'Batman Begins' Turns 20 | Hot Nolan Summer
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Check out the Apple Card Daily Cash Calculator to see how much daily cash you can earn. Visit apple.co/cardcalculator today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. Hello, welcome back to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me today, she is the podcaster we deserve. It's Mallory Rubin.

Why do we pod, sir? So we can pod back up again. Exactly. Just so. Hello. Hello. Used a quote from a different movie, but I don't care. We're here today to talk to you about Batman Begins. Yeah. Christopher Nolan Joy from 2005. Why? Because it's 2025, which means it's been 20 years. Crazy. Since that film came out.

How are you feeling? How's the dust in your bones, Mallory Rubin? Ample. Ample. Dusty. I was moved into a state of absolute astonishment when you shared this anniversary with me recently. I have been reflecting a lot recently on the passage of time. Oh. And this really sent me into...

A dark place, which feels fitting for talking about the Dark Knight. You know who loves the passage of time? It's Christopher Nolan. He loves time. He loves messing with time. He loves the idea of what time does to us all. And that is part of what we will be talking about in our three-part podcast.

Maybe longer. We'll see how it goes. But our three-part summer series we're calling Hot Nolan Summer. Welcome to Hot Nolan Summer. I'm thrilled. We are covering Batman Begins this month. We will be doing Inception next month.

And then The Prestige, my personal favorite, in August. So I'm really excited about all of those. We had a blast doing the prep for this pod. It's always fun to do prep for House of R pod, but this is just like particularly delightful. Joanna, I mentioned this on...

Now, recent 2025 summer hype meter, but let me just throw a couple other Nolan anniversaries your way. Yeah, yeah. Hit me. Tenet turns five this year. You can't say that because Tenet just came out last year. I don't know if you know that. Just absolutely befuddling in terms of the passage of time. Now...

If we do extend Hot Nolan Summer into Brisk Crisp Nolan Fall and consider adding Tenet, I think the bad babies would really have to demand it for that to happen. But if they did and we rewatched it to prep for that, it would be the first time that I was able to hear a line of dialogue from that movie. Sure. So that would be an interesting experience. That would be fun. Let me throw another one at you. Sure. Is it 25 years since Memento came out?

That sounds right to me. That sounds right. What's when did, when did memento come out? So we have a Venice premiere in September of 2000 and then a release in March of 20 of 2001. So this is a big picture question. You know, if we want to be, if we want to be Venetian about it,

You know, we can't be Venetian about it. We'll wear masks and we will do this in September. If not, we'll probably do it next year. But I would love to revisit Memento. It's a fantastic movie. Anyway, so we're going to be just talking about this film, its impact. And then we've got some categories that we want to run through to help us sort of celebrate the things that we love the most about this movie and this rewatch experience. Before we get into that friendly neighborhood.

Spoiler warning is just like Batman begins all of the Dark Knight trilogy, all of Batman, perhaps. Batman. Yeah. The Caped Crusader. Have you heard of him? We're going to talk about him. Program reminders. This is coming out in advance of our first of a series we're doing, which is the best of the quarter century so far. And we're celebrating the best speeches ever.

of genre film and television of the quarter century.

So in the last 25 years, there have been quite a few speeches in film and television. We've already gotten some emails from the bad babies, hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com with their suggestions for speeches. They're sending over their ideas and we will be amassing our own ideas. And then we will just have like a speech fest together on the podcast later this week on House of R. I'm very excited for that one. And that will be again, an ongoing series. So if you have, we have some topics in mind, but if you have ideas for other sort of

through lines of our favorite genre stories that we should celebrate best.

Kiss, best, whatever. I don't know. Send it to us and we will consider it as we celebrate. We're going to do this probably for the rest of the year. So that is what is coming up. As we also mentioned on our previous pod, we're also doing like a formal Stranger Things rewatch this summer. We are doing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mallory's first time watching through starting in August. So we'll have some assets up on social media that you guys can see what we have coming this summer so you can watch

Prep along with us as we cover these things. Delightful. Mellory Rubin, how can folks keep track of everything we have to offer, everything the boys have to offer? What do you think? Going to keep it simple. Follow the pods. Why not? Follow House of R, follow The Ring Reverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch full video episodes of House of R and Midnight Boys on Spotify.

The Ringerverse YouTube channel, so subscribe to that as well. And then while you're at it, follow The Ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing and send us your emails. Keep the suggestions coming for best speeches of the century so far. Send us your emails about Squid Game 3, 28 Years Later, Fantastic Four, Superman, all of the good stuff on the horizon. Buffy, Stranger Things, other Christopher Nolan movies, whether you think we should add Tenet.

Back to the future and time travel stuff. We're going to do a podcast about later this summer. I'm really excited about it. Great. And as we already mentioned, hobbitsanddragonsatgmail.com is how you can reach us. Again, you've already sent over some of your speech ideas. We'd love to hear more. We always love your feedback. Y'all are the best. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. If there's one thing I'm going to make sure I pack for my summer vacation, it's my Apple Card. I can earn up to 3% daily cash back

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Should we do some quick facts? Let's do it. Hit me. About Batman Begins. Hit me. Directed by Christopher Nolan Aviard of M.L.A.D.S. Screenplay by Nolan and David Esquire. May 2005, the film debuts in Tokyo, but we're not playing by Tokyo drift rules. We're playing by U.S. rules. And so it was June 15th, 2005.

And then a couple of days later in the UK, Batman Begins explodes onto our screens and changes forever the careers of Christopher Nolan, of Christian Bale, and how we think about comic book storytelling, I would say, dare I say. This is a massive budget, obviously, but more than that, it's a massive gamble on Christopher Nolan, who had, up to this point, made three fairly low-budge, fairly low-key movies. And Warner Brothers is like,

Here, sir, would you like a mountain of cash on one of our most important IB properties? And let's see what you can do with it. And it's a gamble that hugely paid off for them. Worldwide box office, 373 million. And then the franchise only grew from there, obviously. So that is by any metric, a huge success. So my first question to you, Molly Rubin, where were you in 2005? College. Yeah. Yeah.

I began college in 2004. So this was the summer after my freshman year, if I remember how time works, which again, we're talking about Christopher Nolan. So I might not. I might not. But yeah, this was like, you know, I've chatted on many a ringer pod before about how one of the many reasons that the MCU feels like so shabby

embedded in the history of my life is because Iron Man came out the week after I graduated or the week I graduated college. So it's just a direct association with like a pivot point in my life, you know, moving into another phase of life. And similarly for this franchise, this was like the beginning of college. And I have such...

vivid memories of seeing these movies, not just seeing them, but seeing them in the theater. Obviously, you know, Dark Knight, I mean, one of the greatest genre films ever made. I have, for some reason, I mean, you know, I'm a Bane head. I ride for Bane. I drafted Bane as my villain in the Build the Best Batman movie draft and was soundly rebuked by my colleagues in the voters' line. And I was like, I have something to tell you. I

And I saw that movie, like, so many times at the theaters. Just every opportunity I had, I went back. And part of it was because I loved the film. And part of it was because it felt so...

that this trilogy had concluded. It was just such a central thing in our lives for so many years. I absolutely adore this trilogy. I love these movies. I love all three of them. I do have a ranking, but I love all three of them. And in general, as we'll talk about more as we go today, I

I love Christopher Nolan movies. He's one of my favorite filmmakers, and I really adore a lot of his movies. So to see him play with and give us his version of Batman Prestige, when Batman is also one of my favorite movies,

comic book characters and one of my favorite characters full stop in stories. It's just like a delight. So I never tire all these years later. I still can't believe it's 20, but I never tire all these years later of returning to these films. This is like my, these are my Batman movies and Bale is my Batman and Nolan is my Batman director. These are the films of my life, which is actually, I will say this has been one of the interesting things about our pod journey together. We're like a few years apart in age.

Not many, but this is one of the things where we can feel those few years, I think. Absolutely. Right, because Keaton is my Batman. Though, I mean, I would say if I were to, you know, you can only pick one Batman director to ever have control of Batman again, I would say Nolan over Burton. It's not like Burton's my guy, but Keaton is definitely my guy. Yeah, 2025, I had fairly recently moved to San Francisco. Yeah.

My sister had just moved back from New York to San Francisco with her soon-to-be husband. And so we were all just sort of like... I was broke as a joke working at a bookstore and had to scrounge for bus fare every day. It was a threadbare early 20s time for me, but I loved... I was in the city and I was...

but making the ends meet. And I actually don't have a recollection of watching this movie. I know that I must have seen it in the theaters. I don't have a strong recollection of it. And I think it's because I wasn't like hugely anticipating it necessarily. I think this came as a big surprise to a lot of us in terms of like, um,

You know, where the state of Batman was moving into this movie and then what this movie accomplished. I will say I have crystal clear memories of where I was and how we watched Inception, which I'll talk about when we get to Inception. And I have a crystal clear memory of seeing the Dark Knight at the AMC Metreon IMAX with my high school friends.

junior high school prom date harley was just like visiting me and we went to go see the dark night and when the truck flips at the beginning of the dark night and the san francisco met you on imax it's like truly one of the like gas worthy electric viewing experiences of my life um so um that is what i will say about that um you already you already teased this

I'll say this. Batman, because I am just a couple years older than you, the idea of Batman...

batmania as it exploded in 1989 with the first tim burton michael keaton like batman is so indelibly associated with my childhood it's like teenage mutant ninja turtles and ghostbusters and batman like these are the the tent poles of the late 80s into the 90s now i'm craving some cheesy pizza after you mentioned and so um

Batman is hugely important. And then Batman the Animated Series, which I watched like every day after school if I could, whenever I could sneak it in. So Batman...

As an incredibly interesting gothic figure, I just had such a clear sense, given what Burton did, and then Schumacher after him and stuff like that, with Gotham, given the beautiful stylized nature of Batman the Animated Series. Yeah. I just had this really distinct idea of the...

idea of Gotham. And, you know, we'll talk about this a little bit more in depth, but what Nolan does to bring Gotham down to earth in these films is so genius. Like the way he somehow threads a needle and pulls off, uh, could Batman actually happen, uh, in a Chicago metro area near you, uh, is, is phenomenal. But like, I,

Batman was really important to me. I did not get into the comics until later, as is the case with my experience with all comic books. But Batman, huge. And I just don't know any kid who grew up at that time where that wasn't the case. Exactly. Very similar for me. I remember watching the Burton films with my mom when I was a kid. She was just obsessed with Keaton. Yeah.

The lips are really good. Yeah. You need good lips to be Batman. It's very important. You do. You need good fucking lips to be Batman. You know, I think you need a good solid chin and jaw as well, but obviously the lips are, the eye is drawn. The eye is drawn. I noticed that when you were telling us about your

formative years with Batman, you didn't share anything specifically about the bat nipples and what that, you know, meant to you as a young person. Oh, well, I mentioned Schumacher and I feel like that's enough. It's just implied that, yeah, that captures the whole experience. I'm sure I mentioned this when we did our Batman draft, but years ago when I first started here, but... It was a long time ago, that's why. It was a long time ago. I, at the Marin County, the...

Batman Forever. Yeah. Not a great Batman movie. No. Mel Kilmer, Nicole Kidman, et cetera. Yeah. But like Jim Carrey as the Riddler was so culturally important. And I, at the Marin County Fair that summer, like I remember it came out right when we, we like, I finished sixth grade and the Marin County Fair that summer, I definitely won a poster of Jim Carrey as the Riddler that I was not allowed to hang on my wall.

So I had it just like inside my closet for years. You would open the doors of my closet and there was just like a huge neon green Technicolor poster of Jim Carrey as the Riddler. Did you have other posters in your closet or was this like a place of distinction? I wasn't...

Our house is very gray and white. That is the aesthetic my mom chose. We were not allowed to have art on our walls. So all of my art was inside my closet door. So I had like collages on the back of the closet doors, stuff like that. So that's like where all of my decorating happened was inside the closet. Anyway, Jim Carrey, place of pride. I think I didn't know how to get rid of it once I had it. It was just sort of like, what do you, do you throw that away? You can't. I hope you still have it.

After hearing this? I don't. Tucked away somewhere? Well, maybe someone will send you a vintage version of it. Oh, one can only hope. But yeah, like the, even the campy...

aspects of the those early batman films or the outright bad aspects or for me in great films when i was a younger kid the scary aspects like i found i found penguin in the burton films terrifying obviously when i was a kid now i have just such a like a level of appreciation for it returning to those movies as an adult but when i was a kid i was like

Oh, I... It's just... What is that black goo coming out of his mouth? You know, the number of... And it's also just like, because Batman was so present in so many different forms across so many formative years of our youths, it's also just inextricable, I think, from how we think about reboots, how we think about the idea of mantle passing not only inside of a fictional universe, but in a meta sense across...

A new person will inhabit this character. A new creator will give you their version of this tale. It's like, whoa. It's so different. And Nolan talks about this. We'll hit some Nolan quotes, but Nolan has talked about how when they made this movie, it wasn't like, what can you do with a Batman franchise? It's like, what can you do with a singular Batman movie? Right.

And Hollywood wasn't using the term reboot and any of that sort of stuff. That wasn't exactly on Nolan's mind. And when you think of the Batman string of movies, Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, even though the men are different across it, you've got Michael Goff as Alfred throughout. Continuity, yeah. You've got Chris O'Donnell as Robin in two of the four. Formative crush in my youth. I mean...

When he does the laundry, you know, it's very good. But like, there's content. So even though they were recasting the Batman, it didn't feel like it was a different story. It was supposed to be kind of the same story. Yeah, but then remember when you were a kid and the first time you learned about...

Adam West or like you saw a picture of the Batmobile from that era. Like the Batmobile, what did it look like in 66? And it just sort of like opened my mind to the idea of returning to a character set across time. So that's just so fun. And then like you noted, obviously the animated versions were, I mean, just like it's some of the best Batman movies.

You know, we talked a lot when we did our build the best Batman movie draft about all, you know, our shared love and admiration for Mask of the Phantasm and for Kevin Conroy as a Bruce and a Batman. So, yeah, it's just like, you know, and

And then, I mean, we had the pleasure of covering the most recent Batman film together. Yeah. A movie that we, like, loved. And, you know, talk about powerful and memorable performances from people in Batman films. I mean...

Our Pats, our Bats, and Zoe. And Zoe. Oh, yeah. I mean, what a life it's been to watch Batman stories and read Batman stories. It's great. Truly great. To triangulate the character, I just want to share a couple quotes that we gathered about sort of these various creators talking about what makes Batman, Batman. And actually, I was watching...

This documentary that Warner Brothers put out about all three movies right around when Dark Knight Rises came out and they interviewed sort of like a bunch of people about the trilogy. And Guillermo del Toro was...

David Lindelof, very good. Guillermo del Toro, like, exceptional in talking about Batman and his legacy. And he compared him to Jesus, and he's like, it's the way Jesus can be different things for different people. He's like, your Jesus can be a vengeful, like, your God, your Jesus can be sort of like a vengeful raffle, and mine can be love and light, and those can all be the same. And they're all...

all Jesus or they're all God or whatever. And he's like, that's what Batman is. Like Batman can be your dark and vengeful or your virtuous, like, you know, savior of the city or, or whatever you want to believe it to be. This is what Christopher Nolan said in an interview with variety in 2018. He said, yes, Batman is a superhero, but it's based on ideas of guilt, fear, these strong impulses that the character has. Bruce Wayne doesn't have any superpowers other than extraordinary wealth.

But really, he's just someone who does a lot of push-ups. In that sense, he's very relatable and human. I think that's why I gravitated towards it. And then Frank Miller, of course, iconic comic book creator, in an interview with... A conversation with Zack Snyder that was published in Inverse just last year, 2024, said...

I look at Batman as a self-made superhero. Bruce Wayne made himself Batman by studying, training, and exploring. Extraordinary feats come easily to Superman. He can fly and then the rest. I mean, just in terms of Superman, it's like, you think you can do it? He can fly, for God's sakes. Whereas Batman needs a goddamn car. I enjoy an effort.

Superman is an apologia worrywart, and he's concerned with keeping the world from blowing itself up. Batman's this Dionysian character who's out for blood, and their perfect opposites in that Batman is the reckless ego, and Superman is the fearful superego. Unsurprisingly, a genuinely top-tier iconic quote from one of the best Batman storytellers there is. If anybody's listening and like, you know what? I've never read a Batman comic. Why not start now? There are, I mean, the list of...

historically good and notable and worth checking out. Batman comics is as long as the list for any character in the history of comics. But if you're going to start in one place, I would recommend Miller's Dark Knight Returns, which is my favorite Batman comic and a lot of people's favorite Batman comic. It is like gorgeous and incredible. And a lot of what he's identifying there is very present in that text. So dive into that one or some of the ones that Joanna will talk about shortly that had an influence on this particular film. Well, Dark Knight Returns is a good, is a good, um,

one to call out because that's, that's the one that Jonathan Nolan talks about is like the one in his, you know, Jonathan Nolan who co-wrote, uh, in this franchise talks about that as the book that his brother gave him that like got him into Batman in the first place. Um, I just thought, uh, uh, Bill Finger, uh, as quoted by Bob Kane, uh,

considered the creators of Batman. You can dig more into why that's contentious, but we support Bill Finger on this podcast. It says, Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert the Bruce, the Scottish patriot. Being a playboy, was a man of gentry. Wayne being a playboy and was a man of gentry, I searched for a name that would suggest colonialism. I tried Adams, Hancock. Then I thought of Mad Anthony Wayne. So Robert the Bruce and Mad Anthony Wayne is how we got Bruce Wayne. But I just like this idea that Frank

Frank Miller can say, Batman is a self-made, gritty, he-did-it-himself superhero. And Bill Finger's like, the gentry and colonialism. And both of those things are true. Both are true, exactly. Both of those things are true. Yeah, and like, you know, I think obviously for superhero and superhero movie fans of this particular era, the characters are different. Unquestionably, the tone of the stories is often quite distinct, but...

Without question, there will be familiar notes there to one Tony Stark in Iron Man and this idea of wealth is a superpower in these stories because of what it enables these characters to do. The idea of the billionaire playboy, the idea of this character who has some circumstance in a life, as a hero often does, that then transforms something about their inner self,

I think that this is one of the many reasons that people really do tend to love Batman. Obviously, there are great joys and highs that come from reading about gods and titans and characters with powers or magical abilities. And that's something we also really love. But we're going to get through... I'll circle back to this, I think, without question at some point in our categories today. But there's something about

The moment where you see Bruce just having to like rub his chest by the fire to regain warmth and blood flow in his body, right? And you're like, that's just a dude. Like, that's just a guy who had to decide to do this and then learn how. Not just a man in a can, but just a man in a cow, I guess. Can I just say?

I had the same thought, you know, when we're looking at Billionaire Playboy. I was like, you know, there are many reasons why Iron Man was the first go out of the gate for the MCU. But certainly, like, we can do a Bruce Wayne-ish thing with Tony Stark is definitely on their mind. Yeah.

But in watching that documentary, one of the things that really cracked me up is Christopher Nolan was talking about what a bullshitter Descartes is, Liam Neeson's character is. He's like, he's so convincing. He's like so convincing, but a bullshitter. And he's like, one of the examples of that is like the thing he says about like, rub your chest, your arms will take care of themselves.

That's bullshit. He's like, I live in dread and fear of any Boy Scout watching this and then thinking that's true. He's like, it's not true. He says it convincingly, but it's something I made up. And so I was watching the movie. I was like, oh, I always forget if I ever find myself being cold or she's around my chest. And then I watched the documentary. I was like, never mind. It's bullshit. Perhaps I shouldn't take life lessons from a Batman movie.

It's a good lesson to file away. Yeah. Okay. So on the Christopher Nolan front, you already indicated that Nolan's one of your favorite filmmakers of all time. Anything else you want to say sort of about his filmography outside of the sort of the very steep dives we're going to be doing over the next few months? Yeah.

I, you know, these three Batman movies are among my favorite superhero movies ever. This is among my favorite superhero trilogies ever. Inception is one of my favorite movies. I really look forward to talking to that movie, talking about that movie with you. I think that's like a fascinating and beautiful film. One of my favorite memories of going to a movie was seeing Dunkirk with Chris Ryan and

And we saw the arc light back in the day with a bunch of our colleagues. And I guess we must have been there like day one. I don't remember why this happened, but everybody got hats. Oh, everybody got Dunkirk hats. You got a Dunkirk hat? Oh, I'm jealous. And Chris is just obsessed with Dunkirk, as you know. So it was a very, very fun thing to get to see that movie with him. You know, I, I just, I really enjoy his films. I love Memento, The Prestige. I, I, we feel similarly about it. It's,

My order moves a little bit over time, but it's probably just...

It's in the top three. I think my top three is Inception, The Prestige, and Dark Knight in some order. So I don't know if it's my number one overall like it is yours, but it's certainly very, very high on my list. I love that movie. I think it's like breathtaking and brilliant. And, you know, one of the cool things about being a fan of Christopher Nolan movies is he's just making bangers right now. Like, we're going to get to watch Christopher Nolan's version of The Odyssey next year. That's just an incredible thing that's happening. So...

it's really fun not only to get to look backward now, but also get to look ahead. What a, what a cool thing. Which is how we're going to close out the podcast today. I'm really excited about that. Um, got me really excited to look at what's coming with the Odyssey, but, um,

I will say that I was really into memento, like when it came out and I definitely still have it on DVD. And unlike your lovely husband, my physical media collection is not massive. So if I own something on DVD, it is like quite significant. So memento was a huge one for me. Prestige is my favorite and I love Dunkirk. I'm a huge, I'm a huge Dunkirk fan. And Inception. I think Inception is like,

kind of the best of all the things that... Prestige is my personal favorite, but I think Inception is like Nolan working at the peak of what he can do, of his ambitions. Because I think there's some cases like Tenet where he maybe overstepped his ambitions and stuff like that, you know, and there's...

But in terms of delivering us popcorn cinema... Anyway, I'll save that for the Inception podcast. But it's an incredible feat. And we are so lucky to have a creator like Nolan, who is interested in making original cinema, can command a huge budget, can ask anyone in the world to come work on his films that he wants to come work on his films. I wish...

More creators in Hollywood had that opportunity, but I'm really glad that someone as thoughtful as Christopher Nolan has that opportunity. So how do we get here? How do we get here with Christopher Nolan taking over Batman? Okay, so Batman franchise flames out in 1997 with the aforementioned benippled Batman and Robin. A truly astonishingly bad movie that I did rewatch again during COVID. Yeah.

When we were just watching whatever we could and to keep warm by the fire. And Batman and Robin was one we did. And I was like, wow, this was quite bad. But some inspirations for Batman Begins. Frank Miller's Batman Year One. Great stuff. As Miller teased. This is what Frank Miller said about that in that Inverse article from 2024. I wrote Batman cynically.

in order to mock the character. I basically was just looking to get rid of all that shit and restore him to the kind of stature he had in my mind when I was seven years old. So Miller and Snyder were talking about in that article about how like Batman had become kind of a joke, kind of a buffoon in some sort of way. And they got too cartoony and not graphic novel-y enough. And so Miller's like, let's return to the grit and the stature, as he says, of who Batman is. So this...

This comic, Batman Year One, huge inspo for Christopher Nolan. That's a great one. We talked about that run and the Year Two run a bit when we talked about the Arpats film, but those are really worth checking out.

Richard Donner's Superman 1978. Let me just quickly tell you before you share this what this did to me seeing this here. But really talk when we talk about passage of time and clocks, I was like, it is time to start prepping for Superman. That is in a month. That is what seeing this here did to me. It sent me into a state of hype and joy, but also total panic.

Love that. Love to panic with you. The good news is there are not that many Superman movies to watch. It's also just fun. It's fun to rewatch the Superman movies over the years. Richard Donner's Superman is phenomenal. I will actually rewatch that last New Year's Eve just because. Really? All right. We don't go out. We don't have friends or do things. We're just like, want to watch Donner's Superman again? Want to watch Christopher Reeve be an absolute beast? Why not? Okay.

So in THR, in The Hollywood Reporter in 2015, Nolan said this, you had Superman in 1978, but they never did this sort of 1978 Batman, where you see the origin story, where the world is pretty much the world we live in, but there's this extraordinary figure there, which is what works so well in Dick Donner's Superman film. And so I was able to get in the studio and say, well, that's what I would do with it.

End quote. By the way, anyone who ever talks about Richard Donner inside of the industry, like Kevin Smith, blah, blah, they all call him Dick Donner. And it's just so pleasing. It's the best. It's like whenever I hear Kevin Smith say Dick Donner, it's so fun to hear. I don't feel like I know him well enough to call him Dick Donner, but I just want to let you know that I wish I did. Maybe we build toward it. Okay. We admire the art of alliteration here on this podcast.

It's just a really pleasing coupling of words. Stick to honor. So yeah, you get Chicago for Gotham to match the way that New York stands in for Metropolis and rewatching Batman Begins and thinking about that way and thinking about how central this like train, this elevated train, you know, that Thomas Wayne built is to the story. And I was reading the screenplay. I'll get to that in a second, just sort of like some of the things I got from reading the screenplay, but yeah,

in the version of the screenplay I read, which is a much earlier version, the train was so much more central in terms of, like, tracking what was going on with, like, the state of the train and the state of Gotham was, like, something to track. And we get that inside of this movie. You've got the gleaming version of it as the Waynes go to the opera, and then you've got the, like,

1970s New York subway graffitied version of it when Descartes and Bruce are fighting on it at the end of the movie. But yeah, to have the L like basically in your Batman movie is pretty freaking phenomenal. And then, yeah, so Nolan said in IndieWire in 2012, he said, part of the fun of making the film for me was explaining these elements in real terms. Why is he wearing this costume? What does it mean? How does he get the costume? Is it just him and Alfred in the Batcave?

And we started to enjoy coming up with the answers to these questions. That became a fun part of our creative process. This is one of the things that I really love about the trilogy. And I will say, while these movies are widely adored and immensely popular, this is not necessarily the thing that everybody agrees on. I think some people are like, this actually is a Gotham that lacks some of the specificity and quirkiness and character that I may be looking for in a Batman film, right? And I think, obviously, there are aspects

of this Gotham, of Nolan's Gotham, where we feel that a little bit more. When the train is carrying us through the city toward Wayne Tower, et cetera, and we just see a little bit more of the film's architecture and infrastructure and industry incorporated into what is just clearly Chicago.

Chicago around it. We feel that particular DNA. And I think mostly with an exterior shot of Arkham or just being in the narrows in this film most particularly, it feels more distinct. But...

while undeniably it doesn't like punch you in the jaw the way that the phantasm Gotham does or Burton's Gotham does, um, you know, or, or even really, I think the, the Matt Reeves Gotham, um, it does achieve what Nolan is citing here, which is it roots the story. So it's such a sense of familiarity and like a recognizable cityscape. So that's, I think, interesting. Um,

In terms of that second quote about just, like, the real terms of forging Batman, I love that part of the movie. Like the Lucius Fox-based sort of tech. Yeah, but, like, here's the harness and the grappling hook. Here's the Kevlar. I always get a chuckle. He's like, bulletproof? You know, like, as long as it's not straight on. Direct, straight on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, then it doesn't sound like it's going to work. And then, you know, like something like this stretch where

Alfred and Bruce are coming up with their plan for how they're going to get the cowl. Oh, the cowl. And then the ears. A problem with graphite. A problem with graphite. Well, at least we got a good deal. Time to earn $10,000 more. Those little details, you feel what it means for them to be in partnership with each other, whether it's Lucius and Bruce or Alfred and Bruce. You feel what it means to build relationships.

not only Batman, the Batsuit, the Batcave, the moment when they turn on the lights, et cetera, but what it means to build this kind of life. And I think the movie is so successful in that respect that it has been difficult for a lot of the superhero stories that came in its wake to measure up. And I think it's really interesting that...

Christopher Nolan was really trying to find his footing in terms of threading the needle of, you know, what the studio wanted, which, you know, they were like, Batman was such a toyetic, toy-selling property for them for so long. And it was so important to Christopher Nolan and his team that this not be like a merchandising opportunity. That's not what they wanted this movie to be. And at the same time, Warner Brothers was like, we won't tell you what to do, but it would be nice if there was a Batmobile in this movie. And he was like, ah.

okay, I'll figure it out. You know, and then like, you know, they put it in and like, does it come in black? Like it's all in there, but like that's sort of a concession towards the studio. And at the same time he calls up the studio and he's like, can I get away with not having the yellow, you know, oval on the chest of my Batman? Can I do that? It looks, it just, I can't make it seem believable. And they're like, okay. We'll put a touch of bronze in the heart.

You know, so like those compromises and those back and forth negotiations of like, what can we, what can we come up with that a Playboy billionaire who might have trained in martial arts, but not necessarily in like,

rubber to your form. Like, what can we, like, come up with as a conceivable Batsuit that this guy could make? And so when we watch Bruce sort of, like, airbrushing the existent armor black, I'm like, yeah, he could do that. Sure. Like, I believe that. So all of that stuff works really well for me. Not wanting your movie to be a vehicle for merch and then introducing the Tumblr Batmobile, which is just...

merch cocaine and then that being a bridge to merch nirvana in the next film when the bat pod is introduced is just so funny to me. So funny. I love the bat pod. Okay.

Okay, on this idea of a distinct Gotham, I was thinking a lot of the Batman in this next inspo that Nolan cites, which is 1982's Blade Runner, a movie that both you and I really love. Ricker Hauer is here in this movie. You love thinking about Harrison Ford and Daryl Hannah's thighs. So this is what Nolan told Forbes in 2015.

He said, Blade Runner is one of the examples of how you can take a camera and get down and dirty and really envelop your audience in the atmosphere of the world you're trying to create. We definitely tried to emulate that style. And I think in doing so, we actually created homage, particularly where we use the rain very much. So like, obviously, in the Batman, Matt Reeves is like, I see your rain and I raise you 200 more rainstorms. You know, like they didn't go as far as they might have, but...

Knowing that and then rewatching this movie, I was like, I can sort of see it, like especially in the narrows. Right. Like in the the Blade Runner influence, the Ridley Scott influence on the construction of this particular Gotham Bond. James Bond hit me. This one Nolan said in Variety 2018, we mercilessly pillaged from the James Bond films for certain aspects.

And in IndieWire 2012, he specifically cites the globe-trotting elements of Batman Begins mostly came from the Bond films. One of the first films I remember seeing was The Spy Who Loved Me. And at a certain point, the Bond films fixed in my head as a great example of scope and scale in large-scale images. Nolan, for years, people were asking him if he was going to make a James Bond film. And he's like, I kind of feel like I have. Yeah.

you know, like this inception tenant to a certain degree. You know what I mean? Like he's like, I've, I've actually kind of done my bond stuff. So, which is not to say never say never, but, um, you know, anyway, um, any other influences that you want to, uh, no, I think that's a great, that's a great representative sample. I think like his, I mean, Bruce Wayne in general knows how to wear tux, uh, knows how to sip champagne and knows how to work his way through a room of important people and find what he's seeking. I think that,

Bale is quite adept at playing Bruce Wayne. Oh, yeah. He's my favorite. One of the fun things about talking about the Batman over time is like... It's like, who's the better Bruce? Who's the better Bruce and who's the better Bats? Yeah. And I think that Bale is an elite Bruce Wayne and you feel the Bond influence there for sure. And I think...

I love the Batman, but I think Pattinson's Wayne, by design of that movie, with the idea that they were going to make several and sort of evolve...

his like mask of Bruce Wayne. Um, but we all just got the sort of beginnings of it in the first movie. And I fingers crossed, we get that second movie at least, uh, to see that evolve. Cause I know Pattinson is capable of that. Like he basically, he did it in tenant. So, um, I, I would love to see that. Uh, one other, one other, uh, influence that I only sort of, uh, came across last night. So it's not in our notes, but, um, Nolan cited, uh, Jorge Luis Borges, uh,

the incredible writer, this is how he described his writing atmospheric short stories that would suck you into philosophical space in a very entertaining way. So way to sort of Trojan horse your philosophical ideas into popcorn cinema. And he was like, Borges is the one who taught me how to do that. And I just think that's incredibly cool. So these are some great influences, not an exhaustive list, but some of the things that, that sort of got us here. Um,

I mean, this is just a big picture question. We'll get into this in sort of more specific ways as we go through some of our categories. But what was this like watching? I know this isn't the first time you've rewatched it since 2005, obviously. But what was it like for you watching this 20 years later, Molly Rubin?

You know, I really like... I think part of why I'm like, I don't... I know that you're right when you tell me it was 20 years ago because it was, but it doesn't seem right. And I think part of the reason is that it just...

The movie and this trilogy is so influential and the superhero storytelling that came in its wake that it had to come out when it did in order to have that influence then over the decades that followed. But it just feels like it could be made today. I mean, there are a couple... There are certainly a few aspects of the film where you're like, yeah, this is a movie from a couple decades ago. But broadly, I mean, it looks beautiful.

And it's captured something. I love the last influence you just shared, that idea of theme and inside of blockbuster storytelling, because it's captured something that is so representative of the way that these stories unfold.

when they really pop and when they really sweep people into a fandom, into a shared experience. Like a lot of times, you know, in the MCU or in other versions of that, it's when there are character bonds and character relationships that we can like latch on to. You know, we care about the Avengers. We care about the X-Men. We care about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, et cetera, et cetera. But that idea of like- Some of us more than others. Yeah.

That idea of feeling like you are, you know, and I say this with like genuine sincerity because like not to be too corny about it, but this is kind of like what we do on this podcast. The idea that you could feel like you're basically studying philosophy or religion or sociology or political science while watching a comic book movie is like really rewarding and cool. And I think that this trilogy is...

super deft at that in a way that has stood the test of time. Like, I don't feel the diminishing impact of that over time. I actually feel like it's heightened and you see the way that it is a template that other filmmakers and storytellers have studied. The thing to me that, like, ages the best in this movie in particular is the origin story. I just... We have... I love comic book movies, but I will acknowledge that we have...

Now received an ample supply of them, and many of them have sought to do similar things to the point where we have now worked our way through the origin story eras back into an era of like, we can't possibly tell another origin story. We have to find another way to do this. The first 43 minutes of this movie are origin story.

that is mind boggling, but I find every one of those minutes like riveting. And I don't want to tip too many of my picks for the categories today, but like a lot of the stuff that I love best about the film comes from that, that first stretch. And I think that second stretch, the second, you know, if the acts are broadly like origin act one, Bruce returning to Gotham and like turning himself into Batman act two, and then like,

Everything with Arkham and the Narrows and the hallucinogenic toxin and microwave emitter, Act 3. Act 3 is at the bottom of the power ranking for me inside of this film. Certainly, I think the first two of those are sensational. But like, I don't know, to just be able to make the origin of the character, especially a character like Batman, where like we have seen versions of and now, you know, the list is longer than when this film came out of Batman.

How did Thomas and Martha Wayne die? How did that shape Bruce? How did Bruce then respond to that trauma? We've seen so many versions of that over the years. And I'm not necessarily saying that like what happens with Bruce and his parents and chill in the alleyway behind the opera is like the thing I love most about it. It's much more like the training stretches, the League of Shadows, which I just think are exceptional. But for the origin story to be that gripping, I think is like,

it made the other movies that tried to do that have like a lot to measure up to. And some did, but a lot didn't. And that feels really, really notable to me revisiting this film. How about you? What, what stands out like either a new or more keenly when you return to this movie now? Well, it's interesting. Um, the, the,

Batman, the Nolan Batman movie that I rewatched more recently or more often is The Dark Knight. Sure, yes. Of course. And this trilogy in general and The Dark Knight, maybe specifically, it's 2008, stands out as...

Bush era in a way that I think is very interesting. I don't, I don't say that negatively. It's just a very interesting time capsule of, of sort of what our major concerns were as a nation. And I think that's great. I think your art should reflect the time period it was made in. So it's like, it's both timeless and,

to your point, visually, because Nolan has such an insistence on practical sets, practical effects, all these sort of things. It's not like there isn't any, you know, digital effects in this, in his films, but his, you know, something like any scene where bats are swirling around, you know,

They shot bats on, you know, on blue screen in order to plate them and put them in the movie. Now, like, is that enhanced digital effects? Yes. But the origin is some real bats that they shot in a stage somewhere so that it looks like real bats are flying around. And like when you compare that to something like Dr. Michael Morbius, who has a similar sequence where bats are flying around and it looks like absolute dog shit.

20 years later, it looks like dog shit. Nolan is making something that is sturdy enough to stand the test of time and is not seduced by what's the quickest and the latest, shiniest digital effect, but like what is going to look real and sturdy and then timeless. So there's a timelessness to the visual. I mean, there's like a few, like...

When Batman started gliding over the narrows in the last act, there's like a few shots where you're like, okay. But like, other than that, this is just like an impeccably beautiful film. And yeah,

So you have all of that with the specificity of the sociopolitical era in which it was made. That is what the best of what art should be. Give you a sense of the time that it was created and then also feel timeless in the same way. There are some ideas that we will get to, you know, that feel perhaps more stunning or different 20 years later. But I think...

I mean, I just had a blast rewatching this multiple times over the last week. And I think in the context of the Batman who came before and after, like to your point about the origin story, there's a specificity. There's the, once again, it's threading that needle between what people expect a Batmobile and what can we let go of the yellow oval on the chest? Like,

Martha and Thomas in the alley with the pearls and all of that sort of stuff. Like that's the iconography we expect.

Bruce falling down a well shaft and his father swirling with his coat billowing around him, swirling down a rope to save him is specific iconography and dello iconography. You know, there's the, there's the line in this movie about Jungian archetypes. There's like, there's just like poor elemental, you know, psychological stickiness to the kind of story that they have created here that like,

I think the Batman, the Robert Pattinson Batman gets close in some senses, but the Snyderverse never really felt that deep to me in that way. Yeah. I think this is such a great marriage of the Batman and

and the Batman film and universe around it, like the Nolan films. And it all feels like it makes sense together and like fits together. And I think the, the Reeves Pattinson film does that too. And I'm with you. I really hope we get to continue that. I, as you know, I'm a bat fleck apothecary.

and actually think that Batman is pretty good, but I do not think those movies are good. And so that's like a really stark contrast where there's something happening inside of the films that feels like it's working and is interesting and connects to the root of a character, but like is not enhanced and amplified exponentially by the circumstances around it the way that the Nolan films or the Reeves film are. So yeah, that's a stark contrast, I think. I think there's also just like...

And a depth of emotion to both what Reeves is creating and what Nolan is creating that like, you know, Snyder has something else on his mind, which is fine. Like he has another different relationship with that character and that works for a number of people, but it's not what I personally respond to inside of a Batman project. Yeah.

As I mentioned, Nolan was not planning on doing a sequel. And so something he talked about in this variety interview in 2018. I mean, the movie ends with a Joker stinger. I was going to say, do you believe this? I do believe this because of some things that they cut out of the original screenplay. Yeah. But I actually didn't get to the bottom of when they decided to put that Joker stinger in there. Okay. Yeah.

But he says, shifting genres and the nature of the antagonist felt like the way to take the audience on a journey and tell them something different about Bruce Wayne. So thinking of these three movies as like...

You know, the second movie being like an homage to Michael Mann and and and, you know, that sort of stuff. And then the third movie is this like war movie, essentially, you know, but this is our like gritty street level origin story. And I and picking each antagonist.

as a reflection of Batman, which is always like sort of what the, what the Batman villains can do. But there was this great quote I found, hold on from one of the producers in the film about the, the, the villains as a yardstick, right? He said the villains are yardsticks that reveal where Bruce is as a vigilante, as a hero, as a man. So like what it means for Ducard to,

Inside of this film with what, five father figures. Is that right? It's Thomas Wayne. It's Ducard. It's Alfred. It's Gordon. And it's Fox. You know what I mean? And like, which daddy example is, is Bruce following at any given time? And what does that say about where he is in his development as from boy to man, I think is a really interesting thing that the, that the film has to say. Love it.

Anything else you want to say about what you think about when you think of the state of comic book movies as they pertain to Batman Begins or anything else? You already said it, I think. I think we covered it. Yeah, just, you know, can't let a Batman pod pass without shouting out...

Lego Batman movie, a genuine cinematic masterpiece. I'll just get that on the record. No, Batman understood the assignment. Um, and then just like a quick rundown by no means comprehensive of some of the influences that came that followed this movie. Right. Um,

obviously the success of Nolan's Batman helps kickstart the MCU. James Bond and Casino Royale, 2006, Snyder's Man of Steel, 2013, this idea of like, let's get down to the bones of the origin story of something like this.

The new 52's suit, Jim Lee's design, was inspired by Nolan's more armored take on the Batman. The tank versions of the Batmobile become more popular. A Lucius Fox revival in the comics, like a sort of marginalized character that gets brought back to the fore because of his popularity in the movies. The You Have Failed This City Arrowverse launch on the CW. Including very prominent Ra's al Ghul work. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Lazar's pit is up and operating, et cetera, et cetera. Before we get into our categories, I just want to hit you with a few fun facts I learned from reading the screenplay. I just have a few, and then I have one that I'm going to save for to reveal in the categories. Oh, exciting.

In this earlier version, which you can find online, it's David Goyer. It just says David Goyer's name on it, so I don't know how much Chris Nolan worked on this version. I will tell you that given some of the changes that happened, some of the changes that happened feel very Nolan to me. It's all improvement as far as I can tell from this draft. Let me give you...

three examples. Number one is Batman, instead of saving her from like would be Falcone Falcone goons who are going to like, you know, kill her. Batman sneaks into Rachel's bedroom like he's Edward Cullen in Twilight and then like drops the like blackmail photos of the judge on her bed because he's in her bedroom at night. I just think no, thank you. That was a good decision to change that.

Um, incredible. Here's where I get my core agenda started. And this will be a theme going forward. I, yeah, I can't believe it's taken you this long. Not enough. Jonathan crane in the, uh, in the original screenplay that I read crane being like the whole Zaz trial and all of that, like early interaction between Rachel and crane is not in the original screenplay. He doesn't show up until like much, much later. Um,

but as we know, because we are, uh, nutcases and know too much about movies, Killian Murphy auditioned to play Bruce Wayne and, uh, Batman in this movie. You can see his screen test, um, online. He has the lips for it. They loved him, but they loved bail a bit more. They were like, bail did the voice. And honestly, the voice was really, really good. And we felt like that was a really good move, but they loved Killian. And so they were like, they like went to the studio. They're like, can we please, um,

hired Killian to be Jonathan Crane the scarecrow um and they gave him the green light and so I think they sort of expanded his role throughout the film because they liked Killian so much and it all sort of it flows better because you do have a number of sub-level sub-level villains in this movie from Flass through Falcone through um through Crane through Ducard etc etc and so uh not to mention our guy uh Earl who's trying to take over Wayne Enterprises so um

Didn't you get the memo? Well, threading all of those characters throughout just makes it seem like a little less like mini-boss to mini-boss to big boss sort of thing. It's just these are all the threads hanging out in the corners of this story. And last but not least, I'm saving the best one for the categories, but last but not least here, I will say Harvey Depp. In an original version of the movie... Yeah.

The character of Finch, who is Rachel's co-worker, was supposed to be Harvey Dent. Yes. And they were like, if there's a character we want to bring through in parallel with Bruce Wayne, it would be Harvey Dent. So we would seed him here and then we would develop him in the second, you know, and like bring him all the way through. And then they were like, let's not, let's not get over our skis. Let's just...

that would be distracting. Let's just change this guy and make him a guy who, you know, gets got in a shipping yard. So, but we could have had Harvey Dent in this. I don't think we needed him because then they would have had to commit to a casting and it's just like better to wait. It becomes a lot

I think the calibration here, it's actually impressive to your point from a moment ago how many different, just on the villain side, but in general, how many different characters they're able to introduce and stitch together coherently and balance across the narrative. Putting Dent here would feel like a lot. Counterpoint, I guess, even though Rachel is like, we've talked about this before. Yeah, Finchie. We've talked, it's chill.

I know you love me, but we've talked about it before. It does still lead to two movies in a row where Rachel's boss is like, wanna fuck? Man, Finch, it's a tough way to go. Asking, like, yeah, you're trying to clean up Gotham. You spotted the extra container. You know something is wrong. Something is wrong.

What did he think was going to happen when he demanded that they open it? I would say, don't go down there alone. What did he think was going to happen? I mean, I guess he thought he was with... We're doing things differently now. I guess he thought he was with people who would be on his side because they were in uniform. But listen, Falcone is people everywhere. Okay. The different pronunciations of Falcone and Falcone across the various films and shows is really hard for me, by the way. It's challenging. I'm going to go with the...

Jonathan Crane pronunciation, which is Falcone. That's what I'm going to stick with. I think that's the appropriate thing here for this discussion. But, you know, we've been in Falcone land much more recently and that's just like recency bias. That's why it's worked its way into my brain. So I apologize if I say Falcone instead of Falcone at some point. I know, I was kind of like doing, I was like Falcone. I was trying to do both, but I'm going to stick to Falcone.

A real Irishman pretending to be American Falcone. That's what I'm going to give you. Okay. Anything else you want to talk about before we get into our superlatives? I just honestly cannot believe that it took you nearly an hour to go on the record that Crane slash Scarecrow is your favorite part of all three movies, which you're on the record. You're on the record. I love him. It's canon. I love him. It's House of Arcana, and you've said it before, but Admiral did it straight today. I'm kidding you not. I love him.

both background watching and in earnest watching, I watched this movie like all told, I would say three times over the past week. Then last night, I just watched a crane only cut of the movie that exists on YouTube. It's only nine minutes. Yeah, it's not enough. It's not enough. It's nine minutes. It feels like perfect, but it's not enough. I could have taken so much more. He deserved his own

HBO Max spinoff movie just about Jonathan Crane. That's the thing. If we still could. Yeah. But if we were if if this came out now, like that would happen. He would for sure get a spinoff. Crane Court. And it's just I mean, everything that happens in the Dark Knight Rises. I would watch so many seasons of Crane Court. OK, great. Here we go.

Let's go now to our superlatives. All right. So what we have assembled here is 20 categories that we think will apply to all three of the Christopher Nolan movies that we are covering this summer. Yeah. Each category has a Christopher Nolan movie quote associated with it. Just for funsies.

A delightful touch. I may sometimes do an impression of the line and I may sometimes not. So let's start, shall we? Okay. With a category we're calling Why So Serious? Pretty good. Funniest line or funniest moment of The Batman Begins. Not a laugh riot of a movie. No. No.

but has some good dry humor in it. Yes, it does. What would you like to nominate here? Okay. My pick, yeah, it's not a hysterical film. Yeah. It's a heavy film. It's a dark film. It's a bleak film and an intense one at times, but I did actually wind up with a number of contenders here. I'm going with, because I'm light, I'll tip for you as you might've already gleaned. I'm light on picks from like the final climactic. Yeah. Oh, and act three is a laugh riot. So you found some short. Oh,

tell you what really... In the decimation of the Narrows? Genuine. You love it when an entire neighborhood slash island, I don't know, is completely demolished. It makes me really chuckle when... So, Roz is, you know, he's got the mask on for protection from the vaporized toxin and Batman glides over and

bedecked yeah and Ross says well you took my advice about theatricality a bit literally kills me it's very very very funny it's very good yeah so that's my pick it really makes me laugh and it's a quite a dark stretch of the film so I'm going with that how about you what's your pick here

Girls in the Pool is iconic, but I think they're European as a reason why they're doing it is pretty incredible. Bruce telling Alfred to stall for time and he says you can tell them that joke you know at his birthday party is incredibly good. Most of the humor belongs to Alfred. Alfred saying...

about the Batcave and then at least you'll have company about the bats in the Batcave. It's very good. All the Affirmation Cow stuff. And then I will say when Lucius Fox says that they neglected to appeal to the base-jumping, spelunking billionaire crowd. Really good. Really, really good stuff. I also like when Bruce, college Bruce, gets...

Tossed out of the... Oh, you mean a bang forward Bruce? Yeah, bangs Bruce. Bangs Bruce. Okay. Gets tossed out of Falcone's restaurant. Yeah. And right before the jacket swap. Yeah. And before the incredible Ethan Hunt-esque run onto the shipping vessel. I just love right when he's kind of tossed out of the establishment to the ground. Should have tipped better. Yeah.

It really gets me every time. Very good. That's a good one. I like that. Anything else? You know what? I do like what is the point of all those push-ups if you can't even lift a bloody log in other Alfred gym. Yeah. That's great. When Bruce is, you know, getting burned alive under a beam, Alfred has times for quips, and I love that about him. Okay. Okay.

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You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. From Inception. It's Sickest Set Piece. Oh, man. Okay. So I wanted to go with something for Sickest Set Piece that looks really cool, you know, is fun and exciting, that I love, but also that feels like...

A crucial harbinger, an escalation of our understanding, a tone setter. And so I am going with Batman versus Falcone thugs at the docks. The drug drop on the docks. Yeah. Which is a sequence that I think like really holds up well. This is Batman's... With apologies to the sequence where he...

sort of partially decked out but not fully suited, infiltrates Gordon's office, which is really more of a gateway. With a gateway. Yeah. And then just sort of like... Yeah. This is Batman's, like, first proper night out in full, suited up completely, ready to challenge the enemy. And...

We have like the budding sense of the unfolding plot with the toxins. Our understanding is starting to build. You have the good little Falcone flask moment in the car. You know, the rabbits are going to the narrows. Ignorance is bliss. The secrets of scary people. But then you get the first shot. This is, that was my, you're doing accents. Yeah.

Like pull a necklace. It's charades on the video with the Mallory. The first shot of one of the henchmen being sucked into the void behind him where Batman waits. It's just like incredible shit. And then the way that the still quiet but mounting terror for those on the ground builds because something is happening, but they don't yet know what. It's going to be after this that there are all of the articles in the paper about Batman and that there are –

debates at fancy dinners about whether he's a arbiter of justice and more effective than the system or whether he's a vigilante who should be in the nut house. Those masked vigilantes are at it again. Medices. The throwing of the throwing bag. The Batstar.

The way that the camera pans up and we see Batman hanging there like a bat and then he slips down. Batman hanging is incredibly good. He grabs the guy and the guy screams. And then I really love the one henchman who very misguidedly on the prowl looking demands, where are you? And then turns and Batman goes...

And it just washes him away. That's fucking awesome. And then, of course, when he pulls Falcone through the windshield, what the hell are you? We don't get an I'm vengeance here, which is what I am now. Like, just kind of in a Pavlovian way programmed to say in response, but we get to hear him say, I'm Batman. It's all really great. Do it. I'm Batman. Yeah.

So it's like a really intense charge sequence. We also, of course, get Gordon and co. finding later Falcone changed to the spotlight, which then inspires the bat signal to debut formally at the end of the film with the actual bat metal plastered on top. Great stuff. So this doc sequence, like,

It's a really intense charge sequence. I think it's staged and choreographed and filmed in really electric fashion. But just the import of this Batman introducing himself to Gotham in this way, the way that he uses the shadow, uses the dark, it's so thematically on point. Like, it's inspiring for the first time his enemies to...

This line will come up many times today, I have no doubt, to share his dread. Like as he told Alfred, he wanted them to, and it's just a sensational way to cement what that will actually look and feel like for the people around him. I think it's great. What's your pick? Something I just want to compliment you on this pick. Something that Nolan said about how they use Batman in this movie is he said, I want to make it feel like the first alien in the first alien movie, which is like you barely see him.

Like you don't see the monster that much. And so, yeah, these flashes that you, these glimpses that you get, it's all great. Okay. You've heard of a Batmobile chase on the road, but have you ever heard of a rooftop chase in a Batmobile?

Um, before we all got sticks up our asses about superheroes destroying the cities they lived in, Bruce Wayne took his giant tank of a Batmobile to the rooftops of Gotham City and just absolutely decimated them in a phenomenal Batmobile chase. So I'm going to give it to the Batmobile chase. I have that coming in another category later. It's just genuinely a thrilling sequence. Yeah.

No accent work here because this is just our guy, Aaron Eckhart. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Who... Which I can't believe...

Jonathan Nolan wrote that line, incredible line. Like, a line that... Unbelievable. Yeah. We just take as, like, a famous quote from history now, basically. Who is the real villain of this movie? And you could pick a character or concept. What is your answer? I'm not going with what Ra's al Ghul would want us to say, which is...

But that would be, I think, a very valid pick here. I am going with something that is not exclusively a villain. But allow me to explain. I am going with fear, which is simultaneously the villain and fear.

the superpower and that is why i love it right when the initial threat yeah becomes through evolution and character arc exploration and development a way into this like we talk about this on thorns pods and many pods that like dead stark ask um you know can a man be brave if he's afraid that is the only time a man can be brave idea which is just something i really love i

Across every aspect of the film, really, like Thomas, Wayne, comforting young Bruce centers on the idea of fear being universal. Like all creatures feel fear, even the scary ones, especially the scary ones. Bruce's arrival at the League of Shadows centers on fear. Merlin Ducard, what are you seeking? Bruce says, I seek the means to fight injustice, to turn fear against those who prey on the fearful.

Milly Ducar, I just want to call him Ross, says to manipulate the fear in others, you must first master your own. Are you ready to begin? When Bruce, we're moving in and out of time, I'll be coming back to that later. As a young child at the opera gets scared, Thomas's last words after he's shot are, don't be afraid. And then Bruce like,

Before he can embrace that lesson, carries the guilt and the fear with him. These things are inextricable from each other. The source of his power is also the source of his insecurity. Falcone, the Falcone meeting that leads Bruce to ultimately embed like for safe,

For years, seven years. The criminal underworld also centers on fear. This is a world you'll never understand, Falcone says to him, and you'll always fear what you don't understand. Okay, so how does he conquer that fear? By seeking to understand the source of it, the source of that fear inside of him. Obviously, the blue flower sequence at the League of Shadows,

centers on being subsumed by, surrounded by, inescapably on a sensory level your fear so that you can learn to challenge it and conquer it. Ducard, merely Ducard, says, what you really fear. I don't know why, but merely Ducard makes me laugh.

I'm really too good. What you really fear is inside yourself. You fear your own power. You fear your anger, the drive to do great or terrible things. Now you must journey inwards. You are ready. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe in your fears. Face them. To conquer fear, you must become fear. You must bask in the fear of other men, and men fear most what they cannot overcome.

And of course, that is then what Bruce will do. He will adopt this. When Alfred says, why bats, Mr. Wayne? Bruce says, bats frighten me. It's time my enemies shared my dread.

Hall of Fame line that to this day gives me chills every time we hear it. And it's not just that he finds the courage to move through the teeth of the caverns into the Batcave and let the bats flock around him in that shot you talked about earlier. He's going to put that emblem on his chest, right? He's going to take that as his name, the thing that he fears. And then the enemy plot, the whole thing is this hallucinogenic toxin that

you know, makes people terrified of everything they see that weaponizes the doubt and the insecurities inside of them. So that's my pick because it is the fear, but it is the superpower for Bruce at the end. And I think that's a genuinely pretty cool and powerful message. It's a great, it's a great through line to identify. Can I just say that when I was, when I was reading the original script, somebody at Christopher Nolan or whoever revised the script did, maybe it was David Goyer himself. Uh,

took out about 20 mentions of fear to just sort of like... Yeah, I bet. There's still a lot. No, but they took out so much. I was just like, this was a good note. Yeah, a little control F on the screenplay. Can we use dread in some cases? Can we, like, one of the scenes, Falcone's like, um...

kid, you'll never understand the real currency in this underworld. He's like, what is it? He's like, fear. And I'm like, don't just say it. Like, don't just say that. Like, Ducard can say it. I don't think Falcone can say it like that. So like, they made some improvements. So really good, Chad. I love you saying it's both.

You know, the superpower. This idea that we talk a lot about how, like, in superhero stories, the idea of, like, the origin wound being the source of the power as well. Like, Superman being cast out of his home is what gives him his power in the first place. So, like, yeah. And Bruce losing his parents, which is this traumatic...

tremendous fear moment for him being, and then literally turning that into a fear push outwards is, is phenomenal stuff. I had a similar thing where not, I'm going with, and again, it's not, it's not always the villain. Yeah.

Gotham as both the damsel and the heavy. You could say the systems of Gotham are like... But the corruption at the root of Gotham, this question throughout the movie of like, is Gotham worth saving, right? And this is like Ducard's idea. And again, in the original screenplay, he like called Gotham an ailing relative that you should just put out of its mercy and then later...

like, I'm off to see an alien. Tell Ducard when he wakes up, I'm off to see an alien relative or whatever. So like Gotham is alien relative. Okay. But like Gotham is like,

the thing that is just hemming its people in from every side, but also the aspects of Gotham that's worth saving. Like what if something was both the Shire and Mordor? Like that's what Gotham is, right? Like the thing worth fighting for, but also the hellscape that you find yourself in. And it turned to even more hellscape because of, you know, the fear of toxin and stuff like that. And also like using...

the idealism of a Thomas Wayne who's like, we're going to build this train, we're going to route the power and the water all through Wayne Tower. And it's like, it's a bit, you know, of a bit of like megalomania to be like, and way at the center of it all is Wayne Tower, is us. But also there is like genuine earnest do-goodery coming from Thomas Wayne. And this is the thing that like, Ducard can weaponize at the end of this movie. The vein of your cherry.

will be the path to destruction is super gnarly. So yeah, Gotham itself as villain and the thing we're saving. Love that. Neither of us picked Ra's al Ghul. That's okay. I have some Ra's content coming in other categories. I did think you might use this opportunity to talk about Scarecrow, but I know you won't be stopped elsewhere. Don't worry. It's coming.

Okay, next category. Are you watching closely?

Again, pretty good. Thank you. That's Christian Bale and the Prestige. Most exquisitely gorgeous shot. What is the stunner of a cinematic moment inside of this movie? So my pick here, this was kind of hard because there are a lot of really cool shots, but I'm going with something actually that you've already mentioned today, which is the bats around the 46 minute mark of the film. The bats...

and swirling around Bruce as he...

um discovers the the scope of the true full cavernous bat cave for the first time the way that this like chirping bat from inside the manor draws his attention and alfred says alfred says they nest somewhere on site and bruce kindly does not do what we do watching at home and it's like yeah i know i fell into a well and they all i remember yeah caused me a lot of problems over the years um and then bruce goes down back down

the dreaded well and he musters up the courage to crawl forward deep into the cavern and then he turns on the light and the bats descend and they surround him and his first instinct is to duck because he's scared and then that moment when he would you say he rises I would

And his eyes are closed and he takes that deep breath. And then we pan wide and then we pan wider. And he is a speck in their midst. He is just absorbed. He is incorporated. He is a part of their world in full. And you can feel those Ducard words flooding back from earlier in the film. Feel terror cloud your senses. Feel its power to distort, to control. And know that this power can be yours. Embrace your worst fear. Become one with the darkness.

I love that shot because it is visually quite distinct and quite beautiful. Looks great in 4K, but quite thematically rich. And also just the score is fucking popping here.

It's just a sensory feast. I love it. So that's my pick. What about you? I had two options. Number one, the bats swirl around adult first way. Um, and also in the way in which that echoes, uh, the opening of the bats turning into the bat logo, which is in the very first version of the script, like the design of how this is going to open with a bat swirling into the bat logo is like from day one in the script. Um,

Well, my backup, which is what I'll go to here, is Batman standing sentinel over Gotham after the bat signal goes up for the first time. Well, the Falcone bat signal goes up for the first time and he's standing like a gargoyle and the camera is just like swooping around him. And just like another moment of like, it looks great on, you know, you and I have like large televisions, looks great on our large televisions, but like on the big screen, it's one of those like disorientingly epic moments.

shots of a movie. I love that pic. That's a great one. Okay. Oh, I need to work on my impression of Guy Pearce's Memento, but it goes a little something like this. I think, I can't remember to forget you. And this is the scene you think about the most. Okay. Before you rewatch, when you close your eyes and you think Batman Begins, what does your mind go to? So I think this is my answer today that is the most...

This is a little bit of a cheat because I'm not picking one scene, but I am picking what I think could fairly be described as a sequence. But it is because of the way the movie is kind of chopped. It is multiple scenes, but a sequence and a stretch of the film. And I am picking, as might be apparent based on some of my comments already today, Bruce's League of Shadows training. Okay. I just think this is origin story gold. So many movies mess this up.

And they make it feel like we're just retreading something either that we know about that character or that we've seen in other films. And I'm just really gripped watching these sequences. The thrum and thunder of the cracking ice as Bruce and Ra's al Ghul slash merely Dukar. Merely Dukar, yeah.

stand and train atop the lake before what will end up being the decisive shattering stroke. The surroundings lesson that happens in the stretch, always mind your surroundings, the way that that will reverberate across the movie and then later in the manner of

I love the kind of bookends across the movie with what happens here in these sequences and then later in their definitive showdowns. The provocation from Ducard here, your parents' death was not your fault. Dramatic pregnant pause. It was your father's? Like, wow. What a dickhead. The fuck? Yeah. Will is everything. The will to act. I love these stretches because we and Bruce are learning without realizing it.

how Ra's al Ghul stayed hidden and survived, how he has conducted his affairs and, and strategized his pursuits and how he will seek to take down Gotham. But also Ra's without realizing it is training his disciple to beat him. And there are so many different ways where that comes across like really beautifully. So it's not only like really fun and gripping to watch the first time it's so rewarding, these sequences on rewatches and revisiting the film. Um,

That moment with the winning stroke, you sacrifice your footing for a killing stroke is just so... I like seeing our heroes brought low before they rise. And it's like, it's a little thing, but like, yeah, Bruce, like,

doesn't know what he's doing and is rash and is guided by hubris and does think he knows best and has to learn to combat those instincts. We already talked about the moment by the fire. If you're listening out there, folks, make sure you take care of your arms too. If you're a boy or a Girl Scout or anyone, whoever goes camping. Get that circulation going in the arms. You need to warm your arms as well. They will take care of themselves. They will not take care. That's not how the human body works. Uh,

The conversation that happens by that fire, I know the rage that drives you. We get a little bit of insight into Roz's personal history, which will be like...

Back on our minds later in the franchise, in the third film. But why is it, well, before we get to Talia later, why does this matter here? It's something we talk about all the time. It's something you've already alluded to today. It's that dark mirror idea, right? The fact that there's a real there but for the grace aspect of what's happening with Roz and Bruce because they do share a lot of similar histories. They both experienced loss and that will come back. They both experienced loss. They landed in a different place.

And that is a meaningful thing to share. Um, the League of Shadows, like training sequences about specifically how the league conducts its affairs, becoming invisible. That's a great moment too, where like invisible and the ninja just drops from the ceiling. And you're like, that's one of those moments where you actually do feel that the movie I think is 20 years old, but like kind of in a way I love, because it also still works in the story where you're like, these are like people who like learn to do these things. Um, the powders, the weapons, the distractions, uh,

theatricality and deception are powerful agents. You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponents. I love this pairing for Bruce of the exposure to the mystical with such a grounded reality. I think that's really tangible here in these stretches in a way that I love. And then, of course, the way that it builds toward what happens later in a moment I will come back to in another category, but like...

When we realize that Roz is alive and that he is a Leonisa, it's like not merely Dukar, cheap parlor tricks to conceal your identity all of its year. And then, of course, the blue flower stretch, the fear focus, you have to become a terrible thought, great line that I love. But this is where, this is like the opposite of falling into the lake, where you're like, oh, Bruce...

is elite. The moment where he realizes that he's got the scratch on the arm and then goes and marks the other, the other ninjas so that he can't be found. And then that is how he wins is like, I remember what it felt like to watch that for the first time. And I was like,

Oh my God. It was just so cool and inventive and innovative. And that's one of the reasons you can root for a character like that. And then of course it builds towards the refusal, right? I'm not an executioner. I won't do this thing. And I'll talk more in another category about something very memorable and meaningful that he says in that scene and that stretch. But, you know, we do here get like the kind of challenge answered before it will be answered again later. Bruce has the will to act, right? Roz is like, what, what, what?

this idea of, do you have the will? Did your father have the will do what's necessary? Well, he does here, right? When he tosses the brand and then starts the fire and also then saves merely Ducard, which will end up being important later. So I just love those stretches. And I think they're like really well done and have really stood up over time compared to a lot of movies that don't do as deft of a job of showing us how our character became a hero. So that's my pick, even though it's not one scene. Even,

by your usual standards. That was a phenomenal smuggle of 45 minutes of a film into a category of one scene. But I support you in all your endeavors. Thank you, pal. I thought I was cheating because I have sort of like two. But I have nothing on you. You are the master. For me, the image when I think about this movie is it's Thomas Wayne abseiling down

the well to get his son and then the similar shot of Bruce doing the same thing later as an adult. And in the script, it's written that the coats should billow like a cape. And so the fact that you get this like

You know, you've got the things that he took from Ducard, the, like, gauntlets, the, like, you know, there's, like, so much that he took from Ducard. There's so much emotionality and heart that he takes from Alfred, the literal tech from Lucius Fox, the, like, you know, protector of Gordon. But, like, Thomas Wayne is there, too. And that idea of this is such a, like...

Because, honestly, this movie doesn't give a shit about Martha Wayne. She dies, no one ever mentions her again. Not a real person. Raj at least has the decency to say parents once instead of just... Elephant!

Alfred's just like, your father, your father, I hated your mother. I don't know why, what happened with poor Martha. But anyway, Thomas Wayne is very important. The fact that, like, the flashbacks that we get. I really liked this change from the original script that I read. In the original script, when Bruce is flashing back to his dad when he's, like, set up in the master bedroom, it's, like, generically his dad running around with him on his shoulders. Yeah.

To change it to, like, the stethoscope in the, like, case and to have it be Thomas, a doctor, Thomas, showing his son, like, this is how you hear a heartbeat. To, like, have his memory be what it felt like to hear my father's heart beating him still alive. And then, again, the stethoscope burnt and warped in the wreckage of Wayne Manor. So, like, but...

more specifically falling down the the well into the bat cave and that being the origin of his like fear and all this stuff like is so specific to the story in the way that Martha and Thomas in the alley outside of the opera is not that's you know widespread this is so this spruce this story um that that is that's the iconography of this movie for me so yeah great great great pick um

The next category is... Swear to me. Strong. Thanks. Suitably gravelly. This movie is rated PG-13, which means it could have exactly one F-bomb. Where would you put it? Okay. Um...

I don't know if this is like a violation of something sacred, which is to not actually pick the scene that that header quote of the category is from, but I didn't have that strength. I am picking because to me that's the clear spot is the stretch where Batman interrogates Flash about the split drug drop.

And Flass, who's fresh off being a huge dick to, you know, they don't like falafel, stealing the money from the food stand, hoisted by the ankle via grappling hook, hanging upside down, falafel remnant on moving from top look to bottom lip.

The entire time. And this is like a crucial and very important moment in the history of the Nolanverse because this is like the first real, real deployment of Bail Bat voice, right? Where were the other drugs going? The close-up and the shaking. It's just an incredible moment. And...

Flash says, I never knew. I don't know. I swear to God. Swear to me. Drops Flash, who is screaming. But what is he screaming? He's screaming, ah! No. Fuck! This is where we put our fuck in. Because I'm assuming that he is, like, filled and soaked his pants and we just don't know because it's pouring rain. But we would know if he were screaming fuck, which he should be doing because he is terrified that he is about to be killed.

exploded like a water balloon on the pavement of Gotham. So it could be there, that first drop, or it could be the second drop, when he's then ultimately very kind of gently

Gently placed. Gently placed. Back onto the ground. After the do I look like a cop scream from, I'm not going to keep trying to do the bail voice. You have to save your voice. We have many more categories to go. I think we could get the fuck there as well. That feels to me like the place. Flask screaming fuck as he thinks he's going to die. Okay. Feels like the place. What about you? I'm going to pitch you two options. Okay. One goes something like this. He's here. Who? Who?

The fucking Batman. I like that. I was thinking about that moment too. I can see that. The Batman is maybe too perfect to mess with. So perhaps it's, I won't kill you.

but I don't have to fucking save you. Uh, and leaving Ducard, really Ducard, uh, to his death on the, on the train. Yeah. Um, I like both of those. I did consider picking that crane moment, but I agree with you. There's something about the cadence of his delivery there that feels like you cannot disturb. Yeah. Um, so I think I just sort of have to go with your second option there. I'll give you one more contender. Uh, you're taller than you look in the tabloids, Mr. Wayne. No gun. I'm fucking insulted. Yeah.

Feels like Falcone could have dropped an F-bomb there. Falcone is a really good, yeah. Yeah, it feels like it should be Falcone. You picked Falcone and Flass like two things. I kind of like making Batman say fuck, though. Sure. As a concept. Okay. He won't use a gun, but he will say fuck. Okay. Oh, this is where I have to do a Harry Styles impression. Oh, that's tough. Good luck.

He doesn't speak English. If he does, it's with an accent thicker than sauerkraut sauce. This is a really bad place for my accent work to crater, but that's where it did. Very unbranded. That's where you have to go with it because this is most baffling accent category. Apologies to Harry Styles. He'll get it better next time. Most baffling accent. I feel like there is just one clear winner here. Who is it? Oscar winner Tom Wilkinson is Carmine Falcone. That's not my pick.

Is it Thomas Wayne? It is. Yeah, it is. Because I think they're two contenders, and those are the two. So I'm glad we picked each of them. Joanna. Hey, Mr. Wayne, I don't know what Tom Wilkinson is doing.

He's really great in this movie, but I don't know what he's doing. I will say, whatever he is doing... By the being, essentially, is what he says. Whatever the choice was, it is at least consistently explored. You know what? Correct. And that is not the case. I'm sorry about that.

the sacrilege when discussing Batman Begins where Thomas Wayne is the saint of all saints. But also clearly an English person. An Englishman. Yes. And I would cite, I think you can hear it everywhere, but I would cite specifically if you're like, huh, never noticed. I'm going to check out. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

One moment I check out. Yeah. Go to the train. Oh, yeah. Go to the train. I would say really the way he says train is a big red flag. The one that I love the most is the way he says bin, which is like so British. He says bean. Gotham's bean to our family, but the city's bean suffering. Yeah.

That's fortunate. That's been during very hard times. So we built a new cheap public transportation system to United City. He goes from like the British on the bean to like Boston. It's either like Boston or like hard, like Long Island, which obviously those two are not the same, but it's not Gotham. And then elsewhere he is doing like when he's saying, another one I love

Thomas left after the opera when they're outside. And he says, I just needed some fresh air. But he says air like air. We moved from like it's a blend of British, Boston, New York, and then trying to do Chicago. And it is a journey. It's a globetrotting experience. Thomas Wayne's accent. I agree. I will still give it to Tom Wilkinson, but I think Thomas Wayne is a great is a great pick.

Oh, man. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask. Best use of a Nolanverse regular in this movie. I thought this was...

A great place to talk about Michael Caine. This is obviously Michael Caine's category. Because he has been in eight Christopher Nolan movies. Correct. This is Michael... You might ask how we're using Nolan... Because we'll have another category where it's like the actor who should have returned to the Nolanverse. Yes. So Nolanverse regular is someone who's shown up in a bunch of different Nolan movies. So Michael Caine counts, but I would give it to Bale, who's been in four Christopher Nolan movies. You know what I mean? There's some people who recur as well. Bale would be a great pick.

But Michael Caine. I mean... Michael Caine has been in the three Batman movies, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Tenet. Yeah. Never. Never. Something that I loved that Chris Nolan said in that documentary I watched is he was like, I hired Michael Caine to do this, and I told him that Alfred had the opportunity to steal the entire movie. Yeah.

and then I hired Gary Oldman to play Gordon. I told him Gordon had the opportunity to steal the entire movie. And then I had like, he told every single support and I pursued Morgan Freeman actively. And I told him Lucius Fox had the opportunity to steal the entire movie. Um, but if anyone steals the movie, it's Michael Caine. Yeah. Bringing the emotionality of Alfred, uh, who cared a lot about Thomas Wayne and did not give a shit about Martha Wayne. Um, our guy, Alfred.

I think Gary Oldman. Gordon's, you know, wonderful in the movie, but I think he has to wait to get to the... I'm forceful enough of a presence here to maybe compete on the stealing the movie front. But yeah, right away. I mean, there are a lot of great Alfreds over the years, but Michael Caine is Alfred. Like, he is. This is just... This is a generational thing. I mean, yes, Michael Goff, though, is like so iconic. He's also beautiful. Yeah, I mean... But the gave in...

In Michael Caine, and this is then carried on to, like, Andy Serkis and Jeremy Irons and stuff like that, like, they gave Alfred a different stature inside of Bruce's life. Because Michael Goff is the consummate, like, you know, Jeeves, the consummate, like, butler and stuff like that. Whereas Alfred's, like...

giving sass and lecturing and getting emotional and all this sort of stuff like that, which is just not like what has been an Alfred Hallmark before, but then sort of becomes the pseudo father figure role. I think, I mean, the performance was wonderful, obviously. I think that what you're citing is what I love and what feels like most indelible about it to me is just that blend, all the different aspects of who he is, which is like, it helps heighten the sense that he could then be this person

who is this meaningful to Bruce because he inhabits all of those different spaces in his life. Like, I do, we already talked about the humor. Like, I love something like on the plane ride back to Gotham when, you know, he's like, I assure you that, or I assume that as you're taking on the underworld, the symbol is a persona to protect those you care about from reprisals. And Bruce is like, Rachel. Rachel. He's like, dude, someone me.

Same scene when he's like, you can borrow the rolls. Make sure to bring it back with a full tank of gas. So good. The advice, like the way that sometimes it's more like observational, you know, strange injuries and non-existent social life. Like, let's kind of figure out how to account for some of this. But then to your point, the moments of real sternness, right? When he's like, I...

Not a lot of people can, like, say something true to you and have you heed it, but I can and I know I need to. Like, that scene where he's just like, it can't be personal or you're just a vigilante. You sort of just feel that, like, Alfred is the only one who could do it that way. And I think particularly we'll get to Rachel. Without slapping his face a number of times. But because so much of the Rachel stuff is just so, like, God, what a drip sanctimony. Like, the Alfred stuff stands out much more effectively in contrast. And then, you know...

uh, entwined with that as the way that like Bruce takes him into his confidence in a, in a way that feels so distinct. Obviously quickly he's on board with this extremely, you know, later Alfred will become the figure of like, stop, please stop. Right. You know, the Skylar white to his Walter white or whatever. Like I care about you, please. You're killing yourself. All this sort of stuff like that. But like the fact that he's just like on board, he's like, Hey Alfred, I got a, uh,

I gotta make myself a symbol. And Alfred's like, okay. He can be everlasting. And he's like, cool. What Chinese manufacturer should we order the cowls from? You know, like, I'm on board. Sure. I can see it fine from over here. I'm not going to follow you into the depths of the Batcave, but I support this. But you've got company. And like the

that tenderness and care from when he was a kid and Bruce is like, it was my fault. Like if I hadn't gotten scared, this wouldn't have happened. And just that comfort right away from Alfred, like it was nothing that you did. It was him and him alone. And then the way that we track that through Bruce's adult life, the tears in Alfred's eyes when he's driving Bruce back after Bruce was exposed to the toxin and he's muttering in the backseat like, poison, blood. Alfred's just like, this is a person I care about deeply. And like,

it's just beautiful. They have another moment between them that I'll save for another category. Later in the series, there are moments when Alfred cries or gets teary eyed or whatever. That is just like so emotionally dysregulating to me. Alfred cries. I cry. It's like very tough for me. So yeah. Speaking of which, why do we fall, sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. Best stunt. This is where I picked the Batmobile chase. Very good. Um,

Which for the reasons you know, it's just fucking dynamite. I love the way that we get the early taste of the Tumblr with Lucius. He's like, you wouldn't be interested in that. You know, it's fun. It's cool. And then, yeah, you see like, what does it look like out in the field? You know, we like to talk about how in Star Wars, Sarlacc Pit, everything's a vagina. You know, here in Batman, everything's a dick. And like, when it's time for Bruce to just like slide down.

to the chute chamber. This is so phallically charged and deeply memorable in a way that I honestly respect and love. Jungian archetypes, right? Exactly. See, the crane is always with us.

I love the stealth modes. I mean, the jumping, you know, going up to the parking garage and jumping across the rooftops and using that bridging tech that we had heard about from Lucius earlier is obviously iconic and great. I really, like... I like when we see some of the gadgets deployed, you know, dropping the tire spikes, et cetera. But stealth mode, it's too quick. I wish we had, like, lingered in stealth mode a little longer because stealth mode is so cool. And again, in a way that, like, you really feel like that you're just, like...

in a city with people, like you're kind of like, wait, how do they not see him anymore? But you're like, what, I see him? No, probably not. And I love the treatment of that scene where the score quiets to match the visual disparity of what had come before. That's just like a great bit of movie making that I really enjoy. And then, of course, in that whole sequence, you're repairing the action of the chase with Rachel. The ticking clock of our favorite character, Rachel. And will she make it? We care a lot. Bruce is very...

Bruce cares so we care. He cares deeply. Right, Joel? And we get to launch into the waterfall, into the Batcave, which is just dope. I love that, like, Gordon's like, yeah, Gordon's one is like, she's fading fast, right? Yeah. And then we get the lengthy, I'm like, Rach, I'm impressed you made it all the way through that chase. Okay.

I will say, and this is even more delightful on a rewatch. Once you know that he's not merely to Cardi is also a result. Cool. When Bruce slides down the snowy cliff to save to card was also Russell. Cool. Um, from going over and, you know, has to like stab into the snow in order to prevent himself, like nearly goes over himself and then hauls, uh,

Ducard up over him bodily. Yeah. That's just like a practical stunt work on a practical location. Like I'm sure there are green screens being used to affect like the actual, I'm sure their harnesses, all this sort of stuff that is digitally erased. Like, oh, that's true. Reckoning by plain start.

But it looks so good and so visceral. And just that, like, effort of him bodily pulling Liam, a heavily armored Liam Neeson, who is a huge man, up over his body. So you're like, this is just a man...

but also with just like a tremendous will, a tremendous spirit to transcend what a body should really physically be able to do. Love that. And then also just knowing that he's rescuing the man who will come back and try to succeed in burning his home to the ground and try to destroy his city. Destroy his city. So it's great. Okay.

All right. This is one Mr. The Oscar winner, Robert Downey Jr. from Oppenheimer. It says, Amateurs seek the sun, get eaten. Power stays in the shadows. This is the stealth MVP of this movie that not enough people talk about. I'll go first. It's nine minutes of screen time. It's Killian Murphy as Jonathan Craig. Here's why, though, okay? Here's the real reason why. It's obviously Jonathan Craig. It's obviously Killian Murphy. Future Oscar winner, Killian Murphy. But...

There's this thing. Okay, so we are in a world of grounded believability. We are in Chicago. We are doing all this stuff. We understand why there is body armor on our Bruce Wayne. We get all of it.

having to sell wearing a burlap sack on his head is the most cartoonish thing this movie asks you to accept, I would argue. And he matches... He brings this really... This requisite energy to the role of, like, there's something already, even before he gets dosed, slightly unhinged about Dr. Jonathan Crane. For sure. And...

That cartoonish, slightly that gleam matches the boundaries of how comic book-y this film is willing to go. You know, Ducard is so, Russell Cool is just so centered and I'm just like, I'm just this fucking badass character.

And Jonathan Crane is like the Batman. You know what I mean? Even the design of his glasses are just like slightly cartoonish in a way that doesn't match the production style of everything else in the movie. And so I just think that he brings just like a correct level of tangibility.

of weirdness that will set us up for Heath Ledger doing Joker in the next movie. So what am I arguing? Am I arguing that without Jonathan Crane, Scarecrow, we don't get one of the best film performances of all time out of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight? Maybe I am. Maybe I am. And maybe more people should talk about Scarecrow, a.k.a. Dr. Jonathan Crane, as played by Cillian Murphy in this movie, The End. Uh...

I had suspicions about some categories. This was the only thing I was absolutely sure of. One thing I will say, and this is everything I just said, inside of those nine minutes of screen time, there is a moment where when Bruce sort of

Jonathan kind of notices that the window of the door is open. So like Bruce is probably there and he sees and like Batman comes in and is fighting one of his henchmen. And you just see Jonathan sneak away to get his briefcase in the background because he's about to burlap sack Dose him. But him sort of like

tiptoeing away with his briefcase and soft focus behind the action is great stuff. Almost as great as you calling him Jonathan instead of crane or scarecrow really shows us how deep you're in here. Johnny, Johnny boy. Um, I love the way that he says in here, only the mind can grant you power. Great shit. Uh,

I particularly like when... Is this also your answer? It's not. Oh, you're just yes-anding me. Thank you so much. I knew you would pick this, so it's not my answer, but I probably would have gone with my pick regardless, but it was easy to go with the thing I picked because I knew that you would pick this. I really love, to your point about where he is before we really see what he is and what he's doing that great moment where he's like, I don't want to know. And Falcone's like, yeah, you do. You fucking sicko. Yeah.

Great stuff. Did it make you think of Mon Mothma? Yes, actually. It did. And Luton? It did. I'm going with Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox, a character I love. Great pick. We're both going with picks we took on our How to Build the Best Batman movie. Did you remember that or did you go back and look at what we all picked? I remember vividly that I picked Lucius Fox because...

The part I remember less vividly, this could have actually happened at another point in the draft, but I believe this is when Sean said, why are you making a movie we've already seen? Because I just kept making things from the Nolan movies and I was like, sorry. I love what I love. But I believe this is when I was introduced to the depth of your affection for Scarecrow. So it's very memorable to me. Dr. Jonathan Crane? Okay, thank you.

I love Lucius Fox. I think that he's just an incredible character. It's a great performance. You know, a lot of the people who are central in Bruce's life obviously have both a tether to the past and a central role in the future. Alfred, Rachel, etc.,

And that's true for Lucius too, with this tide of the past and this like central role to play in the future. But Bruce doesn't, he has to unlock the aspects of the past. He gets to learn that this is somebody who knew his father, right? He gets to learn that this is somebody who has like a history of land enterprises. Didn't give a shit about your mom, but I didn't know you're not. Once again, there's no room for Martha. I'll be returning to that in another category too. But Lucius is like an elite, elite, elite guy in the chair, big brain, mega brain. And he's also like really funny and charismatic. Yeah.

You mentioned the great base jumping, the marketing to the billionaire playboy's line. That's wonderful. I love when he, through humor, kind of flexes when Alfred brings him in to analyze Bruce's blood after the toxin exposure. And he's explaining everything in these highly technical scientific terms. And Bruce is like, am I meant to understand any of that? And Lucy says, not at all. I just wanted you to know how hard it was. Very good.

I love that. Very, very good. And he knows how to piece it all together. Like he is the one who figures out what the stolen microwave emitter will now do. And I just think he's a great character. And I love the way that he is like really inextricable in this version of the story from Bruce's journey of discovery, the tools, the tech, the way that it can all come together. So he's my pick. I think he's great. And I think your pick is also great. And, you know, I think everybody should talk about both of them more, frankly. Agreed. All right.

You're waiting on a train, a train that will take you far away. Best... That's my Marianne Cotillard. I'll work on it. Best wife moment. She has a very unusual French accent. It's hard to nail. I can't give you Brie and Baguettes. That's not who Marianne is. Okay. Best dead wife moment. This is a...

Christopher Nolan trope. I thought I knew my answer before I watched the movie and I actually came up with a different answer. What did you think your answer was and then what did you pick? I thought it was going to be Martha Wayne, but then when I realized how little she looms over the action of this film, I went with merely Ducard saying, I wasn't always there in the mountains. Once I had a wife, my great love, she was taken from me. Um,

That line is not in the original screenplay. So the fact that Nolan added a dead wife for Ducard is my favorite thing that I discovered in reading that screenplay. That's actually fucking incredible. Once I had a wife.

My great love. I love knowing that. Oh, my God. They're like, oh, we need to give Ducard a reason why he's Ra's al Ghul. Why is he there? It's not a dead wife? I don't know. I'm just thinking of it now. I'll never use it before. I've never used it before. I'll never use it again. But I thought maybe we should put a dead wife in here. So here we go. Okay. Great pick. Uh-huh.

Great thing to now know. I love that I know that. I am going to go with Martha because it felt like potentially our only time to talk about Martha and her just complete state of absentia from the proceedings, but we've already done that. I want you to know just really quickly that I accidentally wrote Martha Kent in my notes here. Well, I mean, save it for another pod. Here's what I'm going to go with. I'm going to go with

And I want to say, I say this with nothing but appreciation and respect for the crucial, like the nucleus in the story of the bond between Bruce and Thomas, which I admire and care about deeply. However, re-watching this movie, you can't help but notice Martha's like kind of dead before she's dead. She doesn't get to be in on any of it. She doesn't get to know why her own kid is scared. Nope.

She doesn't get to know why her mom is scared. Don't worry about it. Unbelievable. She's got a deep bat phobia, but let's not tell mom. So that's my pick. It's also really, there's like no transition between Thomas talking to Bruce about why he's afraid and him being like, look at these pearls I got for your mom. It's a really weird moment. Aren't they nice? And then Martha just sits mutely on the train. Oh my God.

Just in silence. It's fine. Great stuff. She did get to sort of like quietly mutter a question about the state of his injury in the far fuzzy background of a shot where Thomas heroically carries him inside. So, you know. Great stuff. All right.

So, dead wife, a hallmark of the Nolanverse. I would also say this idea of the great man, which is like an actual sort of philosophical term, is also something that Nolan is occupied with. So...

What else but an Oppenheimer quote here? They won't fear it until they understand it and they won't understand it until they've used it. Clearest great man moment of this movie. It felt right to me, even though there are a number of, I think, candidates for this, it felt right to me to pair Thomas as our great man with Martha as our...

Dead wife. Pre-dead dead wife. I think that Alfred's lessons to Bruce about Thomas when they're actually arguing, when they're fighting before Bruce's party is so interesting. You're getting lost inside this monster of yours, Alfred says.

And then tells Bruce about how for Thomas, helping other people was never something that he did to prove anything to anyone, including himself. There's such an interesting moment. And I like that exchange always when Alfred says, those are Bruce Wayne's guests out there, sir. You have a name to maintain. And Bruce says, I don't care about my name. And then Alfred says, it's not just your name, sir. It's your father's name. Fuck your mother. She only married into that name. Yeah.

It's your father's name and it's all that's left of him. Don't destroy it. And then very shortly after that in the movie, we get Roz's history lesson about how Thomas and Martha and Martha, Thomas and Martha's great works actually thwarted

The League of Shadows efforts to destroy Gotham through economics. With Gotham, we tried a new one, economics, but we underestimated certain of Gotham's citizens, such as your parents. Thomas and Martha beating the League of Shadows by being like, we care about things. With the New Deal as the deal.

I'm feeling very similar. Tell me. Alfred saying to Bruce, in the depression your father nearly bankrupted Wayne Enterprises combating poverty, he believed that his example could inspire the wealthy of Gotham to save their city. Did it? In a way. Yeah.

Shock the wealthy and the powerful into action. But then Bruce follows that up with, people need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy, and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man, I'm flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed. But as a symbol, as a symbol, I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting. So that inside of that, like, Thomas Wayne, great man, innovator, doctor, philist.

dad, husband to a dead wife, all that sort of stuff like that. And then Bruce is like, I need to go beyond the great man to this other level of something. This god tier level of something is very interesting. As a runner up, I do just want to shout out the, what I think is a genuinely sick flex, which is when Ra's al Ghul is like, we sacked Rome, we loaded the trade ships with plague rats, we burned London to the ground. It's like pretty good CV. Thrawn plague? That's me.

Impressive. It is. All right. Who's the hero Gotham deserves but not the one it needs right now? Who was, regrettably, miscast and who would you replace them with? This was the easiest one. The Katie Holmes category. This will be more fun in other movies to excavate. There's only one answer and it's Katie Holmes. Who would you recast as Rachel? You can pick Maggie. Why not?

Maggie Dillard-Holland is a great Rachel. I like Maggie as Rachel. Yeah. I will say. Yeah. Rachel McAdams was considered. That would be really good. Yeah. Amy Adams did screen tests with Bale and Killian, et cetera. And Emily Blunt was also considered. I think I would go with Rachel McAdams over anyone else. I mean, they'd all be great. Yeah.

And they'd all be better than Katie. Katie, this is not your role. Boy. She's really fun to poke her face this season. You enjoy your party, Bruce. Some of us have work to do. Okay. She's the worst. What choice do I have? You're too busy swimming. When she takes a hard left turn to teach him a lesson and it goes from day to night. I mean, I'm sure it took a while to get to the narrows, but it's just like, then she slaps him twice. It's just, uh, Rachel. Okay. Rachel. Rachel.

Oh, I really got to work on my Michael Caine in order to do these again. You do, yeah. You don't really want it to work out. You want to be fooled. Most satisfying twist. Ducard is like the main, Ducard being Ra's al Ghul. This is the answer though. Well, I came up with another one because that's like obviously like the twist of the movie. Yeah.

I think Bruce Wayne buying his own company is a pretty good moment. That's a great pick. Yeah. Very satisfying. Fuck off, Earl. Yeah. I love the way that both Bruce and Lucius throw his lines, his dickhead douchebag lines back in his face. He can get the memo and like, yeah, it's all very technical. That's a really good pick. Thank you. I like, really good. I didn't think there was another

great one. That is a great, that really is a satisfying moment. The reason that like, even though Roz is such an obvious pick here, first of all, still lands. No matter how many times you watch the movie, you get to that moment at the party and we see the first of all this shaved head and Bruce is like, no, and then the turn. It's all great. But this was on the like, we're doing this movie 20 years later from

This was one where I was like, this just feels like a thing that almost couldn't happen now. Like in the like social media era of leaks and like shit just being everywhere and just like, I don't know. It feels like to preserve, but then I honestly couldn't remember how much of this was out there anyway and whether it was just like,

very effectively done so it's impactful I think because you have the decoy of Ken Watanabe like do you know what I mean you have someone who says hey Ra's al Ghul is in this movie to this day his character name on IMDB is Ra's al Ghul it's great like amazing very good stuff oh man buying the company picks a great one I love that

Okay, here's a stretch on the quote front, but I'm going to convince you with the tweak of one thing to a contraction, okay? The line is a very sentimental, I'm telling Rachel who I am line when he says, not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me. But what if he says, it's not who I'm underneath, but what I do that defines me. Good work. I support it.

And that's how we're getting to this category, which is called, Nolan is not known for his sexual content, but let's go ahead and try to excavate the horniest moment of this film. Nolan's not a very horny director. No. Yeah. True. But what do you have in this movie? And is it the fact that they turned the air conditioning up so that poor Katie Holmes was like nippled out on her shirt when she's

passed out and rolling around because of drugs. Draws the eye, certainly. My picket, this is where I'm talking about the pool scene. Very good. I think it has to be the hotel pool sequence with their European double date. Obviously, all of that, that whole escapade is part of this, I'm going to establish this persona and be back in the tabloids pursuit. I'm not expecting Bruce to then

Fuck these two beautiful women in plain sight of all observers. However, I do think that there's a version of it where they start, that women start kissing in the pool. For sure. They rolled up in that. They were sitting on, one of them was sitting on the other's lap in the car. Yeah. I mean, they're in the hotel bathrooms at the end. Like, there should just be a sex scene here. They're European. Okay. What is your pick?

It's really tough. I really actually don't think this is a very sexy movie. Bruce Wayne does some shirtless pushups fine, I guess, but I'm going to give it to this. And it's another, it's another Bruce Wayne fake playboy moment. It's the James Bond money penny. Let me show you how to swing this golf club moment in the reception outside of the Wayne enterprise boardroom. That's pretty sexy. Yeah. Yeah. With Jessica. That's, that's good. I'm surprised you didn't pick something with Johnny boy here.

would you call it a whacking yeah just like whacking it off his toxin like something you might do i don't know it is something i might do but it's not something i did today okay an idea this category is called an idea is like a virus resilient highly contagious and it's the line that hits the hardest 20 years later yeah um

Okay, so I had two real 1A, 1B contenders here. I've already talked a lot about one of them, which is Bats Frighten Me, It's Time My Enemy Shared My Dread, which I just love. But I talked about that elsewhere quite a bit already today. So I will go with in the stretch where Bruce refuses to execute the murderer during his League of Shadows initiation and says, I'm no executioner.

Milly Ducard says, your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share. And then Bruce says, that's why it's so important. Unfortunately, he then says it separates us from them. And I always just wish that it separates us from them. We're not in the movie because that is implied, understood, known, and clear. But that's why it's so important is so good. Like, the writing is so good. Bale's performance there is so good. And the idea is so crucial. And, like, it's...

It hit hard in real time, seeing the movie for the first time. But right now, it reminded me a lot of the conversations we've been having recently about Last of Us and Andor and empathy and seeking compassion or empathy or understanding just felt really crucial. And then, of course, the fact that

that Roz is like, I warned you about compassion, Bruce, and really genuinely believes that that is a weakness, not a source of strength. And Bruce understands that it's the, this necessary anchor, a grappling hook to his humanity so that he doesn't lose sight of it completely. I think just really, really resonates and pops. So that's my pick. What about you? I have a similar sort of subject matter, I guess. It is a Rachel line. Yeah.

But it's what chances Gotham have when the good people do nothing. Yeah, that's really good. Just feels like a line that means a lot to me right now. Okay. You think darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. Most devastating moment. You can try to tell me that Bane doesn't rule.

Or you can read that the way you just did it. The Bane voice rules. And you know the truth. Think, drool of your city, golfers.

This is where I'm going with the other Alfred Bruce moment that I kind of alluded to earlier. When they escape, just as the firebomb is consuming the manor, and they get down through the secret passageway to the Batcave just in time. And Bruce is not only injured, bleeding from the side, but just despondent. He sits, he's crumpled emotionally and physically in this crashed lift and says, what have I done, Alfred? Everything my family, my father built,

And Alfred says, the Wayne legacy is more than bricks and mortar, sir. I wanted to save Gotham, Bruce says. I failed. And then Alfred...

quotes Bruce's father to him and their faces are just both so full of love and appreciation and understanding. It's this little like life raft moment. Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up. And then Bruce says, you still haven't given up on me. And Alfred says, never, never. It's just fucking great. Another callback. It's iconic for a reason. Like it's just beautiful. I really, really, really love it.

That was one of mine. My other one you already mentioned earlier, but it's Thomas telling Bruce not to be afraid as he's dying. And he says it so quietly. It's very good. Really, really good. Okay. This next line is, I believe, kind of brought on Oppenheimer, which is some strong accent work that I'm not going to attempt today, but I'll try again next time. Can you hear the music, Robert? Most unforgettable Zimmerism.

And we also shout out James Newton Howard, who also did the score of this movie, and also Ramin Djawadi, who worked on the score of this movie. So we are going to do a score moment from this movie. We are going to perform it. It's arranged.

Because I decided we would. Okay. So, I've already mentioned this moment. Bruce is on the roof of Gotham. Batman is on the roof of Gotham. The camera's swirling around him. And the score is just going like... Like the violin's just like... And then it goes...

Just like right as it like crescendos. And if you listen to the Batman Begins score, this track is called Less Serious. They're all named after bats. And also tracks four through nine, they're all bat species tracks.

the names of the track on this, on the score tracks four through nine spell out Batman. Like it's B A T M A. This is just like classic soundtrack bullshit that these composers love to do a support it. But that end the crescendo at the end of that track, which is it's both the Ra's al Ghul training. And then also what plays when he's on the roof there. And that like, like,

Long held violin, just sort of like holding one note or actually probably as a cello holding one note. And then two notes just come in high over the top of it. Very heroic. I really love it. What is your pick? I don't know if I have the actual instruments correctly, the correct here, but to me, it sounds like trumpets. Sounds like horns, certainly horn instruments. When Bruce having picked the blue flower scales, the mountain,

And reaches the doors of the League of Shadows. And it goes... Like that. Like... It's just a...

I don't know. This is exactly what I wanted. Did I create this category because I knew we were doing Inception next month and I wanted Mallory to do... I'll be ready by then. The Blom next month? Yes. This is great. This is like such a declaration of intent, that sound. You know? You're just like, man. It's a real kind of like call the banners moment. It's just, I love it. Really, really good. The score throughout is just fantastic, but that is just such a...

intense and seismic reverberation. You know that you're transitioning into a new phase of the story. It's great. For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship. That's our paths in Tenet. Actor who never returned to the Nolanverse but should have. I'm giving this to Rutger Hauer, who I really enjoy as Earl in this movie and I love Rutger Hauer in general and would love to see him again. I'm going with Tom Wilkinson here. Yeah.

Why not outside of the Batman movies? Bring me back to the franchise. Yeah, I wish that we had gotten to see him in a non-Batman Nolan movie at some point. That would have been such a treat. Just a tremendous performer.

Some men just want to watch the world burn. The most Nolan thing about this movie. This was easy for me. Okay, tell me. Though there are a lot of candidates, I knew what I was going to pick for this, which is opening the movie for, as previously discussed today, 43 minutes, in which we move through, depending on how charitable you want to be, either four or five different timelines. Yeah. We are moving through Kid Bruce,

Criminal Underworld Bruce, Trainee Bruce, back to College Bruce, and then into, like, the dawn of Bruce-Man. And, I mean, you know, Criminal Underworld Bruce into Trainee Bruce, like, technically it's one scene that bridges both. But it's a Russian doll in flashbacks. Yeah, we go...

Kid Bruce, Criminal Bruce, Trainee Bruce, Kid Bruce, Trainee Bruce, College Bruce, Criminal Bruce into Trainee Bruce, Trainee Bruce, Bruceman. That is just a... I can't believe that worked. Bruceman. All right. Very good. What's your pick? I think Timeline Hijinkery is really good, but I would... I picked...

this idea of self-deception, um, which is a key Nolan theme. This is something David Goyer said about Bruce Wayne in this movie. He says, perhaps Bruce hadn't thought through all the ramifications of putting on that suit. Uh, so this idea of like the things we tell ourselves about ourselves, uh, and how we fool ourselves in to believing we know what we're doing, which is something that most Nolan heroes, uh, experience at some point. Um,

They're not always in touch with themselves. Okay. Last but not least. And this is just like, you know, we had a 20 now we have 21, 21 last but not least. This is just sort of like to celebrate the ongoing Nolan experience of our lives. Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us. This is what aspect of Nolan's upcoming, the odyssey. Are you thinking about most slash hype for this month? Another very easy one.

Men in capes. Very good. Very good. I actually have like a flip side to that, which is a set photo I saw of a shirtless but quite beardy Matt Damon as Odysseus returning home. Yep. Presumably. And Chris Nolan was there in his like iconic Chris Nolan overcoat personally wetting Matt Damon down with a spray bottle.

You usually use a PA for that, but Chris Nolan is like, no, it will be my job to wet down Matt Damon Odysseus in my, the Odyssey. And that's his commitment to verisimilitude that you have to appreciate. So, um, I love it.

We can get to all of that. I'm really excited. Charlize Theron is Cersei. There's a lot to be excited for. We will check back in on the Odyssey next month when we do Inception. Anything else you want to say, Mallory Rubin, before we go? This Beck character gave us everything. Well, this was so fun. What a treat. This was great. I don't want... Now I kind of like... The only... There was only one downside to doing this and it's like, now I want to do Dark Knight with you and Dark Knight Rises. Well... It's like very hard to stop, so... Anniversary's role ever on. So we will return. It's true. It's true.

Thanks to everyone on the pod today. John Richter, Carlos Chiriboga, Arjuna Rangopal, and show me a dinner on. Y'all are the best. We will be back with our speeches podcast later this week. We're really excited about that. Again, you can send us your nominations to hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. And thank you so much to Mallory Rubin, to Christopher Nolan, to the Batman. And we'll see you soon. Bye.