My Friend Blaise
My dearest friend, Blaise van Hecke, passed away early Monday morning. Everybody’s posted the sweetest platitudes about her on social media. That’s what happens when somebody dies. People say the nicest things about them. They’ll say those things about me when I pass away. In my case, just know about half of those platitudes won’t be entirely accurate, or will even omit a few things. The truest platitude for me would be something like, “Oh, he could go out of his way to help you, but sometimes he could be a surly prick.” That’s still being kind. But we don’t say those things about those who’ve left us. As far…
TrailerWatch: The Batman
As far as the screen goes, Batman is a saturated property: we’ve had the Adam West Batman (which borders on campy genius), Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns, Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Zack Snyder’s Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (and Batman’s cameo in Suicide Squad), and then complementing properties, like Joker, Birds of Prey (the short-lived 2002 TV show and the more-recent movie), the television series Gotham, and several animated series. With such a populated franchise, it forces every new installment to be different. That’s a good and a bad thing. Necessity compels originality. But, sometimes, a predecessor might’ve done…