"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Vern Predicts: Bane vs. Bain Capital

Don’t worry, no Batman spoilers here. In today’s episode of VERN PREDICTS I will brag about the time I sort of foresaw a stupid little thing that happened. Also let’s lay down a few rules about discussion in case a new Batman movie comes out this week.

Two months ago on the “twitter” microweblogging service I prophesied a confusion that could happen between a character in a highly anticipated summer movie and a controversy in the 2012 U.S. presidential election:


“Bane” is of course the Batman villain so dear to Americans’ hearts because of his portrayal by the late bodybuilder Jeep Swenson in a previous Batman picture, now played by Tom Hardy in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. “Bain Capital” is the alternative asset management and financial services company co-founded in 1984 by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He headed it until 2002, finally retiring 3 years earlier in 1999 (long story). During his reign they acquired Artisan Entertainment, but he personally opted out of the deal so as not to profit from R-rated movies. And the sonofabitch would’ve had my vote, too, ’cause he would’ve been responsible for GHOST DOG.

So here’s a story on Huffington Post today: Rush Limbaugh Suggests ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Villain ‘Bane’ A Deliberate Romney Reference

Not bad, right? In the interest of accuracy I gotta admit that in the quotes used in the article Limbaugh waffles back and forth, obviously realizing how ignorant it would be to claim the long-in-the-works (not to mentioned based-on-previously-existing-character) movie had anything to do with this issue. But then he claims that “there’s now a discussion out there as to whether or not this is purposeful and whether or not it will influence voters.”

In my opinion that alleged “discussion out there” was for sure happening on Fox News, that’s how he knew about it, and that’s why my twittering was 110% accurate as a motherfucker. ‘Cause VERN PREDICTS. That’s just what I do, you know?

As for the movie, I know you guys are gonna be commenting on it before I get my review up, so you can go ahead and do that on this post or the forum. But out of respect for me:

1. PLEASE avoid all spoilers (even possible spoilers you heard about) in the comments until the review is posted

2. Don’t start a Batman discussion on some unrelated review just ’cause it’s at the top. If you do this I hope Bane breaks into your house and punches all your comic book collections

3. Even when the review is up don’t type spoilerish shit at the beginning of a comment and ruin things for some poor sonofabitch that’s gonna see it in the recent comments sidebar

Okay, be safe and have fun everybody! What do you all think? Just my 2 cents. PEACE

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2012 at 1:36 am and is filed under Blog Post (short for weblog). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

269 Responses to “Vern Predicts: Bane vs. Bain Capital”

  1. I don’t care about any of this BATMAN noise. I’m too excited for the new Christopher Nolan movie also coming out this week.

    Been avoiding learning anything about it, going to the theatre blank-slated as a motherfucker, just like when I saw INCEPTION.

    Congratulations to Vern’s predictive lobe, though, with actual twitter screen grabs to back up the spookily prescient realization that homophones have the power to anger up conservative America’s blood.

    Remember, Obama is a muslim secret Kenyan Indonesian socialist who secretly plans to steal your guns so he can arm homosexual abortion doctors, all with American taxpayer dollars & a shadow army of bureaucrats. He’s made all of this abundantly clear by suggesting that 4 or 5 years into his administration might be a good time to raise the top income tax rate from a historically nearly unprecedentedly low 35% to a devastating baby-killing capitalism-destroying 39%. Obviously that’s going to be communism and the end of America.

    Real Americans keep their dollars in Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Switzerland, Joseph Smith’s sepulchre, and their secondary mansion’s gold bar cellar between the panic room and the underground automated elevator car garage.

  2. lawdy, I can’t believe The Dark Knight Rises is almost here

    OH I’M SO EXCIIIIIIIIIITED!!!!

  3. Really? Wow. Reminds me when people claimed when The Two Towers was released that it was trying to cash in on 9/11. Rather than it was the name of a book written 50 years prior.

  4. You’d think the Fox news type people would love Batman, him being a billionaire struggling against terrorism and all.

  5. Yes, please, no spoilers for the upcoming THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, please, as the movie will only open here in my country two weeks from now. Spoiling is the devil’s work.
    By the way, Vader is Luke’s father.

  6. Mode7, but Bruce Wayne/Batman is a billionaire that genuinely wants to help the world and help the poor and unfortunates and powerless, all those who do not belong to his social class. Also, Batman’s idea of reaching to the lower classes is not by shoving Jesus down’s people’s throats. So no, i doubt Fox News would had much sympathy for him. Batman is not republican enough.

  7. Bender, dont make me remind that crap abut THE TWO TOWERS back in 2002. There’s limits to stupidity, i say, and there i also limits to people using a traumatic event to shove their own political agendas on others. Hypocrisy like that irritates me to no end.

  8. I already have tickets for this weekend…. and next weekend….. let me explain. I’ve been addicted to the IMAX format ever since I saw Mission 4mpossible and those scenes where Katie Holmes’ ex husband was climbing on the building were AMAAAAAAZING!!! But the problem is, the IMAX tickets for this weekend were sold out month ago. Let me repeat that. The tickets for THIS WEEKEND were sold out A MONTH AGO. Crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this. So, I had to settle for tickets at the Arclight, which will still be amazing.

    But I was still determined to see this flick in IMAX, so I went ahead today and bought tickets for next Saturday (they just went on sale today for the Universal Citywalk theater). I think this is the first time I’ve ever purchased tickets for two separate shows of a film before I’ve seen it. Crazy.

  9. Knox Harrington

    July 18th, 2012 at 5:39 am

    Goddamnit, Cape Town had an Imax theatre years ago, but they only screened 30 minute fish documentaries on it, so after a while people stopped going and they closed the damn thing down.

    Now, when the world has finally realised that showing actual movies on an Imax screen is a good idea, we don’t have a fucking Imax anymore.

    This is all the evil Team Abrams’ fault, somehow.

  10. Let’s all start listing our expectations for this new Batman movie. First of all, I expect that this one will have the most jaw-dropping action sequences of any Chris Nolan movie up to this point. I say this because he seems to be getting steadily better at doing this sort of thing, and also he got an extra $100 million for this one, so I expect we’ll see all that up on the screen.

    Next, I expect that the script is at least partly based on The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. It involves Batman coming out of retirement after 8 years to deal with unruly mobs and gangs. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to have a scene where he dukes it out with Superman, but still it seems like we’re going to get a lot of plot points borrowed from that book. Maybe including…. the ending?

    Speaking of the ending, this movie is supposed to “end” the story from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. That could mean a lot of things, including huge twists like Batman dying or going to jail for stock fraud (just kidding, nobody goes to jail for that anymore). I’d like to speculate about basing the ending on certain plotlines from the comics, but I’m not sure if that would count as spoilers. Vern, can I get a ruling on this?

  11. Aw shit, is THE DARK KNIGHT LIGHTS UP OR RISES: OR WHATEVER, SAME THING already coming out? You know, you think you have time to prepare for these things, to stock up on canned goods and non-Batman-related filmatistical type discussions for the lean weeks ahead, but then it’s upon you and it’s too late. I’ll just have to duck and cover and hope for the best.

    Please believe that I’m not being snarky when I say that I hope you guys like it as much as you want to. Because if the goddamn PROMETHEUS discussion is any indication, I don’t want to be within 50 yards of any of you motherfuckers if the seemingly inevitably Second Superhero Sequel Backlash kicks in. So far it has struck Superman, Blade, the X-Men, and Spider-Man, and they all have superpowers. Poor Bats doesn’t stand a chance.

    P.S. THE DARK KNIGHT LIGHTS UP is a terrible title for a movie, but THE DARK KNIGHT LIGHTENS UP is just good advice.

  12. Also, concerning the actual topic of this post: Is it possible for someone who follows the news more closely than myself to pinpoint the actual moment when politics became more childish than comic books, or has the transition been so gradual that there was no specific turning point?

  13. Jareth Cutestory

    July 18th, 2012 at 6:48 am

    Majestyk: I opted to keep my negative opinion of AVENGERS to myself and feel much better about not ruining the discussion. That window of time prior to the film’s autopsy is so short that the fans should enjoy it while it lasts.

    Also, I can’t be certain, but I think the answer to question about childish politicians has something to do a saxophone.

    By the way, what’s Bat-man? Some sort of vampire?

  14. Nabroleon Dynamite

    July 18th, 2012 at 6:52 am

    The Prophet has spoken.

    All praise due to Allah for the most honorable Elijah Muha… Uh… VERN!!

  15. Jareth: As I don’t expect to like the movie very much, I will not be seeing it, so I won’t be raining on any parades. I’m not some kind of self-styled martyr who goes to see movies he knows he’ll hate just to be able to talk shit about them.

  16. Yeah I won’t be seeing TDKR anytime soon. Just not really all that interested but when I do see it I’d like to see it without obnoxious opening weekend audiences spoiling the punch. A friend of mine saw it and when they described the ending to me cause I don’t care enough to be mad about spoilers and I kinda smiled.

    It’s pissing a lot of people off because they can’t seem to fucking understand that this isn’t comic book Batman. I like these movies OK but this is one of my least favorite versions of Batman but it’s an ending brings things full circle with the other movies so it seems appropriate and also guarantees that this version is pretty much wrapped up for good. So I can get ready for Batman movies that are more my style in the future hopefully.

  17. I’m planning on seeing DARK KNIGHT RISES, but I’m oddly not feeling particularly excited about it, considering I was a big fan of DARK KNIGHT and consider it one of the best mainstream-blockbusters of the past decade. I’ll get around to seeing it, but I’m just not mustering any enthusiasm right now. I even passed up the opportunity to go see a midnight showing of it with Mr. Subtlety on Thursday, and that guy somehow got me to go see MiB3 when I had zero interest in it.

    The movie looks good and all, so I’m wondering if it’s just fatigue from all the fan bullshit and hyperbole. I love THE DARK KNIGHT, but it is not a “masterpiece” and Nolan is not a Kubrick-level cinematic genius. He’s a gifted filmmaker who makes some of our more unique and clever mainstream films, but he’s also got plenty of limitations, not the least of which is that after a handful of action films, he still doesn’t know how to film a shoot out. I think he’s done some pretty cool and daring things with narrative (and maybe editing), but he’s not exactly taking cinematic language to new places.

    It’s not his fault that his internet fanbase can be insufferable, but damn can they suck the fun out of this silly Batman shit for me. I think I just need a few weeks to let the fervor die down, and try to go see the movie with a clear mind.

  18. Mr Majestyk, the thing politicians all over the world fear more than anything is CHANGE. Over the last 4-5 years they’ve seen a smart, black man elected in the USA, they’ve seen more and more people demanding an end to the capitalism that’s brought the rest of us nothing but unemployment and poverty and they’ve seen that their own greed has caused an economic crisis that affects the whole globe. And that’s why they, and their minions, desperately point their fingers to gays, unmarried mothers, TV, socialists, immigrants and Hollywood and yell ENEMY.

    On another note, I’m with the two last speakers; I LIKE Nolan’s version of The Bat, but neither of them are on my top 20 list.

  19. Shoot,

    Yeah, I really don’t understand those kind of fans. I mean, I assume a lot of it can be chalked up to them being idiot teenagers, but still. Why do they even read the reviews? If all they are looking for is an echo-chamber in which they can have their ego stroked by having their tastes validated, why not just stick to talking about the movie with your friends and fellow batnerds? What’s the point of even going to a forum where you might find dissenting opinions?

  20. You see man that’s the type of shit that makes me even embarrassed to call myself a Batman fan. Seriously. I read Michael Phillips’ 2.5 star review yesterday. First comment is some young prick going “Wrong. It was phenomenal. You’re a bad critic” to a guy who’s been a well regarded critic for ages.

    One thing I’d give Marvel fans is that I don’t think they could be that classless. Batman is my favorite fictional character ever. Has been since the late 80’s. You come to my crib and look through my long boxes and you’d find the bulk of my comics to be Batman or Batman related. I have hundreds of single issues dating as far back as 1987 and it would be even higher if I hadn’t sold many (like the KNIGHTFALL saga or NO MAN’S LAND) on ebay throughout the years.

    Yet I don’t catch titty attacks because people now hate the Burton movies (which I dig). Or look at the Adam West series which I love as something to be embarrassed about liking. Everybody has a right to their 2 cents. Theirs doesn’t stop me from having mine.

    It’s like they live for their opinion to be validated by the world. God forbid a fucking Batman movie of all things doesn’t have a 90% on RT. I can’t even begin to name the amount of movies with “ROTTEN” scores that are amongst some of my favorite movies ever. These cocksuckers need help.

    Nolanites are the worst thing to happen to the Batman fanbase. Just as bad as the shitty Burtonites they’re always fighting with. I can’t wait to this is all over so I can no longer have any kind of association with these creeps since their Batman will no longer be around. That is of course until I see them pop up everywhere and talk shit about the next iteration but by then hopefully I won’t be as actively around comic book movie fanboys online as I am today.

  21. ^ response to Devin’s article that Shoot posted.

  22. Yeah I came to post what ShootMcKay posted.

    Vern, your problem isn’t fanboys coming in with “Snape kills Dumbledore” comments or threadjacking.

    Your problem is if you don’t like Batman, fanboy jihad will kill you.

    When did the kind of drek we’ve seen in comments on aintitcoolnews morph into a murderous mob?

    Seriously?! Death threats over a movie review?!

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FILM_DARK_KNIGHT_ROTTEN_TOMATOES

  23. PS: props on the Bane-Bain prophecy.

  24. Dan P. – “Nolan is not a Kubrick-level cinematic genius”

    Big Stan was my favorite filmmaker ever. To see Nolan compared to Kubrick so freely on sites like superherohype by all these kids who have barely seen any movies let alone all of the Kubrick’s kinda makes my stomach turn a bit. I get it. I know that compared to his contemporaries like Abrams and even some vets like Ratner and Bay the guy seems like the second coming but really he’s not as good as they make him out to be either. He just looks better than he is because his peers are so fucking mediocre.

    Give Neil Blomkamp or Duncan Jones the budget of a Nolan blockbuster and I’m sure they’d be able to blow some fucking minds too. This is coming from someone who really loved MEMENTO and THE PRESTIGE too so it’s not like I’m a “hater”.

  25. Broddie,

    Yeah, I mean, not that I’m some sort of hyper-literate cineaste, but movies are my favorite art form and I do take it seriously. So I can’t help but roll my eyes a bit when people who seemingly only watch mainstream Hollywood movies released in their life time start comparing Nolan to someone like Kubrick. Nolan has made some wonderful mainstream films, some of the best of the 2000’s, but let’s not pretend that that’s automatically the same thing as making some of the best OVERALL films of the 2000’s . Dude’s got talent, but I don’t think I’d even place him in the top 25 best or most interesting directors of the past decade.

  26. Dan – Exactly man. These cats don’t even bother to look into anything pre-Nolan and then try to act like they’re a resurrected Pauline Kael with a sex change when you point out the flaws in Nolan’s cold style with their rebuttals. Shit is laughable to me cause it’s so obvious that their knowledge of cinema is so limited. I just end up ignoring them. I can’t really respect people who try to claim that Nolan is the next Welles or whatever just because Welles is a name synonymous with a great filmatist and not because they could make real valid arguments as to why they feel that way. Fucking posers lmao.

    It really isn’t all that hard to do a little research and educate yourself either provided you have the time for it. I remember when I was young like 12 and still in my “Sam Raimi is the king” stage I decided to look into people like Robert Wise because they were so influential on him and realized how while Sam was a great torch carrier a lot of his influences had even stronger filmastic qualities.

    How can you call yourself a film fan and not do your homework on the history of this shit but try to act all high and mighty and put down the knowledge of others because they critiqued your favorite director? how can you even dare to compare your favorite filmmaker to certified legends when you can’t name any movie by the legends outside of their most popular joints which BTW you haven’t even seen? if I was a brit I’d call most Nolanites wankers but I’ll go the extra mile and just say that they’re straight up cunts.

  27. I am not looking forward to the countless “funny” videos people will make after the movie’s release making fun of Bale and Hardy’s voices in the films. The Dark Knight Rises is going to be a hack internet sketch troupes dream come true.
    As for whether Nolan is overrated or not…I don’t really care. I like Nolan’s work for the most part. I don’t particularly put him on a pedestal, and I know he could do with some improvement for how he depicts choreographed fight scenes. I see no reason to be invested in whether or not other people will like THIS Batman movie all that much, because he’s stated it’s his last one, so the success will have no bearing on whether he’ll make another one or not, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to pick up where he left off. The series will be rebooted at some point regardless. Having enjoyed THE PRESTIGE, INCEPTION and MEMENTO I look forward to seeing what he works on next. I also like that he’s apparently a fan of Michael Bay’s work. I’m not, but I like that Nolan is. It makes him seem more like an ordinary guy, and not the “Serious Filmaker” who never seems to be photographed wearing anything but a suit and tie.

  28. Christopher Nolan is not the new Stanley Kubick. Christopher Nolan is the new Christopher Nolan. He’s too busy being his own man to be somebody else.

    Christopher Nolan is a brillant filmmaker. His Batman movie are much better then it would had any right to be. His Batman movie have elevated the comic book movie genre, regardless of what the neysayers might say. His ifluencis everywhere, for good or bad ( say for bad because there are many who are taking the wrong lesson from his movies, as usual).

    Nolan ha detractors like every filmmaker has, but so may of them seem so unreasonable and irrational in their criticism and dislike. This is strangedays we are living when the worst hacks have very devoted and appologetic fanbases while truly talented filmmakers who are also making brillant comic book movies like nolan get accused and criticised for the damnest things! Strange times!

    When a filmmaker like Nolan gets accused of being pretentious because of his Batman and Inception movies, then one has to realise how low the bar is set this days. Guys like Nolan should be more the norm then the exception. Alas!

    Broddie, when Duncan Jones and Neill Bloomkamp get budgets like Nolan’ Batman and Inception movies, they will make movies like Nolan’s. Because that’s the type of movies that brillant filmmakers do. And Nolan, Jones and Bloomkamp are brillant filmmakers.

  29. Nolan should be looked at the minimum of standard set. Just because he happens to be the rare breed of filmmakers who actually knows what he´s doing, people put him on a pedestal. Thats fucked up. I don´t want to hype a person ( people did that with Jesus), but he makes quality movies even when working on a big budget scale. He got his shit together alright. Although I prefer MEMENTO to any of his Bat-flicks. Its much more original and clever in my opinion.

  30. Asmiov,

    Just because Nolan is a better filmmaker than Michael Bay doesn’t mean he’s immune from criticism. I love INCEPTION, DARK KNIGHT and PRESTIGE, but that doesn’t mean I feel like people shouldn’t look at them critically and analytically. One of the problems with internet criticism and discourse is that people feel like, as soon as you love something, that means you should stop analytic thinking, immediately reject all dissenting opinions, and just start ejaculating all over the thing you love.

  31. asimovlives — I don’t think Nolan is accused of being pretentious because he makes *good* movies, I think he’s open to that sort of criticism because he makes ponderous, humorless, self-consciously grown-up movies about silly topics. I happen to like DARK KNIGHT quite a bit (BEGINS, not so much), but I think it has some obvious flaws which don’t cripple it but are worth discussing.

  32. And with the development of this thread I think we’ve proved to Vern what’s in store…

  33. Quoting Asimov

    ‘Nolan ha detractors like every filmmaker has, but so may of them seem so unreasonable and irrational in their criticism and dislike.’

    Hmm, this reminds me of something…

    Nope, it’s gone.

  34. Yeah, I like Nolan. His hyperliteral style just doesn’t work for me when it comes to Batman. He expects me to take a guy in a silly rubber costume waaaaaaay more seriously than I feel comfortable doing, and with no release valve of intentional comedy, I just feel a disconnect that makes me unable to accept the reality of the movies. But it works for most people (For now, anyway. I expect more people will soon engage in the same kind of retroactive backlash that greeted Raimi after SM3, in which the same people who proclaimed him a savior now claimed to have never liked the movies in the first place.) so I’m not gonna say it sucks. There’s some good filmmaking and some really admirable ambition on display. It just doesn’t ring true to me.

  35. pegsman – The PROMETHEUS thread was nothing, I ´m afraid of saying.

  36. Mr. M,

    One of the weird things, to me, about DARK KNIGHT is that despite the film’s literalism and supposed “realism,” so many of its themes and ideas have next to nothing to do with the real world. There’s all this talk about whether or not Batman and the Joker are two sides of the same coin, and if a hero like Batman creates the need for a villain like the joker, and what it means to be a superhero/symbol to a community and blah blah blah. I love all that crap and think some of it is kind of brilliant, but it is all kinda divorced from reality.

    Obviously, there are some more relevant themes having to do with the nature of terrorism and what means are justified in fighting it, but that stuff seems to take a back seat to all the “hero we deserve” speechifying.

  37. It’s gonna break the internet. All of our screens will fizzle and smoke and then go dark, and we will all shake our heads, as if awakening from a long, vivid but quickly forgotten dream. We will stumble outside, all of us, alone but together, and blink up at the bright and terrible beauty of the long-neglected sky-god our ancestors once knew as the sun.

  38. You are quite the poet,Majestyk. Hopefully it wont come to any of that. Just a bunch of pathetic whining that takes up space and memory in the black bleakest parts of cyberspace.

  39. Knox Harrington

    July 18th, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    Sure, I’m excited about seeing the new Batman, but it’s a “this should be fun” kinda blockbuster excitement. That’s not the same thing as the “Jesus is coming!” kinda excitement I get when there’s a new Malick or P.T. Anderson film on the way.

    I’m way more amped about The Master than any movies with batmobiles or Chuck Norris in them.

    That said, that new Dredd movie looks like my idea of a good time.

  40. I don’t know why, but I’m kind of excited for that Joseph Gordon Levitt bike messenger movie. It looks like one of those “attractive young person accidentally gets caught up in criminal shit and must go on the run” movies from the eighties, like OUT OF BOUNDS with Anthony Michael Hall or RUN with Patrick Dempsey. I’ve always been a sucker for those movies because I like to imagine what I would do in that predicament, especially since all that danger comes with the sugar-coating of a hot female companion like Jenny Wright or Kelly Preston.

    As for PREMIUM RUSH or whatever it’s called, JGL vs. Michael Shannon should be a good matchup, and it looks like there’s a bunch of practical bike stunts happening on the streets of my beloved NYC. Seems like my kind of deal.

    In conclusion, screw you, Batman! You derail every other thread, and now I will derail yours! Hahahahahahahahahahaha…*cough*…hahahahahahahaha!

  41. Asimov – My point is there are plenty out there that are just as good as Mr. Nolan. Unfortunately a lot of people wouldn’t know that yet. I know that you know that but you’re a member of this community and the average movie knowledge of any poster on here is above far well above the average movie knowledge.

    The people that depend on ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY to tell them what movies to watch and the ones that depend on the internet to tell them what movies to hype don’t. These are the people that act like Nolan is some kind of god in a bizarre way. Some of them take fandom a bit too far. Threatening critics and lambasting their reviews is too much.

    Knox – “I’m way more amped about The Master than any movies with batmobiles or Chuck Norris in them.”

    Same here. I’m looking forward to PTA’s movie a lot more than anything with hobbits and great gatsbys too.

  42. Just re-watched BEGINS and DARK KNIGHT very recently, and I still like them

    (elements of greatness, superb editing & sound design, great colors & scope, characters with comic book-y charm but also seriously disturbing personalities & proclivities for sociopathic violence, China “extradition” featuring motherfucking Sky-Hook that makes me jealous, genuine shocks & scares from the blue flower hallucinations and from the late Heath Ledger, slayer of close personal friend Michael Jai White…
    mixed in with deadly boring, unconvincing stretches in the script, subpar hand-to-hand fights, groan-worthy vocals, a somewhat disappointing & baffling weapon-based climax in BEGINS, and a necessity in the viewer to give him/herself over to Bruce Wayne’s ridiculous wealth & gadgets & ninja-ness that isn’t easy to swallow when compared to the “realism” of so much else in the movies)

    though not enough to revisit those films for a long while, but I still have to disagree with the notion that TDK isn’t a helluva lotta fun to watch. Sure, it has to be *you* the viewer who makes that choice, to ignore the stabs at realistic filmatism in the script, the somber, sparsely scored wide shots, the whispered speechifying among the Arkham patients on the boat, and the annoyingly wordy awkward exposition about the themes of fear/justice/chaos/etc. There’s a lot of groovy shit in TDK.

    If you had seen these shots:
    http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h31/JeremyHope/n565133527_504044_9357.jpg
    http://www.filmcad.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/DarkKnight39Hospital1.jpg

    and the other Joker stuff in some random 1980s C-movie, you would think it was one of the most entertaining, disturbingly fun movies ever made.

    Of course, I don’t have a pre-installed lifelong affinity for the Batman funny papers, so I’m sure that has something to do with how someone can dislike the Nolan joints.

  43. BEGINS is alright but THE DARK KNIGHT was much better.

  44. Sexy Nurse Joker is easily the best part of the movie. I will always treasure his wobbly little scarecrow walk.

  45. Dan — I noticed that too. Which makes the whole “this is the real world! There’s no room for fanciful villains like the Penguin/Croc/Manbat!” thing seem even more forced and self-consciously “adult.” I actually like the “reality” of DARK KNIGHT, but not because it makes it seem more serious or deep. I just like that it makes it feel like a real, working, lived-in city. It enhances the movie’s internal reality, and that helps the whole thing feel more intense and dramatic. Nolan, though, seems to think making Batman more consistent with the real world makes it more realistic and weighty, and I completely disagree with that.

  46. I thought about the watching the two prior movies, but then I decided it would be best to go in TDKR fresh

    but one day when when Rises comes out on blu ray I’ll sit down and watch the whole trilogy back to back

  47. and I LOVE Christopher Nolan, I think he’s one of the best filmmakers working today, his movies are among the few that still give me that “butterflies in the stomach feeling” of excitement

    but as good as Kubrick? no

  48. Mr. Majestyk – It was things like that and stumbling while getting up with an automatic gun and accidentally firing it that made him just as funny as Nicholson’s Joker in his own damn way. I hate when people try to act like Nolan’s Joker was ultra realistic and serious. He was fun and over the top.

    He was a damn superman and the cops the dumbest motherfuckers in Gotham City. A fucking cartoon with all his ACME company device using contingency plans. It’s what made it awesome no matter how revamped it was still Joker through and through. It added some much needed silly to Nolan’s formula.

  49. “I hate when people try to act like Nolan’s Joker was ultra realistic and serious. He was fun and over the top.”
    Yeap. I think there’s a lot of misconception, or mislabelling of Nolan’s work on Batman. Like, I don’t think Nolan did the “realistic” take on things because he hates the fantastic, but just because for the stories he’s telling, doing it that way makes more sense, and even then there’s, as noted, unrealistic stuff. The first movie for instance has that Microwave Emitter superweapon, and ninjas after all. I just think he figures putting in more supernatural/sci fi elements with characters like Poison Ivy, the Lazarus Pit etc. just don’t really work for what he’s doing. The Prestige and Inception are hardly grounded in reality either. Also, humourless? I love the banter between Bruce and Alfred, and there’s some fun little moments thoughout the movies. I like that bit with the coat and the homeless man in the first film, the Joker’s actually funny, Gordon has his moments, and Bale hams it up a little playing asshole playboy Bruce. Also despite the liberties he takes, Nolan does stay true to the spirit of these characters, even the villains. Ra’s isn’t supernatural, but he is a cult leader doing terrible things in the name of a greater good. Joker is a force of chaos and life being unfair. Which is why when there were all these Riddler rumours, it pissed me off when people were like “Oh, to be more realistic, he should be like the Zodiac killer”. Fuck off, that’s not the Riddler. The Riddler’s an egomaniac desperate to prove he’s the smartest guy in the world, and sees Batman as the ultimate opponent to prove that with. He’s theatrical and an attention whore. He’s not “dark” like that, even if he is capable of ruthlessness.

  50. I’m enjoying the hip backlash at Nolan I’m reading from the locals. TDKR can’t hope to be SUCKER PUNCH. lol

    Seriously guys, I’m enjoying how entitled we are that it’s no big deal anymore. Die a hero or live long enough to become overrated.

    Griff – outside of AICN, who compared Nolan to Kubrick?

  51. Also, I hope to god none of the locals will ape that popular meme in certain liberal circles that TDKR is Fox News propaganda, Batman fighting for the 1%, all that.

    You guys have more self-respect than that, right?

  52. “Griff – outside of AICN, who compared Nolan to Kubrick?”
    Better question: Who gives a fuck?

  53. Speaking of Snyder, RRA…MAN OF STEEL’s trailer is getting attached to RISES. Looking forward to that.

  54. The Riddler was already in TDK. Unless you think it’s just a coincidence that the guy who solves the riddle of who Batman is was referred to as “Mister Reese.”

  55. Broddie, Marvel fans made vicious sexist threatening remarks a out negative AVENGERS reviews too :(

    Bender, I was thinking exactly that about the TWO TOWERS thing.

  56. Oh,brother ,this fucking thread isnt going to end until Vern reviews the fucking thing,is it?

  57. Stu – I’ve been an asshole about Snyder, especially about Superman, but you know what? I don’t want my cynicism rewarded. I hope he delivers a good movie. I doubt the locals will like it as much as SUCKER PUNCH, however but hey you can’t please everybody.

    But really this Nolan backlash is odd. Did he make a bad movie or something recently? Did he pull a Polanski and flee frmo a crime? Weird.

    And for the record, Devin Farraci reminds me of those fanboys who doesn’t want a deli, he just wants sausage. That metaphor to his TDKR review saying how Batman should be more like those Marvel movies.

    Why?

    I like this variety. I like what Marvel has done in more or less becoming the Eon of superhero movies, producing yearly a light hearted formulaic larger than life action/adventure blockbuter or two with big FX, humor, and shit. As pretentious as this sounds, they’re in some regards what the James Bond movies were in the 60s/70s.

    Nolan is more about striving for art even in the name of popcorn, and maybe as a result it’s a more clunky journey but he’s more successful than not in that striving for excellence, no? I think this obsession over his own realism obsession is at worst quite silly, at best an interesting quirk. It’s like still getting mad that Tim Burton likes German Expressionism a whole lot or something.

    In fact I wish we got more variety with this supposed genre. How about a movie about supervillains? (FIRST CLASS should’ve just been about Magneto’s story) I mean SUICIDE SQUAD or THUNDERBOLTS could work. I mean we have all these rules of what you’re supposed to do, but they’re imaginary limits.

    I mean I didn’t like WATCHMEN the movie, but at least Snyder was trying to push the envelope in that film genre. (Oh boy, Asimov might roast my nuts over that line.)

  58. As one of the founders of the backlash, I’m disappointed to see how mainstream it has become. Because I am a trailblazer by nature, I’m going to start the backlash against the backlash by going back in a year and watching all three of the movies with fresh eyes, divorcing myself from such baggage as what a decent action scene should look like and what kind of stupid voice Batman should not use. With the trilogy complete, all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, the full thesis statement explored and supported with evidence from the text, I’ll just try and see them for what they are, whatever that is. Maybe then the healing can begin.

  59. I wish The Riddler was in Rises, that’s my only disappointment, I would have loved to see Nolan’s version of The Riddler

  60. Mr. M – You also originated the Pixar backlash too, right?

    You know wins from this backlash? Michael Bay.

    (I don’t know how but I always feel he’s lurking in the background, in trenchcoast, cackling over this nerd backlash against supposed “quality people.” Then when he walks away, a car explodes.)

    How long before you orchestrate THE RAID backlash?

  61. SUICIDE SQUAD was meant to be in development a few years ago, but things went quiet on that front. Who should be in that if they make it?
    Amanda Waller- CCH Pounder
    Deadshot- Jeffrey Dean Morgan
    Bronze Tiger- Michael Jai White
    Captain Boomerang- Ummm…Guy Pearce? I dunno, is Captain Boomerang offensive to austrailians?

    I’ve read a description of the trailer for MAN OF STEEL, and it sounds like it’ll be cool, and unlike Bryan Singer’s version…actually contain some action not revolving around Superman lifting things. We need to see a Superman who’s not only a nice guy, but can also be a total fucking force of nature when he needs to be.

  62. Notice how Mr. M also started the Brad Bird backlash as well. Give him props!

  63. Majestyk- If it’s any consolation, the backlash doesn’t really seem to derive from Nolan himself, just the status he’s been given by fans. It’s kind of like how I’ve not seen a full episode of BREAKING BAD, and I’m sure it’s a good show and all, but I do wish people would SHUT. THE FUCK. UP. About it.

  64. I have never signed on to a backlash on Nolan. Period.

  65. I may have started the Pixar backlash, but I also went out of my way, Vern vs. BAD BOYS II-style, to explore and understand the appeal of these animated cartoon motion pictures for young children to watch before naptime. There are no Pixar joints I’ve disliked straight-out (maybe TOY STORY 1) and one and a half (TOY STORY 3 and the second half of TOY STORY 2) that I kind of loved.

    As for Brad Bird, I thought THE INCREDIBLES was okay for what it is and hated MI4

  66. stu – I’m all for that too. Shit for this new series, you know what two villians need to finally happen? Darkseid and Brainiac. I mean Brainiac not in any of these Superman movies yet is just inexcusable. But Darkseid especially, since he is the antithesis of Superman.

    that’s one thing I liked about the JUSTICE LEAGUE cartoon, the series finale when Superman and Darkseid did knuckle down, and Superman unbounded does kick some ass.

    (Of course those Dini/Timm and gang knew how to handle Supes. Shit they knew how to handle Batman too during the Schumacher era.)

  67. Mr. M – like I said ,we can trace the Bird backlash to you within a few years and you’ll be a proud papa.

    Shoot – me neither.

    Stu – I think you might be right, is this backlash just againts his status than the movies themselves? I mean I hate when that shit happens.

    So when will Majestyk start a backlash against CITIZEN KANE?

  68. And for the record, before you start the backlash Majestyk, I liked CITIZEN KANE. Don’t hold it’s AFI #1 badge against it.

  69. (sorry)

    so if that constitutes “starting a backlash” then so be it. I’m more guilty of starting an Andrew Stanton backlash, but just because it bugs the shit out of me that Pixar fanboys want to clear him of all guilt for JOHN CARTER, when he and no one else was the guy who dictated every creative decision on the fucking thing and was so fiscally irresponsible in doing so that there was no way that the bland end product could ever hope to recoup its losses, thus ensuring that the story of its bloated budget and subsequent box office failure would overshadow the movie itself. No, that’s clearly Disney’s fault for running with the shitty marketing scheme that Stanton himself insisted on. Why are they always ruining great filmmaker’s visions by letting them do whatever the hell they want?!

    But the day I start hating THE RAID, that’s the day I slit my throat.

  70. No Darkseid. The New Gods have been done justice too rarely as Kirby truly conceptualized them. It would be too much for movie audiences without dumbing the character down and making him job like in cartoons.

    I’d rather they use Brainiac, Lex (a proper modern version), Metallo, The Parasite if they want to go further into space territory use Mongul if they want to go batshit insane go with Mxyzptlk or Bizarro but not Darkseid cause it could never really be done justice outside of the comic book medium. The New Gods at their best are far too metatextual to make sense to most people.

  71. CITIZEN KANE isn’t even Orson Welles’ best movie. OOOhhhhh.

  72. Wait, I’m confused. Because a few of us said that we don’t think Nolan is one of the greatest directors of all time, but we still like his movies, this counts as backlash? Who is lashing back, exactly?

  73. Yep Dan apparently that’s what any criticism of the messiah director of internet movie fandom gets you even if you admit to liking quite a bit of his films. Now let me go see SUCKER PUNCH again cause I don’t know any better and I actually do enjoy it (no sarcasm).

  74. I’d wait and see how well Thanos is done in the Marvel movies before writing off cosmic villains like Darkseid. Though I would say he’s more of the Justice League villain than a Superman villain, in terms of movies. Justice League vs. Darkseid gives you other characters the other heroes could take on. Wonder Woman vs. Granny, Batman and Desaad. Doomsday’s got to be done too, but they should probably put another villain in there who controls/unleashes him.

  75. Broddie – agree on Metallo especially. He was my favorite Supes villain as a kid. I would enjoy both Bizarro and Mxyzptlk, of course both work in Superman’s context because he is a larger than life fairy tale where such fantastical crazy shit doesn’t seem all that fantastical or crazy really. So yeah Zach Snyder, bring on Krypto and Kandor and Supergirl and all that shit. Hell bring in that giant key to unlock the Fortress of Solitude.

    (I hope Snyder isn’t inspired to have Krypto piss on Metallo’s face after the climax but I can live with that if I may.)

    “but just because it bugs the shit out of me that Pixar fanboys want to clear him of all guilt for JOHN CARTER, ”

    Mr. M – Do they? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Last I checked, he’s still humiliated by that colossal flop that really in retrospect was a story told several decades too late. One I actually enjoyed, but nevermind. You really, my friend, need to quit fucking worrying about what AICN (or at least those talkback people) think. You need Scientology’s help and get that Thetan out of your brain making you be controlled by this notion of being overrated. Tom Cruise can help you.

    Besides as insane as this sounds, and I know it will come as a shock to you: The Pixar fanboys and their snottyness have nothing on the Ghibli fanboys and their elitism. Trust me I was quite disgusted to discover that little fact myself. Makes me feel like an asshole for liking any Ghibli release, or any Pixar movie for that matter.

    (Again its like as kids, that stupid Marvel/DC debate I’ve never had use for.)

  76. You don’t understand even though Thanos is the ripoff you really can’t compare them. Their M.O.’s are completely different. Thanos is about placating his hoe. Period. All he wants is to please Death by all means necessary. Darkseid is the theological manifestation of evil itself. The avatars he’s been given on Earth that Superman punched is not even the real Darkseid.

    Think back to FINAL CRISIS and THAT’s how you do the New Gods. THat’s how you handle Darkseid he’s everywhere across all planes of existence at once because he is evil itself. He’s the reason for rape, for Cain killing Abel etc.I don’t know I think it’ll be a crazy ass sell.

    It could work for JL though. Since you have the allegory of gods taking on real gods. But for Superman by himself I say stick to other options that are more grounded like space based characters as opposed to dimension hopping. Yes I know that Darkseid debuted in Superman comics but really the concept as depicted in the 4th World books is too bugged out for people who can’t even fathom why a talking racoon with guns could be appealing or why a will powered ring that lets you do anything is interesting to see in action.

  77. Broddie – backlash against the backlash of the backlash! Will this cycle ever end?

    It’ll get so bad, we’ll subconciously order that WWE PPV Backlash.

  78. RRA – I swear man if Snyder found a way to make Beppo The Super-Monkey work on screen he’ll shoot up to at least the top 3 spot of my non-existing favorite filmatists list.

  79. Nah, I like CITIZEN KANE. I mean, I don’t need to sit down and watch it all the time or nothing. When it comes right down to it, once you strip away all the bells and whistles, it’s just a “poor little rich boy” story, which, in my opinion, is the least interesting kind of story there is. But execution matters, so I got no beef with it. Long live the KANE.

  80. Broddie – for the record, what would be your pick for Welles’ best movie? CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT? (actually that was an awesome movie.)

  81. It’s a technical marvel and one of the most important films of all time just like BIRTH OF A NATION. Would you say it’s number 1 of all time material though? I personally don’t think so. No way in hell I’d ever freely watch CITIZEN KANE over BACK TO THE FUTURE. When it comes to Welles I’m more of a TOUCH OF EVIL and CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT kinda guy.

  82. Broddie – how about Snyder settles for Detective Chimp?

    Mr. M – I saw KANE once. Some movies you only need to see once, not a criticism but I hate this idea that all movies need to be rewatchable. Do they? I mean you don’t go to an art museum more than once to digest the paintings and sculptures, do you?

    And for the record, I don’t consider KANE the best American movie ever. Yeah what a plot twist.

    I say it’s THE GODFATHER.

  83. RRA – TOUCH OF EVIL but as I said in my response to Majestyk’s post I do like CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT quite a bit. THE STRANGER is also up there for it’s weird take on fascist themes.

  84. “No way in hell I’d ever freely watch CITIZEN KANE over BACK TO THE FUTURE. ”

    Broddie- but what if you saw BTTF earlier today? You can’t watch it twice in one day, can you? I’m sure you can, but Biff will be around when you’re done with Kane.

  85. Broddie – ever see his THE TRIAL? Good crazy shit.

  86. “Yes I know that Darkseid debuted in Superman comics”
    Well actually, he debuted in “Superman’s Pal- Jimmy Olson”, which is still a hilarious thought. OOH! Intergang! There’s a good foil for a Superman movie. An omnipresent crime cartel armed with alien tech and maybe add in all the Religion of Crime stuff too as a lead in to Darkseid? I hope Snyder’s movie can dispell the myth that “Superman’s invincible! He can only be killed by kryptonite”, by introducing the other vulnerabilities like Red Sun Rays, alien bacteria, someone more powerfull just beating him to death, and maybe magic?

  87. RRA: As for the JOHN CARTER thing, I only bring this up because I just got into an argument about it on the AV Club the other day, where even the staff writers are trying act like Stanton got railroaded by Disney. (“According to Deadline, Stanton will next mount a follow-up to his smash hit Finding Nemo, with the idea that its success will convince Disney to give him another live-action movie someday and maybe even promote it properly this time.”–Sean O’Neal) Even when I brought in a New York Times article about Stanton’s involvement in the marketing, they still didn’t believe me and said the piece was inaccurate and I should stop talking shit.

    I also think JOHN CARTER kind of sucks on its own merits completely separate from any and all monetary considerations, but many still see it as a case of a genius filmmaker getting screwed over by an idiotic public. I’m not in a nerd rage over it or anything, but if we’re talking about how asshole fans kill the things they love so no one else can enjoy them, then I feel like this experience is pertinent.

  88. RRA – “but what if you saw BTTF earlier today? You can’t watch it twice in one day, can you?”

    No but I’d probably be watching BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II.

    All jokes aside; if ever there was a counter blow from DC to Rocket Raccoon (who’s bound to win the heart of moviegoers worldwide) it’s Detective Chimp. Snyder could even get Jackie Earl Haley to voice him.

    Stu – Yeah that book was part of the Superman family though I didn’t mean the book called SUPERMAN lol but Intergang is cool. Come to think of it I remember the old rumors for what became MAN OF STEEL (the movie) that Lex was going to be involved in place of Manheim and be the one behind Intergang. But I’d like both Bruno Manheim and Lex Luthor around eventually. Let’s see what Snyder and friends come up with. If it’s even a quarter as good as SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE I’m good I just don’t want another SUPERMAN RETURNS.

  89. Mr. Majestyk – JOHN CARTER was better than I expected because I expected nothing. I think it’s laughable though to say that the director got the shit end of the stick when he was the one who made a lot of the calls. It’s so easy to only look at one side of a dispute.

    Truth be told JOHN CARTER failed because it was generic looking when people saw the TV spots. It subconsciously brought up DUNE, ATTACK OF THE CLONES and other generic sci-fi fantasy fare in the memory banks of movie geeks everywhere. I don’t think anybody was looking forward to that movie because it looked no different than COWBOYS AND ALIENS which also looked fucking stupid and that one I never saw. I’ve seen movies with worse trailers and lesser stars do business.

    That being said I enjoyed it for what it was cause as I said I didn’t expect anything at all.

  90. Mr. Majestyk – I would consider JOHN CARTER to be a failure on both Stanton and Disney’s part at least in how they handled it. I mean really why did that fucking movie have to cost $250+ million with no stars? I would get that pricetag for AVENGERS or the new Batman movie, but JOHN CARTER? Stupid.

    I liked JC as a decent pulp adventure that got the better of me and I enjoyed it, but do I really want to see it again? Not really. It was too long and as I argued before, the great John Carter of Mars movie was already made. It’s called STAR WARS. (or AVATAR too, if you will.) Some stories have an expiration date, but Stanton wanted to play STAR WARS. And he does, but it’s still a lightweight SW knock-off. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I can’t blame people for feeling indifferent to it.

    Also that Deadline report, I got the vibe Disney is jerking Stanton off with another chance bullshit just to keep him at Pixar. If they let him direct another live action movie, it’ll be one of those Disney Channel TV movies. At least I would hope so.

  91. “No but I’d probably be watching BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II.”

    Broddie – touche. Brilliant, and you would probably be right. You know I like that in recent years, BTTF 2 isn’t getting the flack that it got back in the day. An underrated sequel really. But what about Part 3?

    Reading what I posted before, its weird I chided Disney for making a SW knock-off in JOHN CARTER, but isn’t GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY more or less gonna be Marvel’s SW series? (No really I’m asking, I have no clue.)

    I wonder how long before nerds demand Andy Serkis get a 7 figure check to play Rocket?

  92. I thought the JOHN CARTER trailers were fucking phenomenal.

    Way better than 99% of trailers, and for once it didn’t overshare the plot and major action beats. Actually sold me on the film, got me looking forward to the feature, despite my not knowing anything about the material and despite my usual disdain for PG Disney stuff pretending to be an adult action movie.

    Good movie, too.

    I don’t read web & magazine articles about marketing and behind-the-scenes politics, and I avoid reviews & comments until after seeing the finished product, so I don’t have the same source of rage or potential backlashing or whatever RRA’s talking about.

    100% of my opinions are based on the thing itself, not the staticy aura of bullshit & pop history surrounding the thing.

  93. I prefer Tim Burton´s Batman over Nolan´s anytime.Thats were I stand. Now, I clean my hands on future DARK KNIGHT RISES threads that may occur her in the nearest future. Its probably good. But not Burton-good. This is the last comment from me regarding Batman. Signing off. Yoink!

  94. Shoot – BATMAN RETURNS was pretty good, you can’t go wrong with rocket-strapped penguins in my book.

    I just don’t care much for the first Burton BATMAN. Mindless really, a bunch of set pieces loosely tied together. It’s like BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, but if the writers never tried and just jobbed it.

    Still I wouldn’t call BATMAN a bad movie, it’s competent and watchable. Jack is fun, Michael Keaton doesn’t get enough respect for his neurotic weirdo Bruce Wayne, Danny Elfman’s soundtrack kicks ass, the ending is epic, and oh yeah fucking Prince. (Partyman and Scandalous are awesome, but Batdance sucks.)

    I did like that Batman had no qualms in killing Joker. Too bad he had the shooting accuracy of Imperial Stormtroopers. No wonder he doesn’t use a gun normally.

  95. un-yoink. I just happen to think that Bruce Wayne comes across as more of a split personality in Burton´s version. In Nolan´s version he´s basically mentally sane, which makes no sense actually.
    Yoink!

  96. Amen! No spoilers, please. I’m not even risking it by reading the comments. The kids are going to the grandparents for a while, so I may actually get to see a movie within a week of its release in a theater that doesn’t have a McD’s tie-in. (Okay, it’s Batman, so there’s a tie-in somewhere, but you all get my point.)

    Bring on the fake-buttered popcorn!

  97. Btw, there’s a wonderful photoshop of Romney as Bane that’s floating around the interwebs if anyone hasn’t alreadyentioned it.

  98. Also, as the brooding psychopath Keaton portray him as, Batman should not speak longer sentances than “Can you dance with the devil in the pale moonlight”. Bale just can´t shut the fuck up.

  99. I like that the Keaton Batman spoke so much with his eyes. Saying so damn much with just a gaze. People always want to be like “he was balding, he’s average height” and bla bla bla but THAT was why he was cast. The dude looked like he could mess you up. You saw it in his eyes. It was very dependent on his facial nuances like a great silent film actor.

    I saw that in Bale in the new movie in a clip where Bane shows up behind him on a bridge and Catwoman is in the background. Almost like a look of betrayal in his eyes. That’s the one thing the movies have over the comics even though the comics still made the lens covered eyes be expressive ala Spider-Man comic books. I liked the way that was used in the recent BATMAN: EARTH ONE comic too.

  100. Okay, I said “Fuck it” and read the thread. I should know to trust the people here by now; it’s not AICN, after all.

    I want to home in and agree that Keaton is the best Batman, although I like Nolan’s films better overall. I think the best examples of Keaton being the best are when he is Bruce, an I don’t mean the public Bruce. I mean Bruce doing Batman shit behind the scenes without his suit on or Bruce agonizing with Cat Woman over what to do at the party when they figure out who they are. (And that lasted maybe mere seconds, with Pfiefer having that great line about fighting.) I especially love the insane look of glee he gets in Returns as he fucks over Penguin during the political speech, even adding in the nice touch of scratching e disc.

    Yeah, Bale is hotter as Batman, but Keaton is the one you want to wake up to after the sex is done.

  101. I don’t want to go see the new Batsman movie, but the wife got us tickets so there you go.

    I didn’t like the previous two movies. I didn’t hate them either (I did hate Inception, though), but I thought they were OK and not really anything more.

    Here are a few things I hope the new movie does so I can actually enjoy it:
    *Have intelligible action scenes.
    *Make me care about any of the characters, any of them.
    *Make me care about the movie and not just make me wish I was watching a movie of Alfred hunting rad anarchists in the burning jungles of Burma.
    *Stop repeating the same fucking words. Every sentence does not need to contain the one word theme of your movie (FEAR, KNIGHT, HERO, etc)
    *Hey, maybe have a scene shot during the day? Like, a sunny day. Maybe?
    *Be under 2 hours long, because odds are Nolan doesn’t have enough to say to do 2 hours let alone more.
    *Hey, maybe if this ends up being a good movie people just like it instead of trying to convince me it is SERIOUS ADULT FILMATISM OF IMPORTANCE.
    *Maybe have Bruce Wayne smile. Or stop being dour and boring. Maybe?
    *How about making a guy who is a fascist more of a villain instead of just saying, “he’s the hero we need so it’s cool he’s a fascist because America.”
    *Tell one story well, not 4 stories poorly.
    *Don’t reference Batman Begins. At all. That movie was pretty bad, you guys!
    *Hey, projectionist, maybe instead of showing me this Batman movie you just play Ghost Dog. Everyone would like that better. I promise you.

    So, I’m going to go see this with an open mind. I hope I enjoy it instead of merely thinking it’s okay and then growing to hate it as people yell at me about how it’s the best movie ever and its huge faults are not worth noticing.

    But, hey, can we start making every Batman review or thread be about Ghost Dog? Ghost Dog is the fucking best.

  102. I think Casey’s really onto something here.

    In conclusion, go watch GHOST DOG again.

  103. Dan Prestwich, crtainly i’m thelast person in here to be reached about that movies and filmmakers should be subjected to criticism. Considering i’m one of the most hyper-critical person in this joint. But it’s because i’m so hyper-critical that i love Nolan as a filmmaker and his movies, because they pass the test. Brillantly. You can call it The Mark Kermode Effect.

  104. “because he makes ponderous, humorless, self-consciously grown-up movies about silly topics.”

    And what’s wrong about that? If anything, we need more of those.

  105. The Limey, nice tryat a joke, but fail, because i always make coments and point out the reasons for my dislikes and detractions of cetain filmmakers and movies. Always. So no, you are not going to make a case of i ever making irrational dislikes. My dislikes are very passionate, but always base on careful thinking and good reasons. Don’t ever mistake passion with irrationality.

  106. “His hyperliteral style just doesn’t work for me when it comes to Batman. He expects me to take a guy in a silly rubber costume waaaaaaay more seriously than I feel comfortable doing, and with no release valve of intentional comedy”

    Well, that’s the beauty of the thing. I’m glad his Batman movies do that. It’s a good balsam against and a good antidote against the hyper-silliness of the Burton and Schumaker’s Batman movies.

    People have this conditioned conviction that since Batman is a comic book character it has to be silly, over-the-top and campy. Only that way it’s enjoyable. And then some filmmaker like Burton presented it allin blue-for-night cinematography and gothic set design and people think they see some emotional profoundity to it that there is not really there. Balls, i say!

    Batman started in the comcis in the 1930s as a very dark and violent character who would kill without remorse. He even carried a gun! The more fantastic, silly and comedic elements of Batman emerged after the WWII, where comics suddently got into under pressure from morality groups and were forced to tone down and became softer and lighter. The Batman so many people seem to enjoy is from those era, even though they all still claim love for the Frank Miller approach.

    It’s as if for many, Batman in movies have to be silly and not serious and contemporanean and topical. Nonsense! Part of what makes me like Nolan’s Batman movies so much is in part that back to basic approach to when the character was created, to take it more seriously. This is what Batman should be. If after the Nolan’s run of Batmovies they return to the more silly type of Batman movies, at least i know i got a this more serious and thoughful trilogy that i can always fall back into. For that, Nolan has my eternal gratitude.

    Many like to quote back at the Nolan’s Batman movies the famous joker line “Why so serious?”. People think it’s cute, but they forget it was said by the villain of the piece, by a complete monster. Why so serious? The question shouldn’t even the asked, since it’s so self-evident the answer. The seriousness is what makes them good. But bring back the silliness after the Nolan Batman movies, if you so wish it. I just wonder if, when the new sillier Batman movies come about, people will start to realise that their complains about the Nolan’s movies were in fact, well, silly.

  107. Griff, nobody is as good as Kubrick. Fact of life. One should just accept it and then enjoy all the other great filmmakers out there. Like Nolan. Nolan doesn’t need to be compared to Kubrick to make his quality shine. He does it all by himself. As any good filmmaker does.

  108. Mr. Majestyk, i alqways makwe a big point in being right about a movie right from the start, and not wait for time or different circunstances to set my record straight. This is why i am always so thoughful about movies, why i’m so serious about them, why i’m so passionate about them. In this regard, i’m a bit like Mark Kermode, the british critic. Movies are serious business with me. And this is also why i have so much fun with them. Being serious about movies and having fun are in no way contradictory to me, in fact they complement each other, they multiply by each other. This is why a genuinely good movie provides me far more fun then some silly thoughless action-fiest madfe by the Bays, Abrams, Snyders, or all those 80s actiofiest of yesteryears (unles they are genuinely good like DIE HARD or PREDATOR). For me, quality IS FUN! Which is why i make a big point in always being correct about a movie fromthe4 get go. I do not have the luxery to wait up to have my opinion corrected.

  109. asimovlives:

    “Griff, nobody is as good as Kubrick. Fact of life.”

    Kubrick isn’t a God. “Eyes Wide Shut” was boring.

    I’m completely on board with the whole idea that Nolan isn’t that great, he’s just good.

    By the same token, Kubrick is great, but he’s not perfect.

    We can’t rightfully sit here and scoff at sycophants for Nolan while at the same time being sycophants for Kubrick. There’s plenty to criticize about Kubrick’s output.

  110. I can see that this is going to be fun!

  111. There is *not* “plenty to criticize about Kubrick’s output.”

  112. Asimov – “And then some filmmaker like Burton presented it allin blue-for-night cinematography and gothic set design and people think they see some emotional profoundity to it that there is not really there.”

    Oh shut the fuck up. You sound like you’re talking out of your ass. I challenge you to logically refute how there is no pathos whatsoever in the Burton movies and how it’s all “gothic set design” and cinematography that makes people think that.

    Furthermore these “dark” comic books from the 30’s where Batman “killed without remorse” and shit STILL featured a quippy Batman and comedic elements. They were PULPY not noirish in tone though noirish in atmosphere. Read any of the BATMAN ARCHIVES that collects comics from the real year one (1939).

    Coincidentally from those comics is where a lot of influence for the Burton movies came through as Michael Uslan showed these comics to Burton when he got on board. It’s why Gordon is an afterthought like he was in those comics. It’s why Batman is a killer like he was in those comics. It’s why his Gotham has the aesthetic appearance that it does etc.

  113. BR Baraka – “Kubrick is great, but he’s not perfect.”

    He’s my favorite filmmaker of all time yet I fully agree with this.

  114. Jareth Cutestory

    July 19th, 2012 at 8:58 am

    I think it would be so cool if Nolan’s BATMAN 3 recreated that famous dancing scene from SPIDERMAN 3, substituting Bale for McGuire.

  115. I’m getting agitated already. Think I’m gonna check out for a bit.

    Have fun, fellas and ANoniMouse. See you when the storm has passed.

  116. Jareth Cutestory

    July 19th, 2012 at 9:14 am

    Majestyk: I wish I could assure you that you could find refuge in COSMOPOLIS, but that is one contentious little movie, and possibily even more irritating if you hated WAKING LIFE.

  117. Mr. M I am excited for everything JGL is in that is coming out this year (PREMIUM RUSH, LOOPER, & DKR).

    I enjoy Nolan’s work, but I would not compare him to Kubrik. That is not a knock on Nolan, I just don’t understand the comparison. The only film makers working today that I would compare to Kubrik are Paul Thomas Anderson and Terrence Malick. Also, I know I am going to get some hate for this but I get tired of everybody treating Kubrik like an infallible cinematic god. He is a genius, a master technician and skilled filmastist, but most of his films are like fine art, they are thought provoking and you can appreciate the skill involved in crafting them but it is not something I am going to want to revisit on a regular biases. It is similar to how I can appreciate the Mona Lisa, but I am not inspired to constantly revisit it on a regular biases. I guess if I were to make a cinematic comparison I would say that I look at most of Kubrik’s work in the same way I view CITIZEN KANE, I appreciate and respect the filmatism and the contribution to cinema, but I am rarely if ever compelled to want to spend an afternoon revisiting them. Personally I prefer directors like Brian De Palma or Francis Ford Coppola that might have more misses and/or failures than Kubrik, but when they are at their best they can deliver the same quality of filmatism you would get from Kubrik but presented in a way that is more entertaining.

  118. Asimov

    I’m sure I never mentioned you in my joke, save for the quote.

    Also, I saw SUPER 8 the other day. Good fun, wasn’t it?

  119. Rehydrated Dehydrated Pirate Paul

    July 19th, 2012 at 10:52 am

    Majestyk –

    “I don’t want to be within 50 yards of any of you motherfuckers if the seemingly inevitably Second Superhero Sequel Backlash kicks in. So far it has struck Superman, Blade, the X-Men, and Spider-Man, and they all have superpowers. Poor Bats doesn’t stand a chance.”

    I have faith in the Nolan. The Nolan will deliver.

    I’m going to see this one after the initial run has died down a bit, so expect me to avoid the Batman threads religiously until then.

  120. So, 13 hours from now, I’ll just be talking to my goddamn self about this movie, huh?

    You noncommittal bastards. Who cares if you have massive misgivings about the Nolan movies, the nerd crowds, the backlash, the purity of comic book faithfulness?

    Look at the other factors, the other reasons it’s a good idea to see this sooner rather than later:

    -Christian Bale is a great actor. Not a lazy performance visible anywhere on his résumé, going back to EMPIRE OF THE SUN and LITTLE WOMEN.

    -Bane’s mask thing looks really cool. I’m hoping against hope that drug addict Rush Limbaugh for once is right about something and that Bane breathes fire.

    -Hints of Occupy Wall Street politics in the filmatism & script. A political junkie like me needs to stay on top of these things to understand the 2012 culture and the 24 hour news cycles for the foreseeable future.

    -A flying car/tank over Gotham City — any other movie, especially a huge summer blockbuster, previewed this, I’d also go see that movie.

    -Tom Hardy has been superb in everything in which I’ve seen him, except maybe McG’s recent “let’s pretend Reese Witherspoon is hot” movie, though the action scenes were okay.

    -Joseph Gordon-Levitt tends to select good-to-great roles. I’m not a huge fan, but he hasn’t pissed me off in any of his movies.

    -What’s up with that guy doing an assisted airborne cartwheel in prison in the preview? I want to know.

    -3+ hours in an air conditioned room in mid-July.

    -Why does Bane ruin that football game? Does Hines Ward still get credit for that touchdown?

    -It’s a conclusion to the story. Ain’t no half-steppin, Nolan & the writers say it’s over after this, none of that cliffhanger, set up the sequel/moneygrab bullshit.

  121. Who’s noncommittal? I am totally committed to sitting out this nerdpocalypse until the dust has settled. It’ll be impossible to judge it accurately anyway. Everybody’s already chosen sides, and now all that’s left is the minor triviality of actually seeing the movie before we start tearing each other apart. I want no part of it. Talking about movies is one of my favorite things to do, and Batman is making it a lot less fun.

    Dammit, I promised myself I would just shut up and go away until it was over, and that’s what I’m gonna do right now. Anybody wants to talk about literally any other movie ever made, I’ll be lurking. Majestyk out.

  122. Okay, not EXPENDABLES 2 either.

  123. Actually, fuck movies. I’m gonna start following politics. It’s less heated.

  124. Mouth, I think Bane is mad at Hines Ward for getting picked for Dancing With The Starts over him.

    I might take my nephew to a midnight screening tonight otherwise I am going to try and catch the matinee showing tomorrow. As a side note I saw TDK on opening day at a theater in Mexico with Spanish subs when I was on vacation. I was uneasy going into it because I didn’t know what type of audience I would be watching the film with and how that would affect my experience. The theater was so packed they literally had children sitting in the aisles, but despite the theater being crammed over its capacity it was an enjoyable movie experience. The audience was completely into the film and nobody talked. I don’t know if that is just because they are very respectful movie goers in Mexico or because they were just that engrossed in the film.

  125. This is GREAT! Some nerd dream is coming out soon and we’re already arguing if it’s going to look like a lost Kubrick masterpiece or just the third chapter in director Nolan’s okay trilogy. I’m with you on this one, Majestyk, I’m not getting involved until YOU-KNOW-WHO is asleep or otherwise offline for one single minute. This thread is already shaping up to be the new PROMETHEUS and the movie’s not even out yet!

  126. Charles, it’s only in the USA people talk in the cinema…

  127. Jareth Cutestory

    July 19th, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    Mouth: I like all your questions, and I’ll enjoy reading what fans of these films have to say in response. But they don’t really overcome my enormous indifference to Batman in general and my dislike for most of what I’ve seen from Nolan (MEMENTO and FOLLOWING notwithstanding).

    But I don’t see the point in antagonism on either side. I’m glad the comic book fans get their big event to enjoy, just like I’m sure they’ll be happy for me when THE GRANDMASTERS finally gets released.

    I agree with you that The Mumbler’s face mask looks cool. You’ll remember, I also liked the steampunk costume design in SUCKER PUNCH.

    I’m too lazy to be bothered, but I bet a sceptic with more energy than me could come up with a list of questions along the lines of Why Are People Wasting Their Time With This Crap? that would be equally compelling. Top question might have something to do with the inappropriatness of Princess Diary Catwoman.

  128. pegsman, a lot of American cinema audiences are pretty bad. You have to be careful where or when you see a film, or it can ruin the whole experience.

  129. Ya know, maybe I’ve been exceptionally lucky but I have read more about bad theater experiences here than I have ever experienced in my life. The only one I can think of was for Van Helsing and who cares, it was fucking Van Helsing.

  130. I just want to see a better-than-average action-adventure[-mystery?] movie.

    It’s incredibly easy to avoid “nerdpocalypse” and other hyperbolic peripheral Batmanisms. I only come here to jibber-jabber movies & need shit, and I generally only read reviews of new movies after I’ve seen them.

    Whatever cesspools of nerdery bother you, I’m not part of them, unless I’ve truly been *that* obnoxious on the PROMETHEUS thread. Sorry, whatever.

    I’m interested in the movie itself, how it compares to other Nolans, what Anne Hathaway looks like in tight black costumes, and whether Tom Hardy can really fight (since WARRIOR’s shooting style left that a headachey mystery).

    These criteria & focal points of my interest are no different from my usual approach to all movies.

  131. Casey, I have had a few experiences where some assholes kept talking over the movie or playing with their phones. However, the one that stands out off the top of my head was so bad it almost crossed over to being entertaining. When I saw TRANSPORTER 2 there was a drunk bum in the audience that shouted random comments at the screen for the first half of the film before theater management finally kicked the guy out, and he did not go peacefully. There was a drawn out and awkward standoff between the theater manger and the bum in the theater while the movie was still running. I can’t remember what he said but the drunk said something that got a big laugh out of the crowd before finally getting bounced.

  132. I’m indifferent to Batman, but I do think there would be some poetic justice if his thread was hijacked by Kubrick and Orson Welles.

    Nah, I’m kidding. It’s impossible to be indifferent to Batman. I’m seeing it tonight, but trying to keep my expectations low. I am hoping that the trailers are being honest and this film is going to use Catwoman to address some of Batman’s tricky social politics. Because I figure what better thing to add to an already apparently fractious climate in nerdom than a bunch of vague political posturing?

  133. Jareth Cutestory

    July 19th, 2012 at 1:44 pm

    Welles will hijack no thread before its time.

  134. Ok I’ll bite. Kubrick films in general leave me cold. They are carefully put together and in some senses artistically perfect, but just don’t engage me emotionally. 2001 is beautiful and my favorite Kubrick. I like FULL METAL JACKET but really only the first half.

    THE SHINING doesn’t scare me at all. A bloody hallway and some twin girls, that’s all you got? And Jack is crazy from the very first scene. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, I get it, point taken, but I’m kind of indifferent to Alex. I’m not supposed to be indifferent to Alex.

    I remember liking LOLITA. Haven’t seen BARRY LYNDON. EYES WIDE SHUT, ok, interesting to see a modern day art film. DR. STRANGELOVE, again I get it but nothing in it makes me laugh out loud. Yes no fighting in the war room, isn’t that ironic? Like the careful staging and execution sucks the actual humor out of it.

    Now Sam Raimi, that’s a filmmaker!

  135. Fred, I could not agree with you more. You did a much better job of expressing how I feel about Kubrik than I am capable of, and there is not a single Kubrik film (despite their technical and artistic merits) that I would prefer to watch over ARMY OF DARKNESS or EVIL DEAD 2.

  136. Jareth Cutestory

    July 19th, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    Well, THE SHINING isn’t really a horror movie in my opinion, it’s a ghost story, so I’m not sure that outright fear is what he was aiming for. Disquiet, maybe? Creepiness? I certainly get that.

    In fairness, time tends to render even the most brilliant ghost stories, like THE HAUNTING, largely ineffectual over time.

  137. man how can anyone call themselves a film buff and not be crazy about Kubrick? the guy was a master

  138. Jareth Cutestory

    July 19th, 2012 at 5:47 pm

    Maybe too much of a master, Griff. Pauline Kael found that Kubrick’s technical mastery often stifled the very elements that she valued in film and rendered his “metaphysical” concerns somewhat laughable. She contrasted THE SHINING with Dreyer and Marnau, and preferred Altman and Godard, technical masters whose films weren’t “static” (her word) like Kubrick’s. Of course, the visceral experience of watching a film was of the utmost importance to Kael, and Kubrick isn’t particularly concerned with that aspect of cinema. She hated one of my favorites, LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, for similar reasons. But she liked BILLY JACK a lot.

    She also has some very valid points to make about elements of misogyny in how sexual violence was shot in CLOCKWORK ORANGE. In her mind, the rape in that film was exploitative.

  139. the rape is meant to be shocking and disturbing, that’s like calling The Accused exploitative

  140. A couple of my buddies who aren’t too into the Batman movies were complaining that the new one is almost 3 hours long or whatever. It’s so funny – do you guys realize that the first two were hugely popular movies, and the third one is for the people who enjoyed those? I rewatched Dark Knight the other day and part of what I like about it is that it’s so sprawling, it’s like it covers a couple comic strip storylines instead of just one “he made up a name and costume then he killed the bad guy at the end” comic book movie. I would be disappointed if it was just a quick in-and-out Men In Black style “briefly sketch over some shit and hit the credits so the next crowd can come in” type of movie. Shit, I’d take a 4 hour epic if they could make it work. If you don’t really care about the movie I don’t see how it’s any of your concern how long it is.

    In the same department, I had buddies who liked Fast Five but didn’t want to watch the other movies and complained that it spent too much time showing what was going on in the lives of these characters, “as if we care.” But dude, I watched the other 4 a couple times each. I do care. That’s the whole point of this is to reunite them and see what happens.

    Oh shit, I got a third example. The ever popular “The Avengers is too long, why don’t they have them already together and fighting monsters at the beginning?” argument. Because that’s a stupid fucking movie you’re describing right there! You really want to watch that? The point is they set up these characters, now we want to see where they are now, how they come together, how they gel. I guess now that they did that you can have your “they just fight guys from beginning to end” for part 2 and maybe it’ll work.

    I’m not trying to write off the short, concise movie, an artform I obviously love. But I feel like with these longer event movies some people just want to get it over with so they can say they saw the movie. They don’t want to sit and experience it or let it take the time to really dig in and do alot of work. In that case maybe they should spend their time watching the other movies that exist, they will get more joy out of it. But let us have our thing too.

  141. Griff, I don’t think Kael meant for exploitative to mean shocking and disturbing in Jareth’s example. She is saying it is exploitative how it presents the rape in a way that is inappropriately provocative and arousing. For example David Fincher is on record as saying the reason he did not cast Scar Jo in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO is because he was concerned that her status as a sex symbol would reduce the rape in the film to exploitation.

  142. Good point Vern. Who cares how long a film is if it is entertaining. BAD BOYS II & TRANSFORMERS 2 were to long, but I have no problem with THE GODFATHER, THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY, or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. I especially don’t understand why someone would complain about the length of a sequel. Isn’t the whole point of a sequel to spend more time with the characters from the previous film(s).

  143. It´s a matter of personal preference in films whether you like Kubrick or not. Its not a fact of life that you have to like his work.Not written in stone or whatever. He´s commonly accepted as a master of his craft and I totally respect that. I don´t like avery movie he´s made,though. FULL METAL JACKET left me kind of cold and EYES WIDE SHUT was mostly just a waste of time in the theatre. ( However not as much as THE THIN RED LINE….I hate that movie)

  144. Saw it tonight. First blush: Probably the most consistent of the series, solving the fractured plot issues of the first two films. Beautifully constructed and acted, thoroughly engrossing. But issues of muddled subtext persist, which remains a problem for films that take themselves so seriously. Not a triumph or a disaster, but a gripping experience with many individual sections of greatness but also some undeniable flaws, mostly having to do with the underlying silliness of the whole conceit.

  145. Maybe this should go in the GARFIELD: A TAIL OF TWO KITTIES thread, but I’d like to give credit to the “Vern Predicts” vibe for somehow foreshadowing the use of a famous Dickens passage from A Tale of Two Cities in the new Nolan joint.

    Nicely done.

  146. Chopper Sullivan

    July 20th, 2012 at 1:56 am

    It really sticks the fucking landing though.

  147. I’m not sure what some people are looking for. I read some of the negative reviews and they pretty much complained about the same shit across the board. The movie is bloated, it is. Some of it is illogical, it is. The fantasy elements are jarring when taken with the “realism”, they’re not.

    Of course it’s bloated because Nolan tried to give us both action and a plot that consists of something besides a fucking alien invasion for the 500th time in the last few years. Yes, some of the logic of the movie makes no sense, but neither does the fact that hardly anyone can figure out that the guy with all the million dollar toys in the Batsuit is also the richest guy in town. The realism thing I’ve never understood. I don’t see it as trying to be real but more trying to make people feel as if Batman could actually exist, even if just in your dreams. We all know if it was actually realistic Batman would have been dead or in jail within a week. Who the fuck wants to see that movie? Why can’t it be serious without a million goofy one liners? Once you accept that this is a fucking guy in a Batsuit fighting crime it’s perfectly ok to take it seriously.

    Dark Knight Rises is not better then The Dark Knight. Who the fuck thought it was going to be? It is very good 3rd movie to the trilogy. It is a great wrap-up to the story and and pretty much what I hoped it would be. I was never bored during the 2:40 minute run-time. People are entitled to their opinions, but I have no clue how you would enjoy the first 2 and not this one. I’ll be seeing this one again for sure.

  148. This length thing bugs me too. Do people who are enjoying something think, “This is great! Let’s wrap this up soon.”

    Bugs me worse in music. I happen to love Meat Loaf. I know he’s not for everybody, but the number one complaint I hear from haters is his songs are too long. I guess if you don’t like it you don’t want it to be long, but is it the length itself? If it were three minutes, you’d like it, but the additional six minutes ruins it?

    Movies I can maybe see time being a problem. Two hours is a good chunk of time, let alone three. Music we’re talking matters of minutes. How could it possibly matter if it’s three minutes or ten?

    For me the only downside of a great long movie is it just makes it harder to watch again. I’d probably be able to watch CASINO ROYALE more often if it were under two hours, but I’m happy with my memory of the brilliant two and a half and I’ll look forward to it more when I can carve out that chunk of time to watch it again.

    Some movies keep throwing in plot tangents and when we say they are too long, we really mean the story was a mess. I just find the movies I want to be long are short and the movies I don’t care about are epics.

  149. Also if AVENGERS fanboys didn’t like the part where they were fighting amongst themselves then what the fuck would even make it THE AVENGERS? That’s the only part that makes it better than TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON.

  150. I loved the scene where all the Avenger-tobe were fghting mon themselves. And then everyody got pause when they saw tht Bruce Banner had grabed Loki’s staff. Great moment of dark humour.

    THE AVEGERS is what they call “good ol’ fun”. Josh Whedon raised to te task and performed quite well. It shouldn’t come a a suprse, because Whedon, despiste what his detractors say, is genuinely talented and respecful to the geek stuff he works on. He really loves his job, and it shows. I can’t say the same about a certain members of a certain group (they are four, one of them has a mexican name who always work with a partner, the other loves to be called by his first two name inicials and another mannage to fuck up both a whole TV series and a 30 years old long running SF/horror film saga) who constantly screws up and made up their shortcomings with aggresive advertizement.

  151. The Limey, Super 8 is crap. he ony ood stuff has to do with the kids, and mostly at the begining before the alien finally arrives o the story. The movie is a mess of intents and never desides what it wants to be. It’s a toothless movie trying to have it’s cake and eat it too and falling miseraby at it. An unfocused mess. I don’t need to read n interview with JJ to realise the movie is the result of two very different scripts who the got glued together, but the stitching was never solved to any satisfaction. A text book case on how not to write a screenplay. It’s a 1/4th good movie (the kids actors and Elle Fanning in particular who outacts everybody and who should had been the protagonist of the story) and 3/4th total crap (everything else).

  152. TDKR’s runtime passed quickly & easily enough for me, no problems there. I didn’t mind the scope or the “bloatedness” or the logistics of the thing.

    However… Only criticism, spoiler-free of course, I’ll post before the review is: I didn’t like how characters just kind of popped out of nowhere, showed up at just the right spot suddenly, and moved from plot point to revelation to speechifying about that revelation within the span of 2 seconds (same problem hurt the first 2 Nolan Batflix, but it’s more annoying here because Bane’s motivations, methods, & how he got an army of ostensible martyrs is unexplained while nothing the rest of the characters are thinking or feeling is ever left unexplained and is always converted into an obvious, didactic theme-heavy bit of dialogue). And the hand-to-hand combat is super wack.

    Quarter of a billion American dollars spent on a motherfucking action movie in the post-THE MATRIX world and none of your movie’s motherfucking stars can take a couple weeks of motherfucking kung fu lessons so that you can film them doing some motherfucking punches & grapples in action scenes that don’t resemble a drunkard’s amateur iPhone video footage of a civilian sidewalk skirmish?

    It’s tragic. In the fight scenes, I can see that the actors/stunt crew are doing the moves, but I can’t see most of the moves. Inexcusable incompetence.

    Good story, decent movie, worth a viddy. I won’t be re-watching.

  153. Broddie, i never talk out of my ass. I do not know how. If you disagree with me, that’s a different matter. A whole different matter. But i never do thoughtless opinions, never.

    So you might prefer the Tim Burton’s version of Batman, so what? Still, it doesn’t take much to understand that Nolan’s movies are superior. And i don’t say this because i’m some newbie to whom Nolan’s movies were my first exposure to Batman, no those where the Tim Burton movies. And even back then they always felt unsastifying, always missing the mark. If i was one of those who let nostalia completly rule my judgement, the i would be one of those holding them above the newer one just because i saw them when i was in my teens or early adulthood. But thats not a good reason at all, it reeks of self-indulgence. I rather have the movies themselves do the talking instead of nostagia. And i’m a very nostalgic minded guy, mind you. Nolan’s movies are just better all the way through.

  154. I actually like long movies, specially if they are good. A good movie is never too long.

  155. BR Baraka, first of all, there are no gods. But if ever there was a god of cinema, he would be Kubrick. Or he would had been is prophet at least.

    The otion that EYES WIDE SHUT is a bad or boring movie is a myth that is fnally getting disproved. You did not payed attention to the movie, i fear. If yor coplains about the mve have to do ith Tom Cruise, you have my sympathies.Though he mght have done in that move his best, albeit less flashy acting job in his career. Certainly his most atyical.

    If you can call Kbrick’s movies as flawed and with flaws and mistaes, then everybody else making movies has done nothing but fucking up in all the time. Moves do nt coe uch better then Kubrick’s.

    It’s not sycomphacy to admire and respect and uphold great filmmakers who have done good movies, that’s just telling as it is, as true to Nolan as to Kubrick as to any other good filmmakers out there alive or dead. On bad filmmakers, another matter.

  156. asimov- so,if I understand correctly; If looked at objectively,with complete emotional detachment, Nolans films are superior? Well for myself, I don´t really care for objectivity. Its my own personal
    experience that counts for myself and an emotional response to the movies I feel is a must if I am getting any enjoyment out of the movie. I´m not a movie critic and I don´t like to pretend I am one. Burtons movies evoke much more with my personal sensibilites than any of Nolan´s movies,
    but THE DARK KNIGHT was a great movie and this interpretation of Batman is just as relevant as any other,I feel. There is no right nor wrong only personal preference in my opinion.

  157. I can settle this mathematically with the power of rankings:

    (tie) 1. JUSTICE LEAGUE: NEW FRONTIER (2008)
    (tie) 1. THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)

    (tie) 3. BATMAN RETURNS (1992)
    (tie) 3. BATMAN BEGINS (2005)

    5. BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993)

    6. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (6 hours ago)

    (tie) 7. BATMAN (1989)
    (tie) 7. BATMAN FOREVER (1995)

    9. the ’60s Adam West thing with the anti-shark spray or whatever that was

    10. the one with Schwarzenegger that I’m incapable of watching longer than 6 minutes at a time

  158. Charles, i never understood why audiences in USA are so talkative during the exhibiton of a movie. In my country, and it seems to be quite a common thing in western europe, audiences kept quiet and shup up, with only laughter breaking silence, for understandable reasons.

    Is there any reason you can offer as to why american audiences are so much more talkative during a movie compared to their european cousins? I’m curious.

  159. ShootMcKay, how can you do emotional detachment watching a movie? No, the point is, to fully engage while watching a movie, heart, soul and brain, all working together in harmony. That’s a full cinematic experience. Merely going with just heart/emotions if not even 1/3rd of the whole thing! It’s a defficient approach and bound to misakes. And hurts true enjoyment.

    I never undestood this notion that Nolan’s movies are cold or emotionally detatched. It’s weird. Just because those movies don’t wear their heart on their sleeves (read, they are not openly manipulatie soap opera melodramatic), does’t mean they lack emotion and heart. If anything Nolan’s is making someof the most heartfelt movie this days from Holywood. Don’t mistake reserved with lacking. Nolan’s movies have genuine emotions, but those are carried closer to the chest, not shoved out and thrown at over the place with complete abandon.

  160. I miss when this place used to be OutlawVern.com and not Outlawasimovlives.com :(

  161. <begin rant> (go ahead and delete it Vern if you find it too much)

    They are going to blame the shooting in Colorado on the Batman movie.

    There are sick people in this world. If the Batman movie didn’t set them off, the barking dog next door would. Meaning: the movie isn’t the problem, it is the person who is sick in the head, you can’t blame videogames or movies or books.

    The problem with my country, that I love but otherwise has some serious deep flaws: easy access to guns.

    So thank you NRA. And f*ck you, gun lovers, as far as I am concerned, this is blood on your hands. There is too much senseless death in the USA due to easy access to guns by hotheads and gang bangers and loony toons, because too many fools in my country think guns are the solution. No, they are the problem.

    Now we have to listen to all the idiots blame the movie.

    And access to guns won’t be restrained. And in another few months we will hear about this sort of thing again. And this sort of sh*t is a LOT rarer in other industrialized countries. Because they have sensible gun control laws.

    >end rant<

  162. I don`t get the raving reviews for this new batman movie. It`s kinda boring, with mediocre action-scenes, no interesting characters, pretentious dialogue, no suspense whatsoever, massive plotholes and mostly shot in medium shots. What irritated me most was that the script had a really exciting idea, that it completely failed to use. The last twenty minutes are excellent, though. Also, a really nice shot of catwoman riding a batbike in sunset. Those 4 seconds looked really fucking cool!

    I must admit that I`m not ready to pass judgement on this movie yet, cause I got really irritated over how badly this movie was directed. Nolan has great ideas, great characters and great scenes, but is incapable of actually making them work as a movie. The guy has no idea of how to create adventure, suspense, romance, humour, pathos or mystery on the screen.

    (and I really like Memento, The Dark Knight and Inception, btw).

    I`m no Nolan-hater and he is one of the most interesting directors working in Hollywood at the moment, but he is so overrated and hyped, that I feel that I´m totally out of touch with humanity. The guy has great ideas and works with very talented people, but his movies are basically overblown tv-movies, shot in close-ups of faces, while rushing through the scenes in order to convince the audience that they are watching something really cool and intelligent.

    My list:
    Batman Returns.
    The Dark Knight.
    The Mask of Phantasm.
    Batman Begins.
    Batman.
    The Dark Knight Rises.
    Batman Forever.
    Batman and Robin.

  163. BR Baraka, the wild west never true died, did it?

    How come a law, an amendment in fact, whose origin was to facilitate the creation of armed militias for the defense of your country as a response to the unpreparedness due to a lack of standing army during the War of 1812, ended up becoming the banner for a matter of personal freedom in the 20th and 21th century? Strange that.

  164. Asimov – I never stated that I prefer them. I haven’t even stated what I prefer but if you must kno animated Batman movies to me are far superior to the other Batman movies Nolan’s included. I actually think TDK is the best live action Batman movie so far; doesn’t mean that the Burton dualogy isn’t good in it’s own right though. However it’s freaking laughable for someone who understands the cinematic language to say that Burton’s movies had no emotional merit whatsoever because the movies themselves completely invalidate such a non-argument.

    Seriously dude the way you’re going about it even if you don’t mean it this way it just seems no different than the kids who started to shit on the old car just because they have a new car to ride in now. The same people that will shit on Nolan’s movies and act like they’re not valid the minute the next reboot of Batman comes around.

    I mean it is an non-argument because you have yet to even elaborate on what you mean by your previous statements. You bring up nostalgia as if that has anything to do with how the movies stand TODAY when you pop them inside a DVD/Blu-Ray player. The movies do SPEAK for themselves.

    They do it through exploring the psychology of such a person through not just the dialogue but the nuances of his mannerisms as both Bruce Wayne & Batman. They do it through the exploration of the character through his villains and how they’re warped reflections of his very own emotional core.

    They do it through their use of the musical cues by Danny Elfman pared with the framing of certain shots by Burton. Like when Bruce Wayne visits Crime Alley and lays a flower and how that particular musical piece accompanies the sullen and emotionally distraught look in his eyes. They do it through using his environment as a reflection of his mind state such as the cold and cluttered Gotham of RETURNS reflecting on how cold and psychologically cluttered and compressed Batman has become since he got rid of his parents’ killer all those years back.

    Just because the movies don’t got out of their way to be overtly expository and hammer the themes of the messages in the brains of the audience with boring ass anecdotes doesn’t mean that they don’t have any emotional merit. Tim Burton said a SHIT load about Batman and his emotional state in 2 movies without having to have characters turn to the screen and reiterate the points to the audience every 10 minutes. May god punish him for mostly doing it through visual expressions in a VISUAL MEDIUM I guess; what a hack.

    To use your own words “Don’t mistake reserved with lacking”.

    Mouth – Did you ever watch UNDER THE RED HOOD?

  165. Nobody better shoot me as I watch the movie this morning. How would I be able to discuss it on the Internet afterwards?

  166. Just read an article about Limbaugh’s accusations over the use of the name Bane in RISES. And in that piece someone, I have forgotten his name, defends Christopher Nolan by saying that he’s a conservative and that it’s a conservative movie. This, in addition to the Occupy rumours, doesn’t bode well for my participation in this adventure.

  167. I’m with you, Broddie. I don’t especially like the Burton Batman movies, although I might now that’s it been a while since I’ve seen them, but I appreciate how the movie communicates things to you without just having a character tell you.

    That’s my biggest problem with Nolan. Every scene of Batman Begins involves a character talking about fear. Every scene in The Dark Knight involves a character talking about heroes. Every scene in Inception involves a character talking about the premise of Inception so when they later break that premise it is supposed to be meaningful. I’m not saying that Nolan is completely awful or anything, but boy does he not know how to be subtle. Can you imagine if he directed The Great Gatsby? It would just be scene after scene of characters talking about colors and how daisies are white on the outside but colorful on the inside.

  168. There’s a very strong fascist element inherent to Batman. Nolan’s unwillingness to ever address that, or at least do so in a negative way since he does address it but mostly in a way that makes Batman appear even more heroic, makes me the opposite of surprised to learn that he might be a conservative shit head.

    I mean, obviously the most heroic guys are going to be billionaires who break laws and human rights so that they can be bondage themed vigilantes, right?

  169. Casey – “There’s a very strong fascist element inherent to Batman.”

    Indeed. It may not be as blatant as something like Judge Dredd but nonetheless here you have a wealthy man imposing his will on the poor citizens and the authority of the city whether they like it or not. It’s why I appreciated imagery like this in the first Burton movie

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qt_pQTgGf4c/T4QfGmkDdcI/AAAAAAAAAiI/1Wli8ONElT0/s1600/Photo+12.jpg

    It speaks volumes that this was not too soon after Batman had held onto Jack Napier before he fell into a vat of chemicals. Where it seems like he’s extending a helping hand on a superficial level like how fascists say they want to help their land; but then that same hand could also be perceived as a hand of doom as it’s what leads to Napier falling into the chemicals or when it comes to fascists, straight up genocide.

  170. casey

    I think that The Dark Knight is a pretty good movie about fascism. I was kinda shocked when I saw it in the cinema, since it seemed to advocate fascism, even making the patriot act look good. I even paid for friends to rewatch it with me in order to determine if the movie was fascist or not (I was really intrigued by this, since everybody I knew, including me, loved the movie.) I think we concluded that the movie says that fascism is bad, but sometimes necessary. I don`t agree, but I applaud the movie for actually discussing this theme.

    Now, (HUGE SPOILER), The Dark Knight Returns takes another great theme (what would actually happen if the people got the power back) and fails to use it in any interesting way. It is a really intriguing premise; what if the city, that the billionaire Bruce Wayne has dedicated his life to protect, actually turned against him and his fellow upper-class, the police, the politicians, all the characters we have followed for 2 movies now? Batman against Gotham City. Now, that would be a cool idea for a movie, not this typical Bond-scenario with some crazy dude who wants to blow up a city because he had a hard childhood.

  171. You might be right, Mr dna. I just assumed TDK’s pro-fascist message was an accident, but it’s likely it was intended because Nolan is a piece of shit.

    You’re going to hurt my ability to like TDKR since all I’ll be watching for is for it to turn into Battleship Potemkin with Batman as the villainous captain.

  172. Casey, TDK’s pro-fascist message? Did you saw the same movie i saw? Most certaily not. Was your version you saw directed by Michael Bay, perchance?

  173. Broddie, i never saw the famous animated Batman show, so you have me at an advantage.

  174. Yeah I suppose the ending of TDK could be interpreted as “fascism is a necessary evil that the people may not be prepared to recognize the necessity of”. I’m curious as to how that ends up inverted in the new movie.

  175. Sorry, asimov, but why are you trying to engage me in conversation when it is already established that you are the perfect film buff who can do no wrong or never speak stupidly? I’m just curious, I know if I had that sort of confidence I wouldn’t be bothering with shitty random people on the internet!

    And, yes, TDK has a very strong pro-fascist message. I just assumed it was too stupid to actually have that message, but I think dna is right and that the movie really does come on the side of fascism.

    Might makes right, wealthy billionaires should be able to lord us in the lower class, and all of our rights should be held at the mercy of the wealthy.

  176. Asimov – You definitely have to make time to see that sometime. It’s one of the greatest superhero media adaptations ever made and still the best version of Batman outside of the comics to date. I recommend seeing MASK OF THE PHANTASM before jumping into the series proper though.

  177. “still the best version of Batman outside of the comics to date.”

    OK come to think of it that may have been a bit hyperbolic because I loved BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD just as much primarily because of the Batman of that show.

  178. All of Nolan’s movies s far have been very rewardig experience. I find them enthraling, excitig and emotional. The best type of emotional, the type that earns it’s emotions. His movies build up until their emotinal pay off, and that’s a far more rewarding emotional experience then to have the movie shove sappiness right from the get go, right from the start, which reeks of crass an desperate manipulation (as in a certain space SF movie directed by a TV producer whose title has the words S nd in the title). So, i’m thankful for Nolan’s more subdue and mature style. That in service of a so-called silly genre like comics only helps elevate the genre, and by that i mean, truly brings out their real potential as more then just sit blowing up b eir people dressed in funny costumes. Robert Ebert, in i believe was his review for BATMAN BEGINS, sad hat movie, made in Nolan’s style, is the movie that makes people who previously woldn’t caught dad watching Batman or comics feel enthralled and curious to know more. There can be no bigger praise then that.

    As for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, if the movie is half as good as BATMAN BEGINS, then it means it’s as good as THE AVENGERS. And THE AVENGERS was, so far nd b far, the best time i had at the movies this year. And if some people say that TDKR’s story is as bad as PROMETHEUS, i don’t believe you, no sir.

  179. There’s no getting away from the fact that the fascist themes in Nolan’s Bat universe aren’t handled very well. We could live with them in the Burton and Schumacher movies because the villains were just as far out as the hero, but the more real Batman’s world becomes the more repulsive does the vigilante romanticism get.

  180. Its the first couple of seasons of BATMAN:TAS that are my favourites. Then they mysteriously changed Jokers sinister appearance into a 1920´s Mickey Mouse-looking motherfucker. What the hell was the point of that. They also changed that awesome intro with Elfman equally awesome score into something more typical saturday morning cartoon.

  181. ShootMcKay – Yeah when it became THE NEW BATMAN ADVENTURES it wasn’t quite the same show anymore. Still good in it’s own right but definitely a notch below BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. I will say that The Scarecrow redesign was freaking excellent though. Still one of the freakiest and most interesting look for the character that I ever seen.

    I actually always hoped that the comics ended up adopting that aesthetic. Instead they’re currently going through some stupid “he sews his mouth shut” like a Scarecrow crap that isn’t as nuanced and creepy. Just crap that is blatantly trying to appease the gorehounds that make up a lot of the comic book reading fanbase today.

  182. Casey: “that you are the perfect film buff who can do no wrong or never speak stupidly?”

    Which come with effort, which i wouldn’t had it any other way. For me, movies are serious business, and bad movies insult me personaly. I belong to The Mark Kermode School Of Flm Appreciation.

    “I know if I had that sort of confidence I wouldn’t be bothering with shitty random people on the internet!”

    Yes, but you are not me. You see, i’m an epicuran, or what would be a modern day version. As the epicurianism goes, there’s no greater pleasure to be had then to engage in converstion, share ideas, to talk to friends, to know others, to meet strangers and make new friends. The internet is as good a thing for that his days, if not the best. Or how else could i chat with foreign people from different shores? That’s the coolest thing. If others have different opinions, even if they might be wrong or less accurate, is completly desides the point, it’s not the point at all. To share opinions, to give it away, that’s the thing, that’s the pleasure.

  183. Broddie, so MASK OF THE PHANTOM is sort of like a pilot for the TV show? I’m glad you pointed that out, so not to dive into the TV show head on before the aniated film. Thanks.

  184. casey

    I`m against fascism (no, really!), but the pro-fascism is what makes The Dark Knight such an interesting (and brilliant) movie imo. It`s easy for me to say no to fascism, but would I follow my ideals if I were in the same circumstances as Batman in TDK? I don`t know for sure and that`s why I really enjoy the movie.

  185. Yes, but most of the ideas I see you espouse on here are absolute shit, asimov. It’s almost as if the online -nerd-film-hivemind formed into you and made this place unreadable.

    Question, why wasn’t Ghost Dog in Iron Fists? That would have been boss.

  186. Asimov – It’s more of a prequel as the movie and the show do have their aesthetic differences so it’s not quite in the vein of a pilot but it still serves as a damn good segue into the actual series.

  187. Mr dna, I doubt you would do the same thing Bruce Wayne does. Because you’re not a fascist.

    You know what a billionaire could do to help Gotham? It would be better funding the fucking prisons and insane asylums, giving jobs to people, better funding education, and doing everything but dressing up in BDSM gear and beating up poor people.

  188. Casey – Man that would be pretty awesome. I think a RZA movie verse has potential especially when Ghost Dog is a part of it. I’m still waiting on a sequel to WAY OF THE SAMURAI. I will never lose hope.

  189. i love the Nolan films and the comic movies but the best interpretation of Batman is easily Batman The Animated Series. Nothing tops that in my mind. That is the Batman I would love to eventually make the screen. I want to see his detective skills portrayed on screen eventually. This is something all of the films have missed out on.

  190. Yep, I like my batman flawed. My favorite moments in the battyverse is Batman stabbing the joker to death in The Dark Knight Returns, sharing a healthy laugh with the joker in A Killing Joke and dancing/flirting/beating up Catwoman in Batman Returns.

  191. I agree, Chitown. I think that’s the difference between SUPER FASCIST BATMAN and reasonable maybe fascist Batman. If Batman spends his time investigating and using his intelligence to stop crime and make Gotham a better place it comes across pretty well. When it’s just him beating up dudes because Batman then it becomes too overt in its boyish masculine power fantasy for me to get on board.

  192. I guess Batman DID some detectivework in the first Burton-movie when figuring out how Jokers Smilex-shit worked. Otherwise his skill both as a detective and as a master scientist has been sadly underused in the movies.

  193. Chitown – There has been detective work in the movies. Albeit not on a very prominent level but

    There is Keaton investigating The Joker’s background and cracking the code to his poison gas which also alludes to Batman’s scientific mind.

    There is Bale in his first movie going undercover dressed like a hobo and gathering intel and reviewing case files in his first movie.

    There is Val Kilmer solving The Riddler’s riddles in BATMAN FOREVER.

  194. Yeah, but is Nolan’s Batman closer to Night Owl or Rorschach?

  195. While I understand all this talk about fascism because Batman is basically fascist. With that said, the last thing on my mind when I watch a Batman movie is whether or not it’s pro-fascism. I guess some people look for deeper meaning in everything but I just want a good story with one of my favorite comic book characters. I really don’t give a shit whether it’s mirroring Occupy Wall Street or any current event for that matter. I want to be entertained by a good story and some good action, and even better is it’s way above that standard.

  196. Casey

    Hmm, I dunno. I`m against torture, but if I had 20 minutes before a bomb went off and a prisoner who might know the location of the bomb, I`m not sure I wouldn`t torture him. Even if I´m against it.

    Also, Bruce Wayne totally supports orphans and stuff. Leave batman alone, goddamit!

  197. Chitown – It’s just one of those things that is always there as food for thought for the analytical mind. Every movie worth it’s salt has those layers that just stand out to you upon rewatching and bring new perspective to a movie you may have already seen hundreds of times. I don’t think it’s people walking in and going “I expect this movie to touch on X,Y and Z themes” but thanks to the notion of interpretation that every piece of art carries people start to recognize X, Y and Z themes even on a subconscious level after a while and again it brings some new insight into the piece of art they’re subjecting themselves to.

  198. @Broddie and Shoot McKay- There’s no way I’m calling those examples detective work. Basically he did an early version of a Google search when checking out the Joker. I want to see him putting clues and evidence from crime scenes together. Using his deductive powers, basically a much angrier version of Sherlock Holmes.

  199. I like movies that have themes and make me think a lot, but I wouldn’t say every movie worth anything has that. I couldn’t tell you what the fuck The Road Warrior was about but I really fucking love it.

  200. @Casey- it’s about our dependence on oil and where the world is headed when it runs out. We’ll all be walking around with football shoulder pads with spikes on fighting over it in desert like conditions.

  201. Chitown – It’s a bit more than that because he managed to also break down the components of the SMILEX on his own by dealing with the products himself (“Alfred let’s go shopping”) like a forensic scientist which is how he could synthesize an anectdote in the first place. Hopefully we’ll get more hands on and on the field type of detective work in the reboot though instead of just allusions to his deductive skills.

  202. Casey – THE ROAD WARRIOR definitely has a lot to dig into; I know someone that wrote a thesis on the nature of dystopia and it’s psychological effects on the human condition based on a lot of the things he saw in the MAD MAX trilogy. Admittedly I never viewed the movies with that kinda scope though; at least not yet. I just always viewed THE ROAD WARRIOR as “goddamn these car chases can’t ever be fucking topped”.

  203. @Broddie- C’mon man! That shit didn’t even come close to seeming like detective work. I want some CSI type shit. I saw that movie recently and that piece of it was easily one of the worst parts. He pulled that shit out of thin air basically.

  204. chitown

    A movie can have a good story, some good action AND an interesting subtext (as in The Matrix, Robocop, Buffy and Blade Runner, to name a few classics) It`s not a nessecity, though (as in The Road Warrior, Starwars, Avengers and Evil Dead 2, to name a few classics), but it`s so seldom that hollywood-blockbusters actually has something on their mind, so I applaud the movies that actually do.

  205. and i have absolutely never looked for deeper meaning in The Road Warrior besides be amazed at how good the action is and somehow gets better with each and every viewing,

  206. Chitown – “I want some CSI type shit.” you mean like the infamous bullet casing scene in TDK?

    How did he pull that out of thin air? he did his research and he determined which components should never be mixed together and which ones are harmless on their own as seen in the scene where he explains that shit to Vicki Vale.

  207. Chitown – “somehow gets better with each and every viewing” damn straight. Here’s hoping FURY ROAD could match that level of replay value.

  208. dna – Even STAR WARS and EVIL DEAD 2 have a shitload of subtext. Never to the hindrance of straight up entertaining spectacle though and I applaud them for that.

  209. I’m sure Road Warrior does have more going on, although how much of that is intentional is debatable, but I’m just glad there was never a scene where Mel Gibson talks about how crazy it is that the feral kid might grow up to have morals.

    I’m just glad that we live in a world where we can have The Road and The Road Warrior and they’re very different from each other while still being similar in genre.

  210. @dna- I’m not begrudging anyone for finding deeper meaning in action films. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. it’s just not how I go into it. I think my only issue with it is some people get way out of hand with it at times. I’ve read articles where there comparing the story of Superman to the story of Jesus Christ and the same with Neo. It’s obvious to me that those stories have parallels but I’m just not going that deep with it. I’ve known some people who get offended by stuff like that. I am not easily offended and movies like the Dark Knight Rises are a chance to forget about the bullshit in the “real world” for an hour and a half to three hours. I like to let myself escape to that world for a couple of hours rather then try and figure out how it mirrors my world. If the world is well constructed and follows it’s own rules, like The Matrix,The Road Warrior, or Robocop, then I’m happy at the end of that running time.

  211. I think that’s a big part of it for me, Chitown. I need a movie to establish itself and abide by those rules. Obviously movies can turn that on its head, I think Cabin in the Woods does that as well as a movie like Drive, but unless that’s the point I’d rather a film just stayed true to the aesthetics and rules they set up.

    I think that’s part of why I don’t like Nolan very much. He spends a lot of time trying to establish a gritty and realistic world for Batman to live in but it then gets zany and ridiculous. Hell, even the recent slew of “realistic super hero movies” all do this as well, with Kick Ass being the worst and with Defendor doing a pretty good job of keeping true to its world.

    But, yeah, let me know what type of movie it’s going to be. Set up the rules and I can accept a movie based on its own merits. Betray those and it just grates on my nerves.

    What I’m trying to say is that I love Speed Racer. That movie was great.

  212. Sorry Broddie, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the detective thing. He just seemed to know shit but it wasn’t really put together in a way that felt like a detective was doing it. I really do think a Batman movie could easily portray his detective skill through the majority of the run-time and still give the people who are just looking for action what they want. Even though the Sherlock Holmes movies may not be the greatest example, they do portray holes detective side very well. I would love to see that done with Batman. Not just a couple of throwaway scenes where he just seems to know all the answers. I want to see him get stumped and then have to really solve a mystery. It doesn’t need to be for the whole running time but you could easily make the first half of the movie about Batman doing some detective work to unveil the villain before the big reveal in the second half of the movie and all the action the mindless people in the audience are looking for. Not that liking action is mindless because i love great action, but I still want to see Batman solve a mystery we do not know the answer to immediately.

  213. Batman is considered the worlds greatest detective in the comics and cartoons so I’m just saying.

  214. We may never get this because everybody seems to focus on the cool toys and not the actual character of Batman. More likely after about 4 or 5 years we’ll get another origin story. I really wish superhero movies eventually follow the Bond model and assume we already know these characters and just give us a brand new story with them already well established. Until that happens i will probably never see that Batman movie I’m looking for unless it’s in cartoon form.

  215. wow, just wow. so screwed up

    http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/live-updates-on-movie-theater-shooting-in-colorado/

    12:56 P.M. Gunman Had Red Hair Like ‘The Joker,’ N.Y. Police Chief Says

    New York CIty Police Commissiner Raymond W. Kelly said the suspect in the shootings had red-painted hair that resembled the character “The Joker” from the Batman comics and movies.

    He was speaking outside New York’s police headquarters.

    Tony Aiello, a reporter from CBS News, posted Mr. Kelly’s remarks to Twitter and gave an indication of why the police chief in New York would know details of the ongoing investigation in Colorado.

    Tony Aiello@TonyAielloNY
    #BREAKING: NYPD Cmsr Kelly says CO suspect Holmes had “hair painted red, he said he was The Joker.” Armed w/shotgun, AK47, 9mm, knife.
    20 Jul 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
    Tony Aiello@TonyAielloNY
    NYPD Commissioner Kelly is said to be tight w/Aurora Chief Dan Oates, who rose to Dep. Chief during 21 years w/NYPD

  216. I would just like to say that shootings and wildfires aside Colorado is an amazing place to live and I’m proud to call Denver my home.

    Fuck that guy, whatever his motivation or inspiration may be.

  217. I saw TDKR last night and liked it. I will wait to go into details until Vern’s review, but I left the theater satisfied. My first reaction is that it is not as good as TDK, but that is mainly due to the fact that TDKR doesn’t have a performance as iconic as Ledger’s Joker.

  218. So sad and yet another reason I do not like to over-think movies like DKR. What’s going on in the “real world” is much more terrifying then anything a movie could ever come up with. I would just as soon leave the real world where it is for the run-time of a movie. This is a horrible tragedy that will more likely be used by politicians to gain votes for whatever position they can tie this to. I really feel bad for the victims and the families of this absolutely random and senseless tragedy perpetrated by a complete idiot with no respect for human life.

  219. Jareth Cutestory

    July 20th, 2012 at 10:55 am

    I’d just like to say that I am in favor of seeing more of Batman’s detective skills.

    Alfred: You know what you need at a crime scene?
    Batman: Rubber gloves?
    Alfred: Soft eyes.
    Batman: Like I’m suppose to cry and shit?
    Alfred: If you got soft eyes, you can see the whole thing. If you got hard eyes – you staring at the same tree missing the forest.
    Batman: Ah, zen shit.
    Alfred: Soft eyes, grasshopper.

  220. To semi-quote Asimov again: ‘If others have different opinions, even if they might be wrong or less accurate…’

    Are you for real, man, or are you just a wind up like the Borat of the Internet?

    Or maybe just a howling narcissist?

  221. Wait, doesn’t the Joker have green hair? I’m confused…

  222. I think asimovlives’s self-confidence is great.

    And his adherence to Epicureanism is most welcome news. That is a school of thought, a way of life, a moralistic mentality that I, too, find very appealing.

    And sometimes you gotta tell people that you’re pretty much always right and, if they disagree, they’re wrong.

    Concede nothing, asimovlives! Nothing!

  223. I mean, if that suck fuck really thought he was the Joker, why make his hair red? And why do they keep repeating that he “resembled” the Joker with his red hair? Do they even know who the Joker is?

    “He was dressed in an orange polka-dotted moo moo and wearing bunny slippers, much like the popular fictional character The Joker from TVs Batman stariing Adam West.”

  224. Anyways, my point just being, why is that information being reported when it’s clearly not completely correct? There’s this weird subtext to it, like we’re supposed to go “oh, I get it, he’s trying to be like a character in the movie” as if that actually explains anything.

  225. Jareth Cutestory

    July 20th, 2012 at 12:13 pm

    They certainly didn’t give Fred Willard the same consideration!

  226. @Dan Prestwich- I think, and I could be completely wrong, but they are referring to the red wig the joker wore when he was in the nurse costume in TDK.

  227. What the hell is the deal with psychos bringing guns to Batman movies anyway? I remember when I was a kid hearing about somebody who got killed by someone they skipped while waiting in line to see the ’89 Batman movie. Now you have some damn ingrate going around shooting people all over the place during the latest bat movie including toddlers. Good grief.

    This shit is just horrific on so many levels and I don’t want to make light of such a repulsive situation but it wouldn’t surprise me if this was one of those douchebags that was sending death threats to critics all over the place because they didn’t really like this movie.

  228. Also, the way I read it was he, the sick bastard who committed this crime, stated he was the joker.

  229. I believe that it’s possible he said he was the joker, and I believe that it’s possibly he painted his hair red. I even believe he’s enough of a fucking idiot to think the Joker has red hair. I’m just confused as to why the media is reporting it as “red-painted hair that resembled the character “The Joker” from the Batman comics and movies” when red painted hair would not make him resemble to Joker.

  230. Like, my mom called me at work for some reason today, and she goes off on a weird tangent about how I shouldn’t see DKR because there might be copycat killers, and how this killer was dressed as the Joker. And I’m like, where is she getting this shit from? And it’s because the media reports weird, unconfirmed, not entirely accurate tidbits like “red-painted hair that resembled the character ‘The Joker.'” Like, maybe hold off on that shit until we understand for sure what Commissioner Kelly was talking about.

  231. The Liberal Media is always trying to distort the facts about the Joker to push forward the socialist agenda.

  232. Sick fucks with access to guns. Love my home country! Of course, all the conversation will be about the film’s violence, the shooter’s state of mind, and if people should go to the theater with possible copycats showing up. It will not be about how the hell this sick fuck got the equipment to shoot people and rig his apartment with bombs.

    And what really pisses me off are the assholes saying that if someone had had a gun on them, they could have shot the guy. Some guy on the radio said he stopped taking his gun with him to the theatre, but now he’s going to start doing it again because he knows he could have done something if he’d had a gun on him. The psycho sprayed bullets into a crowd that didn’t see it coming because they were watching the movie!

  233. Actually, I’m 99% certain my mom heard about this one on Fox News.

    “New York City Police Commissiner Raymond W. Kelly said the suspect in the shootings had red-painted hair that resembled President Barack Obama.”

  234. Anonimouse,

    The sick fuck was also apparently fully decked out in combat gear, which also might have made him more difficult to kill even if a bunch of people decided it was necessary to bring a gun to the movie theater.

  235. Yeah, bringing MORE guns to theatres is bound to solve everything…The irony here is that you can´t kill stupidity with bullets.

  236. I just read about the Aurora shooting, and it’s such a terrible thing! There’s no excuse for this maniacs, that’s what i say. Terrible, terrible thing.

  237. The Limey, how about you actually read what i really wrote, what was really said, instead of having a knee-jerk reaction about what you though i wrote, hem? Can you do that for me, pal? Thanks in advance.

  238. Mouth, i’m very, very self-confident in regard to my opinions about movies. About all other things in life, not so much. Thing is, excepting movies, one of my defining characteristics is my lack of confidence in almost all matters of life. We all have talents, don’t we? Mine is being a very good judge of movies. I’m a natural born film critic.

  239. marlow, i’m very sorry that your home city of Denver is being tanted by this shooting lunatic. Screw the guy indeed! I’m so very sorry for all your home city people who were wounded and killed. So very sorry. Such a tragedy, such a shame.

  240. I saw TDKR, and let me tell you something. Whenever Majestyk sees this, he’ll be reflecting nostalgically of how Bale’s “silly voice” was acceptable compared to Hardy’s accent. Not a complaint, just a prediction.

    I won’t say more Vern reviews this and some locals knee-jerk this as overrated or whatever, but this is exceptional summer blockbuster spectacle entertainment. The scale makes TDK (and BATMAN BEGINS) look quaint, and even possibly the same with AVENGERS? (But Whedon’s movie has one plus: Never felt draggy, which TDKR does here and there.)

    Doesn’t make TDKR better or worse than AVENGERS because of that, just an observation.

    Also the post-apocalyptic Gotham scenes gave me a LAWRENCE OF ARABIA big budget version of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK vibes. Just saying.

  241. Is the thread for those of us who has yet to see the thrilling next adventure of the caped crusader and still wanting to discuss masked vigilantes?

  242. I believe so, Shoot!

    I hope you don’t include me in the knee-jerk crowd, RRA. I didn’t love TDK to be cool or anything, I didn’t like it because the movie felt lifeless and didn’t hold up well when I thought about it more. I trust the things I didn’t like, though, are purely a subjective and due to aesthetics, however. I like most of you guys for at least keeping your shit straight and not becoming full of hyperbole.

    Plus, we all agree on Road Warrior.

  243. THE ROAD WARRIOR, that movie is a film school class on how to make an action movie. Want to know how to make a good action movie, all you need is to watch and study that movie.

  244. And since Tom Hardy is the new Max Rockatansky, I guess we have a link here…

  245. Best villain in 1966 Batman? My vote goes to Frank Gerswhin as The Riddler. Great maniacal performance and those ridiculous and far-fetched riddles were a highlight.

  246. It’s actually Frank Gorshin. In one episode the Riddler was played by John Astin. It was cool to see Gomez Addams as The Riddler, but for any reason he constantly struck a weird pose with his fist, that apparently was supposed to look like a question mark and I found that irritating.

    While we are at it, a friend of mine is recently doing* a Batman Retrospective and she just arrived at the 60’s series. So I apologize for the plug, but she is my 2nd favourite critic and I like to introduce her stuff to others whenever it’s appropriate.
    http://youtu.be/vTg6hHIoc1g

    *trying to do.

  247. Definitely Gorshin’s Riddler. He played that shit completely straight and was a classic giddy little maniac. Romero’s Joker is not too far behind but Gorshin was king. I’m waiting for Hot Toys to announce a Gorshin Riddler one day; it’s the one action figure I’d ever spend that much money on.

  248. Cesar Romero refused to shave his moustache,you can clearly see it underneath the clown-make-up. Another little goofy detail that fit perfectly into the legend that is the Adam West-era.

  249. I remember reading A DEATH IN THE FAMILY story when I was a kid, I never read the conclusion of the story until recently. And just reading the whole story now, I´m quite impressed with how well-written it is. Also I´ve forgotten about the politics that surronded the story. Still is fairly relevant and the idea of having Joker as an iranian embassador at the U.N seems kinda fitting if you look at it from certain point of view. As an agent of chaos and terrorism in the context of a fictional story it makes sense. Reality not so much perhaps.
    The irrationality of the Joker and the fear he brings with him is what a lot of people look at Iran or any kind of dictatorship like North Korea that gets mirrored in the media. People see irrationality because its something unknown or explained. Thats why Joker is such a terrific villain. He embodies what we are afraid of.

  250. In retrospect A DEATH IN THE FAMILY is actually pretty dull. The writing really isn’t all that special especially because I always had issues with Jim Starlin’s Jason Todd (Mike W. Barr’s Jason on the other hand is excellent). When you consider the quality of Alan Grant’s writing on DETECTIVE at the time too it just comes up short. If it wasn’t for it being the death of Robin I don’t think it’d even be remembered all these years later. The one thing I always did like about it though was Superman sucking up all the poisonous gas. It’s the type of outlandish superheroic that only makes any sense in the DCU.

  251. As I see it,the terrible irony of A DEATH IN THE FAMILY is that Bruce Wayne basically fails as a parent.

  252. The Original... Paul

    July 23rd, 2012 at 11:05 am

    The worst part of waiting for a movie like “TDKR” is that I don’t get to read Vern’s review of it and then discuss it with the rest of you guys. Hopefully I’ll be seeing this one later this week.

  253. This thread was fun and interesting to read. Asimovlives just boggles my fucking mind. But I’m glad he liked the kid shit in Super 8, I kept trying to confront him about how them shooting the movie before the train wreck was a good scene, turns out he might even agree with me!

    I think Dark Knight has fascist tones because Nolan is into making Batman an ambiguous hero. I don’t think he’s pro-fascist. I think the third movie clarifies all that by having an overtly fascist villain, and having Batman try to stop him.

  254. Oh, and as far as Snyder’s MAN OF STEEL villain,

    SPOILERS FOR MAN OF STEEL

    Imdb lists a miraculous casting of Michael Shannon as General Zod…

  255. AND to weigh in on the Kubrick debate, if Kubrick started making films today y’all would be complaining about all the worship he is getting and saying “Kubrick is NOT the new Scorcese!” Or some such parallel. I don’t think Nolan’s as good as Kubrick but were someone to think so, it might be because they genuinely believe it to be the case and not because they’re ignorant and haven’t seen films from the 1970’s.

    That said, the scene where the monkey figures out how to play drums with the femur is pretty much the best scene in all of Cinema. And Dr. Strangelove might not be laugh-out-loud funny but it’s definitely the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.

    I also congratulate Ms. Kael on preferring Altman. The scene in Long Goodbye where Roger Wade wades out into the ocean kicks my ass better than a good deal of Kubrick.

    Also, not Altman, but there’s the spaghetti scene in A Woman Under the Influence. Kubrick never coulda done something like that. Kubrick’s sorta like King Crimson, undeniably brilliant but very narrow in the artistic language at his/their disposal.

  256. renfield,

    Not sure that I agree with you, friend. I think I could rattle off a list of plenty of modern directors that, although they don’t remind me at all of Kubrick, I would consider to possess a similar level of talent. Nolan would not be on my list.

  257. Sidney Lumet, guys! He was better than Kubrick, Nolan and Altman, and much more versatile. I love Kubrick and Altman (I’m not convinced by Nolan yet), but Lumet is my main man. 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Network and The Verdict. And in addition to these classics he could also do entertaining stuff like The anderson Tapes, Murder on the Orient Express and Q & A.

  258. And to reiterate, I say this as someone who really loves THE PRESTIGE, DARK KNIGHT and INCEPTION. I think those are all fantastically entertaining. But I also have some problems with elements of Nolan’s style, certain weaknesses of things that rub me the wrong way. And, unlike the filmmakers that I truly admire, I don’t see him as someone really using the medium in any profound or unique ways.

  259. Dan P. – I completely agree with everything you said. Except I hated INCEPTION but replace that with MEMENTO and yeah it’s pretty on the mark with my own assessment.

  260. pegsman – I could see where you’re coming from but the second half of Lumet’s career is not as strong or interesting as the second half of Kubrick’s. Though I did like Q&A and still rewatch it every now and then.

  261. That’s true, Broddie, but Lumet made about four times as many movies as Kubrick, so I forgive him the odd miss. And Lumet would never have made anything as lame as Eyes Wide Shut.

  262. Dan P,

    No no no, I completely agree that Nolan is not comparable to Kubrick, either in terms of talent or style. I’m just saying that, I wouldn’t automatically assume that somebody’s a philistine for thinking so. I object to the fact that Kubrick is cemented in everybody’s collective cultural DNA as God of Cinema. We shouldn’t take that sort of shit for granted. I think declarations of New Classic Status are quite bold, if people are making them with due consideration and not just fanning the flames of fanboyism.

    I guess that Paul Thomas Anderson is the best pick we have for a true Modern Kubrick, but there are a few problems with the comparison. One is the output of films. Maybe it’s because of the times; maybe PTA would have put out a bunch of shit in the do-whatever-the-fuck-you-want 70’s. Or maybe that’s just the pace at which he works.

    The other issue is the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson is more of a romantic/melodramatist than was Kubrick. I guess There Will Be Blood was more Kubricky, but recall that when Magnolia came out all the comparisons were with Altman’s Short Cuts! And I don’t even know what to say about Punch Drunk Love besides that it’s one of the loveliest films I’ve ever seen.

    Maybe the Coen bros make a better comparison?

    Personally, I’m comfortable with the idea that Kubrick is the shit. There are so many moments in his films that give me vertigo. Hows about when Alex is singing in the bathtub towards the end of Orange? It makes my heart leap into my throat!

  263. renfield,

    Hey, for that matter, why do we need a modern equivalent of Kubrick? He made plenty of great Kubrick movies that we can still watch, and plenty of filmmakers these days are making great non-Kubrick-ian films.

    My point was just, you seemed to be saying that if Kubrick was an up and coming filmmaker now, we’d be unfavorably comparing him to older, more respected filmmakers. I think you have a point that it’s hard to have perspective on modern film sometimes, and its easier to praise dead artists with an established filmography.

    But I don’t think that’s the case here. I’m not shy about showering my favorite modern directors with love. Hell, I love Kubrick, but there are plenty of other filmmakers, include young and modern directors, whose works I connect to more personally and profoundly than his.

  264. I gotcha Dan…re-reading your post I understand what you are saying. The “Nolan would not be on my list” at the end made me think you were challenging the idea that Nolan would be on mine, which is not an idea I espoused.

    But you are in fact saying that you think modern filmmakers can be awesome too. I am grateful that somebody else thinks so! I get so tired of this “all modern films are crap” thing.

  265. The Original... Paul

    July 25th, 2012 at 6:40 am

    Trying to compare Kubrick to Nolan and pick a “best” seems to me like trying to make a comparison between Jane Austen Chuck Palahniuk. Apart from both working within the medium of film (which has changed a helluva lot since Kubrick started out, even since he made his last movie), what on earth do these two have in common? What exactly is Nolan’s equivalent to “A Clockwork Orange”, or Kubrick’s to “Memento”? You’re talking about two completely different directors doing completely different things.

    I’d even say that “Inception” held more for me, subjectively speaking, than “Eyes Wide Shut” did, and that I could relate more to the world of “A Clockwork Orange” than “Memento”. Does the first comparison mean that Nolan is somehow objectively “better”, and the second mean Kubrick is? Of course not.

    As for their reputations, Nolan is a relatively new talent whereas Kubrick has been around since the 1960s and has become pretty much a legend of his craft in that time. Of course Kubrick is going to be considered “great”, does that mean Nolan’s not capable of greatness in his craft? I’d argue not (I’d further argue that he’s achieved it in many ways, but I’ve written pages on this site on that topic and I’m not going to start repeating myself here. All it’ll do is restart the old argument of what defines “great”.)

    Look, if you take comparisons between directors like these, who I think everyone would agree have shown at least a technical mastery of their craft, then I think there’s always going to be a level of subjective opinion to the debate. Not so much “whose work is better?” as “whose work do you prefer?” I definitely think Nolan has shown himself, so far, to be less limited in scope than Kubrick – but again, look at the difference in years there. How many filmmakers of Nolan’s experience have produced films as diverse as, say, “2001” and “Dr Strangelove”?

    In short, I think it’s a damn silly comparison. Sorry.

    I don’t think anybody here is saying “all modern films are crap”. And if they were, I might have to ask them to break something over their own heads, because obviously they haven’t been reading any of my reviews or watching any of the right films this year. And speaking of which, I was going to put up reviews of “Dark Horse” by Todd Solondz – my first film of his, and probably my last – and “Juan of the Dead”. Two films that got a lot of things right but just left me unenthusiastic afterwards. I have some interesting things to say regarding Juan’s use of language, but other than that… I really don’t have too much interesting stuff to comment on. I’ll try and get something together in the forums.

  266. I don’t get the Nolan / Kubrick conversation. The only director I could compare Kubrick to is the Coen Brothers.

    Hell, the Coen Brothers are probably my favorite current directors. Moreso, if I’m going to watch a movie there’s a much stronger chance it’ll be a Coen Brothers movie than a Kubrick movie.

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