12 hrs and counting...

In 12 hours I will be in cinematic heaven. The Mrs. and I will be sitting in a theater with too many of my fellow Canyon County citizens watching the best movie Batman ever (if reviews can be believed--and so many of them are saying it, I kinda am forced to).

Man, I remember Burton's Batman. We had midnight showing tickets...pretty sure my dad fell asleep, my mom probably toyed with sleeping. Not me, not for a second. I was drinking it all in--this was probably the the moment I became a geek in the full sense of the word at the ripe ol' age of 15. Now, I watch it again and think that Burton over-stylized things...bit too gothic in Gotham. But right then...it was perfection. A year or so previously I'd gotten into a heated debate with some friends over the casting of Michael Keaton. They couldn't believe that a Mr. Mom/Johnny Dangerously could pull it off. I'd seen one picture of him in Newsweek--a still from a previous film (maybe Clean and Sober) that sealed it for me. There was an intensity, a grit, to the man. I knew he could do it. Sadly, I didn't carry the picture around with me to show my friends, and they won the debate. But I won the war. Keaton rocked--don't think many deny that.

But then came the excesses of Batman Returns, and the lousy scripts/directing of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin that made us all yearn for the restraint of Burton. And a well-deserved break/exile from the theaters. It wasn't 'til Byran Singer and Sam Raimi showed everyone you could make a decent superhero movie again that there was any hope (I remember wanting to rush out of the theater after X-Men and buy every comic book I could find).

So now Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale have come to the rescue of the Dark Knight. Sure, in 5-10 years I'll be able to complain about it in the same way I can pick at Batman (still hae my doubts over Katie Holmes--you know that was a studio-pressured casting). But not tonight. Tonight's all about the fun. whoo-hoo.

for the record, this is not me in the first couple of panels (mostly because I don't have such a shirt...okay, 100% because I don't have such a shirt)