Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

So the early word is that it's *still* at number one in America. And sometime in the next few days it'll beat Burton's Batman in inflation-adjusted numbers.

Haha, okay, this is ridiculous -- the aimed-at-preschoolers official book adaptation of the movie. It's, um, different.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e222/nlb_muffin/the%20dark%20knight/Batman%20Saves%20the%20Day/bmansavesday_08.jpg

Actually there are apparently a couple of books like this out there that reinterpret certain scenes. Dear me. I wonder what the pencil trick turns into.

crayon trick?

seriously though, the clown mask on the right looks similar to the one The JOker wore in the bank robbery.

DETAILS, FUCKERS, DETAILS!

The Dent / Arkham nutter scenario is about the only one, and it's also more about not killing him (or anyone) (and especially not leaving justice to chance) than it is about not pummeling the shit outta him with fists.

I thought it was also as much a "because if you're seen to be killing a schizophrenic how;'s that gonna make you look, dumbass?", for whatever self serving purpose that might have implied.

I liked this film and I'm really not into the franchise. It was relentlessly loud and blammy and a lot happened and it was suprisingly long but I had little to complain about. Except maybe the "he's the darko knight" monologue at the end, which felt just a little glurgey.

Hahah the darko knight? Amusing typo.

He takes the mask off and it's really Jake! Incest! Almost.

Frightening.

I WISH it was Jake.

Actually he'd make an interesting Batman.

Nah, substitute Jake for Maggie and having Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart fighting over Richard Dawes's affections.

"He was going to WAIT for me, Alfred."

"That's what they all say, sir."

I would never tolerate Jake talking to me about another guy.

In this case it would have been Christian.

Talking to you that is.

Brokeback Gotham.

actually Jake G was the frontrunner to play Batman before Bale got involved. what could have been etc...

he's great at almost being superheroes, what with his almost Spiderman

Fuck it, let's just have Jake play Robin in the next film and make that age-old homosexual subtext totally and utterly fucking overt.

Too lazy to read the whole 2500 post thread, so I'm just gonna jump in and say: his was a GREAT thriller, is already at #3 for US box office of all time at $442K (could surpass Stars Wars' #2 if it cracks $461K - which it will, even if it doesn't surpass Titanic's $600K)... and oh-so-significant: is #1 on The IMBD Top 250 already due to the fanboys haha.

That's all you really need to know, and if you didn't like it you're gonna be on the wrong side of history (as you're going to keep hearing about this goddamned "little comic book" for a long time to come - especially with the Heath Factor).

But this drives me nuts - apologies if it's been discussed upthread -

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121694247343482821.html

*this not his

Worrying that F Miller has the let's-kick-Islamic-terrorist's-ass outlook on rumored sequel, but he did write 300 after all. Ugh

I direct you, and anyone else with a Batman = Bush tizzy going on, in either direction, here - http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/010555.html

Radcliffe Joker-casting rumors for Batman Begins 2 start NOW

-- latebloomer (posercore24...), July 28th, 2006 3:09 PM. (latebloomer)

-- the doaple gonger (nickalicious), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 11:37 (2 years ago) Link

hmm?

Thx Scik Mouth - " What neocon readings of the film must overlook is that this is exactly the same in geopolitical reality: far from being unpalatable but necessary, the Iraq misadventure, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition etc have either achieved no results or made things worse."

if Heef hadn't died they could've been on some Killing Joke shit in the next one with Batman in Arkham desperately trying to convince the Joker to call a truce before they kill each other

That's all you really need to know, and if you didn't like it you're gonna be on the wrong side of history

but this is a comfort!

Either you're with us or against us@@@!

Anyway all of this isn't just "comib book fantasy" anymore m' lads, all superhero powers are becoming TEH REAL THANG:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26128485/

Scientists closing in on invisibility cloak
Using artificially engineered materials to redirect light around objects
The Associated Press
updated 6:48 p.m. PT, Sun., Aug. 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.

The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.

The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.

People can see objects because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. Cloaking uses materials, known as metamaterials, to deflect radar, light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.

Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials don't. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they don't create reflections or shadows.

It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.

The research was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center.

still don't understand how that works

that kpunk article is smarter than the wsj piece, but almost as hapless. there is not a moral or ideological through-line in the movie. the total-information system is the best example: this is awful! yes, but just this once! well, ok! like a lot of things (see also the superficial debates over torture) it gives the film a little political buzz (ripped from the headlines!) without saying anything much.

and the idea that people need a HERO to believe in regardless of the truth, if it makes me think of anything, makes me think of pat tillman and jessica lynch. except the movie presents it with a straight face, without bothering to wonder if it even makes moral sense (it doesn't). that conceit mostly exists in order to make batman's "sacrifice" seem necessary and bold rather than like the masochistic martyrdom-seeking gobbledygook it is.

xpost: but i would like one invisibility cloak, please.

but mostly i don't see a lot of upside in subjecting the movie to those kinds of analyses, because its ideas -- such as they are -- can't stand up to it.

agreed w/ gypsy moth that there is no consistent ideology that's evoked by the film. but i mostly liked how the k-punk article is just refuting Klavan's self-pitying claims in the first place. Since let's face it: douchebag has a new book out and what better way to promote it than a) concoct this pseudo-grand-narrative of Hollywood's egregiously unjust "grey-listing" of conservatives (with the obligatory appearances on O'Reilly & Glenn Beck) and b) playing to his retrograde fanbase by stealing headlines and slapping them onto the biggest block-buster of the decade? see also here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/08/AR2008080802876_pf.html

or rather, i should say that was *my* favorite part of the k-punk article. i can't vouch for its veracity or effectiveness in subjecting the poor film to a post-Kantian analysis or reading ....which is what the rest of the post tried to do. i think.

that conceit mostly exists in order to make batman's "sacrifice" seem necessary and bold rather than like the masochistic martyrdom-seeking gobbledygook it is.

maybe. but i've realized that probably the best way to take the final scene is in the context of the conversation about caesar very early in the movie. it's batman's "george washington" moment, giving up power for the sake of the system that he wants to support.

I said it upthread, but one of the best ways to understand the movie (and, im finding, the last 3 decades of the comic books) is through the motifs of the Western--in fact i'd say something like The Searchers is a direct influence on the movie. Like, say, when John Wayne scalps an indian.

so one thing i keep feeling when i think about this movie is that yes the war on terror stuff seems like window-dressing because it IS, it's just placing old narratives in a new box. but these are extremely powerful ideas and they've been around for a while.

Superhero movies are TOTALLY Westerns in terms of pop-cult theory narrative structure, etc.

sure but i think say the searchers and unforgiven and red river have actual moral structures -- they really weigh questions of revenge, violence, loyalty, etc. in a coherent and complicated way. the conflicts are made palpable in the writing, the performances and the filmmaking. i heard some talk about those things in the nolans' clunky dialogue, but they weren't delivered on in the structure of the story or the strength of the performances. the only strong performance in the movie is ledger's, and he doesn't really present any moral quandaries at all, he just dances through and above them.

well, except for the ferryboat scene, which is like i said i think is the best section of the movie in terms of building moral tension. it's gimmicky, but it's handled pretty well. (it doesn't really fit into the movie's larger framework, though, its idea that either harvey dent or batman has galvanized the city into a new sense of moral possibility. instead it plays on the old idea of a fundamental decency that will always defeat an anti-moral force like the joker etc etc. if anything it makes a case that the city doesn't need a hero -- a potentially interesting idea that is of course just left dangling because the only real point of the scene is to give tick-tock tension.)

Well, actually I think the film(s) do(es) make that point, that Gotham doens't need a hero; that's kind of explicitly what Batman begins is about - Ra's Al Ghul thinks it needs raising to the ground, Wayne thinks it needs saving. And by the end of TDK, Batman and Gordon agree that, in the absence of Dent's hero, the city needs a villain, which Batman becomes. And the whole idea of escalation raises the idea of whether Gotham needs a hero - it certainly suggests it doesn't need one like Batman.

I'm wondering if the (Nolan) Batman films raise moral questions but don't provide answers, don't really judge the characters' actions, but instead leave the audience to judge.

Not necessarily immediate relevant but this 2005 interview with Nolan is one of the best I've read from him and, in light of where TDK ended up, of interest.

That's pretty much how I view it; the film isn't trying to give an answer.

if anything it makes a case that the city doesn't need a hero -- a potentially interesting idea that is of course just left dangling because the only real point of the scene is to give tick-tock tension.

If you want to get nitpicky about it, the point of that scene is to create a massively huge diversion for Harvey.

I read that Nolan interview Ned just linked sometime last week - it is indeed fascinating.

And the whole idea of escalation raises the idea of whether Gotham needs a hero - it certainly suggests it doesn't need one like Batman.

well it says it needs one like harvey, or like the fake harvey batman and gordon invent through their deception. a martyr, basically. except really it's presenting 2 martyrs, since batman martyrs himself (morally at least) to preserve the fiction of dent's martyrdom. that's a whole lotta martyring, and some pretty tortured moral logic to make it seem somehow necessary.

Radcliffe Joker-casting rumors for Batman Begins 2 start NOW

-- latebloomer (posercore24...), July 28th, 2006 3:09 PM. (latebloomer)

-- the doaple gonger (nickalicious), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 11:37 (2 years ago) Link

hmm?

-- darraghmac, Monday, August 11, 2008 12:28 PM (4 hours ag

ya don't think he looks joker-like here?

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41939000/jpg/_41939536_radcliffe2_bodygetty.jpg

i liked this line from mr. k-punk:

Secondly, what [the right wing] readings also miss is the actual nature of the model of virtue presented in the film. If this is (neo)conservative, it is not at the simple level of utilitarian calculation of consequences. What we are dealing with is a far more complicated Straussian meta-utilitarianism whose cynical reasoning is akin to that of Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor. Deception - of the masses by the elite - is integral to this account of virtue: what is 'protected' is not the masses' security but their belief (in Harvey Dent's campaign).

well it says it needs one like harvey, or like the fake harvey batman and gordon invent through their deception. a martyr, basically. except really it's presenting 2 martyrs, since batman martyrs himself (morally at least) to preserve the fiction of dent's martyrdom. that's a whole lotta martyring, and some pretty tortured moral logic to make it seem somehow necessary.

Bruce and Gordon say that Gotham needs a hero like fake Harvey; the movie spends a good amount of time showing the audience that Bruce and Gordon don't actually know all that much about the man they're championing (Gordon's disagreement with Dent's judgment about the crooked cops on Gordon's staff; Batman's misjudgment about Dent's willingness to kill the crazy henchmen). Also, the movie itself takes a lot of time to show Harvey as a man whose judgment is by and large dead on about pretty much everything wrong with the current state of affairs in Gotham, then proceeds to slap him down about as hard as you can imagine.

If the movie is saying anything, I think it's asking "Is it too late to save Gotham?" Obviously Batman doesn't think so but I don't know that we're automatically supposed to agree with him.

What we are dealing with is a far more complicated Straussian meta-utilitarianism whose cynical reasoning is akin to that of Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor.

yes totally. I tried to say this upthread in a halting and half thought-out way.

Yeah, Dent's position is interesting - Dent wants to be Batman, to be the romantic, masculine, fighting hero; neither Batman nor Gordon will let him be that, though. The snap of bravado when he punches the guy in the dock, the quick soundbite machismo, the claiming to be Batman...

Meanwhile, simultaneously the greatest and creepiest thing ever -- especially since in light of an earlier discussion on this thread the post contains the words "Woulda been interesting to see these guys re-enact the infamous “pencil scene” with a Crayola..."

Deception - of the masses by the elite - is integral to this account of virtue: what is 'protected' is not the masses' security but their belief (in Harvey Dent's campaign).

-- goole

Speaking of morality, a writer at Human Events is not pleased:

Some people defend Dark Knight because it is smashing box office records. So what? Crack cocaine is popular too, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for society.

Others defend Dark Knight for its “conservative” values. It does acknowledge the difference between good and evil. The hero stands up to the villain, subdues him in the end, and takes the blame for the district attorney’s crimes to preserve hope in Gotham City. The movie also sends a constructive topical message about the need to defend ourselves against terrorists.

These points may be true, but the defense rings hollow. It smacks of making excuses for enjoying the movie. How can we justify Dark Knight’s indulgence in the pornography of violence? What if Hugh Hefner made a movie featuring two hours of skin and sex, but ending with the hero losing his marriage? Would Hefner deserve credit for warning us of the dangers of adultery?

Dark Knight is rated PG-13, compelling evidence of the inadequacy of the present rating system. This movie is a pleasure cruise through the depths of moral perversion. It cries out for a new category: U-99, Unfit for any age.

Within what we take to be the film's own moral POV, are Batman and Gordon in any sense right that Dent has value to the citizens of Gotham? Does the city really need him? We could just as easily argue that Batman and Gordon believe they need Dent.

I thought that was the ultimate point of the movie.

hey just to be clear i'm quoting someone up there

I thought that was the ultimate point of the movie.

-- HI DERE