Blame it on the sad fact that we’re often remembered for the loudest noise that we make, but it feels weird that Batman is the identifier most attached to Joel Schumacher’s name in articles commenting on the sad news of his death at age 80.
Schumacher has a well-rounded resume filled with interesting films scattered across nearly 40 years as an active director. The high point is doubtlessly his enviable run through the ’80s and the early ’90s, pairing some of the eras shiniest stars — Julia Roberts and members of the “Brat Pack” — with material that challenged them and their developing brands. Count The Lost Boys, Flatliners, and St. Elmo’s Fire among them. Schumacher was basically emo John Hughes. Eventually, though, he pivoted, splitting time between commercial fare — John Grisham legal thrillers like The Client and A Time To Kill, which were, incidentally, the best of that very ’90s sub-genre — and provocative dramas like 8MM and Falling Down that focused on kink, violence, rot, and rage. And then there were those Batman films — Batman Forever and Batman And Robin — memorable and impactful for different reasons, they’re not Schumacher’s best, but they are his loudest noise, and not just because the latter made a thud.
There’s a lot to like about Batman Forever. Val Kilmer is an excellent Bruce Wayne, the rest of the cast is clearly having a lot of fun dining family-style on every scene, and the soundtrack is an all-timer. I’m not just talking about Seal and U2’s contributions. Go listen to Method Man’s “The Riddler” or “Bad Days” by The Flaming Lips — that album is an eclectic batch of delights.
Batman Forever‘s wildly colorful and cartoonish vision of Gotham City is a direct and interesting counter to the grey and bleak gothic color scape of Tim Burton’s more serious Batman films. Unfortunately, those bold style notes get literally iced over and ravaged by weeds in Batman And Robin as the overall film suffers from both a lack of discipline and from paper-thin characters that deliver wince-inducing dialogue. The whole thing overshoots the clever-camp of Schumacher’s first, wasting its stellar cast (George Clooney, Uma Thurman, etc). It’s a spectacle, careening to the screen to make a release date and appease corporate overlords. And so, as the popular criticism goes, they delivered a “toy commercial.” Schumacher has said that he was rushed but took responsibility. He apologized multiple times in the press for the film and also for the dreaded nipples on the batsuit, which he joked would be on his headstone (let’s hope not).
Batman And Robin didn’t sink a studio. I feel like it’s important to say that when remembering the impact of its failure. As box office bombs go, the fallout seems to have been minimal. It made $100 million less than its predecessor and got savaged by critics, but it still made more than $230 million. Really, its legacy is born more from the fact that it erased the franchise’s bulletproof status and gave Warner Bros pause about making new Batman films for nearly a decade after, abandoning plans to let Schumacher make a third film and churning through a few other rumored takes from others. In falling short of expectations, Batman And Robin was like a lot of other comic book movies from that era — films that sucked and/or sank like The Phantom, The Shadow, the first Judge Dredd, and Steel — echoing the message that audiences were tired of being disrespected by the idea that they’d pile into theaters at the first sign of a cape or a cowl no matter how poorly developed the plot or cheesy the action.
Two weeks after it debuted, Batman And Robin got knocked out of the top spot by Men In Black. That’s a wild factoid because those movies feel like they were made in completely different eras. Men In Black is also based on a comic book, but it has multi-dimensional characters, an actual story, and game-changing special effects. It’s fun and funny and aims to please. A year later, Blade opened with a decidedly more grown-up and blood-spattered approach to comic book movies. In 2000, X-Men debuted, nestling mutants within a world that looked a lot like our own. These are three very different movies but they were all seemingly made with the understanding that comic book movies couldn’t survive if they were only geared toward kids and comic book fans. Especially if the idea was to expand out and find success with characters that weren’t wildly familiar icons like Batman and Superman. Jurrasic Park, Independence Day, Con Air, Mission Impossible — this was the competition and the comp.
I’ve written about this previously. It was about 8 years ago, well before the full immensity of the MCU, DC’s shared universe and their current disjointed (but promising) plans were known. I still believe that Batman And Robin is one of the most important comic book films of all time. It’s foundational for the onslaught that has followed, driving pop culture and billions of dollars in business. I’m just not as sure as I used to be about what it all means.
In the 20 years that have followed since that three year run highlighted by Batman And Robin, Men In Black, Blade, and X-Men, comic book movies (and, to an extent TV shows) have ratcheted up the scale of these endeavors and the complexity of their characters and storylines. A transformation largely impacted by the critical success of the trilogy of grounded Batman films that eventually followed Batman And Robin (films that were, incidentally written by David Goyer, who also penned Blade). Adults and teens are the target audience now more than ever. Kids seem tertiary. A full 180 from the mandated focus Schumacher had to make a more family-friendly series of Batman films. These films are still toy commercials, it’s just that the toys are luxury cars, watches, and mobile phones. A fringe benefit of setting nearly all of these films in realistic worlds.
Things aren’t perfect. On top of sometimes heavy-handed product placements, there are missed opportunities to lean into comic book lore’s tradition of speaking, powerfully, to larger issues. Additionally, villains and visuals often feel uninspired — bigger, but not deeper. The homogenization of comic book films is a growing problem, but the floor seems higher than the past era’s ceiling, people get genuine joy from these things, and the potential exists for better and more impactful work (see: HBO’s Watchmen). Though that may be in conflict with a risk-averse business model that seems focused on courting worldwide appeal that insulates these films from the kinds of failures previously seen.
I don’t think it’s conjecture to assume that Joel Schumacher’s Batman And Robin unintentionally became a kind of Keyzer Soze level ghost story that haunted the dreams of studio executives in the late ’90s, sparking this tectonic shift in the way comic book movies (and the business of comic book movies) are approached. What they’ve done with it isn’t so much on him or the film, but you gotta have a spark to make a fire — be it one used for warmth or to burn your house down. I choose to assign that level of import to Batman And Robin because of the anecdotal evidence and because, to be honest, it’s more interesting than the thought of Schumacher as the man who almost killed the Batman franchise. It’s a better, louder, and more lasting noise for a filmmaker who deserves better than to be forever linked to failure.
Some police shows have had a considerable reckoning in the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody, which has sparked a widespread protest movement in the United States and around the world as governments are pressured to reform departments and prevent more police brutality.
Cops was abruptly canceled after it was pulled from the air, and Live PD got the same treatment shortly afterward. While Brooklyn 99 has not had the same fate, the once-revived NBC comedy has apparently gone back to the drawing board when it came to its next season. Terry Crews said the show scrapped a number of planned episodes in the wake of Floyd’s death and the subsequent national conversation about race and police brutality.
According to Access, Crews said the show’s writers were four episodes into plotting out the next season and decided to throw out what they had been working on, starting over with new context about what the show should be in light of the changing perception of police on television and its impact on an audience’s perception of what they do.
“We’ve had a lot of somber talks about it and deep conversations and we hope through this we’re going to make something that will be truly groundbreaking this year. We have an opportunity and we plan to use it in the best way possible,” Terry revealed. “Our show-runner Dan Goor, they had four episodes all ready to go and they just threw them in the trash. We have to start over. Right now we don’t know which direction it’s going to go in.”
Crews also spoke about his own experiences with the police, explaining that he’s always been seen as a “threat” in any role he plays because of his size and physical fitness. But he said that’s gotten him into uncomfortable situations with the police in the past.
“You’ve seen me, in movies or whatever but before all this, I was always a threat. I would be going to the mall or going different places. I’ve had guns pointed at me by police officers in L.A. This was before I was famous. The thing is, they had the wrong guy,” Terry explained to Scott and Kit.
“It’s something that every black man has been through and it’s hard to really try to get other people to understand. I have to say, right here, what is going on right now is Black America’s Me Too movement. We always knew this was happening, but now white people are understanding,” Terry shared.
One episode of Brooklyn 99 did take that lesson to heart and have his character confronted by a white police officer. But often the show has not done the best job of recreating how police are perceived elsewhere, especially in the Black community. A season one plot line, you may remember, involved a contest between two officers racing to arrest as many people as possible. It’s just a TV show, of course, but it seems that Crews and the others involved with Brooklyn 99 understand the opportunity they have with the show to tell different kinds of stories moving forward.
[via Access]
Being a professional athlete comes with a great deal of stress. There’s the pressure to perform, travel fatigue, the wear and tear on the body, and the need to cultivate a public persona, among many other factors. For far too long, the stigma around mental health has prevented athletes from recognizing these issues and seeking the proper help.
But star players from all the major sports have come forward in recent years to help bring awareness to this issue, and as a result, athletes are more comfortable acknowledging their struggles and being proactive about treatment. One of the most vocal proponents has been Kevin Love.
Love first opened up about his episodes of anxiety and panic attacks and has been instrumental for this cause. As a result, he received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at this year’s ESPYs. Now, he’s taking it a step further and making a sizable donation to help establish a chair at his alma mater UCLA that will be dedicate to research and education in mental health.
Via the UCLA Newsroom:
“I’m concerned about the level of anxiety that people are feeling. Recent events, including the novel coronavirus outbreak, have put our society under enormous stress,” Love said. “I am happy to be able to help UCLA, my alma mater, work toward solving some of society’s biggest underlying issues. I hope one day we are able to erase the stigma around anxiety and depression, and we can only do that by improving diagnosis and treatment, fostering public conversations about mental health and encouraging people to seek help when they need it.”
Love’s contribution, bolstered by the Centennial Term Chair Match, will go to a scholar in the psychology department whose research could help advance more personalized treatments for people living with anxiety and depression.
He’s also the founder of The Kevin Love Fund, which seeks to leverage the considerable wealth of the entertainment industry to generate funds for precisely this type of research. Love joined Trevor Noah on The Daily Show recently to talk about how the pandemic and social distancing have put additional strain on mental well-being and what can be done to help mitigate that. His continued efforts are making a significant impact both in the world of sports and otherwise.
It’s no secret that the way healthcare is handled in the United States is a mess. We are the only developed nation without guaranteed universal healthcare coverage. We tie health insurance to employment, which is silly, and we pay far more than citizens of any other nation for medical care that doesn’t even result in great outcomes. Even the Affordable Care Act, which helped people who previously couldn’t be insured get insurance, comes with a high cost in certain states.
When I talk to people in countries with universal healthcare, they’re often baffled by the inane way our system works. But my favorite part is when I tell them, “Wait til you hear about COBRA.”
If you’ve always had a job with insurance, you may have never needed COBRA—which stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, and is every bit as “Huh?” as the name suggests. Basically, if you lose your job, you lose your employer-provided health insurance. But lucky you, you can keep it for a buttload of money through COBRA. And that’s supposed to be a good thing, somehow. Like, people say, “Well, at least you can get COBRA,” when you lose your job—as if it’s a gift to pay out the nose to keep your insurance when you just lost your income.
A thread on Twitter highlights the absurdity of the whole concept.
People rightly pointed out how unsustainable our system is, and how ridiculous it is to think that people who have lost a job can afford to pay even MORE for health insurance than they did when they were employed.
Others shared their personal stories.
Others pointed out how it came about and why it feels like it’s almost designed to be a punishment.
Seriously, how can someone who has just lost their income afford this?
But the whole thing can basically be summed up by this tweet:
Come on, America. Universal healthcare. Everybody’s doing it. And the vast majority of Americans want it. It’s an idea whose time has come. And gone. And come back around again. Ad nauseum.
No one should go into debt or die because they can’t afford health insurance or health care. It’s a travesty that we have not figured this out long before now.
Former Anthropologie employees allege racial profiling at their stores, being followed around when they shopped at other locations, and earning less than their white colleagues.
