Posts Tagged ‘The Dark Knight’
4 items.
Originally, I wanted to do a comic about Hellboy II: The Golden Army for today’s update. I had a chance to see the movie last Friday and loved it. But seeing as I had just completed TWO Hellboy comics STARRING Hellboy last week, I thought it might be overkill. Truthfully, it would have been more of an excuse for me to try and rope things back into Theater Hopper territory and not do a straight-up parody. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.
I was about to do a comic I had on the back burner for Meet Dave. The set up was going to be Tom and Cami sitting at a table and Tom mentioning to Cami that Eddie Murphy had a new movies in theater. Her reply would have been a courteous but clipped “Oh, that’s nice” and then the last two panels were going to be completely without dialogue to reflect the idea that NO ONE CARES ABOUT EDDIE MURPHY ANYMORE!
If you think that last statement is too harsh, then just check out the box office on Meet Dave in it’s first week. 7th place and $5.3 million dollars? You really screwed the pooch with Norbit, Murphy. You could have had a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Dreamgirls and pulled yourself out of this hole. Now you’ll be stuck doing tepid family films for ages.
Ah, who am I kidding. The guy has more money than God. He’s set for life.
Anyway, that was going to be my Meet Dave comic which I really like conceptually, but probably wouldn’t have worked in reality. Too low key, too subtle and I’m not sure people would have understood that neither Tom or Cami were particularly interested in the latest Eddie Murphy movie. It probably would have ended up looking like I forgot to add word bubbles to the last two panels.
Thank goodness for The Dark Knight. Probably one of the most anticipated films of the year and I feel like I have enough ground to cover with this one to do a WHOLE WEEK’S worth of strips. So, buckle up.
People have been going round and around talking about Heath Ledger’s performance of The Joker. And, of course, you can’t talk about Heath Ledger without mentioning that he died back in January from an accidental overdose. It’s kind of a catch-22. On the one hand, it feels slightly exploitative. But, on the other hand, it wouldn’t be responsible journalism if you didn’t mention it somewhere. It might almost be considered disrespectful to his memory – like you were trying to gloss over something that didn’t happen.
Any way you slice it, it’s a shame. I kind of feel bad for the other actors in the film that not have to field questions on two fronts. It’s no longer about promoting the movie. It’s also about Ledger and what his death means. I have a fantasy where Gary Oldman just goes off on some reporter for pushing the issue too far, but that’ll probably never happen.
Some critics are already saying Ledger should be nominated for an Oscar for his performance. Having not seen the movie, I can’t judge one way or the other. Although I’ve been impressed with the clips I’ve seen. Ledger is mesmerizing and it’s evident that he tapped into something primal in his depiction of The Joker.
That said, it’s all speculation and too soon to say if it’ll even happen. I try to think in the short term as well as the long term and if there was going to be any benefit at all from Ledger’s death, the best I could come up with is the absolute conclusion to lame Brokeback Mountain references.
It was only a couple of years ago, but you remember how it went. Seriously – if I had to listen to one more person do their riff on the line “I wish I knew how to quit you,” I would have screamed.
Hey, I was guilty of it, too! But some people hang onto that stuff a little too long. Admit it, you still know someone in your office making Borat references. “Very nice…”
At this point, a Brokeback reference would not only be irrelevant from a pop culture perspective, it would be downright insensitive. So, I think we can officially label this “The End of The Trend.”
A short programming note for those of you who are fans of The Triple Feature podcast – there will be no show tonight. Both Joe and Gordon are traveling, which would leave me by my little, old lonesome. So we decided to scrap this week’s show and get together NEXT week at 9:00 PM CST at TalkShoe.com to discuss Hellboy II and The Dark Knight. I don’t know who we’re trying to fool. You know we’ll only end up talking about The Dark Knight. Which is a shame. I had a great time watching Hellboy II and everyone I’ve talked to has enjoyed it as well. It would be a real treat to pour over it.
I guess you’ll just have to tune in next week to see!
Thanks for visiting the site today. I’ll see you here again on Wednesday! Have a great week!
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# THIS BLOG POST WAS LOST WHEN THEATER HOPPER MOVED TO WORDPRESS IN JANUARY 2009 #
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Sorry, guys. Today’s blog post will be somewhat delayed as my brain is total mush.
I’m at home right now on a “staycation” that requires me to lug furniture up several flights of stairs, rearrange rooms and clear out storage areas. Cami and I are basically JUST NOW getting around to our Spring Cleaning and it’s killing me.
It’s probably what lead me to reference a near 60 year-old Jimmy Stuart movie in today’s comic. Don’t as me why. I know for most of you, this joke is going to go right over your heads. But it’s my hope that people who know a little bit of film history will get a kick out of it.
What I would really like to do is talk in depth about The Dark Knight. Cami and I got to see it on Monday and I was blown away.
The performances were all great, as to be expected. But I was really caught off guard by the excellent questions the film presented in regard to humanity’s true nature and what one must do to battle evil – both inside and external to oneself.
Spider-Man 3 made a big deal about "the enemy within" but Sam Raimi only wishes he could conjure up a fraction of the moral quandry Christopher Nolan boxes Batman into during the course of The Dark Knight.
Anyway, like I said, my brain is mush right now, so I don’t feel like I can go much more into it. But if you’re looking for a little insight in the meantime, download Monday night’s episode of The Triple Feature podcast. The crew gets into a pretty good discussion about The Dark Knight that I think you’ll enjoy. Check it out.
Oh, and for those that wrote in Monday with suggestions about whether to see The Dark Knight in IMAX or a regular theater, thanks for you input. The vote was pretty evenly split. Cami and I decided to see it in a regular theater mostly because of the bad experience we had seeing Superman Returns in IMAX.
Plus, our regular movie theater is five minutes from our house. So convenience won out!
Take care. I’ll talk to you soon!
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Dec10
I got the idea for today’s comic when we were talking about Time Magazine’s publication of their Top 10 films of 2008 during The Triple Feature Monday night.. The ice cream analogy wasn’t discussed at the time, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more it fit.
On the whole, I don’t find much to disagree with in term of Richard Corliss’s picks. I think it’s a good mix of populist and obscure. That he puts Wall-E at the top of his list is a great harbinger of things to come. As much as I loved Iron Man this year (and wouldn’t shut up about it), Wall-E is who I’ll be cheering for come awards season. I really believe it’s a film that will stand the test of time and it accomplishes that in what is tantamount to a few, simple brush strokes (so to speak).
But back to Speed Racer and The Dark Knight. I don’t mean to characterize Speed Racer poorly. Although I was apprehensive of the film while it was in theaters, I fell in love with it once it was on DVD. The movie truly is an underrated gem.
But on Corliss’s list, it sticks out like a neon thumb. Glowing even brighter in the absence of the gothic gloom of The Dark Knight which was so perfectly assembled by Christopher Nolan that it is probably the most critically and financially successful film of the year. By leaving it off the list, Corliss is ignoring something important that happened in movies this year. A film like The Dark Knight doesn’t make A HALF BILLION DOLLARS from the domestic box office for nothing.
Certainly critical or financial success shouldn’t dictated prominence on an end of the year list. There is something to be said for expressing a personal preference. Judgments on art are always subjective anyway.
But despite Speed Racer’s hidden quality, he looks a little bit out of touch by promoting a film that was pretty my panned by critics and ignored by audiences at the start of the summer blockbuster season that cost three and a half times more to produce than it reclaimed at the box office against the first “comic book” movie that is generating serious buzz as an Oscar contender. In his pursuit to pick an unconventional choice, he leaves many readers scratching their heads.
Food for thought.
That’ll do it for me today. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you here on Friday! Have a great day!
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