Tag Archives: Akiva Goldsman
Batman Forever (1995)
This is where I fell off the boat. I was twelve in 1995, when the Batman blitz began again, and from the start, things felt different. For one thing, I’d started paying attention to the news. This new thing called “the internet” was suddenly driving up everyone’s phone bills, an instantaneous worldwide communication network that quickly became the ultimate gossip and pornography distribution system. And the gossip surrounding Batman Forever set all my Red Alerts ringing.
Everyone learned all the wrong lessons from Batman Returns. And I mean everyone. America’s Moral Guardians learned that Tim Burton was a demented genius, something any of Burton fan could’ve told them a decade before, had the assholes bothered to ask. They complained his film was “too dark,” that it had stained the eyes of their precious Children with twisted sexuality and Danny Devito’s idiotic one-liners. Economics compelled Warner Brothers to Think of the Children and consign Burton to a Producer-in-name-only-credit (he was off making Mars Attacks).
Replacing him, Warner Brothers hired the director of 1993s Falling Down and 1994’s smash hit, The Client: Joel…God help us all…Schumacher. And, true to his reputation as an all-around nice guy, not at all deserving of the jokes I’m about to make at his expense, Joel brought along The Client‘s writer: Akiva…fuck me running…Goldsman. Continue reading Batman Forever (1995)
Jonah Hex (2010)
Want to know how to make a bad movie? Take a character who’s basically every cliche in his genre rolled into one portable unit, plug him into a script picked over by the proverbial thousand monkeys, and give the whole project to a director who’s spent the last ten years slaving away on the Pixar plantation.
Sometimes you can just see the train coming. As if that weren’t enough, the whole package comes to us from one of my ancient enemies: Akiva Goldsman, the man who made a mess called I Am Legend…and even bigger mess called Batman and Robin…and whose production company, Weed Road Pictures, put up the money for this mess. So Jonah Hex has finally limped its way onto video, branded one of the Worst Films of Summer 2010 by the little subconscious voice that makes all my snap judgments. Was it correct? Is this the new Wild Wild West? Continue reading Jonah Hex (2010)
I Am Legend (2007)
My eternal friend, the beloved Colonel Giddens, has horrible taste in movies. I swear, I love the girl. As human beings go, she’s the pinnacle of evolution. We’ve shared many films together, each inflicting untold horrors on the other. Payback is a bitch, and one of these days I’m going to find my old copy of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the Colonel will pay (oh yes, she will pay) for her enthusiastic recommendation of Michael Bay’s Transformers.
In the meantime, you and I can hash out the Colonel’s latest recommendation: I Am Legend, a film I dismissed out of hand once I learned the identity of its star. Nothing personal against Mr. Smith; I’ve never met the man. And if, on some planet, on some distant day, I ever have the occasion, I won’t let the fact I that he’s now an adherent of a certain batshit-insane religion get in the way of being polite. But let’s face it: most of his movies are forgettable trash at best (Wild Wild West), roaring monstrosities at worst (Bad Boys). Memories of his reign as the Fresh Prince of Bell-Air will forever hobble his attempts to be a “serious actor.” What is a man named Smith to do? Another Men in Black sequel? Perish the thought. {More}
Batman and Robin (1997)
So here it is: the final nail in the coffin, the death knell of the Golden Age of superhero movies. As with any artistic Age, it’s boundaries are plastic and open for debate, should any nerd care to distract him- (or her-) self. But you’d be hard pressed to find a nerd who doesn’t view this movie for exactly what it is: the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking earth, the most useless, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat out of Hollywood, a town ruled by effete assholes who see not at all wrong with dumping toxic, imaginative waste straight into their target audience’s eyes, so long as there are as many eyes as possible.
Sorry. Channeled Trainspotting there for a moment. Where were we? Ah, yes…we were marveling at Joel Schumacher’s continued slide into camp and self-parodying idiocy. All in the name of keeping this franchise “family friendly.” In practice, you and I both know this means, “so dumb your trailer-trash, hick cousins from Possumscrotum, Texas, will beg, cry, scream and, eventually, drag their parents into theaters. We’ve spent the last six months stoking their little, ADD-addled minds with trailers and toy commercials. If we don’t get their butts in those seats, our Japanese masters stand to lose hundreds of billions of yen! We can’t allow that!” {More}