Some movies hit at just the right moment. Tim Burton's Batman came along the summer I turned eleven. That's the age, I'd argue, for girls or boys, when the heart's a-yearning for a grand fantasy. Some of us were lucky enough to be eleven when the world was offering just such a fantasy. For me, Batman was the catalyst that awoke a movie-lover's soul. It also introduced me to the world of fandom (which I would now say is more or less a clever disguise for a marketing demographic): I bought lobby cards, comic books, a novelization of the script, posters, action figures, rubber masks, rubber gauntlets. I had the breakfast cereal. The Batwing. The Batmobile. I asked Mom to order a copy of the Warner Bros. catalogue and checked off three pages of merchandise for Christmas that year. Pins. Playing cards. Even a laugh-box. She made me a homemade costume out of a gray sweatsuit, black fabric, and cardboard (for the ears). Like every other eleven-year-old boy in America, I was swept along by the rising tide of "Batmania," and, in many ways, this would be the beginning of the rest of my life.
Batman and Me: On Tim Burton's BATMAN Turning 25
Some movies hit at just the right moment. Tim Burton's Batman came along the summer I turned eleven. That's the age, I'd argue, for girls or boys, when the heart's a-yearning for a grand fantasy. Some of us were lucky enough to be eleven when the world was offering just such a fantasy. For me, Batman was the catalyst that awoke a movie-lover's soul. It also introduced me to the world of fandom (which I would now say is more or less a clever disguise for a marketing demographic): I bought lobby cards, comic books, a novelization of the script, posters, action figures, rubber masks, rubber gauntlets. I had the breakfast cereal. The Batwing. The Batmobile. I asked Mom to order a copy of the Warner Bros. catalogue and checked off three pages of merchandise for Christmas that year. Pins. Playing cards. Even a laugh-box. She made me a homemade costume out of a gray sweatsuit, black fabric, and cardboard (for the ears). Like every other eleven-year-old boy in America, I was swept along by the rising tide of "Batmania," and, in many ways, this would be the beginning of the rest of my life.
