#michael nicholson

[litloverscorsetlaces]

Phantom Acting Choices That Live in My Head Rent Free (Part 2)

The way Hugh Panaro says "sing for me" during the title song. Extra emphasis on the ME, like this man knows Christine doesn't sing for anyone else like this--especially not that insolent boy.

Tim Martin Gleason's emotionally regulating self-hug.

David Shannon plays the Phantom like his skull exposure is actually vulnerable/causes him chronic pain.

Earl Carpenter directs tf out of Christine's voice during the title song in his '06 run. Gospel choir director energy, but make it sex.

Phantoms kneeling during the Don Juan AIAOY reprise. (Looking at you David Thaxton and Hugh P.)

Every acting decision Gina Beck makes in the final lair.

There's a boot (I think 1995?) where Davis Gaines pauses after he says "this is the choice" and he actually realizes he's gone off the deep end and "this is the point of no return" fr.

Michael Nicholson's deranged laugh turned sob. So sad, so disturbed.

Gary Mauer says like 4-5 ily's in the final lair like he can't stop now that he's uttered it aloud. And the more the merrier imo lol.

[wheel-of-fish]

my favorite creepy deliveries of "you try my patience," ordered to become increasingly more unhinged

[meilas]

Socks' Ultimate Phantoms list

Phantoms

Franc D'Ambrosio - Yes. Brings all the sad noises and I am here for it. Nice voice. Excellent acting and facial expressions. Very expressive eyes. Is a cinnamon roll irl. Gary Mauer - Best voice ever. 10/10 would believe this man was an angel. Greg Mills - Looks like a cinnamon roll, will kill you. I never thought tongue action could be sexy but here we are. Ted Keegan - Looks like a cinnamon roll, is a cinnamon roll. Surprisingly sexy. Killian Donnelly - Looks like a cinnamon roll. I can't explain why I like him, but I do. Christopher Carl - I've only heard audio of him but I like him based on how he sobbed on the golden angel. Jeremy Stolle - Nice voice. Acting is too subtle. Peter Karrie - I love how he takes certain notes up a step, just to show that he can. Slightly nasally, but tolerable. Davis Gaines - tbh all I remember really is him slowly rocking his hips while he was sprawled on the portcullis and I now judge all phantoms on a metric of how good their pants look. 9/10 his pants. Peter Joback - I absolutely hated him when he sang in English. I liked him a little better when he did the show in Swedish. James Hume - Unmemorable. Michael Nicholson - Excellent acting choices. Was thinking about him for two weeks after watching. I just really like the production in German, okay? Earl Carpenter - Better in his earlier runs. Good acting choices. Simon Pryce - Very deep voice. Stands nicely. Scott Davies - He looked like fun and I wanted to like him. Noped out of that one pretty quick. Too much vibrato. Anthony Crivello - From the Vegas boot! I actually don't remember too much about him. But I know I liked the boot! Ben Crawford - Tended to have really weird pronunciation toward the end of his run. He was decent when I saw him right after the Broadway reopening. The most remarkable thing he did was to belly slide all the way across the stage during STYDI. Other than that, I recall nothing specific. Thiago Arancam - Remarkable only in the fact that he is boring. Uwe Kroger - The boob-stroking guy. I remember nothing else. Cooper Grodin - Entertaining in the fact that his acting is so wooden. Nice voice when he's not doing blocking at the same time. Good pants. It helps that he never skips leg day. Laird Mackintosh - I think he was good? I honestly don't remember. Geronimo Rauch - I remember I liked him! Norm Lewis - Nice voice, a little boring. Sorry Norm. John Owen-Jones - Hands. Michael Crawford - Absolutely not. I do not understand what anyone sees in him. His voice sounds like it's about to snap any second, and he is very unsexy. David Shannon - Yes. Absolutely yes. Excellent acting choices and nice voice. Does sad very well. Deserved better. Saulo Vasconcelos - All I can recall is @wheel-of-fish spamming the chat with "hands" all night and that's all anyone really needs to know about his Phantom. Ethan Freeman - Looks like a goddamn stick insect during Final Lair and I am here for it. Looks like Tony Shaloub. Bronson Norris Murphy - Technically only was the Phantom in Love Never Dies. RIP. He deserved better. Anyway. His voice is a little deeper than Franc's or Gary's. I wish he had gotten a chance to play the Phantom in POTO proper. I am very curious as to how he would have played it. Looks like a cinnamon roll, is a burnt cinnamon roll. Ramin Karimloo - He was my intro to POTO on stage. I liked his performance enough that I went looking for more clips of the musical, and found the Saturday Streams. Eiji Akutagawa - Ah yes. The self-groping Phantom. That's all I can remember about him. Josh Piterman - Does sad very well. Gerard Butler - My first-first Phantom. I still like him. There's something about his voice that I do actually like, and it annoys me very much when people go "he can't sing" yes he can, everyone has the ability to sing. Just shut up and let me enjoy what I like in peace. Hugh Panaro - Great voice, excellent acting. Funny. Fun to watch. Reminds me of Franc, in that they're both innocent/childish. Hugh is more childish and angry. Looks like he could kill you, and he might, it depends on his mood.

PART TWO

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Costume continuity Polaroids - Batman (1989)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[greenstripedcat]

LOSING her voice, learning French sign language, breaking a pinky because of said slut. What is a girl to do??

ALL OF THIS EMOTIONALLY EXHAUSTING EXPERIENCE BEING DRAWN OUT FOR MONTHS AND FINALLY CULMINATING IN A BLOWOUT FIGHT/HEARTWRENCHING MAKEOUT/THE TWO LEAST ROMANTIC BOAT RIDES OF ALL TIME IN ONE NIGHT. AND THEN CHRISTINE DAAE HAS TO GO GET A MINWAGE JOB AT THE LAUNDROMAT TOO

[vhshistory]

November 15, 1989: Batman (1989) is released on VHS.

The film was one of the best selling video titles of the year and it revolutionized the home video industry by being one of the first films released on video the same year it was released in theaters as opposed to waiting a year.

[camshell]

Watched '89 Batman just so I could read the original script and get mad at the changes. Spoilers, but also this won't make a lot of sense if you haven't already seen the movie

Starting off strong with the descriptions. I'm sure cranking up Jack's age some 20 years wouldn't make much of a difference to the plot...

I was going to say that the casting director is no Andrea Romano, but considering his name drops before Keaton's, I'm sure Nicholson was chosen through a more particular process. I wonder though, was that choice alone responsible for the "Joker kills Bruce's parents" idea? (side note, did Joker 2019 come up with *anything* new at all??) Or was it something that came up after they decided to erase Dick Grayson from the film to replace the original conflict?

Oh yeah, the Flying Grayson's episode happens in the original script. But let's look at Ace Chemicals first — which is not the name they used in the movie, just to piss me off

They cut out a whole section of the gang breaking into the plant. It's not a bad choice, I just liked the date makeup observation. Now to the meet cute--

Paralyzing talons? Are you kidding me, they got rid of that?? Oh, silly me, of course they did — that would get in the way of Batman's classic blowing-up-thugs rule.

Bruce didn't throw Jack off the platform here, but interestingly enough we still see him feeling guilty when he finds out that he inadvertently created Joker

And yes, this is almost the exact same moment that Tom King wrote in Batman/Catwoman. Gotta love the trope of Bruce bringing up his guilt over creating his arch-nemesis in the middle of an intimate moment with a beautiful woman on his bed. Now some random things they changed that stood out to me:

Every single time Joker acts blatantly childishly or is described as being on the verge of a tantrum is so funny. Sad that we could've had this instead of him thirsting over Vicky Vale.

This is the during the attack of the mimes on the city hall. I assume they decided to cut it out because that sort of ptsd goes a little against installing machine guns on the batmobile and striking down your enemies with military grade missiles.

They didn't pull a Joe Chill/Joker switcheroo here, Vale's guilt just dreamed of this scenario. The script goes a little deeper in expanding her relationship with Bruce. She figured out he's Batman on her own — saving up Alfred's skin — but unfortunately so does her colleague. As a self-designated nice guy, Knox tries to get Batman to break things off with Vicky. He's also waiting for the news of Joker's attacks to quiet down before exposing Batman's identity, but don't worry, the scripts solves this beautifully later on.

Anyways, instead of the confrontation at the apartment of Vicky Vale (also known as Bruce's "let's get nuts" moment and the devil in the moonlight quote) we have a chase scene that leads to Dick's introduction. Before that though comes probably the second scene I most wish they had kept in the movie

Yes, Batman chases Joker on a horse, first wearing a tuxedo, then his whole gear. Do you see what they took from us? What could've been?

Joker kills the Graysons with pretty explosions, Dick jumps onto Joker's van and tries to kill him but alas is detained by Batman and batnapped.

Batman then asks Alfred to take care of Dick and the last act is set in motion. Pushed by anger and guilt, Batman blows up Ace Chemicals (tho here we're supposed to believe the thugs managed to run out before the place crumbled) but Joker escapes and goes to set the balloon parade in motion.

Before he can blow away the public, Knox and Vicky create the bat signal to alert Batman about the balloons and Joker's plans are thwarted. Unfortunately (cough) this costs Knox his life. But hey, at least Batman's identity is safe.

Big explosions ensue, the batwing goes down and Bruce is almost left dead in the debris. Dick Grayson, now dawning his makeshift Robin suit, saves him and runs to enact his revenge on Joker.

They enter the cathedral, Joker and Dick exchange some bullets and Batman eventually catches up with Dick, knocking him out again. Then Batman manages to crawl up the stairs through inhuman effort against his fatal injuries, passes out just before reaching the final floor and uh... I'll just post this next part in full

He's made a friend... Attempted murder-suicide... Joker's taken out by a horde of Bats... This would probably have replaced Fight Club in my list of favorite movie endings if it ever came into existence.

Before I close up on our villain and hero's demises, I do have something to point out that I think was improved in the final script. Joker's Smylex — basically Joker Gas, originally meant to be called Smylenol — got added to beauty products and caused some people to die in the movie. I say some, because while we see 13 deaths reported there, here it's something that comes closer to the class of hundreds. He doesn't even invent it, originally; he just steals the formula from an old CIA project. Because the fatal product doesn't happen only when certain products are mixed together, a whole lot more end up becoming victims and Batman can't do much about it except cut out the source. It's just a detail, but I liked that they thought of an alternative. I may not like the Joker mob boss origin, but at least they let him keep his chemical prowess.

Now to the ending. Batman had a last minute bout of clarity and threw the bomb away, tangling it in the helicopter's ladder

Something something Batman offering Joker a last comfort before death... Endgame and Arkham City and...

Okay, that's pretty much what I've got. Am I mad we didn't get to have this? Kinda. But also, I didn't have big expectations for what actually came out, and it's still a pretty funny film. Besides, I think when it comes to Batman and mainly Joker, sticking to the comics, games and animations is the best way to go. Best to keep the incels focused on the live adaptations anyhow

[gokaiju]

Batman (Tim Burton, 1989) Alternative poster by Gokaiju

[riggio037]

Michael Douglas and Jack Nicholson on the set of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)

[gijoe-forever]

[wheel-of-fish]

Phantom Hands: Michael Nicholson

[haveyouplayedthispinball]

Have you played this pinball?

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Batman (1989)

[mr-dead-inside]

[darkcollectornerd]

Poll: Favourite Batman Movie?