Saturday, March 10, 2007

Catwoman on AMC Tonight?

Tonight at 9:00 est AMC is goning to show " Catwoman" with Halle Berry.
AMC?
That's American Movie Classics right?
And they are showing Catwoman?

" In 2004, Catwoman, a movie starring Halle Berry, was released. This film's Catwoman bore nearly no resemblance to the comic version, other than sharing the name. In the film, Berry played Patience Phillips, a woman who eventually became Catwoman, a hero with supernatural cat-like powers, after a near-death experience. Patience had gained the powers from the goddess Bastet through a gathering of cats led by an Egyptian Mau. The movie alludes to other women in the past who have been granted such cat-like abilities. Though Phillips has the same skills as the villain version of Catwoman, the film's story has nothing to do with Batman, or Gotham City (neither of which are mentioned in the film). The film was heavily criticized by both film critics and fans of the comic book character and was a failure at the box office, losing the producers far more money than it earned. One particularly bad review came in the New York Daily News, which carried the headline, "BAD KITTY!"

In the scene where Patience is told of the history of the Catwomen, she is pushed off the balcony and lands on the living room floor. Ophelia Powers then throws photos of previous catwomen down to her, and one can clearly see a picture of Pfeiffer's Batman Returns version of the character, which hints that either there is some link between Patience Phillips and Selina Kyle, or that it was done as a means of paying homage to the original character. (When that scene is described in the novelization, Selina Kyle is mentioned briefly, thus showing that there is a link.) In addition, the original "Catwoman" outfit that Patience wears when she robs a jewelry store is patterned after the "Catwoman" outfit worn by Eartha Kitt in the 1960s Batman TV series.

Berry won the 2005 Razzie award for worst actress in a film for her role as Catwoman, and accepted the prize in person. She was only the third Razzie winner (following director Paul Verhoeven, director of Showgirls; and Tom Green, star of Freddy Got Fingered) ever to do so. In her speech, she apologized to the fans of the character, calling the film a "God-awful movie." "

" The film was heavily criticized by fans of the Catwoman comic book character for departing from the basics of the character, with bad word of mouth starting to spread a full year before the film was released.

This debate subsided when it was learned that Berry would not be playing Selina Kyle, the "real" Catwoman, but a woman named Patience Phillips, who works at a cosmetics company in the beginning of the movie, therefore belonging to a 'parallel reality' and not belonging in the Batman universe. However there was still apprehension in that the plot created for the movie closely resembled the premise of another comic book title, The Crow, which was also adapted into a film. (This included paraphrasing some of The Crow 's most famous dialogue in the theatrical trailer, about crows bringing souls back from the dead to put the wrong things right. "Crow" was changed to "Cat".)

Catwoman was poorly received, both critically and at the box office. The film appeared on the list of Roger Ebert's most hated films and received seven Golden Raspberry nominations in 2005. It "won" in the categories of Worst Picture, Worst Actress, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. Halle Berry accepted the award for Worst Actress personally, apologizing for the film, and speaking frankly in interviews about her views regarding problems with the film.

Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks ran a series of comic strips in which Riley is punished by being forced to watch Catwoman. He subsequently campaigns to have being forced to watch Catwoman considered to be a form of child abuse.

MSN Movies ranks Catwoman as the third worst superhero movie to date, behind Batman & Robin and Daredevil.

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