Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

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I think I'm going to watch Batman Begins again now.

A few hours late but that sourceless blog post was written by a former editor of DC and a current writer for Marvel. So... it has some validity.

How does having comic-book-industry cred give her validity in spreading Hollywood rumors?

Or something like that.

i heard there was a cut about 30 minutes longer that existed a few weeks ago.

months ago, that is...oof.

David, presumably DC Comics, which is owned by Warner, has some inside information about the new film. I don't doubt that she's still friendly with people in that company.

Of course, on rereading her post, she seems to be quoting some Hollywood gossip website. Not her insider contacts.

David, presumably DC Comics, which is owned by Warner

no wai! :p

Forgive me if I'm skeptical of someone that used to work for Batfolks' book division reporting rumors of a movie that's in pre-pre-pre-pre production.

xpost - BWAH HAH HAH

Hmmm... I was just forwarded this from two different people:

Johnny Depp to play Riddler in next flick?

johnny depp <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< crispin glover

yeah this is not a good idea

This was awesome!

One thing tho.

D'ya reckon the detonators on each boat...

a) Blew up the other boat
b) Blew up their own boat
c) Blew up both boats

Have at it, folx...

Relax. It's two weeks after the release of the current movie. This is not set in stone, or even the foam on top of a beer mug.

Oh. Pretty much everyone raised the same issue. Poll?

There's no way not a single person on the non-convict boat would be willing to press the button. No way.

yeah IRL that wouldve resulted in a brawl for the detonator on each end (the convict side wouldve known the situation as well) & an explosion within 30 seconds

still, fairly good cinema

the whole "LETS VOTE ON IT" thing on the civillian ferry was borderline too corny though

I reckon both detonators triggered both boats, myself.

nah because then the joker wouldnt have been able to make any real kind of point - it'd be more clever if each detonator blew up the boat it was on, so he could actually victimize the dead as a kind of insult to injury

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/4017/applausegp1.gif

Alfred Soto: I just caught up with with this thread and your recent thoughts and I agree mightily with your comments on Nolan's disinterest in Wayne/Batman and a lot of other things you've mentioned. I think that Nolan is uninterested in probing character motivation in films, generally.

That reminds me of this fabulous hoax.

ok so about as expected: long, loud, incoherent nonsense. heath ledger pretty entertaining. chris nolan is a lousy action director. nothing about the movie makes sense, narratively, morally or otherwise. better than the last one, i'll give it that.

ding ding ding, RONG, ladies, show 'em what he's won...

and...just a reminder...RONG

trifecta...RONG

it's really pretty bad filmmaking. characters, plot, action sequences, everything about it is lumpy and unconvincing except heath ledger. and he's unconvincing too when he has to provide "depth" (that really horrible bit of dialogue where he has to explain his scars). i liked the ferryboat bit, which didn't have any confusing action for nolan to try to sort out. swooping over hong kong was pretty nifty, except that they had to invent a whole 10-minute sequence to justify about 30 seconds of cool footage.

everything about it is lumpy and unconvincing except heath ledger. and he's unconvincing too when he has to provide "depth" (that really horrible bit of dialogue where he has to explain his scars)

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wtf

Nolan's action sequences are fantastic. they only suck if you're sitting on the right side of the theatre in the front row. try not to bring pipes to the theatre next time.

i just hate to see people settling for so little in their big-budget thrills. between this and casino royale, it's like people are impressed just to see a lot of crane shots and "moral ambiguity."

all 3 bourne movies are at least 2X better than the last two batman movies (as a point of comparison).

Condescending, party of one!

i think bourne vs batman would be a great debate (someone brought up the bourne flicks earlier) but youre argument seems totally agenda-ridden, i mean you DID get that the joker was totally BSing, that the 'depth' of those sequences was meant to work on a couple levels, & that 'that really horrible bit' happened like 3 times in the movie, right?

yea, unless we're to believe he got his scars both from sticking a knife in his own mouth AND his father, quite coincidentally! :)

yes he was lying. he always lied! or did he! he was just like us, but more honest. or was he? so meta.

the nolans always have terrible dialogue. (they got away with it in memento because who cared about the dialogue?) not that i'm claiming any great things for, say, the bourne dialogue. the relative lack of dialogue in those movies is one of their strengths.

i'm mostly just puzzled by all the things being glommed onto this movie, which is pretty gummed-up to begin with. i didn't hate it, it sort of held my attention intermittently, but the story did nothing but get stupider as it went and man people just don't know how to bring a blockbuster in under 2 hours anymore do they?

*waiting for examples of said dialogue*

i mean really, all the white-knight-dark-knight stuff culminating in the final portentous voiceover, i was actively embarrassed to be in the theater. whatever gary oldman got paid to say that, it wasn't enough.

(xpost, but there you go)

what were you expecting in a comic book movie, David Mamet?

no, not at all. but you can't call it a great movie on one hand and then turn around and say of course it's lightweight nonsense what-do-you-expect on the other. (which maybe you aren't saying, i don't know, it's a long thread.)

hay i seen a hollywood movie (that really horrible bit of dialogue where he has to explain his scars) atleast X 2 yu mean

just dropping by without context. can someone pls link to that thread that resume long threads%?

i expect comic-book movies to be incoherent nonsense, i just hope for them to be better-made and less overbearing.

"yes he was lying. he always lied! or did he! he was just like us, but more honest. or was he? so meta."

huh??

i really want to take my by now probably typical 'youre getting way too philosophical & ignoring the viscerality that is this formats best & primary means of speaking to its audience' tack but id get accused of being a rube

in defense of that line of argument though: the first scene wasnt about depth or explaining the jokers origins (maybe, to some extent, it was intended to be deceptively so) - it was about making us wonder what the fuck he was about to do to this dude, & keeping us on the edge of our seats while we waited to find out. the second scene (iirc, there mayve been another in between or after) was meant to do the same as far as maggie g's charcter was concerned, while expanding the complexity of the joker - if youre so intellectually distant from the movie that you didnt give a damn about its more visceral aspects, i dont know why you bothered to pay for it, except to tell people as much

if youre so intellectually distant from the movie that you didnt give a damn about its more visceral aspects, i dont know why you bothered to pay for it, except to tell people as much

because everybody including my brother, ilx and manohla dargis told me it was better than it is. and i love my brother, i like ilx and i don't have anything against manohla dargis. i just ain't feel it. i don't begrudge warner bros. my $11, but having spent it i'm allowed to say it's a pretty dull event.

well, it was no Goodbye, Dragon Inn...

fewer steamed buns, for one thing.

i do agree that this movie was too long. the hong kong sequence was nifty but will probably be fast forwarded when i buy the DVD.

another big issue i had, and i hope this isn't any kind of spoiler alert at this point in the thread, is that the whole plan with the bombs on the ferries is just impossible to plan in advance. i try really hard to suspend my disbelief for villainous schemes in comic book adaptations, but the idea that he knew the city would be evacuated on these ferry boats, and had the manpower and foresight to load hundreds of barrels of gas or whatever it was onto them was so ridiculous i found myself wanting to rewind to figure out what i missed. i guess the bus backing into the bank thing was pretty bad that way, too.

i liked both this and BB, but agree that they don't touch the Bourne movies. and frankly they didn't come close to bringing me the kind of joy I felt the first time i read Batman: Year One and The Long Halloween, either.

I don't really understand needing to compare the Bourne vs. the Batman films - beside that they came out during the same era, are of high overall quality and star power, and have some absurdly overdirected fight scenes, they don't exactly live in the same universes, you know?

And dear Lord, don't ever pay attention to Manohla Dargis, she is terrible.

another big issue i had, and i hope this isn't any kind of spoiler alert at this point in the thread, is that the whole plan with the bombs on the ferries is just impossible to plan in advance. i try really hard to suspend my disbelief for villainous schemes in comic book adaptations, but the idea that he knew the city would be evacuated on these ferry boats, and had the manpower and foresight to load hundreds of barrels of gas or whatever it was onto them was so ridiculous i found myself wanting to rewind to figure out what i missed. i guess the bus backing into the bank thing was pretty bad that way, too.

compare and contrast "no, I shoot the bus driver" and a bus immediately ploughing through the wall vs trying to blow up a hospital with the detonator in his hand and it not going off and him mashing the keys over and over and looking really stupid