Bold, Blonde, and Batman
Writing? What’s that? The ideas are percolating, the urge is there, but the time just isn’t. Consolation, I’m having fun with the kids this week, the first official week of summer. Since we are a movie-mad household (met my husband in film school!), one major source of summer fun is to see the summer movies whether they be good, bad, or indifferent.
“Batman Begins” helped to launch our summer movie binge. We, and specifically I, loved it. Surprise, surprise, surprise, as Gomer would say. I wasn’t a fan of Tim Burton’s 1989 bore-fest “Batman,” in spite of a serious and continuing case of the hots for Michael Keaton (Johnny Dangerously, anyone?); never saw the sequels. But this new Batman incarnation is very good, with lots of action, lots of scenes with Christian Bale shirtless, and some philosophical mumbo-jumbo to give the film a nice “literary” touch. What’s more, it follows closely to the original comic book story.
The only thing I didn’t like about the movie was Katie Holmes as “stock crusading district attorney character #3” not only because her character had absolutely no depth but also because Katie Holmes looks and sounds like she’s 12. What’s the deal with that? I’ve noticed that more and more Hollywood heroines look like pre-teens. Bad enough young actresses have to be skeletal thin to get an acting job (except for the boobs, of course, which are allowed to at least look plump even if they are in reality rock solid lumps of silicone)… But now they also have to look like jail-bait. It’s creepy.
In Hollywood’s olden days, women were women with a capital “W” and men sure liked that. Ingrid Bergman was 27 when she made Casablanca and you believed her Ilsa Lund character was a mature woman capable of running from the Nazis with her hubby, Victor Laszlo. And risking everything to have an affair with Bogart’s Rick. Ilsa was intelligent, mature, smolderingly sexy, and yes, even vulnerable. And ultimately unforgettable. Katie Holmes is 26 and her “Batman Begins” character…uh what’s her name? (To paraphrase Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard,” movie characters had NAMES back then)… Anyway, Katie’s little girl attorney looks and acts like a cheerleader who’s misplaced one of her pom-poms before the big game—uninteresting, unmemorable.
Okay, that’s enough of a rant for now—but I’m not done with Hollywood yet. Next time: Where the old women at? Do you see any women over the age of 40 on TV today (with the exception of the feisty judges on Law & Order and gloriously scheming witches on the soaps)? And why does every crime show have to have a beautiful blonde on the team who’s brilliant but also damaged and emotionally unavailable? C’mon, they’re BLONDE, they’re BEAUTIFUL, they had a choice of many dates to the prom, even if they were from Whitetrashville. How damaged can they be? And why does every beautiful blonde who had a BAD childhood join the FBI? Or CSI? None of them could get a job at the DMV? Just asking…
Janet. No power in the ‘verse can stop me!
“Batman Begins” helped to launch our summer movie binge. We, and specifically I, loved it. Surprise, surprise, surprise, as Gomer would say. I wasn’t a fan of Tim Burton’s 1989 bore-fest “Batman,” in spite of a serious and continuing case of the hots for Michael Keaton (Johnny Dangerously, anyone?); never saw the sequels. But this new Batman incarnation is very good, with lots of action, lots of scenes with Christian Bale shirtless, and some philosophical mumbo-jumbo to give the film a nice “literary” touch. What’s more, it follows closely to the original comic book story.
The only thing I didn’t like about the movie was Katie Holmes as “stock crusading district attorney character #3” not only because her character had absolutely no depth but also because Katie Holmes looks and sounds like she’s 12. What’s the deal with that? I’ve noticed that more and more Hollywood heroines look like pre-teens. Bad enough young actresses have to be skeletal thin to get an acting job (except for the boobs, of course, which are allowed to at least look plump even if they are in reality rock solid lumps of silicone)… But now they also have to look like jail-bait. It’s creepy.
In Hollywood’s olden days, women were women with a capital “W” and men sure liked that. Ingrid Bergman was 27 when she made Casablanca and you believed her Ilsa Lund character was a mature woman capable of running from the Nazis with her hubby, Victor Laszlo. And risking everything to have an affair with Bogart’s Rick. Ilsa was intelligent, mature, smolderingly sexy, and yes, even vulnerable. And ultimately unforgettable. Katie Holmes is 26 and her “Batman Begins” character…uh what’s her name? (To paraphrase Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard,” movie characters had NAMES back then)… Anyway, Katie’s little girl attorney looks and acts like a cheerleader who’s misplaced one of her pom-poms before the big game—uninteresting, unmemorable.
Okay, that’s enough of a rant for now—but I’m not done with Hollywood yet. Next time: Where the old women at? Do you see any women over the age of 40 on TV today (with the exception of the feisty judges on Law & Order and gloriously scheming witches on the soaps)? And why does every crime show have to have a beautiful blonde on the team who’s brilliant but also damaged and emotionally unavailable? C’mon, they’re BLONDE, they’re BEAUTIFUL, they had a choice of many dates to the prom, even if they were from Whitetrashville. How damaged can they be? And why does every beautiful blonde who had a BAD childhood join the FBI? Or CSI? None of them could get a job at the DMV? Just asking…
Janet. No power in the ‘verse can stop me!
posted by Janet at 9:08 PM
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