Addendum for some that didn't fit into the previous posting. Personal note to self: devise a better way of filtering out all the trash.
Film Noir (***)
very entertaining adult feature-length animation which is full of fun twists and turns
Funny Games (2008) (*)
Haneke's patronising, sanctimonious, condescending rubbish all over again - but this time without the need for subtitles (wow)
Doomsday (*)
forget viruses, the UK's rotten movie industry should be quarantined to protect us from this kind of rubbish - one can't begin to describe how absolutely fucking abject this film is (and that is despite the money that's clearly been thrown at it)
Seed (*)
it's a shame this nasty little story is so comprehensively betrayed by the pathetically amateurish direction and cheesy score
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3 comments:
Wow, how many movies do you see a week? Maybe you should moonlight as a film critic on the side.
Saw the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight" last night (or to be more precise, earlier this morning). I was afraid it was going to suck because of all the hype, but for once it seems the hype was justified. Not really sure if it would be your thing though... one thing I did kind of like about it was that it seemed to assume that audiences were not only familiar with the film that came before it, but also with the Batman mythos in general.
sypha, you're right, far too much time on my hands... I'll be looking forward to seeing 'The Dark Knight' now after what you're saying about it - does it follow on directly from 'Batman Begins'?
William, pretty much, though I don't they say in the film just how long a span of time has gone on in between the two movies (I presume not that great span of time though). As I was saying, one thing I liked about it was there's no flashbacks to the first movie, no explanation given to why Batman does whatv he does, so the filmmakers assume from the start that the viewer has at least seen the first film (I think you've mentioned how the "Saw" series does the same thing, to some degree). And for a big budget Hollywood summer movie, it's very dark and downbeat (though there is a lot of morbid humor).
Heath Ledger has gotten a lot of praise for his portrayal of the Joker, and though I was a bit cynical at first after seeing the film I think most of the praise is on the mark. It's kind of the total opposite of Tim Burton's first Batman film, where you could never really seperate Jack Nicholson from the character he was playing. In "The Dark Knight" we almost never see the Joker with his make-up off, and no explanation is given as to why he's so crazy... he just is, like a force of nature, a personification of chaos. In this aspect he is very much like the version of the Joker which appeared in Grant Morrison's "Arkham Asylum" graphic novel back in the 80's (and most recently in his current stint as head writer of the "Batman" comic). The idea that the Joker is actually super-sane, has no real personality or self, rather he creates himself anew everyday, hence his unpredictability. Actually, now that I think about it, this was also touched on in Alan Moore's "Killing Joke" comic, which I read was one of the inspirations for "The Dark Knight." Yeah, I'm a Batfan geek, so sue me. :p
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