Caffeinated Clint
I was sitting there in the office, my little touché swimming and swiveling in a squishy leather chair that squeaks with glee as its steel bearings are pushed to the brink, when at the corner of my eye a cat caught my attention. But not just any cat – no kids, this is one purrfect puss I wouldn’t actually wouldn’t be opposed to bathing. Unfortunately, the head of a large corporation walked through the door, ready for our 1pm chat, about mid-way through the TV spot for “Dark Knight Rises” automatically cancelling my plan of simultaneous dreams of pole-vaulting and signing up for a voluntary position at the Cat Protection Society.
Naturally, as I do with most big-wigs that could ultimately play a part in helping me pay off the Nissan GT-R I have my eye on, I ask ‘So, whatcha think of the new Catwoman?’
Always find that’s a good ice-breaker (even if some of them swing around expecting to see some feline-looking bitch working the secretary desk at the company; it’s then I usually realize that some guys just don’t care for comic book movies) to open with a question about a foxy litter-boxer.
In this case especially, it seemed like a worthwhile opener, since this person has been studying the scent of the new Catwoman (for purely business reasons), and her new carry case “The Dark Knight Rises”, for a good twelve months or so. And yes, it evoked much conversation about the importance of leather in cinema and the necessity of a hot female companion for Batman. The conversation may later be transcribed in full for the Smithsonian for historical purposes.
In the case of Anne Hathaway, who will no doubt have every young Gotham city resident ready to donate milk upon first glance (another 20 cents in the innuendo jar, Clint), one couldn’t ask for more a more fancier feast. Sure, she was cute as Princess Mia, and yes I’d imagined myself in Jake Gyllenhaal’s place in the sheet-sweater she wore a couple of years back, but the Prada-wearing Devil’s Pussy Diaries are undoubtedly going to be something to write home about – love and other drugs withstanding.
Tightly-fitting leather, silky, straight brown locks, claws fit for clutching a back, and hind legs perfect for a jump… yep, this could be the hottest Bat-babe ever.
Or is she?
God knows, it’s not the first time I’ve got into a Kit-Kat.
(Side Note : I’m told Hathaway is one of the best Batman babes ever – and will impress her cynics. This person I met with attested to how good Hathaway is in the film, saying she “steals the show in the same way [Heath] Ledger did [The Dark Knight”. In other words, she’s damn solid in the film. She might also spur “the first major round of applause and cheer from a Batman movie” in certain scenes, I’m told).
Truth is, I think I’ve had a crush on most Batman women…. sans Eartha Kitt and this one.
Michelle Pfeiffer, I must admit, still sits atop of the sheep I count when I’m struggling to fall to sleep at night; while Nicole Kidman has never looked more delicious than she did in “Batman Forever” (though, I will admit, she does bowl a few pins down in “To Die For”, too). I even occasionally find myself still writing ‘Alicia Silverstone’ – aka Batgirl – in ‘significant others’ on Medicare forms, so she clearly left an impression too.
In fact, I barely remember a female lead in a Batman movie not evoking a wolf-whistle from an audience member who looks suspiciously like that guy who created Moviehole (now that I’m running a PR and Publishing company I’ll keep it quieter. Only going to blow into a ‘recorder’ now when someone leather-clad catches my eye on film – unless, of course, it’s Sly Stallone. Or I’ll do my wolf-whistling when I’m down on our Coast branch – until my reputation as a clumsy surfer with a limp gets out, then everybody will know me there too).
Problem I’ve had in really enjoying the beauties at the center of these “Batman” movies is that for each and every Batman movie to date, I’ve taken a woman with me. And you can only imagine the looks I’d get if I rose to my feet and screamed “You can unstrap my codpiece and cape any night, woman!” towards the screen.
It’s been a different girl accompanying me to each and every Batman movie thus far (there’s been 6 bar that big-screen version of the Adam West/Burt Ward TV series that the cinema I worked in as a youngster re-issued about twenty years after it was made – to cash-in on ‘Bat’ mania at the time.)
Tim Burton’s “Batman”.
Many years ago, now. I had won two tickets on the local radio station to see the movie before… well, every other kid in Geography class. I’d be seeing the big-time blockbuster, the first major comic-book movie since the one with Superman and the Plastic Moon rocks, quite a while before the general public – at least 9 hours or so before. Yep, major.
Naturally, I was the most popular boy in class the Wednesday of the screening, particularly when it became apparent I hadn’t yet chosen the lucky contestant to join me on the Bat-buzzer that night.
I eventually did choose the girl to attend with me (I remember her fondly because she was one of those ‘look at me, look at me’ types that use to enjoy coming up to me and saying old clunkers like “Wanna go get fresh…..” then pausing, and continuing.. “bread at the shop”. Yep. Quite a flirt this future baker was. I assume she’s still using the same line), about 4pm that day. She couldn’t have been prouder walking hand-in-hand with the ‘big competition winner’ in the newly-won Batman T-Shirt who’d promised her free popcorn and an after-movie stroll into a Joker’s lair (later she’d discover I was referring to young Clint’s bedroom – come for the jokes, stay for the Bon Jovi and ‘Roger Rabbit’ movie quote recital) up the darkened stairs of the cinema centre to see Michael Keaton prance around like a fruitcake covered in Vegemite.
I’d forgotten all about… whatsherface.. by the time the movie was a quarter-way in, because Kim Basinger had arrived on screen. Wow. A sight to behold. The bond babe was now a Bat babe but she seemingly still encompassed the ability to shake and stir the Levi’s off of a pre-pubescent kiddo. Her Vicki Vale – the journalist love interest of Batman/Bruce Wayne – was probably the prettiest thing in “Batman”, and that’s saying something, considering the movie was a fucking box of confetti when it came to colours. When she squealed her life – numerous times in the movie – I wanted to be the one to whip off my belt, make it into a rope, and snatch her waist to safety.
Alas, only “let’s get fresh.. bread” girl got to see the Joker’s lair that night. Basinger would never know what “Wanted Dead or Alive” would sound like with a piercing shrill tone, accompanied by an orchestra of undetectable metal head guitarists (yep, and this is why I managed to coax a girl to a Batman movie and you didn’t, fella).
But, I digress, Kim Basinger was the bomb. The most explosive thing on two legs ever to grace a Batman movie (We can argue about this later Dick Ward!). She was, in short, a BBILF.
Until “Batman Returns” was released some three years later.
By this time, ‘fresh bread’ girl had taken off with some hopeless loaf to play plant the sultana (last I heard she was expecting a baker’s dozen with a coffee troll) so I’d have to entice someone else to join me on my return to the Batcave.
And boy did I look forward to returning to it. Especially with the squeezable Michelle Pfeiffer playing Catwoman in the film!
I’d seen her in “Fabulous Baker Boys”, “Married to the Mob” and, er, my dreams (her best performance! Love what she did with that spoon in that one scene in it!), and couldn’t wait to see her renowned knack of sewing leather together on the big-screen.
My date, who I remember graciously paid for us to see the film on its first weekend (no, sadly, I didn’t win a radio competition to see “Batman Returns”), wasn’t as excited at the prospect of seeing someone with a hard-to-pronounce name dressing up like a Halloween ornament, but I sure was. The more I tried to convince her that what she was about to see would beat Haley’s Comet in terms of pretty things up above, the less enthused my date was to watch the “Batman” movie. I didn’t quite understand it (And by this time I didn’t have my ‘Jokers Lair’ to keep ’em interested) – I still don’t. Weird. Alas, I continued on my mission to enjoy this movie… with or without the mutual excitement of this GF, ‘Catherine’
(Side Note : This was Catherine & my second date after “Curly Sue” – which, I recall, she said was one of the best movies she’d ever seen. Should’ve taken that as a sign. As it turns out, years later, she would try and pick me up at a nightclub, and she actually used ‘Wanna come see Curly Sue?’ as her pick-up line. Took me about six months to realize she wasn’t referring to the movie and I’d missed a big opportunity. Maaaan!)
Anyway, I loved Pfeiffer as Catwoman. She was so friggin meowable in that part.
To this day, Pfeiffer has remained my favourite fox of the Batman world. In fact, Pfeiffer remains one of my favourite actresses of all time – especially when teamed with a spoon.
As Selina Kyle, she was deliciously frumpy but still adorkable, but as Catwoman, Pfeiffer was the future secret ingredient for Viagra. She rocked that one-piece DIY Catwoman get-up, and when she purred? We stirred.
Ask any comic-book fan, let alone ‘Batman’ fan, who the hottest chick in any of these films is and they’ll swear black, blue and purple it’s Scarface’s girlfriend – the inimitable, ageless beauty Ms Pfeiffer.
Come “Batman Forever”, which featured Nicole Kidman in the female lead, I’d all but given up on trying to convince girls that they were ‘in for a treat’ by coming to see a ‘guy in a sheet dance around for a couple of hours to strobe lights’. So I just went with the, ‘Yo. Whatcha doing tonight? New Jim Carrey movie on. Up for it?’
Of course she was – Jim Carrey was THE best, back then! – and so was her highly religious and slightly snooty girlfriend. Groan. (So much for those plans to show her how fast the Batmobile can go when its fuel injection knob was toyed with). Alas, there the three of us went, me wedged in the middle like a slice of cheese in a Subway, to see Val Kilmer’s Caped Crusader try and seduce Nicole Kidman’s mind reader.
I have to admit, I’d never been a huge fan of Kidman at this point (She was cool in “Dead Calm”, and I had enjoyed her enough in flicks like “Malice” and “Far & Away”, but she hadn’t yet proved herself to be worthy of bonking ‘Biggest movie star in the world’ Tom Cruise at that point) but what the make-up, visuals effects and freckle-removing department did for Kidman was…. astonishing. They turned an otherwise ordinary looking stork into a leggy looker worthy of riding sheeps in dreams!
To this day, I defend “Batman Forever” – I think it’s a good time, but I’ve never been able to truly convince anyone that my love of the film isn’t so much to do with the hot caramel-haired Kidman in it, as it is the content and tone.
Whatever, that’s three for three as far as Bat babes go!
Come “Batman & Robin” I had been in a long-term relationship for a couple of years and I knew darn well she wasn’t going to be interested in going to see the movie. What made matters worse is that she knew of the tiny magazine-poster throne I had made to one of its stars, Alicia Silverstone, so she was already aware I was likely most interested in seeing the film for its ‘Batgirl’ and not ‘Batman’ (But come on! Who the fuck am I?! John Travolta!? – What guy is going to honestly say “Oh, I’m in it for Batman… not the attractive blonde girl in it.”) It was a mission to drag this girl along. And, I have to admit, I wasn’t as excited going into this one as I had been the other movies – maybe I was growing up… or maybe it was those shitty reviews I’d started to read on the internet about the movie. One thing’s for sure, a Woody needed more Buzz this night.
But to my girl Alicia. Yes, she was fine. No Pfeiffer as Catwoman, but she was… fine. Hot, in fact. She wore those Batgirl duds nicely, and spoke her shitty lines clearly and clumsily – just as everyone did in the piss-poor fourquel. This may have been the moment that I realized, despite how hot the girl in the movie is, I did need a good plot and characterization to accompany ‘looks’. Much like some of the girls I took to these movies – pretty on the outside… not so much on the inside. These ‘Batman’ films had, shock, taught me something!… hot babes in leather need to be surrounded by good vehicles!
I loved Alicia. I even would’ve gladly hung up her Batgirl thong in my wardrobe for her. But her Batman movie was rubbish.
I wondered whether I’d ever get happy-happy-joy-joy at the prospect of ever seeing a Batman babe again.
When Batman returned to the screen in 2005 with “Batman Begins”, he brought Katie Holmes along for the ride. Cute? sure. Desirable? I dunno… I didn’t exactly ache to make fresh.. bread..with her.
Same goes for Maggie Gyllenhaal. Though there’s something unarguably sexier about Jake’s sis, and she did a much better job of playing the same part Holmes did for “The Dark Knight”, I still longed for the days of a truly smile-widening Michelle Pfeiffer-as-Catwoman type.
Granted, I loved these two Batman movies – “Begins” and “Knight” – possibly more than any of the other “Batman” movies, so maybe my tastes were changing. Maybe I was simply turning into more of an intellectual, and less of a… guy that always says yes to baking bread with girls that don’t like Batman movies.
But now here comes Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, the character Pfeiffer played in “Batman Returns”, in “The Dark Knight Rises”. And I have to say, I feel the smile returning, sense the giddy prospect of another potential BBILF in my future, and even quietly reconsider re-opening the Joker’s lair for the event.
Hathaway looks amazing as Catwoman – and better still, she’s apparently terrific as the character. Looks? Intelligence? Talent? Flexibility? Adaptability? Comes in Black? Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking? Yup, the iPhone’s got competition!
Here’s some of the lovely Ms Hathaway in action as the woman who, if my Bat signal is correct, is about to tickle the whiskers of the “Batman” movie fans. What do you guys think? Think she’s the return of that grand-old ‘would rather be spayed by her tonight’ feeling we all love and miss from the glory days of buckskin blockbusters?
So what do I tell ‘fresh bread’ chick if she calls and asks me to attend “Dark Knight Rises” with her? Guess, if only to get a rise out of her, I’ll say I fancy Hathaway’s buns more – or I’ll just use her for her dough.
Actually, I know who wants to come to “Dark Knight Rises” with me (at least until she reads this article and begins fearing something called the ‘Joker’s Lair’), and she insists she’s actually excited to see the film – but come to think of it, she probably just wants me to check her oil and water. Still, that’s cool. Not quite sure if that’s my thumbs up to wolf-whistle, throw my business card (featuring my new mobile number) at the screen, and wear my ”You may have Bruce, but I have Dick” blazer to the screening, but I’ll go with it anyway. Maybe… early days…Actually… expressions of interest to be my Rockin Robin for the night can be submitted below. Step away from that post button, fella.
