Warner Bros

Cats Don’t Dance (1997)

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So I have this recurring nightmare…

Well, actually I have several recurring nightmares. You don’t live a life like mine without picking up a few ghosts in the attic. Horned King nightmares. Coachman nightmares. Foodfight nightmares. And this new one where a blue cat seems awfully mad at me for something that I can’t remember doing but I’m getting off topic.

So, in this nightmare it’s like that scene from The Untouchables where all the gangsters are having a banquet except instead of gangsters it’s movie critics. All the big critics are there and I’m sitting where Jon Lovitz did in the movie. And Al Capone (Roger Ebert) is giving the big “Teamwork” speech and then he stops in mid-sentence and he looks at me.

“You.” He says.

“Yeah boss?” I say.

“You’re a critic, huh?”

“Well…yeah.”

“What did you think of Citizen Kane?”

“Uh, never actually saw it.”

“The Godfather?”

“Sorry.”

“Before Sunset?”

“Not really into chick flicks.”

“Battleship Potemkin?”

“It’s on my list, I swear to God. I’ve seen Crash though, and that won an Oscar so that’s something right?”

And then Roger Ebert beats me to death with his Pulitzer. And then I wake up in a cold sweat screaming “I’m a fraud! A FRAUD! AND THE UNTOUCHABLES SUCKED!”

More like the “The Unwatchables” amirite?

Yeah, so I’m actually quite conscious of the fact that for someone who reviews movies I’ve seen relatively few of the Greatest Movies Ever Made. I’ve been slowly working on expanding my cinematic palette beyond animated films and computer game cut scenes however, and one of the all-time classics that I recently discovered and happily found earns its hype and then some is the 1952 musical Singin’ In the Rain. You probably don’t need me to tell you this but if by some chance you let this one slip you by then I whole-heartedly recommend you change your life and get right with God because that movie is awesome. Great songs, fantastic choreography, iconic performances and fruckin’ hilarious (I use “fruckin'” when “frickin” is too mild and “fuckin'” is too coarse). Today’s movie, Cat’s Don’t Dance has a lot in common with Singin’ in the Rain. They’re both love letters to the golden age of Hollywood and they both benefited from the talents of the great Gene Kelly, who acted as choreographer for CDD. It might sound weird for a cartoon to need a choreographer, but lemme tell ya: These cats can fruckin’ dance. And they do. In fact, this movie probably has one of the most misleading titles in cinema history, right up there with The Never Ending Story and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

In fairness, “Friday the 13th: There’s Gonna be 8 more of these fuckin’ things so get comfortable, folks” was never going to fit on the marquee.

This movie was part of the wave of animated features that followed in the wake of the Disney renaissance, with studios desperate to have a Lion King to call their own. CDD was produced by Turner Animation, the great American animation studio that never was. This was actually the only full length animated feature the studio ever made before Turner was merged into Time Warner but on the strength of this movie I think they could have been a serious contender. They definitely had the talent, not least of which was director Mark Dindal who later made the fantastic Emperor’s New Groove and the actually-not-so-bad-if-you-go-in-with-an-open-mind Chicken Little. Let’s take a look.

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Space Jam (1996)

So I have a confession to make.

For the longest time, I thought it was “Looney Toons” and not “Looney Tunes”.

Alright fine, but in my defence it makes sense, right? I mean, they’re cartoons. Why would they be called “Tunes”?

Well, why indeed.

The reason the early series of cartoon shorts have names like “Looney Tunes”, “Merrie Melodies” and “Silly Symphonies” is because that’s what they were selling. Film studios like Warner Brothers did a tidy side business off their movie soundtracks by selling phonograph records and sheet music for playin’ on the ol’ pianey.

The idea was, you go to a movie and see, say, I Love to Singa’, and say to yourself “smartass owl thinks he’s so big, I could do that.” and before you know it you’ve gone down to the local music shop and blown the money you were saving in case you got tuberculosis (spoiler, you got tuberculosis). The unpleasant truth that I’m tip-toeing around here is that the Looney Tunes were, at least in their early days, basically advertisements.

Ergo, if you hate Space Jam because you don’t like to see your favourite characters schilling, I got bad news for you friends; They were schilling when your grandparents were throwing toys out of the pram.

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Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)

There’s a little game I like to play called The Mark Hamill Game. It goes like this, you spend your entire life waiting for someone to say something like “Tch. Mark Hamill, what a has-been” or “Wow. Bet he thought Star Wars was going to be a career maker for him, more like a career breaker amirite?” and then, get this, you punch that person repeatedly in the face. It’s a fun game, and also it provides a useful service to society. Mark Hamill is not a has-been. Mark Hamill is one of the most talented, respected and lauded voice actors currently working in the industry, an actor who combines astonishing versatility and a real flair for mimicry with a wonderfully energetic and intense performance style. And by far his greatest role was his absolutely revolutionary turn as Batman’s arch nemesis the Joker in the seminal Batman: The Animated Series. Now…millenials like myself tend to gush about this show to the point that if you sat down to watch it based on our recommendation you might be expecting something like Saturday morning Miyazaki. And, at the risk of a storm of screeching Batfans descending from the stalactite studded cave roof of the internet…it wasn’t perfect. It was, no question, a very, very good cartoon. Possibly the best cartoon series until that point. But the quality varied wildly in terms of animation and writing. Partially this was because the animation was done by more than one animation studio, some vastly more adept than others. And also, the show took its time to decide whether it was just a cartoon for kids or something more mature. It’s great, I’m not disputing that, but…not every episode was Heart of Ice. Some of them were Batman’s in my Basement. You know what was perfect though? Mark Hamill’s Joker. Hilarious, crazed and utterly terrifying. To fans in the know, the greatest Joker was not Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson or even Heath Ledger. It was Mark Hamill.

He’s not in Batman: Under the Red Hood.

As well as Hamill, BTAS also had one of the all time great Batman/Bruce Wayne performances (admittedly that’s a slightly lower bar to clear). Kevin Conroy’s Batman for many fans (including me) was the absolute sweet spot for this character that has had an incredibly broad spectrum of portrayals over his nearly 75 year history.

Same guy. Really.

Conroy’s Batman is grim but compassionate. Hyper competent but not infallible. Intimidating but not a monster. Often brutal but not a cop-killing, kidnapping, ableist, potty-mouthed psychopath.

No. No you are not.

Conroy’s not in this either.

So understand, when Warner Bros announced that they would be releasing a straight to DVD animated Batman film that would not star either Conroy or Hamill, long considered irreplaceable, expectations were not high. I remember reading one commenter who essentially said “What ever they want? Pay them. If they’re not free? Wait. And if they just don’t want to do it? Don’t make the movie.” You could say that the very positive response Under the Red Hood would finally receive was partially due to low expectations but I don’t think so. This, to me, personally, is the best Batman movie ever made. I don’t mean that it’s the best movie to feature Batman in it.

Nope.

There ya go.

No, you know what? I can’t even joke about that.

Logically I know that Dark Knight is an absolute masterpiece. But as a Batman story, as a story that actually tells us something new and interesting about Bruce Wayne, as a story that actually makes him the focus I think URH has the edge. Why is it so good? Let’s take a look. To the Mousemobile!

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