Word: batmans
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...everyone is seeing it again--when the first-night shows sell out a week in advance and the lines run out the doors of the theatre. I used to wish that I had been able to see Star Wars in the theatre in 1976, when it opened bigger than Batman and made the kind of unexpected smash that one almost never sees in any business...
Even in the final fencing scene between Laertes and Hamlet, a fencing vest is worn featuring fake pecs and six-packs that would make Batman jealous. Later, Branagh's vest is removed to uncover a skin-tight tank top, revealing, of course, Branagh's chest hair. Not only does Branagh seem to wish desperately that he be immediately lauded as sex symbol of the decade, but he also employs some heavy-handed Christ imagery when he is carried out after Fortinbras' coronation. Branagh seems to be going for much more than an Oscar here...
...would be ignoring the fact that economic forces connect us all. For instance, if the high school students who now work at fast-food outlets in order to get money for Batman comics and albums by Snoop Doggy Dogg no longer feel the need to buy Batman comics and albums by Snoop Doggy Dogg, they might quit their jobs and leave the rest of us waiting hours for our hamburgers. We might get tired of waiting and eat elsewhere, changing our fat intake in a way that endangers the entire diet industry. That's how free-market capitalism works...
...second room, the subject shifts to celebrities, mostly models and actors. Ritts takes no single approach to photographing them. There is the cast of Batman Forever in full costume, including Jim Carrey hamming it up as the Riddler and a huge Warholesque quartet of portraits of Jack Nicholson as the Joker. There is Vanity Fair's gender-bending cover photo of Cindy Crawford playing the seductress for k.d. lang. Unlike the anonymous models of the first part of the exhibition, whose faces are often turned away or obscured, the faces of the celebrities are essential to their portraits. However, sometimes...
...case of putting the cart before the horse, but in Hollywood the cart and horse have been near equal partners ever since Star Wars demonstrated that revenues from film-related action figures, magnets and whatnot could rival a movie's ticket sales--and in at least two cases, Batman and Jurassic Park, even surpass box-office revenues. Some estimates place the overall movie tie-in business at $10 billion annually in retail sales worldwide. Entertainment executives make no bones about merchandising's importance. "It's something we all live with every day of our lives," says Richard Cook, chairman...