Dark Knight
More cranky critiques on things that everyone else seems to have liked.
The top story on Yahoo (and elsewhere) is indignation that The Dark Knight didn't get more Golden Globe nominations, with a big picture of Heath Ledger, the only nominee from that movie.
Really?
I guess I may have a different viewpoint than most. Having not seen Dark Knight until just recently, I managed to avoid the Heath-steria that was in full swing when the movie came out. After K and I watched it, we turned to each and said: "Seriously? All that hype for this?" I mean, it was okay, and Heath was good, but he didn't deliver a ground-breaking virtuoso performance, in my opinion. I never felt particularly menaced by Ledger's Joker, and I just don't think an annoying accent and lots of lip licking makes for a timeless performance.
Don't get me wrong, I thought he was fine, good, interesting. And I haven't seen so many other movies this year, so I can't say he doesn't even deserve the nomination. But I can say that his performance didn't deserve the amount of fawning praise he got, and continues to get. It's sad he died and all, but that's not really related to his performance. Way too many people are confusing the art and their sadness for the artist here, in my opinion.
But, fine--like I said, he might genuinely deserve the nomination: I haven't seen enough movies to know if this performance was good enough to merit it. But the movie itself, I feel confident in saying, doesn't deserve any nominations, unless there were a "Best Motion Picture, Big, Slow, and Ponderous" category. The writing just wasn't all that good. The anarchy/nihilism thing was soooo superficial, and I was amazed at how little we actually learned about the Joker in such a long, long, long movie.
The whole underlying pompous, preachy current of the movie that the people would save themselves and that Batman would be whatever symbol they needed him to be was pretty embarrassing. That's the sort of stuff that blowhard critics of comics are supposed to say: when comic-book movies themselves actually say them for you, you know they've crossed the dreaded self-importance line. It's like having Kane say on his deathbed, "Where is Rosebud, the symbol of my lost youth and innocence?" I felt bad for the actors when they had to say those lines.
The whole "vigilantes are bad, but we need them in these dark times" theme was weak, too, for similar reasons. It's handled much more convincingly (and much less self-importantly) in 24 every damned week, and that show is hardly a model of Deep Thoughtfulness. At least Jack never has to look into the camera and explain the over-arching themes to the audience. I mean, he certainly says, "I'll do whatever I have to, break whatever laws I have to, and accept whatever consequences come of it," but he doesn't talk about the symbolism of his own actions and their deeper meaning, and the symbol he represents, and the deeper need for blah, blah blah. He just does shit, and we get to decide what it means. I'm not saying that As a result, we have an exciting show with lots of action that makes us talk about whether or not what he does is justified--all in a one-hour show, once a week.
The Dark Knight seems to have gone for the reverse strategy: take two or three years to make an action movie that lasts for 12 hours and is filled with pontification about the meaning of the not particularly gripping action. There's really no need to think or talk about the meaning of the movie, because the main character actually tells you how to interpret his actions. Boo! Did the Nolans think people were too stupid to get their very, very obvious contrast between Dent and Batman? How sad for them--or for us, if it's true.
In the end, I liked The Dark Knight okay, but I wished that I hadn't bought into the hype to the point that I actually bought the blu-ray at one of those stores that sell the discs weeks early. I should have waited and rented it. I would have been less resentful of the extent to which people oversold this bloated blockbuster. And I'd be $35 dollars richer.
The top story on Yahoo (and elsewhere) is indignation that The Dark Knight didn't get more Golden Globe nominations, with a big picture of Heath Ledger, the only nominee from that movie.
Really?
I guess I may have a different viewpoint than most. Having not seen Dark Knight until just recently, I managed to avoid the Heath-steria that was in full swing when the movie came out. After K and I watched it, we turned to each and said: "Seriously? All that hype for this?" I mean, it was okay, and Heath was good, but he didn't deliver a ground-breaking virtuoso performance, in my opinion. I never felt particularly menaced by Ledger's Joker, and I just don't think an annoying accent and lots of lip licking makes for a timeless performance.
Don't get me wrong, I thought he was fine, good, interesting. And I haven't seen so many other movies this year, so I can't say he doesn't even deserve the nomination. But I can say that his performance didn't deserve the amount of fawning praise he got, and continues to get. It's sad he died and all, but that's not really related to his performance. Way too many people are confusing the art and their sadness for the artist here, in my opinion.
But, fine--like I said, he might genuinely deserve the nomination: I haven't seen enough movies to know if this performance was good enough to merit it. But the movie itself, I feel confident in saying, doesn't deserve any nominations, unless there were a "Best Motion Picture, Big, Slow, and Ponderous" category. The writing just wasn't all that good. The anarchy/nihilism thing was soooo superficial, and I was amazed at how little we actually learned about the Joker in such a long, long, long movie.
The whole underlying pompous, preachy current of the movie that the people would save themselves and that Batman would be whatever symbol they needed him to be was pretty embarrassing. That's the sort of stuff that blowhard critics of comics are supposed to say: when comic-book movies themselves actually say them for you, you know they've crossed the dreaded self-importance line. It's like having Kane say on his deathbed, "Where is Rosebud, the symbol of my lost youth and innocence?" I felt bad for the actors when they had to say those lines.
The whole "vigilantes are bad, but we need them in these dark times" theme was weak, too, for similar reasons. It's handled much more convincingly (and much less self-importantly) in 24 every damned week, and that show is hardly a model of Deep Thoughtfulness. At least Jack never has to look into the camera and explain the over-arching themes to the audience. I mean, he certainly says, "I'll do whatever I have to, break whatever laws I have to, and accept whatever consequences come of it," but he doesn't talk about the symbolism of his own actions and their deeper meaning, and the symbol he represents, and the deeper need for blah, blah blah. He just does shit, and we get to decide what it means. I'm not saying that As a result, we have an exciting show with lots of action that makes us talk about whether or not what he does is justified--all in a one-hour show, once a week.
The Dark Knight seems to have gone for the reverse strategy: take two or three years to make an action movie that lasts for 12 hours and is filled with pontification about the meaning of the not particularly gripping action. There's really no need to think or talk about the meaning of the movie, because the main character actually tells you how to interpret his actions. Boo! Did the Nolans think people were too stupid to get their very, very obvious contrast between Dent and Batman? How sad for them--or for us, if it's true.
In the end, I liked The Dark Knight okay, but I wished that I hadn't bought into the hype to the point that I actually bought the blu-ray at one of those stores that sell the discs weeks early. I should have waited and rented it. I would have been less resentful of the extent to which people oversold this bloated blockbuster. And I'd be $35 dollars richer.