bardot – who ironically was director Roger Vadim’s previous wife.
  • Sixties sex symbol Raquel Welch turned down the title role.
  • When Dildano and Barbarella are speaking to Dr. Ping about the mission and Dildano’s transmission finish, a soprano sings Caro Nome, Rigoletto’s famous aria by Giussepe Verdi.
  • In the original comic, Barbarella was not a secret agent but an outlaw, and the movie omits some of the adventures she had on Lythion, including an encounter with an earlier villainess called the Gorgon, whose face changed into a duplicate of the face of anyone who looked at her. Her spaceship is not repaired, so for the duration of the first comic album she is trapped on Lythion.
  • There was no Duran Duran and no death ray in the original comic; the city was built around a monster that belched gas through a series of ducts, and the Great Tyrant wore an eye patch even in her true identity.
  • Barbarella’s captured mole machine and her encounter with a robot belonging to a deceased rebel that has sexual relations with her are both omitted from the film, although pretty much everything else is very faithful to the comic.
  • Italian actor Antonio Sabato was originally cast as Dildano, and set photos exist of him playing the famous ‘hand sex’ scene with Jane Fonda. However his performance was deemed to be too serious and he was replaced, in more comedic tone, by David Hemmings.
  • Lobby card stills and set photographs survive, showing footage of a seduction scene between Barbarella and the Black Queen on a bed. However this footage has never appeared in any print of the film.
  • Voted “Kinkiest Film of the Year” by Playboy in 1968.

Talking Points:

  • What the heck do you think this was about?
  • Camp done right?
  • As late at February 4, 2011, news about the remake says it is scheduled for a 2012 release, but no director has been announced. Today’s rumors have Anne Hathaway attached for the remake. Also, Jane Fonda has stated she would like to see a sequel rather than a remake, so we’ll see where that goes!

What We’ve Learned:

  • If you’re going to pimp out your spaceship, wall to wall shag carpeting is a must! (stroke the furry walls)
  • Who knew Marcel Marceau could speak
  • Sex is a perfectly acceptable form of payment
  • Gotta get me one of those Orgasmatrons
  • Gotta Love the 60s

FYI!!!

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: If they do a remake of this, I’m hoping for the continued Austin Powers feel.
Ray: Barbarella..or “How many times can Jane Fonda get naked” Classic…
Steve: It is what it is. So many iconic comments, but let’s be real…it sucks. But it sucks so much, it’s awesome! Honest to goodness camp-fest!

Intermission: Flickchart

The Present: The Roommate

Director: Christian Christiansen

Starring: Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly, Cam Gigandet, Daneel Harris, Alyson Michalka

Trivia:

  • The film was shot on location at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles
  • The film was originally planned to be released on September 17, 2010, but was moved to February 4, 2011.
  • The reception for The Roommate was unfavorable. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 7%, with an audience score of 46. (OUCH!)
  • Some of the promotional posters and displays for the film used as its backdrop the Christy Administration Building from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. The college administration voiced concern that permission to use the photograph of the building was not properly obtained and is currently investigating the legality of its use.
  • Primary concerns hinge that the image of the college (particularly the image of the building) could be damaged, while other concerns are that the college’s primary iconic image is being used for promotion of an unrelated business venture.
  • Leighton Meester was originally set to play Sara but was replaced by Minka Kelly, then Meester took the role of Rebecca

Talking Points:

  • Before I get bitched out…what else was released last Friday?
  • Did this film do anything new?
  • Anyone think the end scene was a ripoff of poltergeist?
  • Opportunity for learning!

What We Learned:

  • Always ask your roommate if she’s taking anti-psychotics
  • At a frat party.. the punch is always spiked…duh
  • Kittens are dry-clean only
  • Beauty is in the eye of the designer
  • We’d do what is necessary to get in Billy Zane’s class 😉
  • Fashion fades, but style is eternal

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: I hate you, Steven
Ray: to put it simply.. hated it.
Steve: I didn’t hate it, so nah! I liked all the college and student housing references. I may show it to my students to discuss how to handle roommate conflicts appropriately.

The Future: I Am Number Four

Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant, Teresa Palmer, Dianna Agron, Kevin Durand

Trivia:

  • Will be released in IMAX
  • The film is based on the novel I Am Number Four, written by Jobie Hughes and James Frey, with an adapted screenplay by Al Gough, Miles Millar, and Marti Noxon.
  • Produced by Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg through DreamWorks
  • The rights were purchased with the hope of attracting teenage fans of the Twilight saga films, and the potential of establishing a film franchise, with at least six more installments planned by the book’s publisher.
  • Filming began on May 17, 2010, using 20 locations all within the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Additional filming took place in the Florida Keys.
  • A cast tour, in association with American retailer Hot Topic, and cast media appearances are scheduled to lead up to the release of the film.
  • I Am Number Four is being edited by Jim Page, with Industrial Light & Magic developing the visual effects for the alien creatures.

Talking Points:

  • Anything new?
  • Glee crossover? Can it be advertised more during the show?

Summary:
John is an extraordinary teen, masking his true identity and passing as a typical high school student to elude a deadly enemy seeking to destroy him. Three like him have already been killed … he is Number Four.

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: Interested to see, but not expecting too much.
Ray: Not sure the casting is going to work.. but interested to see it.
Steve: Looks interesting…kiss of death?

Coming Attractions:
The Past

The Present

The Future

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