(no subject)
What I can say about The Dark Knight is that, for me, it lived up to its year worth of hype. Which is saying a LOT.
Going into it, I was more into Aaron Eckhart/Harvey Dent. Don't get me wrong, Heath is fucking AMAZING. Talk about disappearing into a role until you forget there's an actor underneath. But while I've never been very much of a Two-Face fan, I was hook, line, sinker right at the trailer where Harvey says, "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Talk about hitting my narrative button.
Eckhart blows me AWAY. My main concern was that he has a sort of innate smugness to him. If you've seen him in Thank You For Smoking, you know what I'm talking about. But none of that shows up in Harvey. He played it straight and sincere. His strength is his weakness, his virtue is his downfall. Classic tragic hero, and that just kills me completely. I wanted to cry so bad.
I love dramatic irony done well. And I love that the movie made me care, made me dread, made me want to scream despite knowing already the awful fate that befalls Harvey. I never felt like it was a foregone conclusion. Instead, you watch his fall like a terrible car wreck that you can't take your eyes off. I wanted more, but I thought Nolan did REALLY well in juggling Joker and Harvey and making it all connected and organic.
I'm torn about Harvey. I feel like the story ran its course, to take it further might risk ridiculousness and parody. But at the same time, I want more. I feel like the movie was ambiguous enough as to whether he's dead or not, and hey, comics. Nobody is dead, even if you've seen their cold corpse on a coroner's table.
Other things of note:
- Bill Fitchner and his BADASSERY. SHRIEK XDDDDDDD <333333333333333
- Bale's Batman voice is ANNOYING AS FUCK. I couldn't tell half of what he was saying. He did the same thing in Batman Begins and it drove me nuts, but it got even WORSE in TDK. Sigh. I know he's supposed to be feeling his way toward this Batman gig, but urgh. Annoying.
- I may be fangirling Eckhart, but everybody was dead on awesome. Gary Oldman didn't ping my "YOU ARE *SO* THE EVIL TRAITOR" radar, which says a lot considering how treacherous he looks in every role. But, like Harvey, he felt real and genuine.
- Dude, everybody bitches about how Harvey should've threatened Barbara in the end. How about a little Occam's Razor as opposed to jumping on the Everything Is Misogynous train? You KNOW Barbara ain't gonna buy it, but I could TOTALLY believe it could've gone either way with Harvey threatening the boychild. That scene was more about Harvey's madness than it is about THE ALL IMPORTANT SET UP OF BAT-CANON ZOMG. Considering how emphatically NO ROBIN Bale and Nolan are, you really think they're gonna set-up Barbara of all people? When she's FIVE? Bitch please.
- Gordon's speechifying at the end lost me. Sad and sorry to say. It was WAY overdramatic, so the movie ended on a flat note for me. Sigh.
- Fuck, I didn't mention enough of Heath. No, I'm serious. The man is truly fucking AMAZING. The mannerism, the voice, the body language. Everything from the look in his eye to the way he carried himself. Pure, perfect Joker.
- <3 Eric Roberts. How can you not love Eric Roberts.
- I'm whatever about Rachel, so I'm whatever about Maggie. Better than Katie though, yes, but that's not saying much.
- That whole scene in the hospital between Joker and Harvey. Oh my god, SHIVERS. "You know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair." And then later, at the burned warehouse. "The only morality in a cruel world is chance." "It's not about what I want, it's about what's fair." Except it's not, Two-Face skews the odds all the time to get what he wants, just look at the car scene with Maroni. And all of that is just perfect, fucking PERFECT, from Joker to Harvey to Batman to Gotham to that whole fucking universe. Thematically, the movie blows me away on that count, and why Harvey slays me. "You thought we could be decent men in an indecent world. But you were wrong." OMG CRIES. Criiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiies.
Looking at how Jonathan Nolan had a hand in writing the TDK script, I want, more than ever, for him to be the guy to pen a wrestling movie. I know it's a weird line of thought. I know there's The Wrestler coming out, but the screenwriter is an unknown to me. But Jonathan Nolan wrote the story Memento was based on, wrote The Prestige (the screenplay only, I know it was based on a book by someone else) and now The Dark Knight. You look at this body of work and though it is short, if you've seen all three, you see a common theme. Good men driven to darkness, despair and cruel violence via obsession with justice and revenge. The Prestige never fails to remind me of wrestling: "You never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special."
I want to be fooled, even if it's only a second.
Going into it, I was more into Aaron Eckhart/Harvey Dent. Don't get me wrong, Heath is fucking AMAZING. Talk about disappearing into a role until you forget there's an actor underneath. But while I've never been very much of a Two-Face fan, I was hook, line, sinker right at the trailer where Harvey says, "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Talk about hitting my narrative button.
Eckhart blows me AWAY. My main concern was that he has a sort of innate smugness to him. If you've seen him in Thank You For Smoking, you know what I'm talking about. But none of that shows up in Harvey. He played it straight and sincere. His strength is his weakness, his virtue is his downfall. Classic tragic hero, and that just kills me completely. I wanted to cry so bad.
I love dramatic irony done well. And I love that the movie made me care, made me dread, made me want to scream despite knowing already the awful fate that befalls Harvey. I never felt like it was a foregone conclusion. Instead, you watch his fall like a terrible car wreck that you can't take your eyes off. I wanted more, but I thought Nolan did REALLY well in juggling Joker and Harvey and making it all connected and organic.
I'm torn about Harvey. I feel like the story ran its course, to take it further might risk ridiculousness and parody. But at the same time, I want more. I feel like the movie was ambiguous enough as to whether he's dead or not, and hey, comics. Nobody is dead, even if you've seen their cold corpse on a coroner's table.
Other things of note:
- Bill Fitchner and his BADASSERY. SHRIEK XDDDDDDD <333333333333333
- Bale's Batman voice is ANNOYING AS FUCK. I couldn't tell half of what he was saying. He did the same thing in Batman Begins and it drove me nuts, but it got even WORSE in TDK. Sigh. I know he's supposed to be feeling his way toward this Batman gig, but urgh. Annoying.
- I may be fangirling Eckhart, but everybody was dead on awesome. Gary Oldman didn't ping my "YOU ARE *SO* THE EVIL TRAITOR" radar, which says a lot considering how treacherous he looks in every role. But, like Harvey, he felt real and genuine.
- Dude, everybody bitches about how Harvey should've threatened Barbara in the end. How about a little Occam's Razor as opposed to jumping on the Everything Is Misogynous train? You KNOW Barbara ain't gonna buy it, but I could TOTALLY believe it could've gone either way with Harvey threatening the boychild. That scene was more about Harvey's madness than it is about THE ALL IMPORTANT SET UP OF BAT-CANON ZOMG. Considering how emphatically NO ROBIN Bale and Nolan are, you really think they're gonna set-up Barbara of all people? When she's FIVE? Bitch please.
- Gordon's speechifying at the end lost me. Sad and sorry to say. It was WAY overdramatic, so the movie ended on a flat note for me. Sigh.
- Fuck, I didn't mention enough of Heath. No, I'm serious. The man is truly fucking AMAZING. The mannerism, the voice, the body language. Everything from the look in his eye to the way he carried himself. Pure, perfect Joker.
- <3 Eric Roberts. How can you not love Eric Roberts.
- I'm whatever about Rachel, so I'm whatever about Maggie. Better than Katie though, yes, but that's not saying much.
- That whole scene in the hospital between Joker and Harvey. Oh my god, SHIVERS. "You know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair." And then later, at the burned warehouse. "The only morality in a cruel world is chance." "It's not about what I want, it's about what's fair." Except it's not, Two-Face skews the odds all the time to get what he wants, just look at the car scene with Maroni. And all of that is just perfect, fucking PERFECT, from Joker to Harvey to Batman to Gotham to that whole fucking universe. Thematically, the movie blows me away on that count, and why Harvey slays me. "You thought we could be decent men in an indecent world. But you were wrong." OMG CRIES. Criiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiies.
Looking at how Jonathan Nolan had a hand in writing the TDK script, I want, more than ever, for him to be the guy to pen a wrestling movie. I know it's a weird line of thought. I know there's The Wrestler coming out, but the screenwriter is an unknown to me. But Jonathan Nolan wrote the story Memento was based on, wrote The Prestige (the screenplay only, I know it was based on a book by someone else) and now The Dark Knight. You look at this body of work and though it is short, if you've seen all three, you see a common theme. Good men driven to darkness, despair and cruel violence via obsession with justice and revenge. The Prestige never fails to remind me of wrestling: "You never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you... then you got to see something really special."
I want to be fooled, even if it's only a second.