Booze, Burning and The Black Sea

Sunny Beach, Bulgaria

There's a beach over there. Honest.

A day ago I returned from a week's holiday in Bulgaria.  I'll admit it, I'm a little the worse for wear but not as bad as I feared I would be given past experiences in Xanthi and Cyprus.

Bulgaria had been on the holiday radar for a couple of years: cheap, relatively hot and still relatively unknown. Hurrah! Chilled out evenings in a beach side bar without huge groups of pissed up Geordies fresh out of school!

Evening flights from the uninspiring North terminal at Gatwick meant a leisurely trip to the airport only dented by an inconsiderate Chrysler driver.  He was obviously on a mission to prove that it's not just BMW drivers that act like utter, utter cunts.  

 

I like departure lounges.  

The swindling and overpricing on a preflight pint is outshone by the perpetual daylight and the feeling that time doesn't really matter as much.  Weak will and a cheeky smile meant a preflight pint was followed by a double vodka necked as the realisation that our flight was boarding kicked in.

 

In the beginning

Holiday mode kicked in completely as we bought further overpriced booze on the flight over.  This was all compensation for having an air steward's crotch in my face for the safety demonstrations (a newly discovered peril of sitting in the front row.)  Unlike the, more than slightly, inebriated travellers on the return flight we were well behaved.

Warm muggy air hits you as you leave Bourgas arrivals.  It's one o'clock in the morning and still very warm, a tedious coach transfer was made bearable by a couple who didn't seem to know which hotel they were staying at getting on and off the coach repeatedly.  Maybe you had to be there.

Bognor or Bulgaria?

Exploration of the area basically gives you an 8km beach lined with two almost parallel rows of hotels.  All of them huge.  This is an area that has been built with the express purpose of tourism. 

Sunny Beach is the first place I've been to where the tourism feels manufactured, other places like Italy, Cyprus or Turkey the tourism has sort of evolved around history or natural features.  This is probably why there's a feeling of 1970s British seaside resort around the place; as if Skegness suddenly got sunny.  The beachside fairground complete with haunted house and mini rollercoaster just needs a Jurassic 3001 to complete the Clarence Pier look.

Why Portsmouth chose Jurassic Park to give a rollercoaster legacy is anyone's guess

The air is heavy with the smell of waffles and doughnuts frying.  This place will be hellish at the height of the school holidays.

Obviously, the fairground wasn't of any real interest to us.  It was all about the beach and the nightlife.

The beach is lovely and sandy, fight for a decent patch of sand instead of trying to work out who you have to pay to rent a sun lounger.  Quite how big the Black Sea is is a bit of a mystery as you dip your toes.  Thankfully, the beach isn't overrun by jet skis and boats just a huge number of Russian and German tourists.  The evenings are for the pubs and bars.  Don't kid yourself thinking there's culture hidden next door to The Funny Pub, Guaba or the ubiquitous Irish pub.  Why is it that wherever you are in the world there's an Irish pub?  the organised bar crawl is one way to ensure you'll lose one day in bed with a vicious hangover.  Blame the 'vodka' it's called Flirt and is, quite simply, evil.  Don't believe the ads, you'll be too busy trying to remember your own name let alone do anything else.

It took me four days to remember I'd been in Candybar.

Behind all the hotels and the casinos seems to be a little resentment towards the tourists from Western Europe in spite of the boost we're giving to the economy.  It's almost as if the resort has expanded too quickly in too small a space.  The hints of Eastern Bloc still shine in the sunlight but soon they'll be swallowed up by the abundance of tattoo parlours and sex shops.

There did seem to be a fascination with tattoo shops and Angry Birds.  They are practically everywhere.  No sign of any From Russia With Love antics though.

I may have drunk my bodyweight in Kemenitza, got a little sunburnt and banged my head but Bulgaria is alright in my book, nice and relaxed but hectic when you want it to be.  I'm looking forward to visiting again.  There might be one supermarket I'm not allowed in though.

Hope Lies In The Proles

I was in my mid-teens in 1996 and just getting 'in' to music whilst hurtling towards GCSE exams and apparently growing up.  Britpop was in it's pomp and Oasis vs Blur was arguably one of the biggest things on the planet.  The bandwagon was big enough to share with the likes of menswe@r (who were great) and Kula Shaker whilst giving some much deserved exposure to Pulp, Elastica and Manic Street Preachers.

There were personalities everywhere; the warring oafish Gallaghers, the ever changing Albarn, the embodiment of geek chic in Jarvis but no one really came close to the fierce intelligence held by Wire and Edwards.  Nicky and Richey weren't happy to just be a bit clever and well read; it was a display.  It was a weapon against the mainstream and that's how a song alluding to Auschwitz got to number 2 in the UK charts.

The first single from Everything Must Go and since The Holy Bible and the events in February 1995 saw a change in tack.  Introspection and rebuilding linked with nostalgia and a redefinition of the band's identity to give A Design For Life.

My first exposure was the video.  Mistreated celluloid showing the band in the ruins of the Roundhouse and Nicky strutting around dressed as a Madchester relic.  The strings start gently and then the guitars but there is nothing that prepares you for the chorus.  Simple, repetitive and now anthemic if you listen to the NME, it was a call to arms; a 20th century 'workers of the world, unite!'  The Manics had reestablished their own socialist credentials whilst reminding us that we were still in the midst of class conflict.  It would be another year before the Labour landslide and hopes pinned on Tony Blair.

The song is so self aware, identifying the working class and yet screaming that we shouldn't be underestimated, hints of Orwell, Bacon and Marx all tied together with Blackwood and Welsh mining.  These are just a few of the reasons why I love this song, it's just unbelievable it was kept off the number 1 spot by Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison.

Manics Top 50 Songs Part II

Songs 25 - 1

This is all laid out on paper, I've shuffled the order and crossed things out. I'm trying to invent new numbers that mean I can squeeze songs up the running order.  The only thing I'm certain of is my number one.

25

Facing Page: Top Left

This shows how hard this is. This was number four for a while.

24

If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next

All those horrid little Britpop kids bought this and then we told them it was about the Spanish Civil War. Cue blank stares and sighs.  The video's a bit weird though.

23

Suicide is Painless (Theme From M.A.S.H)

22

Yes

At last, more from The Holy Bible.

21

Born A Girl

20

This Joke Sport Severed

This is getting serious now.

19

The Love Of Richard Nixon

 Yay! More Lifeblood....no YOU shut up. 

18

Everything Must Go

A song of cleansing and renewal, acknowledging the past yet trying to lighten the load.  We've all got baggage, if only we could all deal with it like this.

17

You Stole The Sun from My Heart

This is like the Twin Peaks of songs, happy go lucky on the surface before a chorus of darkness and turmoil within touching distance.

16

This Is The Day

A cover version of a song I'd never heard.  Standard Manics behaviour.  There is so much optimism in this song.

15

Postcards From A Young Man

Is that...is that Tim Roth? Yes, yes it is.  The second of three booming tracks to open an album.

14

Solitude Sometime Is

A song that's carried me through some hard times.

13

Masses Against The Classes

Noam Chomsky welcomes in the new millennium and the song is deleted on release day. Still got to number one. It was number one between Westlife and Britney Spears. Says it all really.

12

Motown Junk

Deliberately provocative and still sounds as good today as it did then.

11

La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)

From the overproduced beast that was Gold Against The Soul this huge song is holding up the top ten. 

10

P.C.P.

A perfect example of Richey's love of words and playing with them and our own connotations.

9

Golden Platitudes

 A recent masterpiece and probably the most gentle sounding song in my top ten.

8

Roses In The Hospital

OK, the 'Minic Street Preachers' overlay made me laugh.  Highly personal and with glorious (if a bit too obvious) nods to The Clash, I love this song.

7

This Is Yesterday

If only I'd put this alongside Everything Must Go for juxtaposition.

6

Motorcycle Emptiness

This is really low down, sorry. So many see this as the quintessential Manics song but it's not. It's a song that evolved and was clipped and polished to the glorious version included on Generation Terrorists

5

Stay Beautiful

The odd Beetlejuice video and the sheer bravado of the band that scared the producers into cutting out the swearing make this near perfect.  Radiohead swore on Creep but I think a radio edit and an album version of this would be diminishing.

4

No Surface All Feeling

This needs to be listened to as the sun sets.

3

Judge Yr'self

This was for Judge Dredd?  I'm not sure Stallone would've got it.  Quite how this has been so neglected I don't know.

2

Faster

The distillation of Richey in crystalline perfection. It still makes me smile at just how many complaints the BBC received after this.

1

Design For Life

A song that works for everyone. Ignore the idiots who drunkenly shout along to the chorus, another casualty of Britpop, instead cherish this truly anthemic song.

So, there it is. Not too much tinkering but still plenty had to be cut out.

My handwriting isn't all that bad

Manics Top 50 Songs Part I

The countdown part I (50 - 26)

So, encouraged by Twitter and New Chart Riot I sit with a blank piece of paper, some CDs and my fruit based MP3 player. I'm determined not to look at other lists that might sway my judgement. I have a red pen for corrections and we're off.

I get distracted easily

50

Automatik Tecknicolour

I've been listening to a lot of Kraftwerk and Neu! lately so the title of this hidden away song grabbed me.  Possibly the most obscure track I've chosen.

49

RP McMurphy

Hang on, it's not all B sides is it?

48

Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky

Wedged between two huge tracks on Everything Must Go is this delicate piece. It includes a harp. What's not to love?

47

Umbrella (cover)

Yeah, a cover version! Kicks Rihanna in the face.

46

All We Make Is Entertainment

45

Let Robeson Sing

Know Your Enemy isn't my favourite, it's OK, My Guernica comes later.

44

All Is Vanity

43

Damn Dog

A late change of mind saw this come in and boot out a Lifeblood track.

42

Underdogs

41

From Despair To Where

Probably should be higher but this is hard work, this list.

40

Further Away

More from Everything Must Go? Yes, and there's plenty more where this came from.

39

Mausoleum

More than ten songs in before we get to The Holy Bible and the horror and violence being thrust into your face. Excellent.

38

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (cover)

I nearly went with Last Christmas but this is the perfect example of how the Manics can be playful as opposed to political, inaccessible and difficult.

37

Drug Drug Druggy

36

Little Baby Nothing

35

Australia

Kidnapped and made to sell holidays and beer this song still remains brilliant.

34

Your Love Alone Is Not Enough

Hmmm, have I dispensed with the duets already?

33

Revol

Bonkers. Nonsensical. Ridiculous. Marvellous.

32

My Guernica

Another that should really be higher up the list.

31

Jackie Collins Existential Question Time

You see this on a track listing and it raises eyebrows, then you go and question the morality of suburbia.

30

Methadone Pretty

The first line says it all.

29

Love's Sweet Exile

Is this a little Generation Terrorists cul de sac? 

28

You Love Us

27

Kevin Carter

I remember at the O2 gig there were a couple of blokes in the queue for the gents who didn't know who Kevin Carter was.  The Manics always encouraged us to read, to learn, to expand horizons. I felt sorry for those two blokes.

26

Sorrow 16

Maybe the earliest song included in my countdown.

Yeah, so, this happened.

My curiosity was pricked and a sense of wanting to know was awoken inside.  Thoughts began to circle closer to the 'Church.'

Yeah, like everyone, I'd heard about the tithing and the extortion, giggled at the aliens that apparently floated around and puzzled at how people could buy into it.  Then a thought hit me: wouldn't Christianity be treated almost exactly the same as Scientology if the Bible had surfaced in the 1950s?

So, I had a little rummage and came across the gateway to L. Ron Hubbard's 21st Century world and took the Oxford Capacity Analysis questionnaire.  Two hundred questions apparently designed to discover your personality.  Two hundred questions of varying degrees from the fairly superficial 'are you a slow eater?' to the downright odd 'do you browse through railway timetables for pleasure?' I've paraphrased and these are the only questions I really remember.  I wondered how my multiple-choiced answers to this type of question be able to fit together a picture of me.  Miles away my answers were being plotted onto a graph of my personality.

I'm naturally sceptical and expected the results to be less than positive yet still resolved to go and see what the fuss was about.  However, even as I exited Blackfriars tube and looked at the London Eye in the distance, I was in two minds.  Before I knew it Beck had shuffled onto my iPod and I was stood outside the flat facade of the Church of Scientology.  Plasma screens shine forward from between the marble-esque slabs and a revolving door is spinning as two girls in their mid-twenties enter.

The interior is a cross between embassy and hotel foyer, with a hint of airport waiting area.  The staff are young and fairly serious looking.  I know I'm being paranoid but their looks were bordering on stares.  Announce your purpose and you're whisked away to another floor.  It's a tour now and my guide, named after a perfume, deposits me in the bookstore.  Straight into the sales pitch. Admirable, yet all I care about is that Hubbard has had his books translated into Latvian.  Banner posters laud how many books Hubbard has had published and, yawn, become bestsellers.  There can't be many books out there that haven't been on the New York Times Bestseller list.  I decline my first opportunity to purchase some of Hubbard's literal wares and am shipped off to 'The Exhibition'.  Not so much an exhibition but an extended bookstore, albeit with added DVDs and interactive plasma screens.  I am left to my own devices as my guide toddles off to fetch my test results.  I flick through video testimonials of Dianetics users and success stories of the Scientology purification diet, all strangely devoid of any specifics.  Time ticks away, quite a lot of time actually.  I begin to step away from the videos in case there is some subliminal message I'm being exposed to.  My guide still hasn't come back and I'm beginning to get bored.  Saving me from a propaganda film about Volunteer Ministers my guide returns and all the rumours of Scientology's evil schemes and omnipresence are reduced to a joke as I am informed that my test results can't be found.  Despite previous confirmation of results submission I have to sit the test again in good old fashioned pencil and paper style.  I console myself that the world won't be taken over by an organisation that's struggling with the Data Protection Act and a decent filing system.

I leave the other testees to complete as I am whisked away to glass walled box and then it begins.  My perfume guide begins to explain my results, naturally they're not good.  Her description of my personality (neatly categorised into ten points) is far from favourable.  The test shows me to be 'Unstable Dispersed,' 'Depressed' (although this bounces up and down, so I presume I'm now manic), 'Nervous,' 'Withdrawn' and despite scoring well within the ideal zone my positive scores in the fields of 'Inhibited' and 'Uncertainty' are also bad.  Well, bugger me, I'll get a free therapy session out of this. I try to suppress a little grin at the forlorn state of my life before the script kicks in.

My guide, now shifting to recruiter, has me in her tractor beam.  The interpretation of my scores leads her, via a fairly rigid sales script, to diagnose hidden traumas within my childhood.  Now it gets a little uncomfortable, despite my protestations that my childhood was fairly normal (I'm not saying anything about the lack of time I have for my family) she won't relent.  The back of my brain is flickering with memories of 'Quid Pro Quo,' a familiar voice is pushing itself to the front of my mind.  Almost verbatim Dr Hannibal Lecter is quoted.  I even went back to the film to double check.

That stare pushed me down and into the back of the seat.  It was difficult to resist but resist I did.  Her tone changed and became a little softer asking me what would be the one part of me I would wish to change.  Silence was not the required answer and so I was steamrolled straight into another sales pitch.  No, I didn't want a Dianetics DVD but I was cornered by a short course in self confidence.  My relentlessly being pushed into signing up and parting with a few quid seemed to be the goal and escape was made via a vague promise that I'd pick the phone up once I'd gotten home and checked my diary.  I can only assume that they've realised the phone number I submitted wasn't mine and I can only apologise to the person who they got through to.  Since I'd set foot in the building not one person had mentioned spiritual advancement, guidance or how to deal with Thetans.

In the space of just over thirty minutes I'd been targeted and converted from someone with a vague sense of curiosity into a cash cow in need of guidance.  Who knows, if they hadn't have gone in so hard they might have been a bit more successful but in the end this was a double glazing sales pitch gone feral.  Understandably, the Scientologists have got to pursue their audience a little harder than the older religions although I suspect they might be better off having a clear belief structure as a sales pitch instead of coming over as a tax efficient pyramid scheme.  It's interesting that spellchecker wants to change Scientologists to Syndicalists.  I'm happy to remain a Preclear, although I may well be a 'Suppressive Person' now, and might give the Mormons a poke next.

David Bowie Is...

It'd been a while since I'd visited the V&A Museum with The Science and The British Museums holding arguably more appeal.

That was until they booked Bowie.  The tapping of fingers building as the calendar slowly worked it's way to the on sale date.  Not quite Glastonbury Sunday but there was certainly an air of gig ticket as slots at the exhibition filled up.  A couple of days in and weekends were booked solidly for months.  Omar Sharif and Tutankhamen at the O2 could only dream of this popularity.

With beautifully acquired tickets came the inexorable wait til 'the day'.  Time was joyously booked off work and coffee and muffins were arranged whilst neglecting the fact 'the day' clashed with school holidays.  Grit your teeth, get through it.  It's worth it.

The V&A is warmer than The British Museum despite being home to just as much marble.  Funnelled through the gift shop you're spat out onto the far side, sunshine pouring through from the courtyard, but you're early.  The queue is forming slowly as a guide adopts a Noah stance letting you pick up your audio guide two by two.

The steady stream of people pads upstairs, there are actually a few too many people. The nudges and shuffling irritate for a while, just as the almost (but not quite) achievement by Sennheiser on their audio guide does.  Stand in just the wrong spot and three soundtracks fight to be heard.  Before any of these inconveniences though is the Tokyo Pop vinyl suit.  Yamamoto's frankly ridiculous design straddles the entrance and you begin to get the feeling that this isn't so much an exhibition but a show.

On entering the exhibition you are met by a Gilbert and George video.  Looping as you stare at it trying to work out why it's been placed there ahead of a more obvious piece.  A little further round it clicks. This is an exhibition of how Bowie mixed art and performance, theatre and music to pretty much dominate two decades or so of the last century.

Hurtle through Bowie's formative years, see bands come and go and a steely resolve build; The Manish Boys and the Konrads as prototype Spiders. A Haddon Hall developed blueprint waiting for that little piece of luck to be made real.  J.G. Ballard, Lindsay Kemp and Pierrot jostle as influences alongside the idolised Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley before that little piece of luck sparks the touchpaper.  NASA's Space Program reaches it's ultimate goal and the BBC go for a gimmick.  Bowie gets his first big hit on the back of the wave to the future represented by Bill Anders' Earthrise photo.

Pick up the pace a little as in the distance you can hear snatches of Ziggy Stardust and Rebel Rebel.  Come within touching distance of Warhol just as the exhibition gets a little samey.  Bowie's penchant for graph paper and sometimes poor spelling filling the walls.  Then it hits you.

You're timing's a little off: you've caught that Top of the Pops performance of Starman at just the wrong time, or have you?  You've missed the chorus but now in a mirrored triangle Bowie is pointing at the camera.  He's breaking the fourth wall.  He's singing to you.  You.  Look past Somewhere Over The Rainbow, the (alarmingly small) jumpsuit and there's Ziggy draping his arm round Mick Ronson and upsetting the 1970s.  Such an innocuous move by today's standards makes you smile.  You wait for the video to loop round so you can catch it from the beginning and have that moment to yourself all over again.

Bound through the explosion of Ziggy and the excess of Aladdin Sane as stage wear and small things begin to occur to you.  There was a lot of smoking going on and I used to be able to get through forty a day.  Also, Bowie is tiny.  On TV and video he looks like he's some kind of elfin giant, a little emaciated by the cocaine but still huge.  Yet from his clothes and a well placed notebook you find that he's got a 26.5" waist and can't be more than 5' 9" or 10".  Was it all hairspray and platform shoes?  Freddie Buretti's ice blue suit imposes in the darkness and the Ashes to Ashes Pierrot juxtaposes the Thin White Duke ensemble starkly.  Cocaine, sequins, lipstick and cigarettes are everywhere but so is reinvention.  The evolution of the album artwork shows a constant desire to challenge perception of Bowie and to sometimes whitewash the past in order to start again.  The development of The Next Day and Scary Monsters... artwork exemplify this although I'd quite happily obscure the cover of Pin Ups.  You flick through the LP covers and skim through Paul Morley's hidden essays. A snatch of the verbalizer and diaries before the presence of Eno is felt.  Seeing the Oblique Strategy cards seems a little odd.  There is just so much information to process.  No wonder Bowie retreated to Berlin.

The Berlin section is where the exhibition comes into its own.  You can touch the walls of Thomas Newton's spaceship before everything becomes monochrome.  The binary feel of Berlin is accompanied by the starkness of Bowie's recuperation and creative explosion that gave us Low and Station to Station, Lodger and "Heroes".  The monochrome area invokes Kraftwerk and memories of when Iggy Pop nailed it and a probable peak before the bloated 80s of Serious Moonlight and Glass Spider.  Look at the stage model for the Serious Moonlight tour, it's pure distilled 80s, you can smell the peroxide and pastel coloured shoulder pads.


There's time for one last hurrah as the lure of the gift shop builds.  This comes in the form of Rock & Roll Suicide from the night Bowie killed the Spiders in Hammersmith.  The video is played on a screen that seems as big as a bus and you'll fight back a tear or two as Ziggy sashays across the stage for the last time.  It was about this time that a nearby mother was harangued by her teenage daughter.  The daughter complaining that Bowie dressed like a girl and all too skimpily. All the time bordered by more outfits ranging from Diamond Dogs to Glastonbury in 2000.  It's clear now that Bowie has kept absolutely everything and this is all just the tip of the iceberg.  The light is brighter now and you're near the end, content.

Try not to spend too much in the gift shop.

Return of the Bat

It's 1992 and the fledgling decade is shaking off it's inherited neon legwarmers and trying to work out if acid house will last in the mainstream.  Amongst the day-glo and smiley faces Warner Bros held a dark card. Thanks to grossing over $400 million 1989's Batman was always going to have a sequel.

Tim Burton returns to his Art Deco Gotham City and the strange mix of the stylised 1920s and 1980s is given a dusting of snow. Many of the ensemble cast return as Burton begins to display the trait of working with his favourites.  Hence the fleeting glimpse of Peewee Herman before the opening credits.  Obviously the biggest problem is following Nicholson's Joker.  Nicholson smiled wickedly as he chewed through the original's scenes and the only real way to follow him is with two Supervillains.  The comics are trawled and Catwoman and The Penguin are chosen.

The Penguin is, physically, one of the most recognisable of Batman's foes, even if he is basically a bit crap.  Burton and his team design a grotesque monster of a man, leaning heavily towards Victorian freak show and a hint of The Elephant Man.  This is reinforced by The Penguin's back up consisting of The Red Triangle Circus Gang who are just lacking a bearded lady.  There were few actors around who could possible fit The Penguin mould and Danny DeVito is an automatic choice.  To balance the Penguin's far fetched freak show is another villain; the manipulative businessman Max Shreck.  Played by Christopher Walken, Shreck is the connection between the underworld and more 'respectable' society.  Quite how a department store manager has become so powerful is left unanswered.  Perhaps Shreck is a little nudge towards Twin Peaks and Jerry Horne.

Catwoman presented a different challenge.  Readers of the comics will know that Catwoman isn't so much a villain but more an anti-hero, the lines further blurred by the affair with Batman as well as the 'real life' shenanigans between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle.  The camp flirtiness of the 60s TV series has been replaced and fetishised as a tormented Kyle discovers PVC and home tailoring.  A twist of fate saw Michelle Pfeiffer replace Annette Bening in the role. Very fortunate for Pfeiffer who negotiated a deal similar to Nicholson's for the original where he took a slice of the box office receipts.  Miss Orange County learnt a few things since Grease 2.  Not bad seeing that the rumour mill had her competing with Cher (?), Bridget Fonda and a rather determined Sean Young amongst others.

There's a sense of ambition about Batman Returns that was absent with Batman.  Where Batman is wholly built around The Joker and his set pieces Batman Returns has a more coherent story.  Despite problems with a writer's strike the story of The Penguin's revenge cut with Catwoman's attempts at discovery flow reasonably well.  As well as the Christmas setting there are other pseudo-religious undertones; Shreck's God Complex and The Penguin's grand plan all beginning with a Moses basket opening and a resurrection.  Okay, not resurrection as such, more feline CPR.  Burton's Batman universe is expanding and the first real tremblings of a cash cow for Warner Bros can be felt. 

Yet whilst the storyline is more grandiose and the cast is bigger and heavier there have been trade offs.  Batman Returns feels very claustrophobic due to it almost entirely being filmed on a soundstage.  Location use is sparse.  The palette has been considerably darkened.  Although in keeping with the characters Gotham is now almost exclusively black and white, the only colour coming from the occasional splash of sewer green and a little pink from Selina Kyle.  Even the circus is practically monochrome.  I'm not sure if this was deliberate or a side effect of Warner Bros' secrecy. Perhaps it was a cut in costs, that would also explain Souixsie and the Banshees rather than Prince.  With regards to music it is, at times, almost unbearable. Elfman's score is overly loud, almost to the point of distraction and constant.

And so we seem to have mixed driving forces behind the film: an expansive idea and story constrained by odd budget choices as if the producers lost faith along the way.  We could have been presented with a wonderful film that would have made the Batman franchise a juggernaut.  Instead we have a good film that, unfortunately, contains all the tools that Schumacher will use to destroy the franchise from 1995 onwards.

 Burton does what Burton does, he juggles a band of misfits around inside a black snowglobe.  You just knew that sooner or later he'd get his hands on Alice In Wonderland.  Burton retains his cartoon feel whilst losing the animation that was present in Batman.  This is best seen as the Bat-boat homes in on The Penguin's mechanical duck. 
All set amongst the impressive model work of Gotham Zoo.  The destruction of the zoo is more impressive than the Batwing's crash into the cathedral in Batman.

Naturally, I have compared Batman Returns to it's predecessor.  Technically, Batman Returns is a better, more complete film.  Although it does have flaws but these are only really looked at because the film didn't make as much money as Warner Bros wanted after Batman.  However, Batman may have punched above it's weight in a summer season devoid of superhero movies since the mid-80s.  Batman Returns should really be seen as the first modern superhero movie.  A little more faith in Burton's vision of Batman could've seen further sequels in this vein.  Instead, Batman Forever begins a long, camp death rattle that pretty much killed superhero movies until the 2000s.  You could argue that the DC films have never really recovered from Joel Schumacher if you compare their route with Marvel's Avengers franchise and it's build up especially when it was seen as a gamble for Warner Bros to let Nolan make Batman Begins.

Above all, Batman Returns is darkly gorgeous and a little under appreciated in my eyes, it contains the fledgling ideas that Batman is more than a man, an idea Christopher Nolan will hang his hat on.  For every bonkers giant emperor penguin pallbearer you have one of Catwoman's deaths and after all that fake snow has been swept up you have the knowledge that if this had been made in 1997 it would have starred Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.  Count yourself lucky.  Whilst Burton probably can't handle movies with big budgets and the associated expectations (see Mars Attacks!), Batman Returns is probably best summed up by Ty Burr in Entertainment Weekly; he wrote that "Yet for all the wintry weirdness, there's more going on under the surface of this movie than in the original. No wonder some people felt burned by Batman Returns: Tim Burton just may have created the first blockbuster art film."

Yes, I have chosen to ignore the one button in the Batmobile that does everything.