I'm Sorry, You're Doing What Now?

WHO?

Me! Me and Joel Schumacher! Me and my dear pal Joel!

Me: a person who lives in New York and watches lots of movies and has friends who are critics and entertainment writers. I am not a critic or an entertainment writer, nor do I particularly want to be either of those things. As I'm often telling my dad, I could not be a critic because I love everything. I find it easy and enjoyable to turn off my critical brain and watch what many people would call "bullshit." I love bullshit. I luxuriate in bullshit. Some people say I have Bad Taste. That might be true. But I can't be any more than I am; I'm just me. I am but a casual film-watcher with an English degree that sometimes makes me think I have something to say. It's the English degree part of me that sometimes puts on a thinking hat to compose a thought about a movie, good or bad.

Joel Schumacher: director, writer, producer, etc. etc. of movies good and bad. You may know him by his many well known directorial projects, held in various regards, such as St. Elmo's Fire, The Lost Boys, two Batman movies in the 90s, and the 2004 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical adaptation of Phantom of the Opera. He's a director with a style and a singular voice, which gives his movies a certain flavor that, I admit, may not be to everyone's taste.

WHAT?

Inspired by my favorite podcast, Blank Check with Griffin and David, I have taken it upon myself to watch and examine all of Mr. Schumacher's films/directorial projects. Maybe not the music videos, but definitely all the movies and possibly those two episodes of House of Cards. We'll see how I feel as I get to the end. It's about 24 movies spanning over 35 years of filmmaking. It's a full career with ups and downs, and I'm gonna dig into it.

The premise of Blank Check is that Griffin Newman (actor, nice good boy) and David Sims (writer/critic currently for The Atlantic, nice good boy) watch a directors filmography-- a director who had huge successes early on and then were given a titular blank check to make whatever crazy passion project they wanted. To quote the intro of the podcast, sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce, babyyyy.

Schumacher made some big hits. He made some aggressively Blank Check movies. He made some major flops. But his whole oeuvre-- as far as I can tell, standing here on the outset of this project, having seen only a selection of his pictures-- is one of style and intent, individuality, and real... interest. I'm interested. He's got a thing that I want to dig into and know more about, and this seems like a solid way to do that. Every movie feels like a personal statement. His career trajectory along with his personal directorial style make him an appealing subject for a Blank Check examination.

The boys of Blank Check will never discuss the films of Joel Schumacher (probably because there are too many of them, and probably because quite a few of them are considered to be Very Bad), but I'm fascinated by what I've seen so far, and so I am going to do the series for them. This is my 2018 personal Blank Check project. They have a podcast, I'm going to write. I intend to write a little something about each movie and it's place in the series. I'm not quite sure what these pieces will be like yet-- that's a journey we'll all go on together. This whole thing is a journey we'll all go on together.

You and me and Joel Schumacher.

WHEN?

This is a 2018 project and I intend to complete it throughout the course of 2018. This means watching approximately two Schumacher films a month. I'm starting late, so we'll see how "on schedule" I manage to be moving forward.

WHERE?

Here! You may read full thoughts here, on this website that I created exclusively to host this project. Likely, I anticipate you will be able to find additional thoughts on my twitter and Letterboxd accounts, because I am a person of value who has a social media presence.

WHY?

Probably I should begin by saying that, as a child, I loved Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin.  It came out when I was seven, so it was geared towards me because that movie is actively for children, and gosh, tell ya what, I loved it. I watched it multiple times. I owned the novelization, which I read multiple times. My clearest memories of being that age are of reading that novelization-- how the slick pages of pictures in the middle not only came in the middle of a sentence, but in the middle of a word.

The movie really appealed to me, and I'm not sure now I can put my finger on why. Maybe because it was colorful, dramatic, extravagant. Maybe because I liked Batman and loved Robin and thought Chris O'Donnell was pretty cute. I suppose I knew it wasn't a great movie, but it stuck in my craw, and I liked it. I continued to feel a warm nostalgia for it, despite the fact that that movie went on to not only kill the Batman franchise for eight years but to be generally regarded as one of the worst movies ever made.

Ouch.

For a long time my impression of Joel Schumacher was that he was a stylist at best, a bad filmmaker at worst. Critically, my understanding was that he was Bad and Not Liked. Whatever I had liked about Batman & Robin must have been the foolish fancy of a child who liked colors.

Well, as an adult, it turns out I still like colors.

I recently found myself on a very intense Kiefer Sutherland kick and watched for the first time The Lost Boys and Flatliners, both of which I desperately loved. Both are first wave Schumacher movies-- extravagant, colorful, dramatic, stylish. What I loved about them, I came to realize, is wrapped up in the direction: the colors, the flair, the heightened sensibility, the allegory, the excellent use of peak King Babe Kiefer. I thought back on it-- I had seen St. Elmo's Fire. I had seen Phone Booth and Phantom of the Opera. That heightened, outlandish style of filmmaking was something I liked and had always liked, and I was now piecing together that these movies had a thread tying them together.

Maybe I was deeply influenced as a child, but my favorite directors have always been the ones with a really recognizable style, and yes, a heightened sensibility. From Wes Anderson and his doll house creations to Kenneth Branagh and his theatrical bombast, I have always preferred when a director has a style. Something about them that is unique to them. It's satisfying to be able to watch a movie and go, oh yes, this is a Soderbergh. Oh, that set is so Branagh. Oh, that camera move is so Sofia Coppola. I like those things. Schumacher has those things. I was struck by how much Schumacher has those things-- especially watching The Lost Boys and Flatliners back to back, I was struck by his use of color, his inclusions of gothic elements, and that thing he does where people fall but the actor is clearly not doing any actual falling, there's just a lot of wind. I love that thing. It's so... Schumacher. It's extravagant, colorful, dramatic. It's more a feeling than a realistic presentation of anything, and I think that's marvelous.

So I choose to embark on this Schumacher adventure because I think he's an inventive, explorative filmmaker. He's trying things, saying things, playing around. I like what I've seen so far, and want to see more.

No matter what, I think I was going to do the filmography and watch all these movies. I'm tracking that project because it feels more worthwhile that way. And honestly... I think Schumacher might deserve a reexamination. I want to share my thoughts and this seems like the right avenue and the right time.

So. Why? Why not?