I've avoided the hype until now.

But I may have to catch the midnight opening.

Sensitive thread title.

Let us know if it's worth watching.

I'm seeing this at the Electric next week. First time I've been in ages.

I've been trying to avoid the hype so that I don't get too excited and explode. I think it's going to be my favorite movie ever, ever, ever. The more I reflect on the first one, the more I appreciate how incredibly right they got it. Whenever I hear any Bale or Nolan interviewed, I find myself thinking "YES, exactly! Why couldn't any of the other people who have tried to make Batman films, not to mention about 70% of the writers who have worked on the comics, understood that!!!"* It's not about explosions or "colorful" characters - its about fear and the different choices people make when staring into the abyss, so to speak.


I can't go to the late night show tonight. I just can't, because I need to get in tomorrow early. And Friday night is always dodgy for me - whenever I plan to do something, something blows up at work and I have to stay. So I've got tickets to see it with a friend and his friend at 8:30 AM Saturday morning at the Uptown Theater in DC (big, one-screen, old fashioned theater). Fortunately, there's a Starbucks next door to it.

So stoked. I'm as stoked as my little nephew is when a train is coming down the tracks.

Also, word is we'll get a Watchmen trailer with The Dark Knight. Stoked to see that too.



* The animated series from the 1990s, excepted. The people who made that really understood the potential of the characters and the stories (within the confines of a show aimed at kids, of course).

I have absolutely no desire to see this. But I thought others would be interested to know what Manhola Dargis wrote in the NYT--I've trusted her judgment since she was with the LA Weekly years ago:

QUOTE:
In its grim intensity, “The Dark Knight” can feel closer to David Fincher’s “Zodiac” than Tim Burton’s playfully gothic “Batman,” which means it’s also closer to Bob Kane’s original comic and Frank Miller’s 1986 reinterpretation. That makes it heavy, at times almost pop-Wagnerian, but Mr. Ledger’s performance and the film’s visual beauty are transporting. (In Imax, it’s even more operatic.) No matter how cynical you feel about Hollywood, it is hard not to fall for a film that makes room for a shot of the Joker leaning out the window of a stolen police car and laughing into the wind, the city’s colored lights gleaming behind him like jewels. He’s just a clown in black velvet, but he’s also some kind of masterpiece.

What's insensitive about it ?

I mean, Heath Ledger has one more film coming out after this, but shit - it's a Last Ride. Ride out in a blaze of glory and all that.

Reed - 8:30am on a Saturday is cool. Saturday Morning Cartoons and all of that.

Sold out. I have to wait 'till tomorrow. Or 8:30 on a Saturday morning.

Edit - Whoops. Found a theatre on Canal Street. On the Mississippi. Game on !

********Obnoxious geek out coming***********************************

That's a good review, but like most film reviewers, he gives way too much credit to Bob Kane and Frank Miller. It's just a shame that the wrong people so often get all of the Hollywood glory.

Bob Kane drew the first Batman and had the first idea - derived from The Shadow, Zorro and Da Vinci's idea for a flying machine, but Bill Finger wrote all the early stories and gave Kane some of the important ideas for what Batman should look like. Kane wasn't even a very good artist and Jerry Robinson did a lot of the art. Kane had a better lawyer and was therefore allowed to spend the rest of his life introducing himself as "Bob Kane the guy who invented Batman." Unlike Siegel and Schuster, he was well paid in royalties. Good for him for not getting ripped off like most comics creators of his day, but like his friend Stan Lee, he didn't do much to give credit where it was due and that strikes me as a bit Stinglike.

And in any event, after the very first Batman story in 1939, it started to go down hill rapidly. DC wanted it to be more kid friendly, so they invented Robin. Most of those early Bob Kane stories seem pretty silly in retrospect.

Sometimes the original version isn't the best.


My gripes with Miller are detailed on the graphic novel thread. His recent work on the character is total shit and he no longer seems to understand the character, if he ever really did. In DK2 and All-Star B&R, he just shoehorns in his favorite things - big cars, hot prostitutes, Dirty Harry, ultraviolence, etc. Like his friend Tarentino, he's apparently decided that the subject of every piece is his own ego.

Of course, there is no denying that in The Dark Knight Returns and the often overlooked Batman Year One, Miller wrote two of the best Batman stories and two of the best comic series ever. He deserves a lot of credit for that, but unlike the other two heroes DC "rebooted" in 1986 - Wonder Woman and Superman - Miller's version wasn't so in need of a reboot, as much as just a reintroduction, so he didn't really "save Batman." That job had been underway for about 15 years at that point. However, it wasn't until the 1989 film came out, that the wider public knew anything about Batman except the 1960s tv show. Reviewers and Tim Burton kept crediting Miller as an influence (although I'm pretty sure Burton never read a single Batman comic), and of course, Miller is now a well known and popular director, so now he gets all the credit.

DC didn't first decide to take The Batman back to "his roots" in the late 1980s. That began in the early 1970s after the TV-inspired camp fad had run it's course and DC realized they'd sold out one of their best properties. Although few non-comics people knew anything about it, there were a lot of good creators who worked on the "darker, edgier" Batman in those days - Denny O'Neill, Neal Adams (who defined what Batman would look like in the comics from there on out), Marshall Rogers* come to mind. In more recent years, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have done the best Batman work and, of course, Alan Moore, probably the best comic book writer ever, wrote The Killing Joke which clearly had a big influence on Heath Ledger's performance. Grant Morrison and Dave McKean did Arkham Asylum in 1990. It's brilliant and fucked up. Morrison has done a lot of good Batman. There are many others - Greg Rucka, Brian Azzarello, Matt Wagner...I could go on. To be sure, over the years, there's been a ton of total shit Batman work published. Several tons. Indeed, most of it is pretty bad, but there's been so much Batman printed that even if you only regard 1% of it as good, that's still a lot of good stuff.

I don't know if there's anything else in pop culture comparable to superheroes in that they've been around so long and have been interpreted and reinvented by so many different people. They're more like traditional folk lore in that respect.

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

QUOTE:


That's a good review, but like most film reviewers, he gives way too much credit to Bob Kane and Frank Miller. It's just a shame that the wrong people so often get all of the Hollywood glory.

"She," reed.

Oh. I was just guessing. Is Manhola pronounced the same as Manuela?

I messed up the name--it's Manohla.

The Dark Knight - 2008
Directed by - Memento Man
Starring - Dead Man Laughing
*** 3/8

My problem has always been Batman's voice. Christian Bale speaking in that stupid forced-raspy Marlboro Man impression just sounds idiotic. Add in a nighttime mouthguard to keep from grinding yor teeth, and it only adds to the amateuristic qualities that keep this from Spiderman II-level.

The criminals are pretty dopey - they are barely Matt Bevalacqua level on the Sopranos. They're lame, they're cardboard, and they're not even straight-to-video gangsters.

The film is too long, they pack so much shit into it, that it's like one of those sandwiches that you end up eating more meat in your hand than what's left stuffed between the bread. You end up exhausted, and each new perilous moment leads to a "here we go again" type of feeling.

There's a nice fascist-leaning pro-FISA message, and another message of Caesar basically being a good dictator.

But Lord Have Mercy, did they nail the Joker-Batman thing.

Nailed it, nailed it, nailed it.

Ledger is so fucking electric, and delivers an absolutely intense performance. While he makes Osama Bin Laden look like a snotnosed 2nd grader who puts thumbtacks on teacher's chairs, he also is so much like the comic. Only in comic books, when the Joker does his terroristic shit to people, they don't really have human faces. Now there are human faces - both victims, pawns, and disciples of him, and it makes it all the more powerful.

This performance is as iconic as anything that's ever been filmed. It's this generation's Wild One, Rebel Without A Cause, or Alex from Clockwork Orange. He's more than a heel...he's a heelo. While there's been anti-heroes, he's the first anti-villian.

His scenes are so intense, packed with so much vibrance, color, and electricity, that they make the movie. Then when he's with the Batman, their relationship makes so much fucking sense. It's done so perfectly, that there's no need for any other Batman films. There's really no point, because they got that relationship down better than anyone since, or will do for the next 25-50 years.

Then this film has other cards up it's sleeve. There was a moment that caused 150 people to gasp. There is shit that I've always wondered about, and I couldn't imagine how it would ever be pulled off. They pulled it off. No half-assin' it here.

But a big thanks to Heath Ledger. That was such a beautiful, awesome performance, and it's a rotten shame we won't have you to do more like this. Thank you.

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

QUOTE:

Also, word is we'll get a Watchmen trailer with The Dark Knight.

An update on this?