It's a rare find to come across a soundtrack for a television show, but this is what we have here. The '90s Batman television. The mini-film soundtrack for the half-hour instant classic stories that aired every Saturday morning is now available in limited units for your enjoyment. On two CDs!
The first disc opens with an overture of memorable themes. Namely Batman's theme, followed by Man-Bat, Joker, Charlie Collins, Batgirl, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Penguin, and a very rare Harley Quinn theme. The track flows very nicely between each theme, though it ends rather abruptly. My only gripe is that it doesn't have either of the Robin themes or Nightwing's theme.
From there, the listener is treated to 11 episodes picked by the writers and producers based on dynamic range and the visual cues evoked by the audio. There are some very classic ones such as the Two-Face episodes and Joker's Favor. However, there are several classic ones missing such as Robin's Reckoning and Heart of Ice. Hell, they don't even have Read My Lips, which was the first time Shirley Walker talked about the music on the DVD commentary. And it has probably one of the nicest jazz tracks in any of the Batman episodes.
The last track on the second disc is titled Music of the Bat 101. It is a short track where Walker explains the inner workings of the Batman animated theme. This sounds like it was recorded for a music class, but the insert book says it was from a press interview. Definitely for the music buffs.
But even then, these tracks are beautiful to listen to. Relaxing but also evoking emotions that made those episodes run chills down my spine.
I found my new background music when I'm working on something.
It's the day after the day after the last day of classes for the semester. It's two days after the end of my college education as a fine artist. It's two days before I find out if I'm going to Virginia to pick up my sister or stay at home to take care of the dogs.
Twenty-four hours ago, I was captivated in my first comic book. Watchmen. It's a twenty-tree year old story. I should have read it by now given the research I've done into the culture and genere of comics as a contemporary social art form for political satire and reflection. I wrote a term paper on it, for crying out loud!
It's a good book. I finished it in two days. Will revisit it again to understand the events a little more clearly. So much to take in at once.
It's been two days since I started my so-called life after college. I should be doing something other than blogging. I should be creating art or at least planning some kind of post-college adventure to make up for my teen years and my early twenties when normal people are out enjoying life and hanging out with friends. Forming relationships.
The computer has been off for two days. Both computers. This PC I'm typing on now and the Mac I bought for school purposes. Now it's just going to serve as an editing station for videos I may post on YouTube.
I have only two days to get my Christmas shopping done. My mom is the only one I haven't bought anything for. I should get on that today.
I saw Milk today. Though my intents to be in that theatre was to see if I can secure employment on what is probably going to be the slowest movie season ever (the movies they green-lit during the writer's strike are coming out now) on top of which with the economy being what it is, I decided to treat myself and my mother to a movie. She went to see a different movie than me, but that is because that particular movie would be leaving once the Christmas family films come out in full force next week.
Anyway...
Milk. I really wish I had someone with me to appreciate this movie with. Someone special with a bond that only the two of us would understand. The movie is nothing short of inspirational and moving. It's also very painful to watch, as the arguments against homosexuals made in the film mirror that which are made now. Thirty years have past, and nothing has changed! Why?
I'm not going to praise it; that's been done. I'm not going to comment very much about Lucas Grabeel's small role in the film, though I do wonder why he got an opening credit when he was nothing more than a background character whose importance wasn't addressed until the end of the film. (I will say that Lucas did look rather comfortable playing the role, so who knows what that could mean. Then again, so did James Franco.) I will say that by myself, it's difficult to appreciate the magnitude of what this film is about and its core message without someone special watching it along side.
We're all human. We may have our flaws and disagreements. We may even come to hate each other. But we are still human.
Unfortunately, we've lost sight of this simple fact because of stupid things like the color of our skin, the religious creeds we believe in, or what gender we are attracted to.
Saw this trailer coupled with an audio review for an Art House film from a website I found over the summer and have been visiting every weekend to hear their honest reviews of movies.
But that's not what I'm going to talk about.
There has been, for a long time, a history of closeted gay actors in Hollywood who refuse to come out of the closet. Now, since Brokeback Mountain made such a success at opening the eyes of a lot of people, you would think that would not be the case. Unfortunately, the sad fact of the matter is that if you are straight and "play gay," you get a more positive review. If you are gay and you "play straight," you don't get anything short of a note-worthy performance. This is a broad brush stroke, I'm aware of that.
The point is that while the cast, lead by Sean Penn, is brillent in their roles, I can't help but wonder how many people in the cast are actually gay.
Those with a quick eye will have spotted High School Musical's Lucas Gabreel. Disney is notorious for keeping their child stars under lock and key, but when Shia Labeouf was able to act his way away from the Disney company, one has to wonder how he did that. Gabreel could very well be trying to do just that, if not for his career but because of personal interests. It does make me wonder since his breakout role in High School Musical was as the theatre brother of the diva who, at no fault to how he acts in all those behind-the-scenes features, does let the occational gay quirk slip out.
Then you have James Franco and Emille Hersh (Hobgoblin from Spiderman and Speed Racer, respectfully) who look surprisingly very comfortable in their roles. Both are very attractive outside of their Hollywood films, but who knows if I'm reading too much into these things.
I feel kind of bad that this movie came out the week of my thesis defense and public presentation. By the time I'll be able to see it, the movie will have left the theatre. That's how they do independent films: unless it generates a boat load of money during its opening week, it will only stay for that week.
I'll have to look for this on DVD, as well as "Were the World Mine" and "Another Gay Sequel."
