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Life Of Pi – Review

4/5 – Ang Lee earned his Best Director Oscar

With less than eight hours to go before the start of the Oscars, I upped the number of Best Picture nominees I had seen by one by catching an early afternoon showing of Life of Pi. It’s good we showed up early, because it looked like everyone in the vicinity of Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill Cinemas had the same idea.

Before the movie began, the old lady sitting behind me decided to walk her husband through the entire story of the movie in her loud old lady voice. Thanks, lady, you rock. I haven’t read the book, so I thought about turning around and yelling “Dobby dies in book 7!” at Madame de Spoiler. Instead, headphones went in, Foo Fighters came on, and spoilers were avoided. I have to admit, I considered keeping Foo Fighters going a little longer when I saw the first trailer was for the latest  Fast and Furious movie.

Life of Pi started, and despite the constant running commentary from the old lady behind me (She loves meer cats! Tigers are scary!), it was a really good movie. First off, it’s beautifully shot, and the 3D looks awesome. This is the best 3D I’ve seen in a live action movie since Avatar. But unlike Avatar, everything doesn’t look like it’s CGI. Oh, a lot of this movie is CGI, but it doesn’t have that telltale fake look that CGI usually has. I was surprised to find out that the tiger in Life of Pi, Richard Parker, was a CG creature throughout the entire movie. I thought they used an actual tiger for at least some of the scenes.

Cesi n’est pas un tigre.

Life of Pi walks the line between endearing and tragic so well, and that’s what I think is the main reason why I liked it so much. Pi goes through an experience that rivals Job’s, but the movie never turns into maudlin naval gazing. Instead, it’s lifted by by its heartwarming and humorous parts.

I’m glad Ang Lee won the Best Director Oscar for Life of Pi. With Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck both snubbed for Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, I was happy to see it go to Ang Lee for Life of Pi over Steven Spielberg for Lincoln.

See Life of Pi in the theater, and see it in 3D. The shots of the movie during the Oscars didn’t look quite as magical in 2D on my home TV as they did in 3D in the theater.

Parting thought: Gerard Depardieu is a jerk.

Jerk.
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Oscars 2013 Predictions

The Oscars are only about an hour away. Need some help winning your party’s pool? Here are my predictions.If you win, feel free to treat me to a movie! 

Best Picture – Argo. I’m going with my head this year instead of my heart for my picks, but I’m glad they match up here. I think the Academy feels like they made a mistake for not bothering to nominate Ben Affleck for Best Director and will give Argo the best picture as retribution.
Leading Actor – Daniel Day Lewis. If you pick anyone else, don’t even both reading the rest of this post. You’re losing your pool.
Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz. Waltz and Tommy Lee Jones are in a dead heat according to the Vegas odds. I’d like to think Waltz’s performance in Django can beat out Tommy Lee Jones playing Tommy Lee Jones in a wig.
Leading Actress – Jennifer Lawrence. But Jessica Chastain deserves it.
Supporting Actress – Anne Hathaway
Animated Feature – Wreck-It-Ralph
Cinematography – Life of Pi
Costume Design – Anna Karenina
Directing – Stephen Speilberg – Lincoln
Documentary Feature – Searching for Sugarman
Documentary Short – Open Heart
Film Editing – Zero Dark Thirty
Foreign Language Film – Amour
Makeup and Hairstyling – Les Miserables
Original Score – Life of Pi (Toss up between this and Lincoln)
Original Song – Skyfall
Production Design – Les Miserables
Animated Short Film – Paperman
Liver Action Short Film – Curfew
Sound Editing – Life of Pi
Sound Mixing – Skyfall
Visual Effects – Life of Pi
Adapted Screenplay – Argo
Original Screenplay – Argo
Good luck! 
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Zero Dark Thirty – Review

5/5 – Zero Dark Thirty should be on your Must See list!

I didn’t think it would happen, but I might now like a movie from 2012 more than Argo. I loved Argo and am glad that Ben Affleck has been taking a bunch of awards home for it, but wow, Zero Dark Thirty, you are amazing.

To be honest, I wasn’t too excited for Zero Dark Thirty. I thought Hurt Locker was great, but it was so emotionally draining that I wasn’t sure if I could sit through another Kathryn Bigelow military movie. I had a feeling I would probably respect ZDT more than I would actually like it. Still, I wanted to see as many Best Picture nominees as I could before the Oscars, so I went with my Billy and Bryan Show co-host and frequent commenter on this blog, Bryan, to see it at at Cobble Hill Cinemas.

First, a little about Cobble Hill Cinemas before I get into the movie. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our Saturday screening qualified for the discount rate. Their discount calendar is little complex. Tuesday and Thursday movies are discounted all day. Monday and Wednesday are discounted before 5 PM. The first screening of a movie is discounted on Saturdays, but only if it is before 1 PM. And I think the fifth screening of a movie is discounted on Ash Wednesday if the date ends in a vowel.

There’s also some new items on the menu at the snack counter: Mexican coffee, and the Abuelita which is Mexican coffee mixed with hot chocolate. Oooo, how worldly! One Abuelita, please! Unfortunately, the drink becomes a little less exciting and worldly when you realize it’s coming from a Nescafe machine.

Okay, enough about the snack counter.

The opening minute or two of Zero Dark Thirty is very intense. The screen is black and all you hear are news reports and 911 calls from September 11, 2001. It’s rough, because I was immediately taken back to that day. At the same time, I was wondering why Kathryn Bigelow decided to start the movie like that. My theory is that it primes the audience to identify with the US interrogators who were using enhanced interrogation techniques.  All I can say is that it worked, because I found myself very much rooting for Jason Clarke’s character Dan to get information from that first suspect.

Jason Clarke is great in Zero Dark Thirty. I’m surprised he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar. Maybe his role in the film was too short to qualify as a Best Supporting Actor?

The real shining star of the movie is Jessica Chastain. Her character, Maya, reminds me of Erin Brockovich era Julia Roberts, and not just because they both have fair skin and red hair. It’s because they’re both no-nonsense women on missions, who are sacrificing their personal lives and going to the breaking point for the greater good. Maya’s response to James Gandolfini, when he asks who she is, might be my favorite line in the entire movie.

I’m surprised that Jennifer Lawrence is favored to win the Oscar for Best Lead Actress over Jessica Chastain. I liked Silver Linings Playbook a lot, but outside of her scene-stealing speech in Pat’s house, I didn’t think Jennifer Lawrence’s character was Oscar favorite-worthy over Maya.

There were a surprising number of TV actors in this movie. Kyle Chandler, James Gandolfini, Harold Perrineau (who, surprisingly did not yell “WALLLLLLLLLLLLTTTTT!!!!!” even once), John Barrowman, Mark Duplass and Christ Pratt all have roles. Out of them, I knew only Chris Pratt was in ZDT. He’s not in the movie as much as the trailer suggests, but he gives a very good dramatic performance. I’m so used to him in the comedic role of Andy on Parks and Rec that I forgot I first saw him in the drama, Everwood.

I’d been on a Torchwood and Doctor Who binge right before I saw ZDT, so when John Barrowman appeared on screen, I giggled.

After seeing Kyle Chandler in both Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, I’m fairly convinced he is an actual CIA agent.

Coach Taylor is Agent Chandler’s cover story.

The odds on favorite for Best Picture going into Sunday’s Academy Awards is Argo, and I’m very happy for Ben Affleck. He was unduly snubbed by the Academy for Best Director, so I hope he walks away with Best Picture. But after seeing Zero Dark Thirty, my personal race for Best Picture is too close to call.

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Silver Linings Playbook – Review

4/5 – The movie where you realize Bradley Cooper is a serious actor.

It has to stink having the movie where you show the world that you’re a really good dramatic actor comes out the same year that Daniel Day Lewis has a new movie. That’s exactly what happened to Bradley Cooper with Silver Linings Playbook. If Daniel Day Lewis wasn’t in Lincoln this year, I think Bradley Cooper would walk home with the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role.

I like Bradley Cooper a lot, but if you had told me this time last year that I thought he would be the runner up for the Best Lead Actor Oscar, I would have called you nutty. Before Silver Linings Playbook, Cooper has been known mostly for his very good comedic skills (Wedding Crashers, The Hangover) and movies that banked on his good looks (The A-Team, Valentine’s Day). 
Silver Linings Playbook is the movie that tells the world Bradley Cooper is one damn good actor. In the movie, he plays Pat, a guy who had to do a stint in a mental institution after having the worst day of his life. In Pat’s defense, I think everything he did to that teacher in his bathroom was justifiable.
Weird Tie-In Merchandise: Silver Linings Trash Bag Vests, exclusively at Target

Pat has issues: rage, insecurity, an obsession with his separated wife, and Cooper plays these issues brilliantly. His parents have issues in the movie too, and you can see how they’ve influenced Pat in how well Cooper plays him to be both a little like his mother and a little like his father. 
Speaking of Pat’s father, Robert De Niro turns in a great performance as Pat Sr. Robert De Niro in Silver Linings Playbook is the antithesis of Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln. In Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones’s Thaddeus Stevens is Tommy Lee Jones in a wig. But Pat Sr. is not just Robert De Niro in an Eagles sweater. There were points in the movie where I found myself completely lost in the family dynamic of Pat’s family. I wasn’t seeing Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro on the screen. I was seeing Pat and Pat Sr.
I can relate to Frank Sr’s superstitions. My dad and I once banned my mother from 
the living room when we thought she was jinxing the Yankees during the World Series.

Jennifer Lawrence reminds you that she’s the same actress who excelled in Winter’s Bone, not just the face of Hunger Games. She has a scene-stealing scene confronting Pat and his family. This scene is definitely what has garnered her so many awards nominations. It’s definitely the second-best scene in the movie.
What’s the best scene? Without a doubt it’s a scene I don’t want to spoil, but one that comes near the very end of the film. I laughed hysterically, and then did so again a few moments later, and that’s all I’ll say on that.

David O. Russell once again created an excellent movie. His last movie, The Fighter, was my favorite movie of 2010. While Silver Linings Playbook is not my favorite movie of 2012, I definitely give it a very high recommendation. 

I fully expect their dance to be incorporated into many weddings.
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Moonrise Kingdom – Review

5/5 – Super Cute! 

I feel like I am stuck in a strange cycle when it comes to Wes Anderson movie. A new Wes Anderson movie is released. I fail to see it in the movie theater. I see it on DVD. I love it and vow to catch the next Wes Anderson movie in the theater. A new Wes Anderson movie is released. I fail to see it in the movie theater…

Moonrise Kingdom is adoraballs. This is the movie you want to turn on when you’ve had a bad day at the office. It’s full of whimsy without being too twee. This is definitely one of my favorite movies that was released in 2012.

Suzy & Sam

Kara Heyward and Jared Gilman are terrific as the movie’s young lovers, Suzy and Sam, who flee the watchful eyes of their parents (or scout masters, in Sam’s case). It’s amazing that this is both of their first movies. They both did fantastic jobs in their lead roles here.

Scout Master Ward

Wes Anderson movies are known for their very memorable supporting characters and Moonrise Kingdom is no exception. Edward Norton is great as the very earnest Scout Master Ward. But if I had to pick a favorite character from the film, it would be Bob Balabin as The Narrator. I loved the way Anderson filmed him, addressing the camera in a variety of poses, like an older Ferris Bueller.

The Narrator

Moonrise Kingdom is nominated for Best Screenplay at this year’s Academy Awards. Will it win? I hope so. I think it should have been nominated for Best Costume Design as well. That would have been a harder category to win against the period pieces that tend to dominate that category, but it would have been nice to throw a nod in Moonrise Kingdom’s direction, as the outfits definitely helped make the movie.

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The Cabin in the Woods – Review

“Make sure you see The Cabin in the Woods before it’s spoiled for you,” my friend warned after he saw it in the theater. It was a warning I heeded. I avoided all discussion about the movie from then until now, having just recently seen the movie on DVD. I avoided anything and everything about the movie in fear of accidentally reading one sentence too long and having it spoiled. I didn’t even know Chris Hemsworth was in the cast until he appeared on screen.
To those of you who haven’t seen the movie yet, I would recommend heeding my friend’s advice. A big part of what makes Cabin in the Woods work is the twist behind the movie, so try to have that not ruined for you if you can.
Like Scream, Cabin in the Woods is a good deconstruction of the horror movie genre. And Bradley Whitford is awesome in it, in his snarky Bradley Whitford way.
SPOILER WARNING: I plan on discussing that twist directly after this awesome poster.


 

Okay, the only people left are those of you who have already seen Cabin the Woods, right? Good.
This movie is a big metaphor about making horror movies, right? We, the audience, are ancient demons they’re trying to appease. I liked that the crew had every type of horror villain available to them in their subterranean holding cells. I also really liked that the projects being done in other counties reflected what horror movies are like there, like the ghost-children in the Japanese project.
I just wished they went further with it. Once Dana and Marty make it to the base, the movie sped along to its finish. I wanted to know more about this place. Yes, too much exposition is bad. But, I think a little more would have served Cabin in the Woods well.
Overall, Cabin in the Woods didn’t live up to the hype for me. I feel like I just lost a little geek cred by saying that. I thought it was good, but not great. It’s definitely entertaining and I would recommend people see it. But don’t go in with your expectations set very, very high.
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Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 – Review

After months of waiting, it’s finally here, the conclusion to the animated adaptation of Frank Miller’s epic, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.  Like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, the folks at DC’s animated division have once again created a movie worthy of the source material.

When I first heard that DC was dividing The Dark Knight Returns into two movies, the cynic in me saw this as a cash grab. But now that I’ve seen both movies, I’m glad the decision was made to divide the story into two movies. Nothing feels rushed, nothing feels left out.

Michael Emerson did a great job voicing the Joker. His Joker is not Mark Hamill’s Joker, but it is terrific in its own way. While I love Batman: The Animated Series, and hear Mark Hamill’s Joker and Kevin Conroy’s Batman when I read those characters, I like that Andrea Romano was tasked with finding all-new voice talent for the two Dark Knight Returns movies.

The climatic fight scene between Superman and Batman was awesome, as was the scene where Superman is hit by the nuclear bomb. Both scenes were like seeing what my mind’s eye sees in the gutters of the comic brought to life. The producers did an amazing job with both.

My only complaints about the movie are minor. The lighting seemed too bright for some of the street level action. I would have expected more shadows and murkier colors. The comic is full of a lot of blacks and  grays, but the animated movie has a more colorful overall palette.

There were two character designs that stood out for me that seemed very off from their comic book counterparts. In The Dark Knight Returns comic, Bruno, the Joker’s swastika-adorned, Neo-Nazi goon always looked like a post-op tranny to me. She’s more obviously a woman here in the movie. Batman’s bag lady disguise is the other design that was jarring to me. In the comic, this is a scary looking disguise. The bag lady looks like disease and death in an overweight bag. But her gruesome features are gone in the movie. Sure, she’s not winning any beauty contests, but they definitely gave her an upgrade in the looks department.

Bruno from the Dark Knight Returns comic

Having recently watched Batman: Year One, it was nice to see a couple of Easter eggs for that movie in this one. On the Gordan’s apartment wall, you can see photos of Gordan’s first wife, Barbara and their infant son James Jr.

I bought the limited edition version of the movie at Best Buy, which comes with a small Joker figure. Was this  figure worth the extra five bucks? I’m going to say no. The Joker’s face looks more like David Bowie by way of Gene Simmons and there is virtually no articulation.

Not the best Joker figure.

I definitely recommend watching Batman: Year One and then both parts of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. All three movies are very faithful and very well done adaptations of what I think are the two greatest Batman stories ever told.

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Tom Hanks Is One Sick Bastard in You’ve Got Mail!

I was hanging out with a couple of friends recently and You’ve Got Mail came on TV. I’d seen You’ve Got Mail before and enjoyed it. But it wasn’t until seeing it this time around that I realized how much of a manipulative jerk Tom Hanks’s character Joe Fox is.

I’m serious. The guy is a borderline sociopath. I’m not even talking about his character early in the movie, when he’s just the head of the big, bad chain of Barnes and Noble Fox bookstores. No, I’m talking about later in the movie, when he’s smitten with Meg Ryan’s Kathleen Kelly and both she and we are supposed to realize that hey, this Joe Fox isn’t a bad guy at all.

But he is! Look at what he does. He basically splits himself into two personalities when he’s around Kathleen. When he interacts with her online, he’s her mysterious suitor and when he hangs out with her person, he basically becomes her gay best friend.

Gay Best Friend (GBF) Joe Fox starts giving Kathleen advice on how to deal with online J03_F0X. And that’s when it gets weird. Because Joe Fox is giving advice on how to respond to himself. It gets really weird when J03_F0X asks Kathleen to do something. GBF Joe Fox tells her not to do what online Joe Fox wants her to do to make IRL Joe Fox look like the better man in Kathleen’s eyes OVER HIMSELF! This cutesy Jekyll and Hyde bit goes on for a while.

At the end of the movie, Kathleen agrees to meet her online suitor in Central Park. Instead of a stranger, Joe Fox walks up to her in the park and it’s revealed to her that her cyber-beau has been Joe Fox all along. She says to him, “I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.” I think a better, more realistic ending would have been for her to realize upon seeing Joe that he’s been pulling her strings for months. She lets out an anguished cry, runs to him and beats him senseless while calling him a sicko.

The only thing missing from Joe Fox is a creepy mustache.
Written by Billy Henehan…who, despite this, still likes You’ve Got Mail.

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Premium Rush – Review

4/5 – Quite a rush!

I finally caught Premium Rush on Blu-ray this week. I missed it when it was in the theaters. Now that I’ve seen it, I wish I had seen it earlier. I remember not being that excited for it in the theater thanks to the trailer, which it turns out did not do this movie justice.

Premium Rush is an excellent thriller. I wouldn’t have expected a movie that takes place mostly on bicycles to be that entertaining, but Premium Rush really is great. The movie is told mostly in real time, between 5:30 PM and 7:30 PM on a weekday evening. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Wilee, a bike messenger with what appears to be a death wish. Granted, anyone who is a bike messenger in New York City is taking their life in their hands every day on the job, but Wilee lives at the edge. He doesn’t have brakes on his bike. He speeds through busy intersections and rides between buses.

Wilee picks up a package that gets him in a mess of trouble. It turns out there’s a McGuffin in this envelope that a bad man would like to get his hands on. It’s the bad guy in the movie, Bobby Monday (played by Michael Shannon), that was the only low point in the movie for me. At times, it just seemed like Shannon was overacting his part. But after watching the bonus features, it seems Michael Shannon might be like that in real life too, just full of crazed energy. So maybe I have to rescind this complaint.

Wole Parks does an awesome job as the other main antagonist in the movie, Wilee’s nemesis Manny. Manny is Wilee’s opposite in many ways. He wears a helmet, has brakes on his variable speed bike and trains daily, while Wilee thinks brakes will get you killed and rides a fixed gear, steel frame bike.

They’re chasing the ice cream man.

There are a few really cool chase sequences in the movie each involving a bicycle vs. something else. Bike vs. bike, bike vs. car, bike vs. pedestrian, they’re all done great. Director David Koepp does a really good job in the bonus features explaining how he wanted the bike chase sequences to each be very different from each other, and that’s what led them to having the bike face off against different modes of transportation.

My favorite of the chase sequences was the first one, with Wilee on his bike being pursued by Monday in his car. During this chase, a bicycle cop goes after Wilee as well. The bikes can go in places that cars can’t, which Koepp takes full advantage of.

It was also very cool to see Wilee’s point of view as he approaches a busy intersection. His decisions on different routes are mapped out on screen, showing which ways are perilous and which one will will work. The decision takes place in a split-second, but it was very cool seeing it mapped out like that.

It looked like at least 95% of this movie was shot on location. They are all over Manhattan, usually on the streets. It was very cool seeing actual New York City all over this movie. I felt like some of the geography didn’t match up during a couple of the chases, but for the most part, they were accurate.

Premium Rush is one of those rare movies where I recommend watching the special features after the movie. They are both very well done and definitely add to the experience of watching the movie.

Five people played Wilee in total throughout Premium Rush!

I wonder if Premium Rush is helping or hurting bike sales in New York City. After watching the movie, I plan on sticking to the subway.

Yeah…I think I’ll walk.

If I were to rank Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s movies from 2012, I’d rank them Looper, then The Dark Knight Rises, then Premium Rush, then Lincoln. How would you rank them? All-in-all, I scored those four movies 17/20 combined. That might make JGL the actor of the year for Tuesday Night Movies.

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Batman: Year One – Review

5/5 – Perfect adaption of THE Batman origin story.

Batman: Year One might be my favorite comic book story ever published. Like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, it’s a story that I’ve come back to year after year and it’s never felt old. When I heard that DC was planning an animated adaptation of Year One, I was a bit worried. Would they change the story? Would they stay true to Mazzucchelli’s line work or attempt update the art style?

My worries proved to be unfounded. Bruce Timm and Andrea Romano have once again put together the pieces to make a great animated movie. Batman: Year One should be considered a must-see for any Batman fan. I would also say that Batman: Year One, the comic this movie was based on, is mandatory reading for any Batman fan. After hearing Bruce and Andrea talk at New York Comic Con, and seeing the quality of Year One and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, I’m very excited for everything coming down the DC Animated pipeline.

This movie shows Batman at his most fallible. He’s inexperienced and unsure of himself. He doesn’t have the super computer, all the fancy gadgets (though he does have some), the fancy car or the network of crime fighting colleagues to call upon. It’s cool to see Batman make mistakes, like when he attempts to foil a home burglary. And I was very happy to see that the coolest scene from Year One, which was also used in Batman Begins, was kept in the animated movie, namely Batman calling the cloud of bats to come to his aid when fleeing the Gotham PD.

Batman: Year One is much Jim Gordon’s story as it is Bruce Wayne’s. This isn’t only Batman’s first year in Gotham. It is also Gordon’s first year there as well, after uprooting from Chicago with his pregnant wife. The Gordon presented in Year One is unlike any Jim Gordon presented before. He’s trying hard to be an honest cop in a corrupt city full of corrupt cops and politicians. He’s not an infallible knight in shining armor though. He is full of pathos. He questions his decisions. You probably will too. But at the end of the day, he’s the most upstanding cop on the Gotham force. It’s interesting to watch Batman and Lt. Gordon do their dance, unsure if they can trust each other.

The Year One movie, like the Year One comic, accomplishes
 the amazing feat of making Jim Gordon as interesting as the Batman.

The only slight I have against the movie is the coloring of characters eyes. The whites of people’s eyes are the same color as the rest of their face. It’s not jarring when I see it in a still, but in the movie, I kept being distracted by it. I’m guessing the decision stemmed from wanting the animation style to match the book as much as possible, but I just found the flesh colored eyes to be weird.

I highly recommend watching Batman: Year One on DVD or Blu-ray. The special features included in it are great. There are two short interview-style featurettes, the first one focusing on the impact Frank Miller had on the Batman mythos. Miller doesn’t appear here himself, but a lot of other comic creators do, including Dennis O’Neil, Mike Carlin, Dan Didio and Scott Snyder. Producer Michael Uslan sits down with Dan Didio, Dennis O’Neil and Scott Snyder to talk about how Batman has changed over the years in the other featurette. Snyder, Didio and O’Neil each grew up during different eras of Batman, so it was very interesting to hear them talk about the differences and similarities of what defined Batman for them.

There’s also a Showcase animated short featuring Catwoman. I thought Eliza Dushku did a better job voicing Catwoman in Year One than she does here. In the short, she sounds stilted, as if she’s reading off of cue cards.

We’re coming up to the release of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 very soon. I recommend watching Batman: Year One and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 in anticipation of it.