Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label camp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label camp. Show all posts

6/29/2014

Batman/Batman: The Movie (1966) or, Batman and Robin: Kapow!!!

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KAPOW! The poster for Leslie H. Martinson's Batman seems to scream it

QUICK REVIEW:

Batman and 'the boy wonder', Robin, are up against a terrifying enemy: A collective of Gotham City's four worst criminals, who among other things dehydrate world leaders! 

From the left, Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero and Frank Gorshin as the film's three male villains

They are The Riddler, The Joker, The Penguin and Catwoman, and they are all played with zeal and a speedy kind of mania by Frank Gorshin, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith and Lee Meriwether.
I found myself intensely wishing that Robin's (played by Burt Ward) mushy lips would do other things in Batman besides merely uttering idiocies. But alas. The very first Batman movie is a fatiguing, peppy, sexless, straight 60's-fantasy, which is completely relocated from reality and therefore lacks any kind of suspense. Still, it is worth a watch as a timely, stylish, psychedelic and über-enthusiastic entertainment production full of gags and yelling and noise of all kinds. It has a sensational amount of silliness and both the obligatory Batmobile, but also a Batcycle, a Batboat and a Batcopter ...!
And in case you're wondering, this is how Batman and Robin run through Gotham City in the film:



And this is how they climb tall buildings:



The film was released in the summer between the first and second season of ABC's Batman TV-series that feature almost all of the same actors, (Catwoman, however, was played by another actress.)
Batman is directed by Leslie H. Martinson (The Brady Bunch (1970-73)), a very productive mostly TV director.
Whether you'll enjoy the film depends mostly on your ability to experience the campy/innocent/silly dialog and production design as charming and funny. Ideally, Batman is experienced either with some kids, or under the influence of a joint.
Enjoy!




Watch the trailer here and at the same time enjoy Link Wray's classic theme here

Budget: 1.5 mil. $
Box office: Est. 1.7 mil. $ (US and Canada rentals)
= Uncertainty

What do you think of this the very first Batman movie?

6/27/2013

2001 Maniacs (2005) or, Southern Camp Gore

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Robert Englund, wearing an eye patch with the Confederacy flag, is the scoop of Tim Sullivan's 2001 Maniacs


A group of party-hungering youths take a detour and end up in Pleasant Valley, Georgia, where 2001 Southern civil war ghosts are waiting to eat them!

2001 Maniacs is the crazily plotted remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis' Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964). The film contains lavish doses of sex and gore and both pro- and rather insulting gay-themed scenes, perhaps because its co-writer-director Tim Sullivan (Driftwood (2006)), a gay rights activist and horror filmmaker, struggled with the film's producers on these points. - Some of it has turned out fun, some of it just confusing.
Robert Englund (A Nightmare of Elm Street (1984)) is theatrical and campy in his over-the-top acting and quite funny as Mayor Buckman. The film is an absurd and entertaining cult favorite. (And actually a tad better than Lewis' original film in my opinion.)
Sullivan co-wrote the script with Chris Kobin (Driftwood (2006)).

Here is a Spanish trailer for the original Lewis version of the film

Cost: 1.5 - 3 mil. $ (differing reports)
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[2001 Maniacs premiered 7 July (Fantasia Film Festival, Canada) and runs 87 minutes. Shooting took place in Georgia from November - December 2003. There are precious few details out surrounding 2001 Maniacs' release and earnings. It seems to have had a good run in Russia, where it reportedly made 368k $, but that seems to be it for info available. Sullivan returned with Driftwood (2006)). Englund returned in Dance of the Dead (2005, TV movie), A Nightmare on Elm Street: Real Nightmares (2005, TV-series) and theatrically in Hatchet (2006). A sequel was made for just 0.5 mil. $ five years hence, 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams. 11,137 IMDb users have given 2001 Maniacs an average rating of 5.4/10.]

What do you think of 2001 Maniacs?

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (5-25)

Eagerly anticipating this month ... (5-25)
Kleber Mendonca Filho's The Secret Agent (2025)