Batman’s had a pretty spectacular career, but even the Caped
Crusader has a few moments he’d like to forget. Chief among them
would probably be his first live-action excursion, a serial released in 1943
that featured Bats squaring off against a mad Japanese scientist/horrible
stereotype. So if you want to check out the adventures of Racist Batman, this week’s
home video releases is happy to oblige.
• Gotham
City Serials: Batman/Batman & Robin
Two more things about these serials: 1) They’re both 15
chapters each, and are more than four hours long. 2) Even the narrator in the
first serial is racist. From Wikipedia:
Early narration in the first chapter (minute 9:20-9:30), referencing the U.S. government policy of Japanese American internment to explain the abandoned neighborhood of Daka’s headquarters, sets the racial tone for the serial: “This was part of a foreign land, transplanted bodily to America and known as little Tokyo. Since a wise government rounded up the shifty-eyed Japs, it has become virtually a ghost street.”
Holy crap.
The director of Love Actually brings this romantic comedy
about a young man who discovers he can travel through time and uses it mostly
to hook up with a girl.
Braves heroes try to lock up Sylvester Stallone and Arnold
Schwarzenegger in a futuristic, inescapable prison before they have a chance to make The Expendables 3.
In the 15th century, three ruthless women play the game of thrones during
England’s “War of the Roses,” and they play dirty in this Starz series.
Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and other DC heroes come
together for the first time to battle an interstellar invasion by Darkseid.
• My
Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Season Three
Thirteen episodes of ponies ponying around, presumably.
• Hawking
This PBS documentary chronicles the life, the work, and the
discoveries of beyond brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking, as told in his own
words.
• Fruits
Basket: The Complete Series
An extremely charming, bizarrely named shojo anime series
about a girl who meets a family whose members all turn into the animals of the
Chinese zodiac when touched by a member of the opposite sex.
• The
Tick: The Complete Series
Get the complete series of the great, late live-action
superhero comedy for less than $10. Truly the world is a poorer place for not
having Batmanuel in it. And at least he wasn’t racist…
