It’s Christmas Eve.

I’m wrapping presents.

It’s a lonely, weird Christmas.

#NowWatching “Batman Returns.”

“It’s not like you can just kill me.”
“Actually, it’s a lot like that.”

I love that, even though Max Shreck is both an original character and a corrupt businessman, he still looks and feels a lot more like a comic book character than so many superhero villains.

Part of it is Walken’s performance, which is delightfully heightened of itself. Part of it is the writing, treating Shreck as comically evil.

Part of it is the costuming, dressing Shreck in delightfully garish suits and ensembles. Part of it is even just the shock of white hair.

Indeed, if “Batman Returns” were released today, it would be criticised for being too heavyhanded.

In that, despite Walken’s protestations, Shreck is a fairly transparent analogue for one particular New York businessman who is a living cartoon with political ambitions.

As I have noted before, the part of “Batman Returns” that has aged worst is the plot thread that suggests that a monstrous politician could see his campaign derailed when audio tape is released of him boasting about how comically evil he is.

In hindsight, it’s hopelessly naive.

Shreck is also a walking embodiment of the influence of German Expressionism on “Batman Returns.” After all, he’s named for the actor in “Nosferatu.”

Burton is hugely influenced by films like “The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari” and “Metropolis.” Even Shreck’s design reflects this.

I’ve never argued that fidelity to source material should be a measure of a film’s quality. After all, “Batman Returns” takes a lot of liberties.

But I love that Burton’s “Batman” movies draw from the same Expressionist Cinema that influenced the original comics.

THIS IS CINEMA.

(I mean this unironically. I marvel at how unreservedly Burton “goes for it” in the silent sequence of the Penguin visiting his parents’ grave.

Complete with soaring score, canter angles, and melodramatic (and stage managed) drop to his knees.

Glorious.)

“Just the pussy I’ve been looking for.”

I was watching “Batman Returns” earlier in the week for a thing. My dad was in the room and literally did a spit take and gasped “Jesus Christ!” at the above line.

I adore how gloriously inappropriate “Batman Returns” is as PG-13 film.

I mean this unironically, as a kid who grew up on movies like “Batman Returns”, and whose granddad let me watch “RoboCop” and “The Shining.”

There’s something thrilling in the sense of watching something very deliberately “out there.” I miss PG-13 films like this.

In that I have talked before how one of the most frustrating and disappointing aspects of “Batman Forever” is how it’s very much a step back from the horny kink of “Batman Returns.”

It’s basically “Seduction of the Innocent” for the 1990s. https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/batman-forever-updated-seduction-of-the-innocent-for-the-1990s/

(This is probably a “too much information” tweet, but it’s Christmas.

I’ve been told, even by my partners themselves, that my affection for Michelle Pfeiffer in “Batman Returns” probably explains a lot about my love life.

Make of that what you will.)

More to the point, as a kid who grew up with these 1980s/1990s blockbusters, I always admired these weird films as a safe space to work through emotions like fear and horror.

As a former kid, I think it’s good for kids to know they *can* be scared in a controlled environment.

(Obligatory “I’m only talking as someone who was a kid who loved having nightmares after Batman Returns, and not as a parent who has to deal with kids having nightmares after Batman Returns” tweet, so I freely concede the limits of my opinion.)

“It’s the so-called normal guys who let you down. Sicko’s never scare me. At least they’re committed.”

Look, I’m not saying “Batman Returns” has the best script in the history of cinema.

But I’m also not not saying that. The puns are glorious. This is game recognising game.