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...Batman is 50. Who cares? Well, all the fans who grew up with the character in comics and in the popular mid-'60s TV series. And the younger generation, still devouring Batman comics in a new, hipper format. And, next week, moviegoers attending the opening of Batman, with Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne (alias the Caped Crusader) and Jack Nicholson as his nemesis the Joker. In a season when the other big-budget films are sequels, Batman should seem familiar yet fresh. At least Warner Bros., with $35 million riding on the film, hopes...
...special editorial treatment to the Fox network, which is part of Murdoch's media empire. The listings section is still unmatched for comprehensiveness and accuracy, and the magazine's personality pieces retain a healthy edge of skepticism. Moreover, some staffers believe the old TV Guide, with its rather stodgy format, may have been due for rejuvenation. Yet that sober, even-tempered tone of voice always provided an important bit of ballast for a business fraught with glitter and hype. The danger is that when the current make-over is finished, one of the TV industry's watchdogs will wind...
...this sequel mania evidence of economic health or of creative bankruptcy? Cunningly, the theatrical-film industry has held its ground against the marauding armies of the video revolution. In fact, one format has fed the other, as audiences first view pictures on the big screen, then supplement their cinema appetite at home. Last year saw record grosses both for theatrical films and for videocassettes. But movie budgets have increased as well, and even a gambling man turns cautious with $40 million on the table. Hence the moguls have relied on brand names and roman numerals...
This new strain of talk radio, Nader maintains approvingly, "is the working people's medium. There's no ticket of admission. You only have to dial." Congressman Chester Atkins, a Massachusetts Democrat who was a chief target of pay-raise opponents, gamely praises the format as well. "Talk radio is in touch with the anger and hostility and frustrations that people feel with respect to government in their daily lives," he says...
...screenplay by Daniel Waters (a find) offers all that and much more. It believes, like J.D., that "the extreme always seems to make an impression." Its language is extreme -- a voluptuously precise lexicon of obscene put-downs and dry ironies -- and so is its scenario, which adjusts the teenpix format to accommodate subjects as bleak as copycat suicides and killer peer pressure. Heathers finds laughs in these maladies without making fun of them because Waters writes from inside teenagers. He knows what makes them miserable and what makes them bad: that they are already adults but can't accept...