Batman Taffy!

I am Vengeance. I am the Night. I am…really, really hard to chew.

When you think of Batman, you probably think about a couple of things. A pretty good movie from 2008, or an even better one from 1989. A fantastic animated series in the ‘90s, and a cheesy - yet wholly entertaining - live-action program from the 1960s. You might think Frank Miller, or “Arkham City,” or even Joel Schumacher, but the one thing you probably wouldn’t EVER equate with the Caped Crusader would be taffy. Well, thanks to America’s absolute finest retailer of surplus goods and potentially lethal foodstuffs, the Dark Knight and hardly chewable candies will forever be interconnected notions.

Strolling down the aisles of the local Dollar Tree, I observed this set of nine - count ‘em, NINE - sealed candies, which is remarkable for two primary reasons. First and foremost, that’s an absolute shit ton of candy for just a dollar, and I’ll be several shades of darned if the artwork on the packages wasn’t half-way awesome-looking. And for four measly quarters, you bet your sweet derrière that I’ll take a gamble on a sugary comestible that has the Scarecrow’s face on it.

So, I plopped down my two dollars (that’s right, I bought two of these sets, just in case I felt the need to devour a solid pound of artificially flavored things on the ride home) and decided to review each individual candy. Why, you might ask? Because…well, honestly, I don’t know. You gotta’ do something in between periods during NHL games, I guess.

Not surprisingly, the two pieces of candy that caught me attention first were the two “mystery flavors” with the Joker’s face plastered on them. Since the set consists primarily of characters seen in Nolan’s second Bat-movie, I’m thinking that, perhaps, this thing was initially released to capitalize on the success of “The Dark Knight.” By extent, this also means that the candies themselves would be almost five years old now, but come on…it’s not like the Dollar Tree ever sells products past their expiration dates or anything.

As far as the “mystery” here is concerned, I’ve got little to say. The first one tasted a lot like bubble gum, while the second piece of taffy tasted like really, really sharp bubble gum. Seriously, the textures here are an absolute Russian roulette game for your gum line; sometimes, you get soft and squishy, and other times, you get what appears to be a knife painted strawberry pink. With that in mind, I’m beginning to see how the manufacturers of this stuff were so quick to associate the particular candies with a clown-faced mass murderer known for convoluted trickeries.

If I had to pick a favorite out of the set, I would probably go with the Two-Face candies, for one particular reason; they’re the most palatable flavor in the set (blue raspberry, known by all cultures as the greatest of all unnaturally-occurring substances), and they’re blue…therefore, totally different looking than everything else, and therefore, the easiest to pick out in a line-up.

Not that this doesn’t go without saying, but you really are getting a mixed bag here, as far as candy textures and sizes go. Alike chemical-encrusted snowflakes, no two taffy bars appear to be uniform in length, width or height, and frustratingly, they seem to fluctuate wildly in overall texture. Some of the bars are soft and pillowy, and others are basically shivs that you can also eat. Maybe it’s just a commonality among the more villainous bars, perhaps?

The Scarecrow bar had to have my favorite artwork of the set, by far. As far as comestibles targeting children, that’s a pretty freaky mascot to slip on the packaging of a piece of candy; I’m damn near thirty, and even I had to look away from the package while I crammed the item down my throat hole.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to say about this one. Umm, it tasted kinda’ like cherry? Well, that’s about it. And also, it was somewhat chewy, and it clings to your bicuspids. Folks, YOU try and find a way to diversify a review of TAFFY. It’s a whole hell of a lot more difficult than it appears, I assure you.

As far as the Bat-branded flavors, we end up getting a LOT of duplicates (but more on those later.) The main, Batman-only flavor is sour apple, which might just be my least favorite, quasi-popular artificial flavor of all-time. I especially hate how they ALWAYS include it in those value-priced “three sets” of Bubble-Yum, where it’s smack dab in between two flavors that are delicious. Methinks its some sort of conspiracy to rid the factory of a surfeit of undesirable product, you know…

So, uh, yeah, the sour apple taffy. It’s green, It’s also really powdery, and true to the nomenclature, quite tart. I guess my favorite thing about this one is that it has Batman on the package, rearing back to cold-cock something. Which is a little fitting, since eating sour-apple flavored things is only slightly more desirable than getting socked in the jaw by a psychopathic JFK, Jr.

Hey, do you like strawberry? Well, you better,  because there are two strawberry flavored bat-treats on board. Peculiarly, both packages feature Batman swinging on a rope, Tarzan-style. That might have some sort of sociocultural significance, but it probably doesn’t.

I like how the taffy in the orange packaging kinda looks like a tumor, or some artificial lung or something. Conversely, the red package taffy looks just like a tongue, which…you know, I’m not even sure, to be honest. I’m reviewing pieces of taffy, for the love of Jehoshaphat; if this isn’t a sign that this perma-winter is driving me crazy, I don’t know what it is.

And two more duplicate flavors to round out the set; another cherry (featuring Batman heroically leaping towards his own emblem) and another blue raspberry (which I can never, ever complain about, of course.) I really like Batman’s completely stoic “action pose” here. It’s almost like he’s saying, “dude, just forget it…just forget it.”

That’s cool how the cherry one doesn’t even look like a thing. The best I can fathom is that’s it’s a picture of Tennessee drawn on an Etch-a-Sketch, or some really hard to wield Medieval lance. And the blue raspberry bar is just blue…as it should be, as nature intended. Batman, surely, would approve of this.

So, there you have it; an absolutely, absurdly in-depth review of a throwaway, 99 cent store product that no one in their right mind would ever care to read so much about. But you know, it’s our civic duty to document this kind of stuff. Can you imagine a world were people never KNEW that blue raspberry Harvey Dents were once mass-marketed, or that last fall, you could spend a human dollar on a garbage bag that sort of resembled a spider? It’s a selfless job, and one without prestige; but as long as surplus, novelty goods keep getting manufactured and hoisted upon lower class America…

…I’ll be waiting in the wings, America. I’ll be waiting in the wings.

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How to End the 3D Movie Fad...

Why the Gimmick is Destroying the Cinematic Art Form...and What You Can Do To Stop It.

Last month, Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest American filmmakers of all time, said something that made me simultaneously vomit a little plus reassured me that there is nothing even remotely resembling a just god in this universe:

  

"I've wanted to direct a 3D movie since I saw House of Wax in 1953. Orson Welles said that making Citizen Kane was fun, like 'the best electric train set a boy ever had.' Working in 3D was like that for me. In addition to the mechanics of it, 3D brings you closer to the actors. I wouldn't mind making all my movies in 3D, especially when the technology gets better and eliminates the glasses. If I could go back in time, I'd shoot Taxi Driver in 3D. Bob De Niro in the mirror as Travis Bickle. Imagine how intimidating. 'You talking to me? You talking to me?' Amazing possibilities."

Every syllable in that quote is like a flaming hot dagger being driven into my scrotum. Sure, it’s one thing to hear a James Cameron or a Steven Spielberg yammer on and on about the “necessity” of a needless cinematic technology, but really? Such nonsense coming out of the mouth of the guy that gave us “Goodfellas” and “Casino?” It’s like hearing Jean Baudrillard posthumously telling us he’s a fan of Fox News, or Sigmund Freud coming out and talking about his adulation for “The Dr. Phil Show.” How can a man responsible for the elevation of an art form say that he is in SUPPORT of a movement that threatens to destroy the very thing which he helped create?

Well, the short answer, if you’re looking for it, is this: because Martin Scorsese, and everybody else in Hollywood, for that matter, likes money.

Thanks to that damn Internet, the movie companies will tell you, the industry has lost about a fabillion dollars since 2000. Of course, this revenue loss can only be attributed to online movie piracy, and NOT the fact that movie companies are spending upwards of a BILLION dollars on producing and marketing movies, or that movie ticket prices have risen exponentially while wages across the nation continue to plunge, or even the fact that most of the movies being produced by these companies are pure shit nobody would want to watch in the first place.

Movie companies are hell bent on keeping this 3D movie trend a rolling for as long as they can, however, for a couple of reasons, but primarily, because they’re trying to extort as much money out of the audience as humanly fathomable. You see, every time a movie studio releases a film in 3D, that gives them a cinematic Reichstag to charge you an additional four or five bucks. If you’re familiar with how math works, you’d be quick to note that charging the masses $20 a ticket will result in more revenue than if you charged them $15 per ticket. Therefore, as long as people are willing to pay that additional five bucks, the movie companies will continue releasing such films, with some new excuse (almost guaranteed to be a rehash of the “OMG, INTERNET PIRACY IS KILLING OUR INDUSTRY” song and dance) to tack on that annual ticket price increase every year.

The 3D movie fad is nothing more than the industry’s incredibly misguided attempt to combat online film thievery. The studio execs will tell you that 3D negates the effects of movie piracy in a two-fold manner; first, by giving filmgoers an “experience” that can’t be replicated via the torrents (well, until “3D computing“ goes mainstream, anyway), and secondly, by making it physically impossible for most would-be pirates to actually record the movies (the next time you’re watching a 3D flick at the local Cineplex, try taking your glasses off and you’ll see why.)

On the surface, you may be asking yourself why this even matters to you, as a proponent of the fine arts. “So, who cares if film studios are releasing 3D movies as a means of hedging their losses from online piracy?” you may be inclined to inquire. Well, the reason why this matters is because the 3D fad is slowly but surely destroying the cinematic canvas as a place where genuine artistry blooms. Once again, this is a multi-part process, which I believe requires independent examination of each potential consequence.

3D Movies Are Compromising The Vision of Filmmakers

The biggest problem with the 3D fad is that movie studios aren’t just recommending that filmmakers shoot their pictures with the gimmick in mind, but the fact that several studios are FORCING filmmakers to retool their films in order to facilitate 3D effects. A good example of this would be “The Dark Knight Rises,” already an absolute guaranteed blockbuster if there ever was one, which was almost considerably altered in order to meet the studio’s demand that the film be shot in 3D. Warner Brothers, holders of the DC Comics properties by proxy, have implemented a policy in which ALL films containing characters from the holding HAVE to be filmed in 3D formatting. . .a policy which could ultimately be put in place by other studios, for other holdings (or even scarier, for all future projects.) When your artistic vision is limited by what you can do with (let’s face it, completely needless) visual effects, just how much genuine artistry can we expect from a medium now wholeheartedly dedicated to compromising filmmakers’ ideas and intentions?

3D Movies Are Stifling Creativity Within the Medium

Film companies like to make money, but perhaps even more than that, they like to save money. The 3D fad is giving studios a gift from above in the form of re-released properties. . .a gimmick that is not only monetarily productive, but incredibly cost-efficient, as well. Take a look at the “new releases” on the horizon - “Beauty and the Beast,” “Titanic,” “Star Wars,” and “Finding Nemo,” all “bettered” via the miracle of 3D technologies. Odds are, these companies will make WAY more money off these established properties than they would unproven original properties. . .and since converting pre-existing films to 3D costs only a small percent of what it would cost to produce an entirely new film, what do you think film studios are going to be doing more and less of in the upcoming years?

3D Movies Could Serve As A Catalyst For the General De-Valuing of the Art Form

The 3D movie trend is not only tampering with the artistic vision of filmmakers and resulting in less and less original films being produced, but ultimately, lowering the quality of movies across the board. How many movies have you seen over the last four years that utilized 3D technology and were simultaneously good movies, to boot? Yeah, there are a few, but it’s not like “Toy Story 3” would have been any less enjoyable in standard 2D. There are very few movies I can think of that actually benefited from 3D implementation, and virtually zero that I think truly necessitated the technique. The danger here is that, in the not-too-distant future (if not already), we’re going to start seeing movies that are needlessly filmed in 3D, resulting in a.) potentially quality films being lessened by an emphasis on unnecessary visuals, and b.) films that are completely lacking in quality that are being churned out simply because of 3D implementation. Which, in turn, could lead us to. . 

                3D Movies Could Lead To The TOTAL Death of Filmmaking as an Art Form

3D, when it’s all said and done, might just be referred to as the beginning. Already, we have films driven by visual gimmicks (I mean, quality improving techniques) like IMAX, Big-D, and 3D, but what happens from there? My estimation is that a good ten or twenty years down the line, our theater experiences could resemble theme park attractions more then film going forays. Tourist traps have been playing around with “interactive” film going experiments for years, from “4D” experiences a la this attraction at the World of Coca-Cola to at-the-time-laughable-but-now-eerily-prophetic attempts to merge video games and movie watching into a singularity in the ’90s. With such an emphasis on the externalities of the film going experience, the ultimate casualty will be the content and quality of our mainstream film choices. How the hell are you supposed to experience deep, profound, introspective movies like “Schindler’s List” or “Hoop Dreams” when the industry mandates that you turn everything into roller coaster rides? The short answer, unfortunately, is that we won’t.

The 3D craze is clearly detrimental to filmmaking as an art form, but how do we, the filmgoers of America and abroad, retaliate? There really isn’t an immediate answer, but I can lay out a short plan of action we can take in the interim.

First, stop paying to see 3D movies. Because a lot of theaters can’t afford to buy 3D projectors, film studios are still giving most chains the option of screening both 3D and standard versions of their new releases. If you just have to see this summer’s slate of blockbusters, opt to do see in two dimensions out of protest (and for added “F-U” value, take the money you saved on the ticket to rent some really obscure, minimalist indie film at Blockbuster, pending you even have video stores left in your neck of the woods.)

Second, please support small-chain theaters, ESPECIALLY those that cater to independent, experimental and foreign films. If you live in a large metropolitan area or even a pretty sizable college town, this shouldn’t be an issue, but if you live in a burgh or hamlet that doesn’t even have a Starbucks yet, try your damnedest to at least check out smaller art houses whenever you’re vacationing or visiting places that do.

Lastly, try to avoid theaters altogether. If you can wait until that must-see movie comes out on DVD or Netflix, you’re sending a message to film studios that says a.) we don’t really care for that 3D crap, and b.) that we DEFINITELY don’t feel like paying extra money on needless additions that ultimately detract from the film going experience itself. There are also a ton of great movies you can LEGALLY stream for free on sites like YouTube, many of which are independent, foreign or experimental features that you wouldn’t see at the local multiplex anyway.

At the end of the day, it’s up to us as filmgoers to stand up to the mega-conglomerate movie studios, for the integrity, livelihood and very future of cinema. After all, we’re the only barriers between us and future of Raging Bullshit at the box office.

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The Dark Knight (And GOP Propaganda?) Rises

 The Hidden Politics Behind The Biggest Movie of 2012

In case you haven’t heard, the next Batman movie is being filmed in New York this month, and there happens to be a little shooting conflict involving a couple of people obstructing the view of Wall Street.

It’s sort of an ironic predicament, really, with a fictitious representative of the elitist class staring down a real-life mob of irked college students and unemployed liberals. Even more kick the cat and set fire to your own home ironic is that the movie ITSELF is about that fictitious representative of the elitist class doing battle with a guerrilla terrorist socialist revolutionary that riles all of the irked college students and unemployed liberals to go on a rampage in a cityscape that looks an awful lot like NYC. And also, there’s something about Anne Hathaway dressing up like a cat, which, I guess could be a parable for just about anything.

The Christopher Nolan Bat-movies have been pretty darned biased towards the Republican Party, with many, many analysts saying that the first two films (and especially the monumentally successful The Dark Knight) are nothing more than thinly veiled celebrations of the W. Administration. With the third (and supposedly last) Bat-movie scheduled for release next summer, one can only imagine what The Dark Knight Rises is going to furtively comment upon.  Judging from what we know about the film so far, here’s my unfounded conjecture.

Batman, as he was in the last movie, is a stand in for George W. Bush. And if you don’t think that the story of a self-righteous, wire-tapping, Constitution-avoiding, urban terrorist-obsessed mega billionaire ISN’T a parallel for Dubya, rest assured that the character of Batman could just as easily be a metaphor for Dick Cheney.

In the last movie, Batman did battle with an Osama bin Laden-ish villain that blew up civilian infrastructure and regularly used suicide bombers as henchmen. And oh yeah, he sort of had a proclivity for filming executions on camera, too. In the third film, however, the primary villain is a character named Bane - who, in the comics, was a super intelligent, island born,  quasi-socialist revolutionary that turned Gotham City against Batman by declaring him emblematic of economic totalitarianism.

In other words? He’s a caricature of Barack Obama, only on steroids and wearing a respirator mask.

The plot line for The Dark Knight Rises, I suppose, is that Bane decides to turn Gotham City into an anarchist hellhole by promising its citizens’ liberation from economic corruption and political malfeasance. Here’s a brief clip that recently made the YouTube rounds, displaying Bane interrupting a Pittsburgh Steelers game:

If that rhetoric sounds remotely familiar, it should, because it’s almost identical to ANY number of speeches you would have heard from Hugo Chavez or Vicente Fox over the last decade. Just, uh, ignore the fact that he sounds like Kermit the Frog, though.

And the rest, as they say, writes itself. As Bane-a-mania sweeps throughout Gotham, an underground and universally despised Batman must fight for the greater good of society, even if that same society has no idea what’s good for it. In other words, the mission for Bats AND the Republican Party in 2012 seems to be selling people on the idea that they need an elitist protector to save them from the madness of populism, to get people to decline change and just go along with the course.

And with that in mind, I think I have a good idea as to who that new cat-suit-bedecked fellow crime fighter may supposedly symbolize…

…anybody else thinking they might try to trot out Batman-themed tea bags for the next installment?

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