What if Batman were one of us? Just a slob like one of us?

This is how we do it around here: I don't post a damn thing for weeks, months, and then it's bam bam bam, one entry after another...

Just got an e-mail alert from the ever-reliable Batman Fan Filmssite about the latest completed project featured there. (Seems like every day there's a new teaser, trailer, or script, but those usually just don't cut it. I want the real deal in all its full-length, batsuited glory, not some promise of things to come!) It's a movie called The Bat Man--and the space between the words turns out to be very important indeed. It's not a flawless work by any means, and not the best fan film I've ever seen, but it's well worth a viewing.

The premise tosses out one of the most fundamental aspects of the whole Bat myth: that Bruce Wayne is an enormously wealthy man with no day job who can afford to take years off to train his body and mind, and to purchase all those gadgets that make up for his essential mortality. In this version, things are very, very different, and the result may well be the most "realistic" (if that's the right word) spin on the story I've come across (aside from my own sordid fantasies, that is). It's actually scary, in the sense that you realize just how dangerous this guy's obsession really is, and how vulnerable it leaves him. (He's more like Peter Parker than the Bruce Wayne we know and love--only he's got no spidey powers to protect him from the gun-wielding bad guys.)

I didn't find the movie in any way erotic, mind you (and I admit that's normally a big part of the appeal for me, as you've prooooooobably noticed by now), but it's certainly thought-provoking--sort of in the way that The Last Temptation of Christ tweaks its core material just enough to make you look at the story of Christ through new eyes. I had a socialist friend once who turned his nose up at the Bat-saga because it revolves around a rich capitalist, but I've always seen the hero as more politically complicated than that. He can be embraced by the left as well as the right--and written off by both camps, too.

Normally I would post a link to the film and you'd click on it and be directed to some other site to watch it, but through the magic of the internet, or at least the magic of vmix.com, you can watch it right here. Enjoy--and please post your comments on the movie below, if you're so inclined. (If you want to reach writer/director/star Oliver Ferrasci with your feedback, head to the main BFF site.)



Videos by vMix Member:
oliverferrasci


Moral of the story: who needs years of study in the Mysterious East when you've got Google?