"It Doesn't Matter"

Yesterday, I watched two films. Well, one is hardly a film. Most film critics would have my eyes for considering it so. All right, all right, I'll get on with it.
Sliding Doors starring a startling young Gweneth Paltrow with a jarring British accent. Not saying it's not a good accent, just...well, I'll explain it later. The other is one of DC's direct-to-DVD animated movies, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths with jarring voice actors.
Two movies that are quite different, and yet made a sort of sense to watch one after the other.

Sliding Doors is a late nineties romcom? dramedy? It's a nineties film, okay? Complete with blocky cell phones, nineties haircuts, and those silly midriff-baring shrunken-looking t-shirts. Gweneth Paltrow is a British woman, Helen, who's not really having a great day. The movie gets interesting (and its title) when it branches into two intersecting movies that show the direction her life would have taken if he did, and did not, catch her train home. I read up on the synopsis on Wiki (bad habit, reading plots ahead of time, sorry) but did not expect them to edit the film the way they did. When it first started to skip between the two timelines, I figured it would be terribly confusing, and if you really aren't paying attention (like I can), it can be, but it really flowed quite seamlessly. It's a good film. I liked it, despite lacking, what was it that someone wrote on Wiki...'philosophy and deep bullshit' (paraphrased, obviously. You know how I feel about inserting that stuff into the arts sometimes). Oh come ON, lady, it's a decent film, meant to entertain us, not to make us terribly nihilistic. [rantrantrantrant helpfully excised]
It's not a great movie; some of the characters fall a bit flat and two-dimensional, making them seem a bit unrealistic. As does Paltrow's accent. I don't know about you, but somehow I can't see her as 'British.' Her accent's good, but wobbly sometimes (I hardly noticed. You tend to let that slide since the movie's good enough to hold your attention). It's not the accent, but her face and demeanor. She just looks so...American. Anyway, it's filled with a variety of accents, which I have such a soft spot for, you know, and for all its dated nineties-ness, flaws (and obvious allusions to its title. Alas, English class has ruined me forever) it works. Plus it uses Monty Python!
After that, I took a break from acting and decided to watch one of the DCU Animated movies I missed since I figured it would be no good, plus the casting was a mess! Ugh. Yes, I am a fangirl, and much much much rather have Conroy (but Greenwood did a marvelous job in Under the Red Hood), but William Baldwin. Really? Batman never shmoozes the way the Baldwins sound. Ick. But I'll get to that later.
The plot for this is pretty comicky as comicky goes. In a parallel, or rather, mirror, earth, the supposed good guys are the bad, and vice versa. The good Lex Luthor manages to planet-hop to this Earth and seek the help of the Justice League against their evil counterparts, since they're planning to blackmail the planet with a deadly bomb...or is that all? It's pretty well-written, a bit cliched in places, with a dose of Martian-on-Parallel-Earthling action. I couldn't understand why I passed over it when it first came out.
Then my fangirl gave me a firm pinch in the cerebellum.
Oh.
The casting. So many of the characters just sounded so...disjointed. Unlike Under the Red Hood, it's not that they aren't competent voice actors. This time around, performances are not wooden at all, it's just who they chose. Not so attached with Superman's voicebox, he sounded pretty good. Wonderwoman sounded too...sweet. Yes, she's supposed to balance feminine softness and superpower, but her voice actress generally lacked both the power (I'm guess tone makes more sense) to back up her Amazon prowess. There were times when she sounded like Wonderwoman, but generally...a little off. She acted well, it just didn't fit. Flash actually had a really good guy. He nailed the character. Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern didn't bother me.
Batman. Did. So. Much.
Balwin didn't bother, at all, to sound gruff or disinterested or Batmany. Maybe he did, and just came of sounding underwhelmingly....normal. I'm expecting a tone that is emotional without emotion. Not someone throwing out well-spoken, but emotionally-empty lines, as Baldwin does. He does not account for the unspoken feelings. Chris Noth, who voices Batman's evil persona Owlman (think grey Niteowl), sounds like a better Batman than Batman. Noth had husk and repressed rage and worn patience and subtle lack of emotion. They should've switched roles. All the other villians shmooozed. Baldwin would've fit right in.
Still, there are quite a few good lines thrown in, and as usual, Batman saves the day.
"There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us, you blinked." --Batman to Owlman.
How, HOW could they make Baldwin say something so fantastic. Oh Conroy...
Anyway, the common thread between Sliding Doors and this is the idea that while in this reality you made this choice, another one arises where you didn't. This ever expanding number of realities from unmade choices is called the 'multiverse.' Which is kind of the plot of Sliding Doors, where it shows the two realities in which Helen either catches, or misses, the train. From the existence of the multiverse, Owlman becomes nihilistic, figuring nothing matters, since with any choice he makes, there is a reality where he didn't make it. So there are no choices that matter.

Just remembered another movie to write about.
My Dog Tulip
Remind me about that. I think I want to watch that again before I blog about it.