R.I.P Joel Schumacher.

[Dusty Substance]

Nobody's favourite director has died at the age of 80.

It's been a while since I last saw it but Falling Down was like my Taxi Driver when it first came out on video, until I saw Taxi Driver a couple of years later.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I once briefly worked with an actor who was in The Phantom of the Opera, and said whenever filming Schumacher would ask the camera man to focus on my friend's arse, so I'll always remember him fondly as an arse obsessed director who made rubbish films.

[Shit Good Nose]

Falling Down and Tigerland alone give him a pass for all the other shit he made - two genuinely decent films by anyone's standards.  A Time To Kill was alright as well.

I liked Phone Booth and Flawless when I saw them at the cinema, but haven't seen them since.

[SavageHedgehog]

Whether they were any good or not I was excited as hell to see his Batmanses as a kid, and in most ways at the time they didn't disappoint. Kick some ice in the afterlife dude.

[Shit Good Nose]

I think with so many of the Batmens now swayed towards Dark Knight territory, Schumacher's will probably have a similar fanbase as the 66 film in future.

Not that I liked any of them.

[Dusty Substance]

Falling Down and Tigerland alone give him a pass for all the other shit he made - two genuinely decent films by anyone's standards.  A Time To Kill was alright as well.

I liked Phone Booth and Flawless when I saw them at the cinema, but haven't seen them since.

I rewatched Phone Booth for the first time since the cinema last year and really enjoyed it - Probably more due to Larry Cohen's script than Schumacher's direction, but at about 85 minutes it was a nice reminder of a time when films could have a really simple premise and not outstay their welcome.

Oddly enough I'd never heard of Flawless until just three days ago when I saw a Facebook post of De Niro and PSH.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Yeah, he made plenty of good films.

On the other hand, he had the unfathomable gall to not take Batman seriously, so he surely deserves to burn forever in the shittest region of Hell.

[dissolute ocelot]

I don't think anyone would say he was a great humanistic director whose inquiries into the meaning of existence changed their lives, but his films are consistently entertaining. You could draw up a long list of atrocities from the dubious cover of People Are Strange in The Lost Boys to every line of dialog in Batman and Robin to Michael Douglas's haircut in Falling Down, but he helped popularise the concept of snuff movies in 8 mm and lunatic conspiracy theories in The Number 23. Um, this isn't really sounding great. He was better than Michael Bay.

[Gulftastic]

I don't think anyone would say he was a great humanistic director whose inquiries into the meaning of existence changed their lives, but his films are consistently entertaining. You could draw up a long list of atrocities from the dubious cover of People Are Strange in The Lost Boys to every line of dialog in Batman and Robin to Michael Douglas's haircut in Falling Down, but he helped popularise the concept of snuff movies in 8 mm and lunatic conspiracy theories in The Number 23. Um, this isn't really sounding great. He was better than Michael Bay.

Praise so faint it needs the Hubble telescope to see it.

[Keebleman]

As far as I know he is the only person to have progressed from costume designer to director.  Let's hope he's the last.

[bgmnts]

I love his Batmans and 8mm is great. The Lost Boys is fun as well.

St Elmos Fire though, oof.

[SavageHedgehog]

At the end of the day he pissed off comic book bores, homophobes, film critics, Harry Knowles and people who fit into upwards of 3 of those categories, and that's a fine enough legacy for any man.

[thecuriousorange]

Nobody complains about sixties Batman being campy.

[Keebleman]

Nobody complains about sixties Batman being campy.

Because it was also witty.

[PlanktonSideburns]

fuckin love that guitar dive bomb sound in falling down

[Bence Fekete]

I'm no fanboy but some of these retrospective rotten tomatoes feel harsh:

- The Lost Boys: 75%
- Falling Down: 74%
- Flatliners: 48%
- 8MM: 22%

I mean, I've definitely seen films that are worse than 8MM. Falling Down is a fine death romp, probably his best hit deserving of 80%+. I know RT scores are uninformed nebulous wank but still.

[ImmaculateClump]

I just saw it out the corner of my eye on twitter, saw the picture and the word "died" and thought Louis Walsh was a gonner!



I probably saw Flatliners at exactly the right age. I liked that one, and Lost Boys of course, taped that and watched it a lot.

[Bazooka]

I can also say most of his work never really stuck with me, but Falling Down is one of my favourite films,so I'm sorry to hear this.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Because it was also witty.

Batman comics of the time were also incredibly campy, on account of the Comics Code.

[C_Larence]

He gave a pretty great interview only recently (turns out it was almost a year ago but time doesn't exist anymore)
https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/joel-schumacher-in-conversation.html

Worth it just for the part when he claims to have had sex with 10-20,000 men

[Mr Banlon]

I thought his films were cobblers, but it was actually a cinema.

[Dusty Substance]

He gave a pretty great interview only recently (turns out it was almost a year ago but time doesn't exist anymore)
https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/joel-schumacher-in-conversation.html

Worth it just for the part when he claims to have had sex with 10-20,000 men

LEDGE.

[dissolute ocelot]

He gave a pretty great interview only recently (turns out it was almost a year ago but time doesn't exist anymore)
https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/joel-schumacher-in-conversation.html

Worth it just for the part when he claims to have had sex with 10-20,000 men

If he can't tell the difference between 10 men and 20,000 men, it's little surprise I found his crowd scenes to be unconvincing.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Batman Forever would be alright if it weren't ruined by Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey doing bad Jack Nicholson Joker impressions and passing them off as Two-Face and Riddler.

[Egyptian Feast]

Batman Forever would be alright if it weren't ruined by Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey doing bad Jack Nicholson Joker impressions and passing them off as Two-Face and Riddler.

Seeing their names together now always makes me recall that (hopefully not apocryphal) story about Jones telling Carrey "I cannot sanction your buffoonery".

He has a decent filmography. I've seen about half of them and can't say I disliked any, but I doubt I'll check out anything I've missed (though Flawless and Tigerland sound interesting). I saw 20 minutes of Batman and Robin on telly a while back and didn't mind it - I've seen much worse films that are widely acclaimed, though nothing I saw tempted me to watch the whole thing.

Apparently a nice bloke and hugely entertaining company too, which is always nice to hear when someone's passed. RIP.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Apparently down to earth and very, very funny, which is always nice to hear when someone's passed. RIP.

[Shit Good Nose]

^
You joke, but on the Batman and Robin commentary he IS very very funny.  He basically spends the entire running time picking out everything that's bad, why it's bad, and apologising for it.

[Cheesewogg]

Batman Forever would be alright if it weren't ruined by Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey doing bad Jack Nicholson Joker impressions and passing them off as Two-Face and Riddler.

There is much about 'Batman Forever' that is pretty groundbreaking - Batman's superheroics have a natural flow to them that Burton couldn't let go past without mulling over (e.g. Batman Returns' "wings" reveal compared to the cape naturally gliding for Kilmer's Batman) but the scriptwriters they had on these films were turdmeisters.