Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

Then why's the city such a sewer if everyone (including convicted murderers)are really saints?

You are exactly right, exactly, I thought that was a weak bit in about eight different ways, but primarily because by any real world logic, the joker's idea would have worked perfectly, and people would have stepped on their elderly mother's head to get to that goddamn button. Unless the criminals were faster, and overtaking that little pale dude holding the button would not have taken much, since everyone on that boat seemed pretty much without physical restraint (this is not how prisoners are transported, I pray). And Batman's confidence that nothing would happen was based on what? His intimate acquaintance with human nature? The same acquaintance that leads him to, for instance, take to the streets and fight crime because he doesn't feel anyone else is quite up to the job? What the fucking fuck.

We didn't get the Watchmen trailer but I'd already seen it online so etc. etc.

*spoilers kinda following, sorta*

Well. I actually love this film almost unreservedly, really. Couple of things didn't work -- very ending spoken bit was 'hmmm, no' and it did stretch out a little too long (but compared to the complete pacing fuck-up of the Indiana Jones movie it was perfect). But otherwise, damn.

And I really don't mind the VOICE OF DOOM, actually. Jarring at times but I think it works.

Patrick Leahy cameo eh but I loved how they went right ahead and brought back Cilian Murphy as the Scarecrow and then almost immediately dispensed with him again.

The pencil trick was definitely my 'holy shit the hype may be right' moment re: Ledger. And you know, I really never saw much with him over time -- and I didn't 'see' him in the role, in the sense that I look at Harvey Dent and I'm all, "Yeah, Aaron Eckhart in an Aaron Eckhart role, the WASPy guy." And the whole hospital sequence...

Nearly all the deaths surprised me. Even the one fake one. One reason why I felt a bit flattened by the ending was who DID finally die for real -- felt like setting up one mean headfuck of a third movie and then it was jerked away from under the audience.

The Joker isn't a nihilist, he just thinks he is. All of his "pop-psychology" babble is undone by the choices the people made in his modified prisoner's dilemma.

I don't understand. How so?

I think the choices made by Batman and Gordon at the end are a pretty good reflection of the Gotham Nolan has portrayed.

The actions are certainly more in tune with the previous 120 minutes!

You are exactly right, exactly, I thought that was a weak bit in about eight different ways, but primarily because by any real world logic, the joker's idea would have worked perfectly, and people would have stepped on their elderly mother's head to get to that goddamn button. Unless the criminals were faster, and overtaking that little pale dude holding the button would not have taken much, since everyone on that boat seemed pretty much without physical restraint (this is not how prisoners are transported, I pray). And Batman's confidence that nothing would happen was based on what? His intimate acquaintance with human nature? The same acquaintance that leads him to, for instance, take to the streets and fight crime because he doesn't feel anyone else is quite up to the job? What the fucking fuck.

We seem to be on the same page here. For all this talk about a comic-book film where "there is no black and white, just shades of gray, everyone is corrupt etc etc Zzzzzzzzz" we get a climax that is right out of the first two Spider-Mans in its reliance upon innate human decency to help our hero when he can't do it all. Why is that? Do we not want to see a movie where modern day society is not only criticized in words but in our actions?

In a way the scene is typical PC. The only person willing to push the button is a person from the citizens boat and he, with his hands full with a briefcase and papers, is probably (hold your booing!) a lawyer or businessman. There they go again only thinking of themselves! The rest of us wouldn't do that, only they would.

My sixteen-year-old brother told me he knew how the leading criminal on the boat would act because he said that because the only two previous black characters (aside from Freeman) were thuggish criminals (who died no less) they wouldn't let all of them be portrayed unsympathetically for the sake of not wanting to draw suspicions of racism or profiling, which I though was a pretty interesting insight. There are certain rules like that in film that people remember and guide them almost unconsciously.

Nearly all the deaths surprised me. Even the one fake one. One reason why I felt a bit flattened by the ending was who DID finally die for real -- felt like setting up one mean headfuck of a third movie and then it was jerked away from under the audience.

Well, all the principal actors are signed on for a third but Nolan isn't obligated to direct. I think he's going to breathe a sigh of relief at not having to figure out where to go next with this. Good luck to the people who have to figure out how to tie-up that gigantic loose end. My brother's idea of the similarly blond-haired Owen Wilson stepping in to replace the Joker, and his delivering of the Joker's lines in Wilson's famous "yaaah" twang, had me laughing pretty hard.

I think he's going to breathe a sigh of relief at not having to figure out where to go next with this.

Mmm, wouldn't blame him. Yet I'd heard he'd been toying with a three picture arc? I would really enjoy at least one more from him.

My sixteen-year-old brother told me he knew how the leading criminal on the boat would act because he said that because the only two previous black characters (aside from Freeman) were thuggish criminals (who died no less) they wouldn't let all of them be portrayed unsympathetically for the sake of not wanting to draw suspicions of racism or profiling, which I though was a pretty interesting insight. There are certain rules like that in film that people remember and guide them almost unconsciously.

Well, yes to all this...and also it was Michael Jai White, so of course he'd be a good guy.

The two previous black criminals were also not merely thuggish, but thuggish and apparently high-ranking and in pretty nice-looking suits. I think we are on the same page -- all this crossed my mind as well.

Nihilism is a pretty complex subject, so I'm naturally a bit hesitant to bandy it about. Anyway, the Joker doesn't just want nothing or pure destruction, he wants confirmation of his view on humanity. He believes/wants to believe that people will act in a certain way, and they don't.

I don't think Batman's belief that nothing would happen was out of character. In the first film he feels all they need is hope to get them out of the depression, and I don't think anything has changed. He knows that he's lost himself in his vigilante role, and as much as he might wish he could leave it all behind and be with Rachel and have a normal life etc..., he can't. The only thing that separates him from the criminals is his belief in the people. There is a certain degree of self-deception there, but I did find it to be in character.

Anyway, it's an amazing film, especially considering that it's a big-budget tentpole. These don't come along very often.

In the first film he feels all they need is hope to get them out of the depression

Hope is a very high-level brain function. Not being dead is not.

Also, hello, mob mentality.

I suppose he should have had one blow the other up, because then it really would be Ayn Rand-esque.

If the Joker was right about how awful we all are but still wrong in thinking it means that we're all worthless, that would be some moral ambiguity I could get behind.

xpost - Well, looking at this film specific to 2008, there's a reason that nothing close to 9/11 has happened again in the U.S. -- because most people either don't want to blow things up or don't have the gumption to execute such a plan. The Joker assumes that everyone has his impulses within him, and within the story the folks on the ferry prove him wrong.

It reminds me of a story I heard of someone seeing Fargo and saying it was weird seeing an Indian and an Asian portrayed unsympathetically and with no equal and opposite portrayal of minorities. He said it almost left him unsatisfied because kept waiting for the positive figure to appear and, unbelievably in modern films, he never did.

I still think Bale is a boring Wayne. Though his handsomeness didn't lend as well to action figures, Keaton had a bookish look to him and a sense of humor which made the Wayne character interesting to be around. At least from what I remember from the first Batman. A bit of light-hearted smartass coming from Bale, and not Caine or Freeman, would do wonders for the Bruce moments. The problem is, I think, that Bale rarely lets down the intensity enough so that people would think it alright to laugh and that comedic relief seems to be missing from all of the Nolan films I've seen. I'm not asking for Jim Carrey to return to the series, I'd just wish everything wasn't so grim and intense except for the occasional Caine quip.

I don't think Batman's belief that nothing would happen was out of character. In the first film he feels all they need is hope to get them out of the depression, and I don't think anything has changed. He knows that he's lost himself in his vigilante role, and as much as he might wish he could leave it all behind and be with Rachel and have a normal life etc..., he can't. The only thing that separates him from the criminals is his belief in the people. There is a certain degree of self-deception there, but I did find it to be in character.

I see what you mean but then I think of Gordon's denouement speech about how "Batman isn't the hero we need, but he's the one we deserve," and other lines about Batman representing the flawed hero that fits the equally flawed city. It doesn't fit after what we just saw! It was like the townspeople from "It's A Wonderful Life" took over the NYC of "Se7en."

But back to that line: of course he's not the hero they need. A city that has citizens that so believe in egalitarianism that they won't kill a boat full of prisoners (at the potential expense of their and their children's lives) and has criminals so noble as to not swarm the detonator to prolong their own life and potential judgment is already as close to a heavenly city as we'll get to.

xpost - Well, looking at this film specific to 2008, there's a reason that nothing close to 9/11 has happened again in the U.S. -- because most people either don't want to blow things up or don't have the gumption to execute such a plan. The Joker assumes that everyone has his impulses within him, and within the story the folks on the ferry prove him wrong.

But I believe there was a time limit where, if they didn't chose, they were lead to believe they'd both explode. I forgot about that until now, and it only makes the pacifistic attitude of the people even less plausible.

I still think Bale is a boring Wayne.

I think he's a boring Batman (and a big no to the gravel voice, hafta agree with that complaint), but I love him as Wayne. Arrogant, snide... a real prick, actually. No social skills at all, because he has money instead. Something like I imagine such a powerful person with such a superiority complex might actually be like. Unfortunately, as Batman he seems *less* unstable and troubled, and that's all backwards.

Basically, I want a Batman movie scripted by Grant Morrison.

Okay, last thing before I just let that either morally muddled or a complete cop-out of a scene go. From someplace else:

Don't misunderstand the boat scene.

Batman takes it to mean that people are good, but he's wrong, as 3x as many people wanted to kill the prisoners. It's just that no one wanted to do it themselves.

Same with the guy who handed the trigger to the prisoner.

Yeah. It's showing that people are both selfish to the point of murder and too cowardly to take any action.

This, along with the regulars voting FOR detonating the other ship, makes much more sense and is in tone with the rest of the film. But still, if citizens engaging in democracy meant wanting to blow up the criminal's ship and only a criminal had the integrity to throw away the detonator (the modern day version of turning the other cheek?) then it makes the film's message much more in line with a point the Joker might try to make about society than about the platitudes Batman was spitting out during the fight.

Either way, I find the scene to be either morally questionable (if still in tone with the film) if interpreted that way and a downright cop-out if it's my first idea. And in either scenario human beings wouldn't act like that.

I think he's a boring Batman (and a big no to the gravel voice, hafta agree with that complaint), but I love him as Wayne. Arrogant, snide... a real prick, actually. No social skills at all, because he has money instead. Something like I imagine such a powerful person with such a superiority complex might actually be like. Unfortunately, as Batman he seems *less* unstable and troubled, and that's all backwards.

I wasn't sure in BB if Wayne was supposed to be such a lame playboy or not. He certainly pulls off being anti-social but, as suitable as that might be, it makes me care for him much less than if he had redeeming characteristics.

Well, I think this movie argues that his characteristics are at best incidental, and at worst troublesome, because he is taking on the burden of moral superoirity instead of just the mantle of it. That's Batman's character arc in this movie, really.

And Rachel is correct that he will never not need Batman, because jeez, as Bruce Wayne, what does he have to feel good about?

That bed.

if your sixteen year-old brother is so insightful how come he didn't remember the commisioner?

xpost HA! I wanted that bed, too!

But that was just his penthouse bed -- his real bed back in the manor is much less hot and modern.

sorry, i didn't mean to sound so snide.

uh ... don't forget commissioner loeb!

and several dead black cops

his Bruce Wayne is really Patrick Bateman.

lol bateman batman, etc.

his Bruce Wayne is really Patrick Bateman.

Fucking hell yes, he is! See, that's what I'm talking about. His mask of sanity is about to slip.

And instead of decapitating women, he puts on a bat suit and fights crime. I mean, that's Batman, right?

Maybe without so much Huey Lewis and the News, but still.

Did no-one else expect that the Joker had actually been sneaky and given them the detonators to their own boats but told them the opposite? I was expecting that to be the case and for the boat of "good people" to blow themselves up.

The Chicago stuff is awesome, yes - "OMG they're riding a motorbike through the train station we use to go Kalamazoo" etc. Makes me miss Chicago, and makes me want to go see it in IMAX (although nearest IMAX to hear is 20 miles away).

Oh and I liked the final speech, but I'm a sucker for that kind of shit.

Did no-one else expect that the Joker had actually been sneaky and given them the detonators to their own boats but told them the opposite?

This was pretty much the small group I was with's thought. It actually occurs to me just now, reading your post and typing this out, that the fact that we weren't only expecting it but kinda wanting it to happen -- for *something* deeply horrifying like that to happen -- means that the movie functions better as an implicit critique of expectations of violence in film than, say, Funny Games. (And did it ever have its cake and eat it too on that front.)

spoilers!

all this talk of gotham's "saintly" citizens misses out on two things: the regular folks showing up at the TV station to try and kill the guy who tried to out batman, and the fact that the people on the boat vote overwhelmingly to push the button.

anthony michael hall was the news anchor

Michael Jai White was the gangster. The good criminal was Tiny Lister.

jon/via/chicago, do you still want IMAX tickets? i know someone that has 2 tickets for tuesday evening at the cinemark seven bridges (no idea where that is) and is selling them for face value. i can't keep up with the chicago thread at the moment, so if you are interested, email me through ILX mail.

Michael Jai White was the gangster. The good criminal was Tiny Lister.

Oh yeah you're right. Brain fart.

totally thought each boat had their own triggers, for sure. and i kept wanting to nudge people in the theater (in rock island, il) about all the chicago intersections (THAT IS FRANKLIN AND VANBUREN, YO) but no one cared.

the pencil trick was totally o_O and would have been even creepier if they entire movie theater HADN'T ERUPTED INTO CHEERING WTF. i mean, it was a midnight showing attended mostly by teenagers, but seriously. most of the creepy, awesome, whatever stuff was completely undercut by people cheering their asses off. stfu

pencil tricks was more gasps where we were. cheering was all at the trailers, thankfully. oh, and at the lorry flip.

yea but what do you expect on a midnight showing? that's why I'm usually afraid to go to those.

I went again yesterday in the afternoon and it was apples and oranges.

Bale's batman voice = Nathan Explosion from Metalocalypse. You heard it here first.

xpost: I read that as "aspies and oranges"

I SAW THE Movie Today at the Amc Theater at 2 30 It Was So Cool Everybody was like amazed when The Joker Did The Pencil Trick at the henchmen I Think when he stabbed him he stabbed his eye or his head but It Was like so cool.

Ok. The Joker sticks a pencil in the desk vertically, with the pointed end up and tells the mob bosses in the conference room that he is gonna preform a 'magic trick' and make the pencil 'disappear.' The group of mob bosses think it's a joke (which it kind of is) so they send a man to go beat him up and stop waisting their time. The Joker calmly watches the man come after him and slams the man's head down into the pencil. When the dead body slides off the table the pencil is fully inside of the man's head; thus the pencil 'disappeared'.

This was significant because the Joker predicted that the mob boss was gonna send one of his men after him when he mentioned the 'magic trick'. By killing the man with the pencil and 'making the pencil disappear' he kept his word, creeped out the mob bosses, and showed them that he could predict their movements in the traditional joker fashion.

Honestly, it was my favourite scene in the movie.

Pencil trick ruled yes. When I went, it was a gasp swiftly followed by nervous laughter. can't wait when the clip of this inevitably shows up on youtube so you could play it over and over and over.

Second favourite is the Joker dancing on top of the pyramid of cash and then he slides down the pyramid, cause it looks like it could have been a scene from the animated series.

Best scene (shot, I guess) in the movie: without a doubt the Joker riding in the police car, hanging out the window, mugging for nobody, then silently closing his eyes and taking in the air. Fabulous.

Also, if I were Ledger I would have purposely kept fucking up the pile of money scene so I could keep sliding down it. That shit must have been fun.

That scene in the police car (which appeared in the trailer) was one that made me really excited about the movie. definite OTM

whaddaya know.. pencil trick already up on youtube, most likely not for long. cellphone cam quality, natch.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=szjKxptMLfA

people were cheering at this movie, goodness.

when's this out on blu ray then?