I didn’t realize there was a Michael Keaton retrospective at the American Cinemateque right around the corner — as in, this weekend — until I read about it in this Geoff Boucher profile of the actor at the LA Times.
Reading the unique look back at Keaton’s career, in his own words, I was reminded how much I genuinely love every performance he’s given and wish we could see more from him than we do these days. Maybe it’s residual admiration from the “Batman” days, as that film is, after all, the first event film that had me (and I’m sure millions of others) obsessing over a release date that couldn’t come soon enough. But Keaton has a spark and a charm that is singular, regardless.
Anyway, the best part for Bat nuts is his recount of the 1989 blockbuster, which saw the actor in a personal funk that he says may have been good for the character.
It was a lonely time for me…I would run at night in London just trying to get tired enough so I could sleep. I didn’t talk to people much. My little boy was a toddler, and the woman I was married to at the time, we were not together but we were trying to figure it out and get back together…As often as I could, I was getting on the Concorde and trying to get back to spend some time with my kid.
He admits a lack of satisfaction in the sequel (which I share) and also recalls the moment he felt the franchise might be in trouble, when suits began questioning the gloomier aspects of the material.
I appreciated his enthusiasm for “Beetle Juice,” which he calls “100% original.” Additionally, I’m reminded of how badly I’d love to see Ray Nicolette spun off in some way:
To work with these directors, Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, just two of my all-time favorites, was awesome. They are totally different approaches and totally different people. [The second time] the hope was that you would feel this guy, Ray, was a real person walking around in the world. These were different studios, different worlds, different stories and tones, but here’s this guy. You start thinking you might run into him at Costco.
The retrospective — held at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica — begins tomorrow night with a “Beetle Juice” / “Multiplicity” double bill. Keaton will be on hand for a Q&A that night. “Batman” and “Batman Returns” screen Saturday, May 14, while “Pacific Heights” and “Clean and Sober” wrap things up Sunday.
Terrence Malick has some competition!
(Also in Bat news: “‘Dark Knight Rises’ creates tension between Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures”)
Here is Keaton’s David Letterman appearance from 1989, on the eve of a “Batman” release that would set new opening weekend box office records:
[Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures]
Comments
13 responses to ““We’re grown men, right?””
Batman Returns was much more satisfying than the original. The Penguin was terrifying and yet sympathetic. Out of the live action films, I’d only put it behind TDK
It’s the first movie I ever saw where I felt like something was off, in a bad way. I love it unabashedly, but it didn’t gel fully when I first saw it.
Batman Returns is also my second favorite of the lot but behind Batman Begins.
I’ll also throw my weight behind Batman Returns. Infinitely interesting and effective. Comic book movie as opera.
I have a lot of admiration for the Burton films, but I do think Begins and TDK are the best in the series. I love Batman Returns because it showes how ballzy of a director Tim Burton can be when he so chooses. So brilliant to take a mainstream studio movie in that twisted a direction.
“Comic book movie as opera.”
I’m not sure you could make a case for that which couldn’t equally be applied to the first film. They are extremely similar films, only the thumbprint of the director is more embossed in one of them, sometimes to a (slight, mind you) fault.
“I love Batman Returns because it showes how ballzy of a director Tim Burton can be when he so chooses. So brilliant to take a mainstream studio movie in that twisted a direction.”
The studio allowed him to do what he wanted for the sequel. The same applies to Schumacher and Nolan on their sequels.
Batman Returns is beautiful in its own way. There are parts of it- perhaps ALL of it- that don’t jive with the Batman character at all. In this way, Returns is more Burton than anything else.
I’d put it third behind the two Nolan films.
Add my voice to the chorus of those who prefer “Batman Returns” to Burton’s first “Batman” film. It is my choice for the best of all the “Batman” films. The first suffered from a miscast Keaton, a one-note and overblown perf from Nicholson and an embarrassingly atrocious Basinger. Keaton was still an improbable Batman in the second film but there was more humor to the writing and it was buoyed by inspired performances from Danny DeVito and especially Michelle Pfeiffer (anything but one-note in a performance which should have netted her a nomination). The less said about the Val Kilmer and George Clooney Batman films the better. Nolan’s reboot of the franchise is okay but he seems to take it all so…seriously.
Just in case it hasn’t been iterated enough yet, “Batman Returns” is just better than the 1989 picture.
I always thought I was alone in believing this to be the case, however, which I’m glad to find untrue.
I still think “The Dark Knight” is the standard for Batman adaptations, though.
“I always thought I was alone in believing this to be the case…”
I can’t imagine why.
Batman Forever was the first Batman I saw in a theatre. It was very disappointing, certainly after how good Keaton was.
2010 was a good year for Keaton. His roles in Toy Story 3 and The Other Guys were really fun.
Its so cool to see older favorites in a theater like the Aero in Santa Monica. Amazing that that can get the 35 mm prints to all these films.
I know someone who runs a pretty cool local art house theater in Pa were I live and Ive rented it out a numerous times to watch older movies via Blue ray projection and I must say it looks really good. Just watched Blu Thunder last weekend. Also screened The Towering Inferno, Dawn of the Dead 78 and 04 versions and Im screening Aliens later this month. COOL stuff! If I lived in Santa Monica I would be at theater all the time.