The Dark Knight Rises

[fillow]

The New Meme Rises?

[Elke]

David Cronenberg on TDKR.

[october_midnight]

I dig Cronenberg, and I understand why certain people look down on comic book movies I guess....but still, if he'd say this to me in person my only response would be 'Supreme cinema art dude?.......Crash, man. Crash.'

[onthewall2983]

In a few interviews I've read of his, David never seems to go out of his way to bash other films, which seems incredibly petty.

BTW, I loved Crash. ​And isn't it one of Trent's favorite films?

[Elke]

Crash was brilliant.

[frankie teardrop]

i grow pretty tired of the 'you can't criticize something unless you're a master of it yourself' argument. crash is pretty great, regardless of if it qualifies, but that's just my opinion, and that is just apples/oranges.

i think his point is that everyone holds nolan and co. as this kubrickian genius, master of the intelligent blockbuster, and while i do think many of his movies are enjoyable far beyond the usual michael bay level of action flick, they aren't as dense and complex as many think they are (see my many rants on inception). batman indeed is an adolescent sort of story- ingrained in everyone since childhood via comic books and film mediums, and while nolan did an excellent job grounding the character and stories in real life/adult situations, it is still very much a superhero movie. superheroes primarily work as a figment of the imagination. we're still connecting to the escapist/fantastical realm of the subject matter regardless of how gritty and real it seems.

[Leman Russ]

Wrong on so many parts. I may be in the minority here, but Memento was an absolute snore-fest. I could barely stay awake through it, and my only lasting impression of it is "That awful movie all the hipsters say is sooooo great?". Furthermore, Nolan doesn't shoot in 3D, he's said it himself. IMAX, yes.

[Alpha 60]

I don’t want to get too off topic but the only two Nolan films I own are Following and Memento. The Prestige is the last film of his I saw in the theater. I don’t have anything overly negative to say about the Batman franchise (or Inception), I think Frankieteardrop summed it up pretty well. I also don’t think what Cronenberg said was all that negative, just putting things in perspective. They are technically well made films that are very entertaining, but there is nothing overly psychologically or philosophically interesting happening from an artistic or filmmaking point of view.

[Elke]

I think the fact that Nolan's Batman movies actually have a clear but more complex socio-political message, and that at the heart of every movie there is an ethical problem (and a solution that is not simply GOOD TRUMPS EVIL BOOYAH) makes his movies a lot more intelligent than whether or not you can see the third act reveal coming or not. Aside from the technical skill, that - to me - elevates him. In that regard, I think he's a bit like post-E.T. Spielberg: a very skilled storyteller who has something to say about the world as he sees it but at the same times knows that an entertaining and fun story helps digest that idea.

I'm a bit fed up with the Kubrick analogy: I've seen and heard it a lot since Inception, and always infavourable to Nolan, and it's a completely batshit insane analogy. I always think of Kubrick as Terrence Malick who learned that stories need structure when you tell them to someone who doesn't live in your head. Kubrick's movies aren't particularly intelligent either, but he does this thing where the way he dresses the story (or lack thereof, fuck you Eyes Wide Shut) makes it look spectacularly brilliant while actually it's social commentary of about the same level as Nolan's. But Kubrick is a film maker obsessed with the aesthetics and craft of filmmaking, and Nolan is a very classical storyteller, and that puts them in vastly different categories.

It just strikes me as one of those discussions where the merrit of a movie is judged as rather poor because it's fun. And we can't have that! Really good movies, movies that make it into the art category, can't be fun!
I hate that.

Also, I just realized you could read all that in an angry!David Mitchell voice and it actually sounds like him.

[neorev]

hey I love Nolan's work... still think The Prestige was his best
but is he a Kubrick? no way
Paul Thomas (P.T.) Anderson is the only current director that I feel matches Kubrick's level of work... take There Will Be Blood for example
though I love Nolan's work, he's a different kind of storyteller from Kubrick

[frankie teardrop]

agreed on anderson being the only director with that sort of spirit, and nor do i necessarily agree with the nolan vs. kubrick comparison either, just an obseveration on what the general public perceives nolan as. it's interesting how a few off-base comparisons and criticisms can alter the perception of someone, isn't it? the speilberg comparisons are not off-base, though, but do keep in mind speilberg is OFTEN criticized for replacing the artistic merit of films with thinly veiled mellodrama.

sometimes i get the vibe that nolan suffers from the same sort of fan vs. validity issue that radiohead has these days- where the public pretty much inserts their own level of almighty importance into the work and any criticism is met as blasphemy. that's not nolan's fault. the only issue i have with (most of) his films is the constant need to dumb down or constantly explain mildly complex storylines in order for the movie-going public to understand them. like "hey, this is pretty complex let me break it down to you about six or seven times and one more just in case," which i find kind of insulting. that's less so his fault and perhaps a comment on the caliber of moviegoers these days, though.

tangent aside, of course a fun film can also be an artistic/political/social statement. i'm moreso taking issue with people who believe that because this movie is more realistic, that it somehow transcends the fact that it's still a superhero flick. a really fucking good one, but let's not kid ourselves. that's what i'm taking away from the whole cronenberg/october_midnight comments. it's still a film about batman, so it may be hard for some to separate that from a film based on something with a little less adolescent appeal. it's still a popcorn flick, which is what gets people into the theatres to begin with.

[neorev]

I can agree on the Nolan meets Spielberg comparisons, though Spielberg is much more aimed at big popcorn family events. But I see what ya mean.
But I've never been the real comic book type, so I enjoyed Batman set in a more realistic tone. I have yet to see The Avengers because I did not enjoy any of the individual lead up movies. Just wasn't my thang. When it's on tv, I'll watch it.

[Leman Russ]

The same criticisms have been made about the Transformers movies. It's like they forget that they are about giant alien robots fighting each other. I'm not expecting to have my views on the global economy changed by giant fighting robots. Sure, they're poorly written, poorly acted, and overall dumb. But they're about robots. Same thing with Nolan's Batman films. At the end of the day, they're about a guy who dresses up in a cape and fights bad guys. Granted, Nolan's films are well done, well acted, and grounded much more in reality than many others of the genre, but they're still Batman movies. If you go into them thinking "man this Batman movie better make me see another side of XX issue", then you're getting your information and influences from the wrong source. You probably also believe Fox NEWS is fair and balanced.

[Elke]

GOD! I'm so sorry, this post is HUGE! I guess it shows my passion, which my therapist assures me is one of my good sides Feel free to totally skip it.


This is a complete sidenote that I will ingore after one tiny, tiny step in the direction of total derailment BUT: comics are thoroughly, thoroughly political. From the absolute onset. Actually, a lot of big dumb movies have been vehicles for some of the best social commentary ever made in film. Think of Dawn of the Dead, for instance, which is absolutely brilliant - as well as horrific fun and pretty low on the artsiness; or Godzilla. And a lot of more recent heroes & monsters movies have tried to do the same thing: Cloverfield was a pretty good post-9/11 update of the ol' Japanese weirdly biologically impossible waterdinosaur (if hammering the plot home a bit too enthusiastically); Spielberg roared at individualism in War of the Worlds; The Mist hit you over the head with a hammer-shaped opinion until you couldn't see the creepy crawlies through the blood running over your face; not to mention the X-Men movies which have constantly overplayed the theme of otherness that's also in the book, and the rarther depressing vision of capitalism in Iron Man (not IM2 though, that was bad). Even Singer's Superman reboot was about as thinly veiled in its poltical commentary as The Usual Suspects was predictable. I'd go on and on if it wasn't bedtime for me
Anyway, point is: there's no such thing as just a comic book movie or just a superhero flick, and since the dawn of incredibly crap light entertainment reading, most of pulp's enduring classics had something going for them far beyond the adolescent appeal.

Let's put it this way: when I read the first interview with Bryan Singer about X-Men, I was struck with a sense of recognition. He talked about being a geeky gay kid, and discovering the Xverses and how the book had become his portal into self-acceptance. For me, it's always been Lord of the Rings, which is only more high brow than comics because it was a stuffy litterature professor's vehicle for self-devised languages. No philosopher I ever read, no single line from the Bible (which is, after all, my holy text of preference) and certainly none of the high-brow movies I've seen (and loved) over the years have helped me accept myself and my role in this life better than Boromir of Gondor. That's completely ridiculous, but it's also very normal: as a young teenager, that image struck me. It's been more influential than anything else in my life. (A friend of mine, I recently discovered, had a similar experience with Peter Parker - much like Andrew Garfield himself, it seems.)
So perhaps a small percentage of people now raving about how TDKR taught them all kinds of things about the world and/or themselves, are not overstating it at all: maybe they mean it. Not everyone sees 2001: A Space Odessy at 16 and decides he now understands the universe (like my brother, who's several IQ points up on the scale from anyone in our family).

And on that note, one last thing: yes, Nolan takes the time to explain things. For people like my mother, and for some of my friends and students, this is really helpful. They're not used to reading/watching dense complicated stories, and they need some moments of exposition to simply catch up.
Have you considered that, in the same manner that I've known the ending of every Shyamalan movie within the first ten minutes (except Signs, it took 20' there) and have a faultless Midsommer Murders post-series 3 track record, you're simply smarter than the movie because it's a medium you're well-versed in?

[frankie teardrop]

well, flattery will get you everywhere

if anything, the comic book medium does give something for the casual movie goer to get sucked into- come for the escapist comic book aspect, and hopefully get something deeper out of it- and that's all right with me. i think putting social and political issues into a surface level popcorn flick is indeed a wise decision- so long as the agenda isn't too skewed towards an extreme. it definitely adds a level of enjoyment for me- figure if i want meaningless fluff i'll just watch a romantic comedy or something, and lord knows i've watched many of those while exhausted from a long night of djing.

so yeah, i don't disagree with a word of that. i just want to call a spade a spade.

[ImTheWiseJanitor]

JGL's take on Blake's ending. Nothing really new or revealing at all, but it's kinda cool to know how he sees the ending.

[onthewall2983]

The funny thing about this whole Cronenberg thing is is that despite not wanting to do comic book or superhero movies, he already has kind of. A History Of Violence was based on a graphic novel. And it can be argued that The Dead Zone ​was a superhero movie.

[Iran_Ed]

The night I saw the film I posted in here. I reposted it elsewhere and added this.

Nolan took Batman and planted him firmly in reality. This is why these films work, to a degree they are plausible.
The Dark Knight Rises is: A terrorist attack during and fueled by an occupy Wallstreet like protest. This is the most important part of the film.



A few weeks later and the film has lost some of its luster to me. As I said in the first post
it feels like he's trying to put way to much information in his films. And as Frankieteardrop
pointed out. There are times when it feels like things are being repeated to make sure everyone
can follow along.

After about two or three weeks of thinking it through I've decided that I would love to see this movie without
Batman and Catwoman. I would rather see the citizens of Gotham have to rise together to take back control of their city.

[Elke]

^ Isn't that what they do, though? Gordon, Blake, even Selina with 'her territory' - they all work to recapture something. Batman functions even more as a symbol in this movie than in the prior two, where he's a lot more in the business of single-handedly saving the world than in this one.

edit: Also, as an aside, I think the Occupy movement would take offense being compared to either the violent war lord Bane or the handful of running-on-empty saboteurs in the movie.

[Iran_Ed]

^ Isn't that what they do, though? Gordon, Blake, even Selina with 'her territory' - they all work to recapture something. Batman functions even more as a symbol in this movie than in the prior two, where he's a lot more in the business of single-handedly saving the world than in this one.

edit: Also, as an aside, I think the Occupy movement would take offense being compared to either the violent war lord Bane or the handful of running-on-empty saboteurs in the movie.

Yes a handful of citizens do, but I'm talking about a massive uprising. Are Bane and his team ultra violent, yes, but as the scene at the football game shows they are massively outnumbered. The final battle in the streets is between the police force and Bane.
I keep having the thought of something like the Iran election protest from 2009. Men and women of different ages and backgrounds fighting to bring attention to a wrong. The everyday people rising up and assembling.

As for my Occupy movement comments. Yes the one in the movie is fake and backed by the very people who it's suppose to be critical of, but that's the point. It's a great distraction, like the shooting of the horse in The Killing.(since everyone wants to compare Nolan to Kubrick) Everyone's attention is wrapped up in the movement, money and the Harvey Dent law's overconfidence, that the glaring problem is sneaking up on them right below their feet.

Edit: Gotham City painted as Homs Syria. That's what I want.

[Elke]

Mmmm.... I'm not convinced. It's probably me projecting, but to me Bane and his troupe were a lot more like African rebel bands.

[Fixer808]

Very first thing I would do upon returning to my car and seeing that would be run out and get some clear-coat sealant.

[onthewall2983]

That's got to be photoshopped, right?

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/71079595.html

My girlfriend came upon this article today and I found it very interesting. Even though it is from Star magazine, and makes no sense what so ever.. I still found it interesting little article.


There was a rumor that JGL wasn't very liked on the set, but that's why they are called rumors. Check this interview out with Caine and Freeman... so awkward when they are asked about JGL. Skip to 5:55.

[Luke Flanaghan]

In My Own opinion, the best Nolan/Bale collaboration was The Prestige. Although very well made, beautifully designed and shot, Nolans Batman Movies never really leave me with any sense of satisfaction. The third act in all three movies so far has been far too drawn out with little in the way of edge of the seat tention or satisfactory pay off. The first two movies just seemed to meander to their conclusion, the most dramatic part of the last movie was the reveal at the end, which is a typical movie trick of making the last thing you see exciting to color the vast sections of the film which were just brooding bland scene building.

A cast of Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman, all used as support characters to balance out and try and humanise Bales Batman just didn't really do much for me personally. In fact, the only two people I empathised with in the movie were Hathaway and Levit, who at least added a little colour to an otherwise plodding, overly moody and depressingly drab world that Nolan laid out in front of me.

I can take these movies of leave them, they are fairly good but hardly the wondrous works of Cinema that people are making them out to be. When Nolan said he wanted to pay homage to how old movies were made with a feel of epic scale, I was expecting the Drama of such movies as Ben Hur, that had intimate scenes of character introspection, and vast casts flodding the eye when the action kicked in.

What we got was three hours of Batman meets Doctor Zhivago........ and by that I mean a third of the movie had lots of people plodding about in snow not looking particularly happy.

That being said, roll on Dredd, where we will see more dark broody stern justice (and some suitably decent drol black humour to go with it) without it trying too hard to come across as Citizen Cane with a cloak.

And before anyone on here is going to start talking about how Karl Urban's Dredd voice is trying to 'Do a Batman' please check the history of Dredd, Dredd was based on Dirty Harry, so Urban is lifting Clint Eastwood :P

For entertainment and satisfaction, the Dredd Movie is going to OWN the DarkNight, but then I am a biased 2000ad fan who over the years has seen 2000ad writers cross the pond to save the American comic industry and create things like Watchmen, Sandman, Red Son, Preacher and Bat Man Year One for them.......

Batman Year One.......

The book that pretty much made Batman THE DARK KNIGHT

[Corvus T. Cosmonaut]

David Bordwell's one of the best critics/historians/professors of film, and he's got a pretty great piece up now looking back over Nolan's career.

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/20...olan-vs-nolan/

I have only a welterweight dog in this fight, because I admire some of Nolan’s films, for reasons I hope to make clear later. Nolan is, I think all parties will agree, an innovative filmmaker. Some will argue that his innovations are feeble, but that’s beside my point here. His career offers us an occasion to think through some issues about creativity and innovation in popular cinema.

[wizfan]

Watched it yesterday, a few days after I saw Rescue Dawn. Bale apparently has a thing for being imprisoned and tortured while barefoot.

[Iran_Ed]

http://iran-ed.tumblr.com/post/29744...er-feed-we-are

Sorry if this has already been posted

[wizfan]

Also, I watched it after the truly horrible Darling Companion, which also featured a dislocated bone scene. Surprisingly, the scene in DKR was much easier to watch than the one in DC.

[Ryan]