Monday, July 21, 2008

Batman's New Clothes

I do not care for Wookies, the Middle Earth, Unicorns or yore.

And I do not have any interest in comics, dark worlds, super heroes or men who can fly.

Of course, there really is no reason for someone like me to be sitting in the audience of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

I bought into the hype and there I went. Longish film.

Heath Ledger. Sure. He might be dead, but he can act. Of course, the Joker is the best part of any movie and one would expect the most from whoever plays this sort of role. Lovely work, Heath. Rest easy.

Poor Aaron Eckhart. He gets burned.

Christian Bale? Does not seem appropriately blue blooded to me. But solid hairline. Wooden really. But who can blame him?

What is most interesting to me is Batman does not have super powers. He’s just a guy (Bruce Wayne of "The Waynes") with a lot of cash who uses his largesse to make nifty crime fighting gadgets and machines. Boys do like this kind of thing.

Lots of nihilism in this movie. This is being praised. I believe Warner Brothers, DC Comics, the press and the world bank got together and made the largest and most expensive performance art installment on earth. The movie is made for a budget that would feed Darfur for a couple of years. The press reports that The Dark Knight is some sort of masterpiece. This publicity is a crafty, printed refraction of the movie’s nihilism, fooling the people of Gotham (that would be us) that this is exactly the kind of world we live in so we must embrace it and must go see the movie. There we are, reading the reviews, paying for tickets and sitting in the audience, all of these actions as empty and meaningless as the movie itself. Actually, what a brilliant worldwide performance piece with all of us who choose to be in it, in it.

Lastly: Today’s blow ups are tomorrow’s has been styles.

I would recommend waiting for the DVD. You can watch the first few minutes, then fast forward to Heath Ledger’s scenes.

Or better yet, take nine minutes for a little POW! WHAM! OUCH!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

kudos to the makers of Dark Knight for their record breaking opening weekend... it's no wonder there's talk of another one coming out ASAP

Don Cummings said...

Oh Patrick! I am so happy for everyone who enjoyed the movie. It just wasn't my kind of thing. I also see, from your blog, that you are a big follower of Jesus, the Lord and Savior. What would Jesus think about this movie? One wonders.

Anonymous said...

I remember the old Batman and Robin episodes. Brought back a lot of memories.

Dagny
www.onnotextiles.com
bamboo and organic clothing

Rebecca Waring said...

I have to confess, I loved Batman growing up. Read the comics and delved deep into the origins of Bruce Wayne, who witnessed his parents murdered as a child and went on to become a crime fighter. I took the TV show seriously - the camp aspect was totally lost on me. But then, I love Middle Earth too. Anything with those Jungian archtypes that represent parts of the human psyche. Robin is derived from N.C. Wyeth-illustrated 'Robinhood' which one of the authors had as a child. Okay, I'll stop now. I haven't seen the movie but plan to.

Todd HellsKitchen said...

Did ya hear ? Did ya Hear?? Mr. Bale was arrested today for assaulting his Mum and sister...

You can't make this shit up...

Cheryl said...

I liked all the moodiness and genuine attention to character development--but since they didn't sacrifice any action scenes to include it, it made for a long and confusing movie.

Christian Bale's dad dated my high school Spanish teacher. I just had to throw that in.

Anonymous said...

I was most shocked by the fact that I didn't even recognize Gary Oldman. And did I notice in the credits that Anthony Michael Hall was in the movie? Frankly, if I am going to pay to watch a man in a metal suit, I'll take Robert Downey Jr instead.