Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

lol

roffle

<3

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20080709/en_movies_eo/30c380360188_4d68_93b8_e631a6db4a87

The service says "many" of those 12 a.m. screenings are sold out in cities both expected (New York, the model for Batman's troubled Gotham City) and not (Boise, Idaho; Council Bluffs, Iowa; etc.). MovieTickets.com, another online ticketing service, reported a total of 140 Dark Knight sell-outs as of today.

In a summer led by the $311 million-grossing Iron Man, The Dark Knight has been regarded as the blockbuster to beat. A sequel to Christopher Nolan's hit franchise reboot, Batman Begins, the new movie is receiving ecstatic early reviews—Variety called it "enthralling"—and Oscar buzz for the late Heath Ledger for his performance as the seriously unhinged Joker.

As early as two weeks ago, three weeks before the July 18 debut, Fandango was reporting "dozens" of premiere-night sell-outs. As of 10 a.m. this morning, still a good eight days before B-Day, The Dark Knight was accounting for 51 percent of all tickets sold by the service. At MovieTickets.com, the film was doing more business than six of that company's Top 10 all-time hits, including The Passion of the Christ and the second Star Wars prequel, Attack of the Clones.

Says Hong: "All indicators point to [next Thursday] as a very busy night at theaters across the country."

when is slock1 seeing this?

I just won tickets for a July 15 premiere this morning WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Not only are several midnight screenings here in Cleveland sold out, the midnight IMAX screening in Columbus is sold out, and the 3:15am IMAX screening nearly is. Yikes.

given the other midnight options in Columbus...

Hahaha. Touché.

I had the option of seeing it on the 22nd but I'm going to be in another city. Bah.

Reuters, YUCK:

Ledger's eerie performance as the Joker has already won him plaudits from international critics and co-stars, making him an unlikely forerunner to posthumously win the Academy Award for best supporting actor next February.

Ledger was nominated in 2006 for an Oscar for best actor for his role as a brooding gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain."

"If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous (acting) Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's "Network," sign me up," wrote Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers.

Reposting from the ILC thread for the flick, since Morbs wouldn't deign to enter those waters, & he's a big Travers fan (tho that 3rd quote is the real money shot):

David Poland: "This is not a Batman movie... this is a 2008 version of The Untouchables with The Batman as Elliot Ness, The Joker as Al Capone, much better toys, and, it seems, a topper."

Peter Travers: "It's enough to watch Bale chillingly render Batman as a lost warrior, evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather II in his delusion and desolation. It's enough to see Ledger conjure up the anarchy of the Sex Pistols and A Clockwork Orange as he creates a Joker for the ages."

Richard Corliss: "In its rethinking and transcending of a schlock source, The Dark Knight is up there with David Cronenberg's 1986 version of The Fly. It turns pulp into dark poetry."

Richard Corliss: "In its rethinking and transcending of a schlock source, The Dark Knight is up there with David Cronenberg's 1986 version of The Fly. It turns pulp into dark poetry."

gah I hate this kind of medium-dismissing snobbery (sorry morbz)

I read Batman comics as a kid; I like some pulp.

Well Batman was initially conceived in, and has most often occupied, the schlockier end of the comic book medium. I don't for a second think this guy grasps there are non-schlocky pockets of said artform, though.

I certainly prefer the better end of the comics medium to the tons and tons of shitty "dark poetry" out there

Could you give some examples along the path of schlocky to non-schlocky comics so I know whether I agree with you or not? My first reaction is that you don't know what you're talking about. (xpost)

Sorry, that was a little harsh.

non schlocky - Spawn

schlocky - Lynda Barry

cheap lol

http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/darkknight

Fucking HELL!!

4 reviews say so much.

somewhat amusing article from the creator of the 60's "Batman" series

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117988712.html?categoryid=3184&cs=1&nid=2564

That's actually a great article, just for all the background information on the creation of the series and all that. Dude wrote Papillon, that's all I need to know.

And . . . your first lukewarm review.

still counted as a "fresh" by rotten tomatoes

This is Batman, not "Hamlet." Call me shallow, but I wish it were a little more fun.

tells me all i need to know

I have a feeling the Newsweek review will be an outlier. Call me crazy.

where's that rex reed review of batman begins where he's all "why can't there be nubile young boy wonder sidekick in this?" lol

That's actually a great article, just for all the background information on the creation of the series and all that.

Mar Evanier observes:

Two points of note. One is that he seems to recall that his pilot script, which featured The Joker, was the first one aired. Actually, the first episode that aired featured The Riddler and the second week featured The Penguin. It wasn't until the third week that The Joker showed his white face...and that script was credited to Robert Dozier, son of Exec Producer William Dozier. So something is wrong in his recollection.

Also: The way Semple tells it, he makes it sound as if ABC forced Batman on Bill Dozier as a project he neither initiated nor wanted to do. Dozier used to tell the story of how he came across a Batman comic book in an airport gift shop and that's how he got the idea to do the show. I seem to recall that in one telling, Dozier even described the issue in question well enough that guys like me could identify it was Batman #171 — which featured The Riddler and which contained story elements that turned up in Semple's script for the first episode aired.

I'm pretty sure Semple's right about all the other stuff but those two matters have me a little puzzled.

First negative review:

http://nymag.com/listings/movie/the-dark-knight/

Forget Gotham City—or Anton Furst’s splendid Gothic Gotham of Tim Burton’s Batman, which summoned up the freaky superhero’s inner landscape of vaulted arches and gargoyles. We’re now in a modern, untransformed Manhattan, where the Joker’s opening bank heist unfolds in a tense, realistic style with multiple point-blank shootings. It’s a shock—and very effective—to see a comic-book villain come on like a Quentin Tarantino reservoir dog. But then the novelty wears off and the lack of imagination, visual and otherwise, turns into a drag. The Dark Knight is noisy, jumbled, and sadistic. Even its most wondrous vision—Batman’s plunges from skyscrapers, bat-wings snapping open as he glides through the night like a human kite—can’t keep the movie airborne. There’s an anvil attached to that cape.

So far these negative/middling reviews just have me all the more interested!

We’re now in a modern, untransformed Manhattan

well is it manhattan or is it chicago?!?!

filmed in chicago, l.a., hong kong, etc. apparently everywhere but manhattan (according to the imdb)

i always thought "gotham" was chicago and "metropolis" was n.y. but maybe i have it backwards?

it looks like i do have it backwards!

Rewatched Batman Begins last night - now very clearly obvious that, good as it is, it's JUST a warm-up for this.

And yes, these two 'negative' reviews seem to be irritated by things I see as positives.

First negative review

The Anne Thompson piece in Variety linked to by caek a week ago is kind of negative too.

Denby:

Instead of enjoying the formalized beauty of a fighting discipline, we see a lot of flailing movement and bodies hitting the floor like grain sacks. All this ruckus is accompanied by pounding thuds on the soundtrack, with two veteran Hollywood composers (Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard) providing additional bass-heavy stomps in every scene, even when nothing is going on. At times, the movie sounds like two excited mattresses making love in an echo chamber. In brief, Warner Bros. has continued to drain the poetry, fantasy, and comedy out of Tim Burton’s original conception for “Batman” (1989), completing the job of coarsening the material into hyperviolent summer action spectacle. Yet “The Dark Knight” is hardly routine—it has a kicky sadism in scene after scene, which keeps you on edge and sends you out onto the street with post-movie stress disorder. And it has one startling and artful element: the sinister and frightening performance of the late Heath Ledger as the psychopathic murderer the Joker. That part of the movie is upsetting to watch, and, in retrospect, both painful and stirring to think about.

So, uh, was trying to get tickets to see this on the IMAX screen here in Chicago... but apparently every showing for the entire run is already sold out.

"Tim Burton’s original conception"

I think these reviewers need to come to terms with the fact that well-established comic book characters, and even some less-than-well-established characters, are the modern day's mythology. The manner in which you cast, paint and tell a myth depends on what you want to express through the telling.

Burton's muse was slightly different than Nolan's, to be sure. I can't fucking wait to see this movie.

Right – Denby (and others) are quibbling with Nolan's conceptions.

"Tim Burton’s original conception"

-- Pancakes Hackman, Monday, 14 July 2008 13:57 (1 hour ago) Link

^ this

i tried to watch the 1989 batman a few years ago and i couldn't get through it.

fuck david denby, pretty much

xp: You won't be able to get through this one in 20 years either, if you're lucky.

you saw?

He doesn't need to see it!