Need more practice
I am definitely out of practice at staying up until 2AM. That's when we got home Friday. My son, surprisingly, stayed awake for all of The Dark Knight, which ended a little after 1AM.
That pretty much left me wrecked energy-wise for the weekend, though. Reading was about as much as I could handle. Got some of the Sky money distributed, but that and gardening was the majority of my time on FFXI this weekend.
The Dark Knight was amazing. I do, however, agree with the article where Michael Caine said he didn't see a sequel. The story is done. This series was about Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, and all that entails, and that story was completed. Batman Begins gave us the origins; The Dark Knight gave us his role in Gotham.
Continuing the series at this point would put the focus on the villains, and it would lose a lot. I would love to see The Riddler or Scarface, maybe Poison Ivy, but I'm not sure what Batman/Bruce Wayne's story would be at that point.
On to The Joker. Heath Ledger did a very good job, but I think the Oscar babble is definitely sympathy. He had a good script, and did a good job with that. Part of my problem was the tongue thing. While it fit the character quite well, it's the kind of thing that annoys me and knocks me out of the scene. Overall, I found him more cynically amusing than anything else.
The scariest moment in any Batman story, not just this series, was in the origins of the animated Batman Beyond series (which also has my favorite music). I think the scene may come from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns novel, but it's been a while. Anyway, the scene where an aging Batman picks up a criminal's gun was scarier to me than any villain's scene ever.
I was more impressed with Aaron Eckhardt and Gary Oldman. A lot. They did amazing things with their characters, and maybe I'm more impressed because both were subtler performances than The Joker, which by the character's nature, is not subtle. Heath Ledger added nuance and a more "grown-up" scariness to The Joker, though, as much as is possible with that character.
Also yay to Maggie Gyllenhall as a replacement for Katie Holmes. Saw Batman Begins all the way through for the first time recently, and Mrs. Cruise made Rachel more of a nag than a conscience to me.
That pretty much left me wrecked energy-wise for the weekend, though. Reading was about as much as I could handle. Got some of the Sky money distributed, but that and gardening was the majority of my time on FFXI this weekend.
The Dark Knight was amazing. I do, however, agree with the article where Michael Caine said he didn't see a sequel. The story is done. This series was about Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, and all that entails, and that story was completed. Batman Begins gave us the origins; The Dark Knight gave us his role in Gotham.
Continuing the series at this point would put the focus on the villains, and it would lose a lot. I would love to see The Riddler or Scarface, maybe Poison Ivy, but I'm not sure what Batman/Bruce Wayne's story would be at that point.
On to The Joker. Heath Ledger did a very good job, but I think the Oscar babble is definitely sympathy. He had a good script, and did a good job with that. Part of my problem was the tongue thing. While it fit the character quite well, it's the kind of thing that annoys me and knocks me out of the scene. Overall, I found him more cynically amusing than anything else.
The scariest moment in any Batman story, not just this series, was in the origins of the animated Batman Beyond series (which also has my favorite music). I think the scene may come from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns novel, but it's been a while. Anyway, the scene where an aging Batman picks up a criminal's gun was scarier to me than any villain's scene ever.
I was more impressed with Aaron Eckhardt and Gary Oldman. A lot. They did amazing things with their characters, and maybe I'm more impressed because both were subtler performances than The Joker, which by the character's nature, is not subtle. Heath Ledger added nuance and a more "grown-up" scariness to The Joker, though, as much as is possible with that character.
Also yay to Maggie Gyllenhall as a replacement for Katie Holmes. Saw Batman Begins all the way through for the first time recently, and Mrs. Cruise made Rachel more of a nag than a conscience to me.