Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

sorry I meant to post that on the Chicago: The 10.25 Percenters thread

nah, it works.

This was 2/3s of a good movie (much better than B-Man Begins) and then stupid Two Face plot happens and then its completely cliche and awful for the last 45 or so minutes.

-- Alex in SF, Monday, 4 August 2008 19:12 (4 days ago) Link

still completely agree with this outlook- i'm not really interested in a director's 'vision' for the political insights his movies provides, i want to know if he made an entertaining, involving movie that didn't make me groan at any stage. the last 45 mins of this was all groan, all the time.

i enjoyed this, i agree above it's nowhere near as 'dark' as people are telling me. Our version of 'dark' might be blacker than some though i guess.

yeah the film takes pains to honor the integrity of the joker's 'mission' as it were, partly by downplaying the sadism of his acts as much as it could (i didn't find the two boats thing as compelling as it should have been) i like that you could see the superpower of "planning shit" come to life, what a creation. the dent stuff totally swamped this movie the more that i think about it. still good.

i saw this again (my excuse was that two friends had not seen it at all, and it was the final night it was playing in IMAX) and... it didn't seem better or worse than the first time. the narrative still started to fray into near-incoherence by the last act, the "ideas" embodied in the various speeches in said act still seemed ridiculous to me... but the IMAX segments were still stunning, the whole thing was pretty gripping, etc. etc. i liked it again. i was worried i would be bored, but i wasn't. probably will never see it again though.

EVERY MOVIE SHOULD BE SHOT IN 65MM. and projected that way. ah, a utopian dream.

i enjoyed this, i agree above it's nowhere near as 'dark' as people are telling me. Our version of 'dark' might be blacker than some though i guess.

it's not the darkest movie ever made, but my commments were made within the context of tdk a) being a summer hollywood blockbuster, b) in the wish-fulfillment superhero genre, and c) having a strong chance of becoming the second highest grossing film ever. I don't think anyone's saying it's going to give audition or threads or straw dogs a run for their money, but for a film with huge general audience appeal it's pretty bleak and sadistic.

awesome batman moment = near the start, where he lands on top of the van from spiral car park.

I don't think anyone's saying it's going to give audition or threads or straw dogs a run for their money, but for a film with huge general audience appeal it's pretty bleak and sadistic.

After finishing The Stone Killer (1973), Charles Bronson and 'Michael Winner' wanted to make another film together, and were discussing further projects. "What shall we do next?" asked Bronson. "The best script I've got is Death Wish. It's about a man whose wife and daughter are mugged and he goes out and shoots muggers," said Winner. "I'd like to do that," Bronson said. "The film?" asked Winner. Bronson replied, "No... shoot muggers."

don't think tdk is as brutal as death wish (bronson's daughter gets her ass spraypainted in that, wow 70s reality u are harsh) but it's offset in tdk because the vigilante figure is impotent and criminals call the shots for nearly the entire length of the movie.

Every time I start thinking I'm an over-analytical freakshow incapable of enjoying life, I read an ILE film thread and end up feeling a lot better about myself.

"over-analytical"

fuck you.

http://workstreaminc.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/09/19/analyze_this.jpg

btw i think this film's combo of interesting plotting that falls apart in the last act, exciting action, and alternately compelling and completely half-baked psychologizing is a pretty accurate recreation of a batman comic ca. 1970s/1980s (stopped reading them around 1990, so maybe it's been the same). that's not a criticism or a complaint.

New York's most powerful gangster is about to get in touch with his feelings.
YOU try telling him his 50 minutes are up.
and Lisa Kudrow.

HI DERE, if you have a problem with one or other piece of analysis, speak your peace. but be aware that analyzing (otherwise known as "discussing") movies is fun, a way of savouring the experience of the movie. it's not anathema to pleasure.

RIP xp

HI DERE, if you have a problem with one or other piece of analysis, speak your peace. but be aware that analyzing (otherwise known as "discussing") movies is fun, a way of savouring the experience of the movie. it's not anathema to pleasure.

-- amateurist, Friday, August 8, 2008 10:35 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

I think he engaged pretty effectively upthread!

sorry, there are sections of the thread i haven't read

My post was specifically spurred by darraghmac's "there is no point to discussing this movie" post, which I found fatuous and unthinking. It made me feel like I wasn't being as fatuous and overthinking as I was afraid I was being.

I do have the impression that people who out-and-out HATED this movie have sensibilities so different from mine that I might was well consider them to be chihuahuas in human form, though.

also lol at amateurist getting mad at me calling myself "over-analytical"

i misread -- i thought you were accusing others of being over-analytical. i'm really sorry.

p.s. http://images.bestwebbuys.com/muze/books/21/9780740706721.jpg

http://dachshundsdressedforshow.com/images/dog-dress-dog-harness-dog-clothes-TinkerDress.jpg

Watched Batman Begins again last night. Good. Not as good as this, though.

The Dark Knight or the Ebert/chihuahua "feud"?

Both. Wasn't it the chihuahua that bit Batman's arm?

Also, say chihuahua phonetically, as loud as you can. I dare you.

i watched Silent Night, Deadly Night last night. omfg

I find people who say "There's nothing to discuss here" a thousand times more tolerable than those who go "WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIGNS ITS A MOVIE SHUT UP"

Like "I've parsed the ideas here and think they're not worth talking about" is way more interesting to me than "Y U RUIN IT WITH YOUR ANALYZING"

Oh come on. That complaint came up because people were whining that this movie was nonstop Bush apologia, which I personally think is such nonsense that it makes think the people saying it are dumber than I know they are.

after 300 I think a lot of people are now actively seeking out these Bush motifs.

whereas they were warranted there

yeah, it is nonsense. film is incoherent, partly deliberately (in the way that all blockbusters have a degree of incoherence) and partly out of intellectual cowardice and confusion.

i still liked it well enough.

wtf why can't I type

I didn't think the movie was incoherent outside of the "who was Batman trying to save" thing, which was obviously intentional but, having only seen it once, I don't know that I can say that I got what the intention was (ie, was Batman telling Gordon to go after Rachel or did the Joker do a switcheroo?).

incoherent w/r/t having a particular POV or w/r/t not being able to understand what was going on?

batman went to the address the joker claimed rachel was at

Oh come on. That complaint came up because people were whining that this movie was nonstop Bush apologia, which I personally think is such nonsense that it makes think the people saying it are dumber than I know they are.

-- HI DERE, Friday, August 8, 2008 11:18 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Sure, I wouldn't suggest that it is some kind of "nonstop apologia" by any means. I think it's clear that Nolan is after some War on Terror resonance, though, and as such (intentionally or not) you can read the movie as a somewhat stretched allegory.

incoherent politically (incoherent as allegory). narrative incoherence was not too much of a problem, though they did botch the stuff you're talking about and didn't spend enough time establishing what was going on w/the barges (which was the worst part of the movie anyhow)

joker's behavior made little sense insofar as his omnipotence/omniscience beggared belief, though i guess that's a staple of the genre. for instance if he was after harvey dent during that (admittedly spectacular) car chase, why was it revealed immediately after that he "deliberately" had himself locked up in police hq? so he could get himself out again?

but lots of blockbusters don't withstand this type of narrative scrutiny.

i think the war-on-terror stuff was thrown in, in part at least, as critic bait. not cynically--i'm sure nolan thinks he is tackling big issues, since he's a director that obviously takes himself reasonably seriously and is not inclined to admit to making escapist films--but just the same.... i think critics who take strong positions concerning the film's political POV are giving it too much credit (or maybe not enough credit for slipperiness).

the thing is, the moral dilemma supposedly debated by batman and lucius fox (what a blaxploitation name--guess the character was invented in the 70s so it figures) is sort of mooted by the prereogatives of the genre whereby the superhero is defined by his essential goodness. whereas IRL there's no politician that we can trust, almost by definition, in this way. i would argue, therefore, that the context makes the allegory (as ambivalent and incoherent as it is) useless. i would also argue that anyone who truly disagrees has a very dim view of the film's audience--people know what the moral polarities of these films are, and know that they don't apply to the real world. except, maybe, little children (who shouldn't be seeing this film) and sociopaths.

the moral dilemma supposedly debated by batman and lucius fox is sort of mooted by the prereogatives of the genre whereby the superhero is defined by his essential goodness

that's the point of this series, though: ala miller, it's muddying the waters re: the "hero's" essential goodness. like kenan said upthread (he was speaking more generally, but I think this holds especially true in regards to Bale's Batman): "Bruce Wayne is Patrick Bateman

wow hang on

that's the point of this series, though

but it doesn't convincingly challenge this trope at all! it merely sort of scribbles around it.

and why it should want to challenge it, i honestly don't know for certain. maybe nolan wants to make a "real" movie about a nearly omnipotent vigilante who runs around in tights? seems like he's barking up the wrong tree, and anyways he's not up to it.

let's try that again:

the moral dilemma supposedly debated by batman and lucius fox is sort of mooted by the prereogatives of the genre whereby the superhero is defined by his essential goodness

I think that's part of the point of this series, though: ala miller, it's muddying the waters re: the "hero's" essential goodness. Kenan made a useful point upthread to the effect that this Bruce Wayne is essentially Patrick Bateman: a psychically scarred rich kid who, instead of beheading women, dresses up like a Bat and beats up criminals. More laudable than the former, certainly, but the "darker" Batmans of Miller/Nolan question the validity of vigilante violence to a much greater degree, and as such they're questioning the purported essential goodness of their "hero" too.

bah you've responded to my malformed post lol sorry

they're challenging (mildly, and not convincingly) his efficacy, not his goodness

i mean he becomes a CHRIST FIGURE at the end of the film for fuck's sake