Batman Blockbusters and Mail (Again)

Saturday-I had Thursday and Friday off and I used that time to goof off, catch up on sleep, and try to clean the house. Daryl worked on Thursday so I was all by myself and after making a list of things to do, I decided instead to just sleep in. Today we saw Batman Begins, which was OK. Apparently, Gotham City now looks like a combination of Blade Runner and Chicago, which seemed weird to me. It looked like everything south of Wacker had gone to seed. Liam Neeson once again plays the mentor/martial arts expert in this movie and gets to beat up on Christian Bale. A lot. Until, of course, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne beats him up. Why is it that every movie like this has the student learning serious martial arts in what seems like a few months and then beating someone who's practiced it for years and years? I just hate it when they do that. For some reason, Bruce Wayne goes off to do criminal things in China and then get's shipped off to someplace that looks like Iceland, but which is supposed to look like Tibet, giving you the impression that it is, in fact, someplace in Movie Land. There is also a minor character who shows up in the prison with a few lines and then shows up later out of the prison to say a few more lines and no one ever explains why he's now out of the prison, nor why everyone can speak English, in Ice-Tibet-land, even a character named Ra's Al Ghul, which sounds Egyptian, and is played by a man who is Japanese, because that makes sense in Movie Land, but nowhere else. This is the one Batman movie I've seen that has made me not like Batman. There is a constant comparison being made between Bruce Wayne and his father, Thomas Wayne that made me think that I would have preferred the father over the son. The father worked in a hospital, built a public transportation and water system to help the poor, tried to step in front of his wife when she was going to be shot, and then, right before he died, tried to comfort his son. Compare that to his son, who on a high speed chase to save one person, quite probably kills, or at least injures, a good number of policemen and nearly destroys and definitely damages a lot of public property. He also destroys the rail system his father built, albeit for a good cause, but still. There were two funny moments in the movie, one where the police can't quite figure out how to describe the Batmobile, and the other where Michael Caine scolds Bruce Wayne for not being able to get himself out from under a log. Every scene where Michael Caine appears is great, by the way. You always get the sense that he's more decent and much smarter than Bruce Wayne. Morgan Freeman appears as Lucius Fox, and his quiet demeanor and steady decency also makes me more interested in him than in Bruce Wayne. There is something selfish about the whole idea of Batman, and Bruce Wayne's behavior in this movie doesn't make him any less selfish. I do have to mention that you do get the idea that he's trying to be a good human being, it's just that he doesn't quite succeed. Cillian Murphy, who plays the Scarecrow, does a fantastic job of being creepy and intriguing. At first you think, well, he's weird, and then you realize, oh yes, he's insane, and that makes him much more frightening. The fight scenes are ok and the car chase was good, but it all left me feeling pretty empty. Gary Oldman also does a good job as Lt. Gordon. The look on his face as he shoots from the Batmobile is terrific. Katie Holmes as a lawyer seemed incredibly far-fetched for me so I just could not buy it, I mean, really, she still looks like she's 16. Although you do want to stay away from her when she has a taser.

By this time, Daryl and I have decided that it would be nice to be able to rent DVDs. (The movies here are insanely expensive-$21 for two people without snacks and then you have to pay $4 for parking. No wonder why no one is going to the movies anymore.) So we went to Blockbuster to sign up. We had to provide our driver's license and credit card number so they can track what we watch and also charge us for not returning the DVDs. You know how they have an advertising campaign about how there are no more late fees? Well, the reason why is that they charge you the cost of the DVD on your credit card, as if it were new, if you're late, which is worse than late fees. I know that some people are wondering, why don't you just get Netflix. Well, we would if we could guarantee that we would actually get the DVDs in the mail. We, once again, have a mailbox that is too small to hold a DVD, and that is also outside the building available to one and all. If a piece of mail is too large for the mailbox, it's put in a recessed space next to the mailboxes, which is also open to one and all and has no lock. Normally, we don't have a problem with the mail, but we have been waiting for our car registration and license sticker for over a month now. Daryl even got a ticket for it. For some reason, Elegant Auto, where we bought the car, got our info to the the DMV and then decided to distribute the registration and license stickers themselves, by sending them through the mail, without certifying it or insuring it or even putting a tracking number on it so we could find it. Well, they say they mailed ours on the 14th. Either they mailed it and someone stole it, which is possible, or they forgot to mail it, which is also possible. In any case, we still don't have it, plus we have to pay a fine on a ticket where someone else is responsible for the neglect. Apparently, even though we're not at fault for not having updated stickers, we still have to pay $10 because we got a ticket in the first place. Right, welcome to LA.

We saw Ocean's Twelve on DVD. Is it just me or does Catherine Zeta-Jones and Brad Pitt have no chemistry? But there were some well written bits and they make fun of George Clooney so it wasn't all bad. I didn't really get what was going on, but they seemed to be having fun and the setting was lovely. Oh, and it was great to see Vincent Cassel breakdance in a sort of hip-hop take on the dance with lasers that Catherine Zeta-Jones did in Entrapment. After seeing this movie, I can't help feeling that all of these people have worked too much together in the past. In previous movies, George Clooney was wooing Catherine Zeta-Jones, and in another, Brad Pitt was wooing Julia Roberts. Even Bruce Willis, who had previously done a movie with Julia Roberts appears. And Casey Affleck appeared in an indie movie with Matt Damon. It's all very exclusive and seemed so. Oh, but they also make fun of Julia Roberts too, so it wasn't half bad and it was good for a laugh.

Does anyone ever notice that Christian Bale and Catherine Zeta-Jones are constantly cast as Americans when they're both Welsh? What is it about Wales anyway? Has anyone ever heard Christian Bale's real accent?