Joel Schumacher RIP

pixelburp

Passed away today, age 80. Say what you will about the quality of his films, he certainly had a flamboyant, energetic style of his own

Edit: I see it already got a mention in the RIP thread.

Agent Coulson

Loved The Lost Boys & Falling Down. RIP.

INXS Devil Inside music video

kerplun k

Phone Booth was such a fun campy film. One of my favourite guilty pleasure and Its one of those films that you came out looking forward to discussing with your friends afterwords. RIP

he had a real eye and style for camp/flash fun

the lost boys is a seriously out-there effort, and i think i like it more now than i did at the time.

not a great director, but i think knew it, and played it interesting rather than classy

rip

Outlaw Pete

"No Springsteen is leaving this house!!"

RIP.

Gooey Looey

St Elmo's fire is another of his

Zeek12

Not forgetting Flatliners and A Time to Kill.
He directed some good ones (but his Batman movies really weren't great!)

Falling Down would have to be his best imo.

pixelburp

Zeek12 wrote: »

Not forgetting Flatliners and A Time to Kill.
He directed some good ones (but his Batman movies really weren't great!)

Falling Down would have to be his best imo.

The Batman films were pretty awful, and famously made under the mandate they promote toylines, but you couldn't call them half assed or lacking any sense of authorial vision either. They were deeply grandiose, neon, cinematic visions of comicbook pages - for better or worse. Honestly if I had to choose between Batman Forever or Justice League, I'd easily pick the older "worse" film. I wouldn't be bored by mediocrity.

JP Liz V1

RIP

8MM is underrated

branie2

My favourite Joel Schumacher film is Veronica Guerin

May he rest in peace

Kermit.de.frog

RIP

Falling Down one of my all time favourite movies.

Was badly tainted by Batman and Robin but he accepted publicly how bad it was afterward and his hands were tied by toy makers.

pixelburp

Patrick H Willems did an interesting dive into Schumacher's Batman films; he doesn't entirely absolve or play the complete contrarian but IMO made some good arguments why they get a tough break. They were effectively Silver Age Batman movies (the snipes at the Synder Cut haven't aged though lol ):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKnGolObx0k

p to the e

To this day I still attribute films by Gus Van Sant to Schumacher and vice versa. I don't know why. Didn't realise he directed "The Client" aswell. Another solid film. It takes a special kind of director to go from making ultra camp super hero movies to putting gritty snuff films as your subject.

loyatemu

we rewatched all the old Batman movies last year, and BF is a fun film, it stays just the right side of stupid while still riffing on the old TV series and undercutting the ridiculousness of the character. B&R on the other hand is almost unwatchably bad - you can see what they were trying to do but they got it badly wrong. A good illustration of the Spinal Tap line about there being a fine line between clever and stupid.

ziedth

In Fairness He had some cracking films didn't he? I wrote him off after Batman and Robin but;

Tigerland, Falling Down, Flatliners, 8mm, A Time to Kill, The Client and Phone booth are all (From Memory) pretty good films at least

he set up Colin Farrell's Hollywood career with Tigerland - maybe still his best performance?

Penn

Always loved Phone Booth, wouldn't have known it was Joel Schumacher at all. Have only ever been able to associate him with the Batman films. So bad, they're good.... really, really bad.

Enjoyed Falling Down and 8mm a lot too.

Dades

Watched The Lost Boys on repeat for years. Knew every line.

Some great stuff in his back catalogue. RIP.

murpho999

kerplun k wrote: »

Phone Booth was such a fun campy film. One of my favourite guilty pleasure and Its one of those films that you came out looking forward to discussing with your friends afterwords. RIP

Just wondering why you'd regard enjoying a popular and well received film as a guilty pleasure?

murpho999

I thought he was a good director.

Surprised nobody mentioned "Car Wash" an early work from him but very good.

branie2

Did he ever say anything about the Flatliners sequel?

QikBax

This is one of the great interviews in any field in the last few years:

Joel Schumacher - Vulture

dublinman1990

He was a very down to earth & professional director whenever I see him in the extras from his two Batman movies. I loved his statement about ignoring the criminal gangs when he spoke to the IT in 2002 when he was the director of Veronica Guerin here with Cate Blanchett having the title role.

The comments he made that day made me respect him a lot more as a fan of his work. RIP Joel.

kerplun k

murpho999 wrote: »

Just wondering why you'd regard enjoying a popular and well received film as a guilty pleasure?

Because its a silly movie with a silly script, and silly characters and Farrell hams it up with his silly Bronx accent. Don't get me wrong, Its gloriously entertaining, but its no Dark Knight.

pixelburp

Huh; well that's interesting. The source isn't wrong, I'm not sure there's an appetite for a "Director's Cut" of Batman Forever but I wasn't aware there even WAS one. Presumably the studio didn't like the cut, maybe wanting more toy-friendly, Jim Carrey fuelled zaniness.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/batman-forever-directors-cut-joel-schumacher-1234697441/

Last week, writer Marc Bernardin (“Castle Rock,” “Star Trek: Picard”) tweeted that he’d heard from “VERY good authority” that a 170-minute cut of the 1995 superhero blockbuster “Batman Forever” from the late director Joel Schumacher exists, but that Warner Bros. was “unsure if there’s any hunger for what was described to me as a ‘much darker, more serious’ version of the film.”

Variety has confirmed with a source close to the movie that Schumacher did assemble a longer cut of “Batman Forever” that was indeed much darker in nature. This version opens with a sequence involving the villain Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) escaping from Arkham Asylum, and features extended scenes with the Riddler (Jim Carrey) when he invades the Batcave and uses his signature cane as a weapon. The bulk of this version’s runtime focuses on the emotional and psychological issues that led Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer) to decide to become Batman

Sad Professor

Batman Forever was significantly restructured quite late in post-production. I remember someone gave me the comic adaptation and there was a lot of extra scenes and dialogue in it. Scenes were also in different order. I am not sure it was darker but there was a lot more more focus on Bruce.

pixelburp

Sad Professor wrote: »

Batman Forever was significantly restructured quite late in post-production. I remember someone gave me the comic adaptation and there was a lot of extra scenes and dialogue in it. Scenes were also in different order. I am not sure it was darker but there was a lot more more focus on Bruce.

Is the the comic supposed to be based on Schumacher's original version? Insofar as relative quality can be measured with his Batman films would you say it was "better" than the one released theatrically?

Sad Professor

pixelburp wrote: »

Is the the comic supposed to be based on Schumacher's original version? Insofar as relative quality can be measured with his Batman films would you say it was "better" than the one released theatrically?

It's a long time since I read it. My recollection is that it was pretty much a scene for scene copy of the film, but obviously based on an earlier, longer cut and the shooting script. At the time I did think it was a better, more coherent telling of the story. The theatrical cut seems like the studio just came in and start hacking and slashing. I'd be curious to see it, but i doubt it would be a huge improvement. I think much of the damage was done when Burton departed and Goldsman was brought in.