We Brake For Batman, Do You?
By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 19, 2004 4:29PM
The Chicagoist Department of Motor Vehicles would like to take this 
opportunity to urge all citizens to please exercise caution when encountering vehicles belonging to superheroes. Resist the urge to accelerate quickly, pull to the right, and stop so as to allow the crime-fighting vehicle to pass safely. Otherwise, pretty-boy actors will mock you in nationally syndicated interviews.
In today’s Sun-Times, Christian Bale regales entertainment reporter Cindy Pearlman with stories of filming Batman Returns downtown last summer during the wee hours of the morning. During the filming of a scene on Lower Wacker Drive, “a regular civilian guy” (read: non-famous person from a flyover state) crashed into the Batmobile after jamming on the gas pedal due to the mistaken belief that “aliens had landed.” Which is bad but that’s nothing compared to the chaos that happened last week when Wonder Woman’s invisible jet landed at O’Hare. (RIMSHOT! Thank you, we’re here all week. Tip your waitstaff. They work hard for the money).
In a separate anecdote, Bale mentions that the Batsuit chafes a bit in humid weather. Amazing. Batman’s utility belt contains Bat-Shark Repellent but no Bat-Vaseline or Bat-Talcum Powder?!? We know it’s not too manly but future actors donning Kevlar-inspired superhero garb might want to think about wearing some ladies hosiery underneath: there’s minimum chafing and it’s quite slimming. Or so we’ve heard. Ahem. (Just kidding, Dad!)
Finally, gender equality in the name of entertainment reporting has its day. In much the same way that Renee Zellweger was badgered over her own fluctuating physical attributes, Bale was quizzed by Pearlman on his extensive weight loss for his film The Machinist, which hits screens today. Bale grouses a bit over the weight issue overshadowing his performance as it seems many reporters have been turning his experience into a how-to piece. Do you think he lost that weight on the…Bat-kins Diet? Get it? Because he played BATMAN and there’s a diet called…we should be ashamed.