Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 13, 2022, Winnipeg, Manitoba A9SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2022 C M Y K PAGE A9 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ARTS ● LIFE I LIFESTYLES D E AR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I made a big mistake. I called my new girlfriend by my old girlfriend’s name when we were getting intimate. I swore I was not thinking about my old girlfriend at that moment. She said, “Riiiight!” and then got dressed and left. It was an understandable mistake, I think, as their names are very sim- ilar. She knew my old girlfriend from sports. My new girlfriend says she thinks I’m not over my ex yet. I really am! In fact, I never want to see her face again. So, why am I in so much trouble over one little mistake with my new girlfriend? I really like her. Why are women so touchy? — One Little Mistake, St. Vital Dear Mistake: In moments of passion, people sometimes lose the use of their brain filter. In your case the two ladies’ names were similar — an even bigger hazard. This messy situation you’re in is the reason why experienced people who have broken up recently, call new partners by pet names like “Honey” or “Sweetheart” for a time. Women don’t want to be called nicknames or pet names all the time, but in early days, you’re better to stick with what’s safe. Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My wife has a private office in the basement. She usually locks the door on it “so the kids don’t go in.” On Saturday I was home, and something went wrong with the plumbing. I went down to the basement to try to fix it. My wife yelled from upstairs she was going to the grocery store, and ran out quickly — forgetting her computer was open and the office door unlocked. I decided to snoop. I wished I hadn’t. She’d been talking to her ex-husband online. According to him he’s quit drinking and has straightened up his act. He had the nerve to ask her if she’d consider “coming back home to be a real family again.” She hadn’t written a response yet, but then where did she go in such a hurry? When she got home, I told her I’d read his letter, and she lit into me for invading her privacy. I asked her where she’d actually gone and she said: “To the store, of course. I have three bags of groceries on the counter upstairs.” Now she’s hardly talking to me. I don’t know what to do. — Uneasy Second Husband, Selkirk Dear Uneasy: You need to have a difficult talk with your wife — with no kids under the roof. Your wife’s first husband has basically announced he wants her back, to fulfil the dream she thought had died. That might be heady stuff for her. She may still have feel- ings for the man he used to be, before his alcohol problem. Or maybe your wife’s feelings for him are truly dead, and you’re safe. Either way, you have a right to know. These emotional talks often go better in a relationship counsellor’s office. Talk to your wife about making an emergency appointment for the two of you, and offer to make the phone call to book it. Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My 11-year-old boy likes to go next door to his auntie’s place. She’s single and also loves video games. He can get away with playing a lot of extra hours in a week that we wouldn’t allow at home. I don’t want trouble with my sister-in-law, but my temperature is on the rise. She and my son are very close, as she’s done a lot of his babysitting. How should I handle this? — Annoyed Mom, Portage la Prairie Dear Annoyed: Tell your sister-in- law how many hours per week your son is allowed to play video games. Let her know he’s been using her — his dear auntie — to get around those rules. Make an agreement on the amount of time he can play at her house. Unfor- tunately, she may find out he doesn’t want to come over as much. But, if he really loves his aunt, they’ll be able to find other things to do together. Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6. No shame in taking up nickname game MAUREEN SCURFIELD MISS LONELYHEARTS Holy sequel possibilities, Batman! ROBERT Pattinson is the sixth actor to star as the Dark Knight on the big screen (eighth if you count animated features) since Michael Keaton put on the cowl in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and launched the Caped Crusader’s modern film franchise. But, as that “The” in the title sug- gests, with The Batman director Matt Reeves wanted to wipe the slate clean of all that history — not to mention the character’s endless iterations on TV and in comics and video games — and start fresh. Or at least as fresh as one can start with a superhero who made his debut in 1939. “This character is over 80 years old, and people have a version in their head of what it must be,” Reeves told the Los Angeles Times in a recent interview. “There are going to be people who are going to see this movie who will see Batman for the first time — and Rob will forever be their Batman.” Indeed, when he first pitched Warner Bros. executives his vision of a rebooted Batman five years ago, Reeves made clear he wanted to cut the character loose from the sprawl- ing and ever-forking DC Extended Universe. No Superman or Wonder Woman cameos. No winking referenc- es to Aquaman or Harley Quinn. Just pure, unadulterated Batman existing in his own timeline and free to go in any direction in potential sequels. “I didn’t think doing a Batman solo film and also having to service the con- nection to the other characters within the Extended Universe was something that was for me,” Reeves said. “I just felt like it’s hard enough to do a good Batman film after there’s been so many good films.” Now, having introduced this angsty, Kurt Cobain-inspired new take on the character — one that returns him to his roots as “the world’s greatest detec- tive” — the question becomes: Where does Batman go from here? The future of the Bat-tinson fran- chise will become clear only in the fullness of time. But we already have some clues of where things might be heading both in spinoff projects that are already in the works and, most important, in the final moments of The Batman, which hint at the reintro- duction (or re-reintroduction, as the case may be) of one of Batman’s most notorious rivals. At the end of Reeves’ film, Paul Dano’s Riddler, his vengeful plot to lay waste to Gotham foiled, or at least mitigated, by Batman, is incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. There, he finds a sympathetic ear — and a potential new partner-in-crime — in an unseen cellmate, played by Barry Keoghan and referenced in the credits simply as “unnamed Arkham prisoner.” This mysterious figure commiser- ates with the Riddler about the plight of would-be criminal masterminds like them: “One day you’re on top, the next you’re a clown.” Still, he suggests that Gotham loves a “comeback story,” then, after cementing his relationship with the Riddler with a riddle about friendship, lets out a sinister, unhinged laugh. Couple that cackle with the earlier “clown” reference and, well, it’s more than reasonable to assume that “un- seen Arkham prisoner” is the infamous Clown Prince of Crime, the Joker. Pattinson has expressed interest in making a new Batman trilogy, a la Christopher Nolan’s earlier Dark Knight trilogy. But asked about where Batman’s story could go in a potential sequel or sequels, Reeves chose his words carefully, even as he acknowl- edged that plans are already in devel- opment. “From my perspective, the whole goal was to create a complete experi- ence with this film,” he said. “You can’t really make ‘Chapter 1’ because that presumes you’re doing the others. But the idea is that if this works, then it creates the viability of this world. “I would love to do more movies with Rob, and I have a lot of ideas,” he con- tinued. “And, of course, we’ve talked about stuff — but not in the way of going, ‘Here’s what happens in the next movie.’ You just make this movie and see if it can connect to an audience and if the studio is excited about making more. Then we’ll go back in there and figure out what the next step is. Talk to us in, like, eight weeks.” But while we wait to see what direc- tion any future Batman movie might take — whether, for example, we’ll see more of Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman or whether the Joker will break free of Arkham to unleash mayhem on Gotham — other projects spinning off from The Batman are already in the works for HBO Max. The first, as announced by HBO Max in July 2020, is set to centre on the Go- tham Police Department and further explore the deep corruption that The Batman suggests is rotting at the heart of the troubled city. Sopranos executive producer Terence Winter was initially set to serve as the series’ showrunner but exited due to creative differences. The other spinoff, also set for HBO Max, will centre on Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. the Penguin, with Colin Farrell — who is utterly unrecognizable as the rising criminal kingpin in The Batman — reprising the role. In recent inter- views, Farrell and the film’s producer Dylan Clark have dropped hints that this series will pick up the character’s story after the events of The Batman and will be a kind of gritty crime se- ries with shades of Scarface. In an interview with the Toronto Sun, Reeves hinted at another potential spinoff, saying, “We’re doing another series that connects to Arkham (Asy- lum).” But it is unclear whether that is a separate project or the previously announced Gotham series. Will Batman or any other DC super- heroes (or supervillains) show up in ei- ther or both of these series? Only time will tell, though given the deep well of Batman-related material at Warner Media’s disposal and its need to service both theatrical and streaming plat- forms, it’s safe to guess we’ll see some more familiar characters. Speaking to the L.A. Times, Reeves said one of the benefits of starting fresh with the venerable franchise, and of placing Bruce Wayne in his younger years, was that not only Batman but all of the various characters connected to him could get a new coat of paint. “In this film, we have a Batman who’s not yet fully in control of what it means to be Batman,” he said. “What was exciting to me was to give the character an awakening, to force him to evolve by the struggle of engaging in this story. And even though it’s not an origin story, by setting it in his early days, it meant that it was the origin for the other characters in the comics.” In other words, fear not, Bat-fans. Even at 80-plus years old, the Caped Crusader and his dark world still have plenty of room to run. — Los Angeles Times As the Caped Crusader enters his umpteenth remake, the Dark Knight’s future is once again vast JOSH ROTTENBERG WARNER BROS. PICTURES Jeffrey Wright, left, as Lt. James Gordon and Robert Pattinson in The Batman. For a new generation of fans, Pattinson will be the only Batman they’ve ever known, which leaves wide open the potential for sequels. A_09_Mar-13-22_FP_01.indd 9 2022-03-12 5:37 PM ;