A Tale of Two Virgins - The Batman | Literally Me

hey guys thanks for all the follows and special thanks to everyone for the tips on blu-ray encoding i just want to say this will be my last post for a little while what this community has meant to me these weeks these months let's just say none of us are gonna be alone anymore we're all gonna make it bros tomorrow's the big day chad is gonna win but we've seen his real face now together we unmasked him his corruption his perversion masquerading under the guise of irony but unmasking him is not enough the day of kino is finally upon us and it is finally time to broadcast drive 2011 onto every screen in the entire world before i forget be sure to like and subscribe [Music] why do superheroes and supervillains for that matter wear masks to hide their identities to protect their personal lives their friends and their family members are their masks alternate personalities characters they become to put themselves in the proper mind space to do what they think must be done or do their masks represent their real selves maybe without their masks they're merely hollow husks of humans uncomfortable in their nakedness the anonymity and the symbology of their costumes unlocks their true self divorced from any kind of societal norm or tied to their normal identity by cloaking their bodies they reveal their spirits such as the case in matt reeves the batman it's an apt name for the first film and what will probably end up being a series of movies about a young bruce wayne going off this first film though it's way more about the batman than it is about bruce reeves opens the film on halloween we see crowds of people in various costumes and masks immediately he establishes an idea that he will explore with several major characters in the film the juxtaposition of the real self and the masked self we hardly see bruce in this film and when we do he's pallid socially awkward obsessive and a hermit if he wasn't beating up bad guys at night you might mistake him for a gamer or a youtuber he doesn't care about his family's company he doesn't care about putting on appearances or living the life of a rich playboy the only thing he cares about is being the batman just look at his body language when he's out and about as bruce he keeps his eyes downcast he's hunched a bit and he puts out a vibe that suggests he doesn't want to be noticed talked to or anything he's like some alien or a vampire trying to go unnoticed in the daylight now when he's batman or vengeance as a lot of people call him here i don't really know what he goes by but i guess that's normal for a dude just starting off a career of beating up the mentally ill takes time to get the branding right i get it but when he's batman he stands up straight and just dominates every space he's in if you think about it it's like how people are way more brash extreme domineering and violent on the internet than they typically are in real life just as bruce wayne won't beat strangers faces to a pulp without his mask 4channers won't call anybody and everybody's slurs without their anonymity that's not to say the urge isn't there but the fallout and scandal outweighs whatever rewards there might be the riddler is very similar to the batman in this regard we know him as the riddler not as edward ashton or whatever his real name might be heck we don't even see his real face until after two hours into the film like wayne he's weaker without his mask with his usgi extreme cold weather mask on he's a creepy villain without his mask he acts like he's on the spectrum there's only one batman but there are many riddlers riddler's identity thus becomes a symbol a symbol of rebellion and accelerationism donning the masks and coats the 500 followers become the riddler through his manufactured identity he lives on in others his gang of followers who wear his same mask reflects the gang that batman fights at the subway station at the beginning of the film their masks or their identical face paint show a collective identity as opposed to an individual identity there's another layer of mimicry or inspiration to all of us as riddler became the riddler because he saw what batman was doing and he wanted in on the action in his own world guys look at batman and say wow he's literally me you are literally out of your goddamn mind what i just want to say real fast the filmmakers had to know who they were appealing to with this movie i refuse to believe that the word drive appearing on the monitor was a coincidence which one's you you tell me the film even shows some parallels and how they work they're both obsessive in their quest for truth and justice they both play the roles of nocturnal voyeurs and both of them hide in the shadows and sneak up on their enemies and while we're here i want to bring up how one particular scene in the film the one in which riddler attacks coulson in the car felt like it was a major homage to john carpenter's halloween well it's time to watch taxi driver for the 30th time this month [Music] cry [Music] okay where were we oh yeah batman and riddler are foils they're two sides of the same coin and what do both of them want justice maybe even more than identity the batman explores what it means to bring about justice what kind of justice is just who are we to designate ourselves the arbiters of justice is there a point in society in which the best most just thing to do is to burn it all to the ground the riddler and his followers think so it's a logical conclusion in the batman there isn't really one definitive bad guy the city itself is bad layers upon layers of corruption infest gotham at this point the rampant corruption is a key part of the city's identity ripping out the tumor of corruption might kill the whole body edward nashton like many other cinematic batman villains sees the life cycles of societies through a sort of spenglerian point of view that is to say cyclical or seasonal gotham is in the age of decadence it's a once great society in decline riddler witnesses its decay he dedicates his life to uncovering the evils that destroyed the city he once loved or maybe still loves but upon realizing how deep the roots of evil have grown he sets out on a mission to avenge the city and help to make it start anew but at what cost maybe a new better order might arise of the chaos he creates but the blood of the innocent will still be on his hands how can he give himself the power to destroy a civilization even if he believes his motives to be pure or is this all an act of mercy batman opposes the riddler even if he inadvertently aids him it's interesting though as they want to bring justice to the same people but their ideas of justice make them antagonistic towards one another riddler isn't afraid to kill batman is riddler is very well who batman could be if batman crossed the line and took a life he's a dark reflection of batman but is what batman is doing any better he lives by his own moral code keeping himself clean but he still works to protect the status quo he's a vigilante yet he works with the system in an effort to preserve that same system he wants to rid it of corruption but maybe riddler is right in this case maybe the best thing for it is a clean slate but again is that batman's decision is the most moral thing to do to just let larger forces at play do their work but if no one does anything to destroy or save gotham then who will it's a tricky ethical quandary nevertheless if we're to view their relationship as a sort of dialectic between different views of justice with batman being the thesis and riddler being the antithesis then the synthesis is actually worse than what either of them wanted at the end gotham is flooded and full of crime resembling a post-katrina new orleans at the same time most of the political establishment remains intact the film tries to paint real as a new mayor who can usher in hope for the future but the whole rotten establishment is still there even if she is a good politician she's still just one person batman's pyrrhic victory puts his whole persona in perspective in the two years during which he donned the cape he ruled the streets through fear fear of the shadows fear of him he wasn't acting out of a righteous love for justice he was lashing out at the criminal element of the city an element that he blamed for the death of his parents and his lost childhood but with falcone dead and the city underwater wayne can think a bit more clearly where did he go wrong how could riddler think they were friends ridler who grew up as an orphan at an orphanage that was part of the wayne estate had a similar childhood to bruce they both grew up as orphans but edward lived in poverty while bruce grew up in riches edward resented bruce and hated bruce's father even more seeing him as the genesis of all the problems in gotham that made his life a living hell he lived with this bitterness allowing it to grow inside him it got to a point where he wanted bruce to pay for the sins of his father even if bruce was innocent in all of this it's ironic that while he hated bruce he idolized batman i guess bruce was both his angle and his devil so what could have been a quest for pure justice was poisoned by personal grudges riddler hated thomas wayne and blamed him for everything currently wrong but as we learn from alfred riddler's mental caricature of wayne was far from accurate this i think is the core reason that riddler's actions turned him into a villain rather than a hero looking at him batman sees that he's the same way maybe he's not the riddler now but if he doesn't change his ways then in a few years he might be maybe if his life growing up wasn't as cushy if he had to lead a life as hard as edwards then he might very well be the one wearing the cold weather mask i also have to mention selena kyle aka catwoman she's the third wheel in this sigma bromance but i have to note that she also grew up as an orphan like the two of them and like bruce falcone had her mother killed unlike either of them she doesn't fight for some vague or theoretical idea of justice she fights for self gain but uses ideas of class struggle as sort of post-hoc justifications for her criminal actions even though she helps batman considerably and she is generally a good guy in the movie and she also fights falcone to avenge her mom just like batman her more materialistic motivations make her far less interesting than either batman or riddler bruce however sees how easily selena can fall into villainy probably because he sees the potential in himself and he recognizes that selena is already more morally flexible than he is and so he makes attempts to try to steer her away from making bad life-changing decisions he chastises her for stealing from the penguin and he stops her from killing falcone and the other guys she had tied up reminding her that by killing them she would bring extra torment and suffering upon herself but i couldn't help but think of that one scene from dark man when batman and catwoman had that dirty cop hanging off the side of the building dropping me it's not really an option for you [Music] that's not something you can live with i'm glad that batman chose to reject her at the end and continue his life of solitude it's actually kind of funny how the movie teases us with the romance subplot between the two of them and then he's just sort of like yeah no at the end based i mean according to the movie the riddler exists because of batman there's personal responsibility on edward for his actions i get that but the ensuing mess at the end of the movie is also a result of batman's reckless behavior that's when he realizes that if he truly wants to save the city then he needs to act like a hero and not like a vigilante that is if the city is even worth saving riddle me this batman in this current year why must a film noir about government corruption be packaged as cape [ __ ] why can't we get a story like this that's not linked to any famous ips our audience is stupid or do studios have no faith in their original scripts this movie could have been great but you warner brothers had to shackle it with its branding and force it to be pg-13 cinema needs to die so that it can start anew [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: The Kino Corner

Views: 73,290

Keywords: batman, riddler, comic, book, superhero, dc, comics, the kino corner, kino, art, cinema, movies, robert, pattinson, paul dano, zoe kravitz, joe pesci, penguin, bruce, wayne, thomas, gotham, spengler, comedy, satire, glink, cosplay, identity, hbo, warner bros, brothers, cape, bat, alfred, andy serkis, noir, film noir, mystery, falcone, riddles, dark, spooky, action, drama, civilization, animation, nirvana, music, masks, 4chan, meme, goofy, wojak, tv, television, night, cyberpunk

Id: uMqdulheCX4

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Sat May 21 2022