The Dark Knight: I Want to Believe

The Dark Knight may not be the film we deserve. But it is the film that we needed. And just like Gotham City needed to presume one of its citizens' innocence in order to have the strength to go on, we need to presume this movie's near-perfection in order to continue making comic book movies that aren't kicks to the artistic gonads.

It is not the best movie ever made. Depending on your tastes, it may not even be the best comic book movie ever made. And this may not be Heath Ledger's best performance nor even the best interpretation of the Joker (though I would say it is the best portrayal on film). In fact, after having seen this movie twice, I think I can come to the blasphemous conclusion that the second installment in Christopher Nolan's Batseries may be...overrated.

But, you know what? This was the most exhilarating experience I had in a movie theater in recent memory. This film has taken me as it has so many others and turned me into a nearly-mindless drone. I love, love, love The Dark Knight. And the fact that so many others do too gives me hope for the future of blockbuster entertainment.


For the record, Batman Returns was my first foray into anything Caped Crusader, followed shortly by the animated series. Looking back, it was really messed up, but it kept me endlessly entertained and was a fixture in my VCR.

In the second grade, I knew this girl named Whitney who I guess I must have found annoying. She lived in the neighborhood and she wanted to be friends with me, so she brought over Batman Forever. At the time, I was less concerned with the quality of the movie so much as with how to get the cootie-carrier out of my house. Considering I haven't been able to get a girl so desperate to come by my place again, I probably should have been nicer to her in retrospect, but them's the breaks. At any rate, I was still able to figure out that the movie was...off. Worse than Returns by far.

Since the whole geek community is having a cathartic collective bashing of Batman and Robin, I'll sidestep the travesty altogether.

Let's talk about the real Batman movies. Let's talk about Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale.


I think Begins had promise more than anything else. It didn't stray tremendously from your standard popcorn movie. Its villains were kind of simple-minded, even if their atmospheres were satisfyingly creepy and gritty. The fight scenes, while not overly theatrical, were disorienting and messy. It had a heavy-handed motif, a damsel in distress, and a silly macguffin.

But it didn't have puns. And Gotham looked like a real city. And James Gordon wasn't a buffoon. And Rachel Dawes wasn't a gallivanting tramp. These touches along with the fascination of Bruce Wayne's training and the plausible introduction of a masked vigilante, rose Batman Begins head and shoulders above the average.

Also, it had the Tumbler. And don't lie, the real climax of that movie was when Batman was playing chicken with all of those cop cars on the freeway.


It was a relatively simple movie, but it was good and that's hard to ask for these days from studios who apparently know what we like better than we do. So I know I was excited for an inevitable sequel the minute "Batman Begins" appeared on the screen (which was the end credits). As disappointments like Superman Returns and Spiderman 3 came out, Dark Knight seemed like our last hope for a competent superhero movie. Iron Man came along and created a little upstart that would have given The Dark Knight some stiff competition in quality...

...were it not obvious from shot one that this is a very different type of movie entirely.


Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you...stranger.

The frenetic energy and grand scope of the initial bank heist is the first hint of genius. The tense note of the electric guitar as the window gets shot out and the clowns go down the zipline set the mood for a different type of criminal indeed. The plan is simple, but meticulous. Elaborate in its own way, but far from ridiculously complex. Without hearing that much from the Joker himself, we see his manipulation of the weak come to spectacular fruition and watch him steal the mob's money without a care to the consequences.

"What do you believe in, huh? What do you believe in???"

When we see that bus join the line right as Gotham's schools let out, we appreciate the Clown Prince of Crime's stroke of genius, as well as his twisted sense of humor.

The Dark Knight is a study in crime and the people who stand against it. Gotham's citizens, politicians, and law enforcers have all gained some backbone since the first movie, thanks to the symbol that is the Batman. At the forefront of this stand against injustice is District Attorney Harvey Dent, who had been vying for your vote during the movie's viral marketing campaign.


Decent men in an indencent time.



I loved Harvey Dent in this movie. Aaron Eckhart captures the essence of a reckless man with the world in front of him. Very rarely are Batman's allies at all interesting, but now the Nolan brothers have introduced a man that for whom Batman himself would step aside. He's determined and a bit reckless, but he represents the hope Bruce Wayne was hoping to inspire. Rounding up 500+ mobsters in a public display of justice is one of the characters' shining moments.

I would totally watch a show that was called Harvey Dent, D.A. Or, as Gordon put it, The White Knight. It almost makes me wish the Batman mythos didn't go down the path it does.

But what did Gordon say at the end of the last film? Things were inevitably going to escalate in response to Bruce Wayne's open defiance of the despicable status quo. The Joker is the embodiment of that escalation.


Unstoppable force...immovable object.

One of the best scenes in the film is the interrogation between Batman and the Joker. When I first saw the screenshot, I thought it was kind of silly to stick Batman in an interrogation room, but the oddity is quickly pounded out by Batman's fierce assault and the Joker's unrelenting disdain for the system. "You complete me," he tells Batman, obviously mocking, but also revealing a truth.


Psychopaths like the Joker are partly Bruce's responsibility. As long as everyone was willing to stand by and let organized chaos ruin their lives, true chaos had no reason to rear its ugly head. When Batman demanded order, anarchy answered gleefully and in full force. And, unfortunately for some of the new war's casulaties, the process is irreversible. Even if Batman were to hang up the cowl, he's "changed things...forever."

Heath Ledger's portrayal of a villain who is seeking something other than tangible gain or traditional power is the primary draw to The Dark Knight. The Joker is horrifyingly fascinating and a twisted delight to watch on screen. Ledger produces laughs from the audience with a simple fleeting expression, an inscrutable gait, and a murderous wit. But unlike past screen Jokers, he is not a silly joke. He considers our attempts to control life to be the greatest joke of all and he loves to use death and mayhem to drive the point home.


Watching the world burn.


Joker's attacks on Gotham's psyche are a definitive stroke of wonder in Dark Knight. The tension makes the heart beat and grips your attention relentlessly. This is a major component in the film's greatness, but it's also a potential drawback.

The movie can be exhuasting. Scenes such as the simultaneous assassination attempts of public servants induce nail-biting in between violent jumps and starts. Characters are put in unberable moral dilemmas and millions of people are terrorized. Since the movie doesn't let up, the pace doesn't necessarily drag, but it's so packed with mini-climaxes that The Dark Knight might feel longer than it actually is.


Howard and Zimmer's score is liable to induce a heart attack if you listen to it set against enough explosions and murders. But for the atmosphere, it works excellently and has quickly become some of my favorite thriller music. Their good job at narrating the chaos is a factor in the tolerable snaking of the plot. At the end of the showing, I really wouldn't have minded if the movie reached Lord of the Rings length.


I think you and I are destined to do this forever.





DEATHS AND SPOILERS SECTION - SKIP AHEAD






The quintessential tension scene would probably be the ferry scene. I really enjoyed the concept and the mindgame, but I wasn't sold on the outcome. It was artistic to make the convict toss the detonator. It was unconvincing when the civilian didn't turn the key. Unfortunately, maybe the Joker won in my head, because I do believe any normal group of people would blow up a boat full of convicts to save their own skins.

Perhaps if Nolan had built things up more to show evidence of the town being more magnanimous. Instead, we spend two hours watching them unravel psychologically only to have a magical sweep of conscience. It's this type of crowd compassion that made the Spiderman movies barf-tastic and while it's not handled with such heavy-handed propogandization, the film would have benefitted by acknowledging the unlikely decision and the psychological steps needed to get there.

I was convinced Two-Face was dead when Batman turned him pretty-side up and I was happy with that decision. When he was holding Ramirez at gunpoint, I remember thinking "Wow, they're using a lot of Two-Face in this movie, why not just hold off until the third movie?" Well, this movie was as much about Harvey as it was about Batman (Joker encompasses everything), so it was fitting to follow his story arc to its end. Mainly, I don't want to see Two-Face fall prey to sequel-itis, as Scarecrow did, to a small extent.

They showed the man he was. They showed the demons he had before his disfigurment. They showed his downfall. Stick a fork in him. As far as the movie franchise goes, he's done. To bring him back would be a cheap ploy to milk the character and I'm perfectly satisfied with him bowing out and giving other rogues a chance.

Joker, on the other hand, was written to be Batman's permanent foe and while I think it would be inappropriate to recast in the third movie, I would hold out and see if Nolan makes a fourth or a fifth and call for Joker to return for the final movie of the extended series.

For as much of an improvement as Maggie Gyllenhall was, it's good that they finally got rid of Rachel. She was bland and useless alive. She did a lot more good dead and Joker's fakeout was one of the hardest-hitting moments in the movie.

But the death that affected me the most was Gordon's. I couldn't understand how they could kill him before he became Commissioner, but when Stevens gives Barbara Sr. the bad news, I was convinced they had actually done it to make a point. And I was angry, confused, sad, and distraught. I didn't realize how much Gary Oldman's portrayal of Jim meant to me, but it was apparently a lot...

...which is why I jumped in my seat and applauded when he revealed himself again. And when Dr. Richard Alpert granted him the office of Commissioner, I could have given him a standing ovation. I had invested a lot in Gordon.

And it's moments like those that make The Dark Knight special.






END SPOILERS






So...this film shattered all expectations. If I had my way, I'd see it win Best Picture. I'd see it break Titanic's money record. But, objectively, I have to wonder if our expectations were not skewed down by the slew of crap we've been force-fed over the years. I know that I love this movie. But I don't know if it did its best at exploring its questions, partly because I was too enthralled at the ass-kicking going to really notice. I'm actually sure it could have been even more thought-provoking, that it could have hit stronger emotional chords and the pacing could have been tight and even more heart-racing.

But this isn't a case where the gift Bat should be looked in its mouth. Just because it hinted at better cinema doesn't make it a failure. Far from it, it's making audienes across the world realize that superheroics are real. I can only hope that it inspires others to follow suit. And I can healthily expect for the next Batman film to be something special too. Perhaps, if we let him have his way, Chris Nolan will go even deeper and produce something beyond the platinum he put in front of us this summer.

I'm tempted to say that the Batman film franchise should only be left in his hands indefinitely.

But consider Harvey Dent's words..."You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

It seems to me that Nolan and Bale will want to quit while they're ahead and maybe they'll be right in doing that. But...well, call me foolish, but I'd like to risk it and see them take it as far as possible. Oddly enough, this movie has inspired a sort of optimism in me and hope for the state of our culture.

If Harvey Dent were real, I would believe in him. Right now, I believe in the capacity for great movies about great heroes. I believe in DC Comics. I believe in Christopher Nolan.

I believe in The Dark Knight.

Selma Blair Sucks -- Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

I think the fact that the critical community adores Hellboy can be attributed to the fact that they've been starved of quality in special-effects laden superhero flicks for years. As audiences, we've been subjected to a lot of soulless formula fare with pricey graphics, but cheap writing and cheaper acting. So when Guillermo del Toro makes an effort and puts his heart into making something offbeat (and for less money than Hulk or Hancock), everyone applauds. Unfortunately, just because it's creative in one or two respects doesn't make it quality. Jeffrey Tambor hams it up and proves that he's hip and wit it when he drops the line, "I hate YouTube." Well, I hate to say it, because I find Hellboy appealing on several levels, but this movie belongs on the internet more than it does in a theater.

The first one was refreshing because it didn't have a stereotypical goody-goody or a tortured moral mess as its lead...it was just some Guy, albeit red-skinned and from some type of Hades. Unfortunately, the pacing, structure, and acting in the movie wasn't nearly as imaginative. Selma Blair (Liz), for one, was a bore and, with the possible exception of Kronin the clockwork assassin, he villains were painfully campy. Still, it was fun and I am all for a franchise drawing from the aspects that worked: Ron Perlman and the concept of a beer-swigging, Baby Ruth-chewing hero.




Hellboy 2: The Golden Army does maintain this pretty well. Hellboy's affable nature combined with a gruff mistrust toward authority and a childish reckless streak are front and center in Perlman's performance. He's witty, but he's not annoying. He's badass, but he's sensitive. In the current movie franchises, Bruce Wayne is someone to be feared, Clark Kent is a bland nerd, Tony Stark is kind of a douche, and Peter Parker is an annoying manchild. Hellboy is someone you can kick back and share a beer with and he's the least human out of all of them (or is he the most?)

I think everyone agrees that the scene where he and Abe (Doug Jones) get drunk and discuss women is inspired. This is a moment that del Toro gets completely right. We occasionally want to relate to our protagonists on a goofy level. And I want my movies to acknowledge the fact that superheros can drink without being alcoholics. I also appreciate heroes that don't get the opposite sex.

But there's a point where The Dumb stops being realistic or endearing and just annoying.

Both Hellboy movies suffer from dumb characters, but Hellboy 2 is potentially worse, with lame character motivation, tired dialogue, and grade school logic.

"Hey, I'm going to rescue this baby by swinging around shooting at a monster that's after me specifically while holding it with my tail at all times. I could have dropped it off with its mother ages ago, but this will make me just so damn endearing to the humans." No wonder the mom was pissed at him.

I won't even directly mention the frustrating Duh moment at the end of the movie which everyone inevitably comments on when discussing it. It's just an example of sloppy plot development.

But while we're talking about Princess Nuala, I'd like to say that her accent got on my nerves, and if that's what the actress actually sounds like, I wish they'd found a British person who doesn't sound like she's freaking Amanda Bynes trying to fool some cute British guy into liking her. Worse was the unconvincing "suddenly we're in love because Abe needs a reason to drink Tecate" schtick. Forced romances are the worst...

....which is why I wish they had fired Selma Blair.



I don't understand why so many people are saying she improved, but she didn't. What you're mistaking for better acting is a new haircut. Also, she's on fire more often, occasionally masking her one facial expression: "disaffected." She goes from "I can't live with you, Hellboy" to "you've exposed my freakisness to the world, I am angry" to "I shall tentatively give you pecks of comfort" to "Omg, save my rock-fisted boyfriend" without a trace of internal struggle. In fact, I'm not entirely sure Liz Sherman or Selma Blair remember what they felt in the last scene.

On the note of character motivation, I like how Agent Krauss was aware enough of his dwindling screen time to hint that he'd have a backstory if the studio allows another sequel. Johann Krauss on the whole was kind of a disappointment for me. His locker room confrontation with Hellboy was nothing more than Nickelodeon slapstick and the accent got old fast. As a person who's taken German, I take exception to Seth Macfarlane playing off the old "happy German soldier in lederhosen" schtick. Oh, and haha, he used a made-up and/or archaic German substitue for "penis." Inspired. Simply inspired.



Finally, as far as characters go, Prince Nuada was a step up from Rasputin, but...that's about it. The movie didn't taken enough advantage of his apparent ability to make treachery appealing to Hellboy.

The thing that saves this film from being worse than its predecessor is the imagination applied to its creatures and its settings. Rather than fighting Generic Multiplying Tongue Beast from Hell, Hellboy confronts some really cute, but carnivorous "tooth fairies" at the beginning (like cornish pixies from Harry Potter except they process you like ground meat). The troll market pulses with some of the best creative dementia since the Mos Eisley cantina. And the Golden Army itself is both a menancing threat and something I would like to tinker with in my basement.



Basically, it all smacks of Pan's Labyrinth, but that's a good thing. Whatever his shortcomings in action films, del Toro has a talented inner eye and efficiently uses computers, puppetry, costumes and make up to create something refreshing to witness. This kind of production value combined with a script penned by someone other than Mr. Wink the Metal Gloved Troll would have made The Golden Army substantially better than Hellboy, but all things considered, it's about as satisfying as the first one.

Still, the Angel of Death scene makes it clear that del Toro will make a third given the chance. And honestly, I would look forward to it. If the filmmakers follow through with the implications made right before the final battle, it would make for a very intersting dilemma and perhaps a less cliche ending...and there's something to be said for the fact that I kind of want Red to be okay at the end of the series.

....They can kill Liz if they want, though.

Something Better?: Goodbye Blues, a muisc review

Okay. Time to expand.

I like pussy music. I can't really put it in any classier manner.

Death Cab (thank you, Catherine), Decemberists (thank you, Cecilia), New Pornographers (thank you, Sketch), Coldplay (thank you, corporate radio and music videos), et al.

I really like girly crooners, and elaborate bridges, and choruses pregnant with simplistic meaning that will have you pondering your (love) life for hours, especially if you're driving in a pretty countryside. There do exist occasions when I like to party with my music, in between bouts of coffee shop musings. I like my pussy music to kick it up a notch and wink at me, acknowledging that we all are slaves to fun and if it throws a piano in there too, it has me hooked for good.

Which is why I guess the Hush Sound is perfectly engineered for my "oh-gosh-i-hope-this-makes-artistic-girls-think-I'm-sensitive" tastes.



As I demonstrated, I don't really have recourse for music aside from stealing from my friends or obeying Viacom. The Hush Sound is in the former category and I can thank my friend Ben for introducing me to one of the few bands who would get the honor of actually receiving $ from me. I remember the moment too. We were in his Honda Civic and his iPod was playing and Ben said "hey, listen, this song is awesome" which he was prone to say a lot and I was thinking "meh, she's not following the same pitch progression as Sarah MacLachlan, so she must not be my thing," so I initially dismissed it, even when the guy from Taking Back the Chemical Fall Out at the Brand New Academy Disco Confessional jumped in.

And then it was in my head, so I downloaded the song. It was "Wine Red." It was the summer before we went away for college. At some point, I borrowed Ben's Like Vines (which...I think...I sitll have....) and voraciously ate up everything Greta and Bob (but especially Greta) had to sing to me. I downloaded most of So Sudden from the internet and found myself in indie/emo mixture heaven. The themes were mainly Pete Wentz, but the execution creeped on A.C. Newman. And so, I found my anthem for the summer, "Echo."

Fast forward to 2008. I run into Goodbye Blues at the Crossroads record store and I am surprised, because I hadn't heard of a new Hush Sound album. But then again, why would I? I didn't talk to Ben anymore, sadly. I was laughably broke even by my standards so Kevin convinced me to hold off on the purchase. When I experienced an unexpected windfall of funds this summer, I dropped 12 bucks on the iTunes bonus tracks version.



SUMMARY
Goodbye Blues gets zero points on originality. The tracks draw upon every successful song in the band's existing repetoire and even poach within the album. That is to say, we've got the same type of songs here that we've had the past two outings. Yes, you can see where they sprinkled in calculated moments of jazz and blues influence, but the band played it safe.

Also, the underuse of Bob Morris is troubling. Snooping on the internet implies some friction between Morris and Stalpeter that almost led to the band's breakup, and I can believe it. Bob got eclipsed for 3/4 of the album and the efforts he does make for his prominent songs are run-of-the-mill. In future albums (assuming and hoping that they exist), I want to see Bob given a fairer shake, even if Greta is the more talented member of the pair.

They may have reached and passed the pinnacle of their established sound, but I don't actively dislike a single track on the album. It's immediately become one of my favorites and I don't regret a single penny I dropped on the collection of sound files. Like I said, this band was essentially meant for my sentiments and I don't think the lyrics have ever been more on target. Granted, I got into them before I started college, so that all might have something to do with it, but whatever the circumstances...

I still love this band. If I could only hear one vocalist for the rest of my life, it would probably be Greta Stalpeter and her piano. So, for being the Hush Sound, and for having a great blend of sunshine and loss, Goodbye Blues is another win in my book.

The following chronicles my reaction song by song. Feel free to skip them if you don't want to entertain a novice. Also, "you" probably aren't reading this, so why am I giving you instructions?

"Intro."
Aw, Greta...so soothing. I could be wary of any album that feels the need to throwback to vaudeville or chamber music in order to estabish the fact that "We're not like the other bands. We're sensitive and we can be pretty doing it," but Salpeter's voice has got me entranced already.

As the title implies, this isn't a full-out effort, it's merely Greta sitting down, banging out a few notes, and lilting about how children should fear growing up and becoming hopeless without time to love. The studio background noise touch is a further reminder of how meta the Hush Sound can be. "Hello, and welcome to our album. Greta will be calling the shots."

"Honey."
Feedback jolts you out of the slumber "Intro" put you in and the band starts off with an upbeat made-for-single-consumption construction. The bridge toward the end has some interesting use of the band vocalizing in harmony over the provative line "You always let me down." On the whole, this song is fun, but a throwaway.

"Medicine Man."
You know that song "Rubberband Man" by the Spinners? This song employs that use of foot-tapping bass and percussion. Salpeter is trying her hardest to channel some jazz and blues Greats, but honestly, this song would actually be amazing if it was a black man like B.B. King delivering...As it stands, it's just cute.

The lyrics are interesting, though. It addresses the fascination women have with mysterious strangers who are only passing through their lives.

"The Boys are Too Refined."
Goodbye Blues hits my first favorite track with this bubbly dedication to thrill-seeking cynicsm. A brief tinkering of the piano keys that gets expanded in the bridge gets slammed by a forceful rhythm while Greta sets the scene. Soon, we are treated to Bob's first notable appearance in full "Wine Red" fashion, serving as the echo in Salpeter's consciousness ("Always quick to follow/Won't matter tomorrow").

The success here is the chorus hook, in which Greta seems to be having a lot of fun rattling off her hedonistic plan of action.

"Hurricane."
Here we find a true attempt to recreate the catchy sorrow of "Lighthouse" or "You Are the Moon" from Like Vines. Being a sucker for these songs, this was bound to be one of the tracks to get my attention on the first listen-through. There really is nothing to distinguish it from its brethren on the past album, except for perhaps some country electric guitar twang in the middle, but the meticulously constructed tenderness make it a formidable Earworm (auf Deutsch, Ohrworm).

Lyrically speaking, the message is simple enough to envelop your heartstings, recalling a past love. As you can gather from the title, you probably won't remember someone who left you neat and tidily.

"As you Cry."
Well, hello, Bob. This is one of Bob Morris' few solo tracks on the album, but it's a good'un. Again, he's not taking any chances by deviating from his fast paced heartbroken-yet-cheery formula, but this is a good an example of "if it ain't broke" as I've found in recent days.

"Six (Interlude)."
This is Intro's companion in non-marketable album filler, a piano instrumental that would be at home in the middle of many of the Hush Sound's tracks. Inoffensive and happy, it's a nice option if you're going to ease into a batch of music or simply want something to cool you down or unburden your thoughts. It's anytime music, really. If you count Intro, it's the seventh track on the album.

"Molasses."
"Molasses" may be my favorite all-around track from this venture. It combines Greta's carefree bounciness with her penetrating trill. The upbeat part alone is a fun rehash of the "Medicine Man" motifs, but the chorus is truly what sticks with me, since I relate to seeking something better but knowing I'll never find it la-da-da la-da-da. I think what makes it so appealing is that the song starts of playful talking about ingredients and bees and all this playful imagery and then it suddenly jolts us with the familiar longing the Hush Sound is known to incite.

"That's Okay."
Another Greta piano ballad with crippling lyrics. The song is a perverse reassuring of someone who has never been loved and may never be, someone with nothing to come back to and nowhere to go. But don't you know that's okay?

"Not Your Concern."
Bob Morris comes back to bebop and doo wop through another ballad about unhealthy and possessive relationships. Gets a thumbs up from me.

"Love You Much Better."
It's like Greta looked into her grammar school journal to draw on the source material. It's a sunny dedication to a boy who won't give the singer the time of day. Place it alongside "Hold Me Tight" as a simple expression of affection for teen girls to coo at posters of nondeserving lumps of banality.

Don't get me wrong, I like the song, it's just that teenage girls make me sick.

"Hospital Bed Crawl."
This is probably Bob's best effort at an original song, heavy on the blues riffs and creepy metaphors. Once again, the notable piece of the composition is the hook. Lyrically, it's as close to a love song as girls are going to get from the "troubled" guitarist. Such a shame it seems to be about a stalker. His effort pays off, becaue as much as I liked the formula he was sticking to so far, I may have gotten sick of it this far into the album.

"Break the Sky."
An optimistic liberation. Greta demands your attention, asking why she would need anybody else when she's fully capable of accomplishing all she would ever want.

"You Are My Home [Bonus Track]."
Before buying the album, I sampled this with iTunes and that's basically the summation of this song's ability. Greta singing the title lovingly. The lyrics continue the story of a jilted lover who has nowhere to belong anymore.

"You are Pretty Down to Your Bones [Bonus Track]."
A sister to "Love You Much Better" as a devotion anthem. Greta maintains a catchy rhythm in the chorus and threatens to speak-sing in the bridge in a catchy moment of adoration. Again, it's not a terrible shame that it wasn't included on the main album, but, like all Hush Sound songs, it's a good ride.
You know it 'cause I wrote it down a hundred times, but the Hush Sound are doing just fine. I know that they've done better, but today, it's all I ever wanted. I want to see much better, but tonight, I have no interest in finding it.

Wall-E Wins (For Real)

Okay, so I never came back and now it's been far too long to do this movie justice. Rather than having the beautiful imagery and atmosphere fresh in mind, I'm typing this out with Home Improvement in the background. Oh, well. No such thing as a perfect blogging atmosphere.

There's also no such thing as a perfect movie, but Wall-E comes pretty damn close.

I guess I'll go with the unconventional and start off with things that could be perceived as flaws:

Humans.
Dialogue.
Formulaic children's ending.
Not enough Mo.



Initially, I thought this was going to be a movie about robots and only robots. You know, like how Cars did away with the notion of human drivers. Imagine my surprise when Wall-E chases Eve into a gigantic space Ark housing all of Earth's current population, complete with speaking parts and major roles in the plot. Ultimately, Pixar and Stanton make a strong case for the humans in this movie, as they are pretty much crucial to one of the important themes and do provide some of the funniest and most poignant moments.

Still, I can't help but wonder how interesting it would have been if Wall-E had encountered an abandoned Axiom, leaving the fate of humanity ambiguous. The thought of Wall-E's adventures ocurring in a haunted ship in space...well, I guess that could have gone very wrong. Maybe Stanton made the right choice here. Like I said, the humans directly address the important message: you're letting the establishment do your thinking for you.

Basically, what Wall-E does is the classic "putting a robot protagonist next to a human to point out the irony in the robot being more human" trick, but it does it wonderfully. All of this said, I do wish they had A LOT more robots. Probably one of the most hysterical scenes is in the robot ward and the subsequent release of the dysfunctional sidekick droids.

Still, it's a testament that the movie left me actually craving more zaniness. The general trend in American "family films" tends to be "let's max out the crazy to get those kids laughing in the short term" and it ends up being about as funny as an ADD kid dying of a heart attack after eating too many Twizzlers.

....To clarify, that's not very funny at all.

Rather than going this route, Wall-E, against convention, determinedly chases down a thriller plot of technological deception and a quest to reclaim the concept of humanity. It could have stuck to goofy beeps, boops and mushy inter-robotic foreplay and still won the hearts of moviegoers, but it made the movie important, damn it. And that's one of the things I like most about it.

That said, Wall-E cannot escape certain constraints of the American family film. I think many animation fans across the Internet (I think I'm going to start using "the Internet" as a substitute for "the world," because, let's face it, who really gets out into the world anymore) would have liked to see a studio ballsy enough to release a multimillion dollar SILENT 3D movie. The first act of the movie convinced me that I wouldn't need any words spoken by the main characters to make this satisfying.

Disney would have blown a gasket. So, instead, Stanton provided hysterical, theme-relevant conversations, so he made up for it, I guess, but I was hoping for more elements of silent movie magic, harkening back to the old Merry Melodies and (ironically) Disney cartoons without speech.

And then there's the way the movie deals with death and its consequences. I feel like I've seen or heard of international family films that acknowledge the fact that main characters Can Die. As the international movie industry increasingly tends to mimic Hollywood, that concept is probably becoming more and more diminished, but certainly it crosses minds, doesn't it? Still, I think there are fewer nightmares for a movie producer than the image of a mom trying to console a blubbering 3-year-old walking out of the theater. They're not buying that DVD.

But Wall-E could have blown everyone away with its ending...





SPOILERS.





I knew Eve would revive Wall-E at the end. It would be unfathomable for him to actually commit an Honest Sacrifice and get reduced to a metal pancake. But when he wakes up and fails to recognize Eve, my eyes widened in shock. I mean, he was an outright DICK to her, giving her the cold shoulder and going about his business. Could it be that the movie would actually end with a somber fact of life? No, of course not. I'll admit, it was cute and made my internal fictive girlfriend sigh in pleasure when Wall-E and Eve finally hold hands and kiss, reviving his memory. But it's such a sidestep of another important lesson: Sometimes the person you love will forget you. The important thing is to remember to keep loving despite that. Giving kids unrealistic expectations that an Ex is going to suddenly come back from loveless oblivion is begging for a massive demand in therapy when they come of age.




END SPOILERS.





The movie does manage to surprise with its blatant (and accurate, I might add) implication that Wal-Mart is going to destroy humanity as we know it. Now, if you've been reading the hiccup of controversy it's generated, you'll have seen that Stanton claims that his movie is "just a love story."


I'm sorry, but when you have the omnipresence of a conglomerate that has managed to sink its logo into every aspect of human life and produce mass amounts of human waste, you know what you're doing. And you're a damn hero for doing it, Andrew Stanton! The opening scenes are the hardest hitters, displaying a world that I can actually believe we're heading toward. The flickering remains of the Buy N' Large commercials are important satires of our gullibility and increasing tendency of handing over our lives to a Brand.

Certain conservative pundits, laughably, are warning families not to bring their children to this liberal filth. Because a healthy dose of environmentalism automatically means your child will begin to idolize Al Gore and his politics. Listen, if your father's a gun-totin', Ford drivin', Wal-Mart goin', soccer-hatin', patriotic ex-marine, I don't think the image of a plant in a boot full of dirt is suddenly going to turn you into Keith Olberman.

But for the record, the world might be better off if it could.

Besides, Stanton is right. As intentional as the message was, the real story to all of this is the story of Wall-E and Eve. I have to admit, I don't have a record of dabbling with machinery, but Eve is pretty cute. She's as sleek as an iMac (Joanthan Ive designed her) and the deadly laser adds a dominatrix sexiness element. Also, Elissa Knight is already cute as a human being, but when you add those synthesizers to her crooning...sigh. Fortunately, most kids won't react this way and if they do, they probably, like me, won't get to reproduce, so the planet is safe from legions of Extraterristrial Vegetation Evaluator fantasizers.



The point is, the filmmakers did a brilliant job at depicting the relationship between the two robots. The imagery here is just beautiful. Astounding. Every speck of animating blood was put to work to make viewers root for these two. And it's the type of craft that makes me admit something I shouldn't comfortable putting on a blog that discusses comic book movies and Angelina Jolie's rear-end...

Love is vital. That robot's life was nothing more than the repetition of a single command day in and day out. Think of how many people you know who only do as they're told, on schedule, without any purpose beyond achieving the next preprogrammed level of productivity. It's Eve that takes Wall-E somewhere he never would have gone otherwise, that gives him the opportunity to touch the freakin' rings of Saturn and lead an entire race to their destiny.

And I'm not saying that your life is worthless if you haven't found love in someone who makes your gaskets twirl and your optical lenses widen. God knows there's less and less people out there worth sharing a network with, let alone remote accessing. But you've got to love something, otherwise you'll end up living out the rest of your days fulfilling someone else's...




Directive.

And that's the physics of that.

Wall-E Wins, Wanted Whacks It Part 1

I guess everyone knew Wall-E would be universally loved. After all, Pixar is basically bulletproof in the "family entertainment" genre, having produced such overrated features as Cars and Finding Nemo (and listen, I've softened up to Nemo, but it doesn't change the fact that it's, essentially, boring). On top of that, you know the gaggle of female adolescents out there is going to support a cute, midget bot crooning "Wallllllll-Eeeeeee" in a trailer. And I'm starting to suspect female adolescent gaggles are what drives the entertainment indusry in America.

Wanted is a surprise. With a 74% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 3 stars from James Berardinelli, typically a harsh critic of summer popcorn fare, the movie has gained all sorts of support that I never would have precedented after the movie's first half hour.

Put simply, Wall-E deserves every iota of praise and more. Wanted does not. We'll start with the inferior movie.


Wanted has one thing going for it and that's the character of Wesley Gibson BEFORE he becomes an assassin. The most interesting scenes are those that involve Wesley (James McAvoy) suffering Peter Gibbons-esque levels of dissatisfaction with his dead-end cubicle. It's a story that we're all familiar with, but I haven't heard any on-screen persona tell it as directly as McAvoy's character. "There's my best friend ****ing my girlfriend on an IKEA table I recently purchased" he narrates as they vividly demonstrate.

His boss is a creatively profane lardass, said cheating girlfriend is a bitch, and he's essentially taken as a chump by everyone around him. He even gets attitude from an ATM for his laughable assets, in a particularly inspired scene. Gibson's life makes Office Space seem like Disneyworld.

The convenient plot device used to explain Wesley's inevitable messianic importance is his anxiety condition. Whenever stressed, the world begins to pulsate around him, things slow to an agonizing crawl, and sounds become a distorted boom in his head. Wesley medicates to keep himself in Schmucksville.

Enter Fox (Angelina Jolie) and Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who force him to see what he's capable of without pills. When Wesley realizes that he's a star in an action movie, he wreaks havoc in his office, verbally crushing his boss and slamming a keyboard into his "best friend's" face. This is the most inspiring moment in Wanted, evocative of that simple truth Mike Juge presented more realistically in 1999: the American system of career advancement sucks balls.

So, rather than dealing with the truth, Wanted jumps into escapism. And this isn't the issue, since I enjoy vicariously living through main characters that don't have the same responsibilities I do as much as the next guy. My gripe is the particularly uninspired and predictable form this escape took.

Let's get this out of the way: The Fraternity of Assassins receives its orders from a mystical Loom of Fate. You know...a machine that weaves patterns with thread. That's where they get their kill orders. Sorry to spoil it. But you probably should know before you walk in expecting an interesting method to their madness. There is no method. They're just crazy.

For about ten seconds, the movie wrestles with the question of conscience: "What have these people done? Do they deserve to die?" So, Angelina Jolie tells a dark story from her past that makes us feel okay that Wesley is pistol-sniping random white collar white guys. The justification is basically, "Kill one, save a thousand."

Okay...but later, Fox drives a car into a train leading to its derailment and the death of hundreds of innocent civilians. So the real message is, "Mass death is profitable." And yeah, I'll admit it, I feel like I get more bang from my buck durng those over the top scenes. But it doesn't make the movie any more culturally significant than the evening news.

SPOILERS. Eventually you find out that all the chain of events we witnessed were put into motion by Sloan, not the Loom of Fate, so you can rationalize yourself out of the collateral damage argument, if you want. But this just brings up the fact that we all expected a massive backstabbing to happen from minute one. Especially from the black mentor. Way to follow the M. Night formula, Wanted. SPOILERS.

At the descending slope of the film's climax, Wanted attempts to wax philosophical again. Since the assassins are all guilty of cold-blooded murder, aren't they worthy of hits themselves? An interesting question posed, but considering it comes minutes within the film's final brain-breaking bullet and the main character's ultimate choice, its attitude toward morality is best summed up by Common's final line: "Fuck the code."(Yes, I realize I didn't censor before, but I didn't feel like it just now.)

Listen, I'm not a crusader against gratuitous violence in American movies. It's a fact, people get killed and there's a part of us that's fascinated by that. But the good movies are the ones that put that hyperviolence in a thoughtful context. Example: Rambo. Ultimately, much more violent and disturbing than Wanted, but worth more of my time and money. What this movie approaches is something more like masturbation for the id, that evil and vicious part of you that likes to see people's heads explode. Yes, I go "WHOA, nice!, and haha!" at the blood splatter, and Angelina Jolie's ass, and the giddy use of profanity, but ultimately, I haven't really connected with anything eye-opening. I was impressed with the initial rampage involving Mr. X. I hadn't had that much fun watching murder since Shoot 'Em Up. But then it became more of the same.

My research on the comic book tells me it actually didn't deal with the honorable assassin bull and was literally about a society of supervillains. So maybe that was a more interesting exploration of evil. The movie, instead, tries to rationalize the killing and reassure you that you, the viewer, are on the right side. Bore.

I'll end with something positive. Like I said before, Wanted grips you with a direct, no bullshit representation of one man's pitiful life and it makes you root for him, because Wesley Gibson is so damn witty under his doormat exterior. So, yes, there's wit here and there's vision. Wanted hits the right note as the once overly-apologetic Wesley sends a bullet into the double-breasted gut of an Andrea Bocelli. His calling card? "I'm.....sooooooorrrrrrryyyyyy."

Apology accepted, Wanted. You did provide some fun, after all.

I'll save the Wall-E review for later tonight, since I don't fell right combining it with this disappointment and I have stuff to do.

What if Tyler Durden were a giant, green tank?: The Incredible Hulk

The accepted format for discussing a reboot or a sequel is referencing the preceding movie(s). Since Hollywood is indulging both our strongest cravings and our biggest gripes by providing more of the same, the biggest blockbusters are always being held up to a tough standard of comparison. Indiana Jones 4: Inferior. Spiderman 3: Inferior. Superman Returns: Inferior. Batman Begins...BRING ON THE DARK KNIGHT.

It's the golden Nolan standard which Universal is trying to achieve with The Incredible Hulk. And unlike Indiana or Spiderman, Edward Norton's project shares Batman's arguably enviable position of having a disappointment (critically; but worse, commercially) precede it. Unlike Batman, Hulk doesn't have the burden of reviving interest in its comic-family franchise on his huge shoulders. That task was carried out mercilessly by Iron Man.

Appropriately, given the current comic movie zeitgeist, The Incredible Hulk will be unstoppable.



Rewind 5 years.

I hadn't given Ang Lee's take on the temperamental green giant a second glance since my 15 year old self was soundly disappointed in theaters. As the opening credits rolled for Incredible, I began wondering whether my enjoyment would have been enhanced or ruined if I had revisited that alleged catastrophe. So, one of the first things I did when getting back from the movie was immerse myself in YouTube videos and reviews of the first movie.

My first thought was that critics and viewers liked it a lot more than I would have expected. They praised the psychological subtexts, comic homages, and performances. It enjoys a technically "fresh" rating on Rottentomatoes at 61%, only 5% less than this summer's movie. And it had Jennifer Connelly. How did this movie go wrong? Did it actually go wrong at all or was it just Universal bitching that it didn't make Spiderman-like profits?

It's more surprising when you realize that one of the major differences between the two movies is a lack of rich character/relationship exploration in Norton's flick. Typically, I criticize a lot of comic book movies for being too shallow. I refer you to Fantastic Four and its successor, Rise of the Silver Shitter. Yet, somehow, Incredible managed to sidestep Freud and all those "Sins of the Father" concepts and provide a more satisfying experience.



I think it's about pretense. The Incredible Hulk doesn't have any, but it doesn't stoop to the lowest common denominator either. By contrast, Ang Lee attempted to make a movie that was both a family analysis and a comic book action-fest. I'm not saying it's an impossible or unworthy goal, but it is a volatile risk and Marvel shouldn't have let Lee take those chances with a franchise as valuable as the Hulk.

Basically, Lee's movie was still a dumb, high-octane popcorn flick throughout and the exploration of daddy issues were never handled seriously or thoroughly enough to make a significant impact. Worse, the action scenes in Hulk 2003 actually hammered the nails into the gamma-laced coffin. No amount of interesting Nick Nolte-Eric Bana interaction is going to make up for Hulk Dogs and My Father, The Cloud as the main super-baddies. I mean, let's not kid ourselves. This was not meant to be Brokeback (which was also BORING) or Sense and Sensi-sissiness, it was primarily a way to make mounds of money and play with computer effects and it failed at at least one of those aspects.

Ironically, new Hulk director Louis Leterrier's most famous body of work is The Transporter movies and somehow he delivers a movie that is more upfront about its intentions, but subtly meaningful.

Ang Lee comparisons hopefully stop...now.

Eric Bana is a good actor and all, but...Shit. Re-do.

Edward Norton is crucial to this movie. He's the right amount of geek to portray a gifted scientist, but we all know from his prior performances that he is also a badass, so it's not a surprise when we see him outrunning military special operatives on foot in a way that would make Matt Damon and Daniel Craig eat their hearts out.



The movie throws fans of the last movie a bone by starting the narrative with Bruce Banner lying low in South America. It also focuses mercifully little on the simplistic and well-known origin story. Rather, the film's theme is Banner's unique relationship with his superpowers: They Suck. The man blacks out more than my uncle at a month-long moonshine convention, only remembering bursts of bullets and fire in his face the next morning. His Hulk Hangover reduces his clothes and stretchy pants to tattered shreds that induces the sympathy of even the scrawniest Mexican beggar boy. And what good is dating Liv Tyler if you can't have her roleplay as Arwen for too long before you kill the 7-Eleven clerk in search of kilo-magnum rubbers?



Peter Parker's whining about his powers being a burden and a curse fade into yesterday's Myspace bulletin when we see Dr. Banner's plight. Spiderman ultimately adapts to his superhero duties. Tony Stark relishes the opportunity to missile terrorists. No one has it as bad as Bruce; his life is actually ruined by his rage, not enhanced, and that's a truth simple enough to resonate in several moviegoers. This movie is about Bruce's quest to get rid of his major selling point -- the unstoppable CGI behemoth.



Speaking of the Hulk himself, I really enjoyed the design of the monster. You'll still find people complaining about CGI usage coming off as cheap and distracting, but I think it's some of the best use of digital effect technology to date. Hulk's shade of green is more organic and the attention paid to detail is amazing. His muscles, bones, and sinews are clearly defined. His roar vibrates in your chest. Best of all, his face is capable of many convincing expressions besides bloodlust. One of the best liked scenes will be the moment Hulk and Betty Ross are in the cave during the thunderstorm. It's perhaps the best example of that subtlety this movie achieves.

I wish I could say Liv Tyler's acting was as satisfying. She's not an offensive choice as Dr. Ross, but the script gives her some sickeningly domestic lines to work with which she somehow turns even more pathetic. Factor in her frou-frou bangs and the distracting presence of Steven Tyler's lips aching to eat Edward Norton, and I really started to miss Jennifer Connelly. Then again, I always miss Jennifer Connelly.













OR






Bruce/Betty in general fell kind of flat, but The Incredible Hulk isn't a love story to a much greater extent than any other major franchise release, so it doesn't sink the production. It's something they'll have to work on if they explore the dynamics of a Hulk-Betty relationship in future movies. They did establish that Betty Ross is the Hulk's emotional anchor, so it's not like she's irrelevant, but I'm willing to concede some awkward initial flirtations. As a matter of fact, there are a couple of moments which are actually poignant and convincing, such as Betty kissing Bruce's cheek rather than going straight for the soap-opera tongue-lashing technique and the aforementioned cave sequence.










As for the other actors, we get fitting performances from William Hurt as General Thunderbolt (no, they don't call him that) and Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky (a.k.a Abomination a.k.a. that Other Huge Green Thing you saw about to pound Hulk's face to slushee in the trailer). For most of the flick, the General and Blonsky seem like very unique villains exploring a gray area of morality rather than the standard megalomanic comic book enemy fare. Then Blonsky blows it in the third act, but that can be forgiven, because it sets up a very entertaining and vicariously bone-crushing final fight. At first, I heard this was going to be about 30 minutes long and was frightened. Now I wish they had delivered on that threat, or at least made the fight a tad longer and more brutal. Still, it was nice to finish Hulk and realize it had taken less time than, say, a thorough colonoscopy.

The last little gripe I would have is the musical score, but it's not like you can really hear it over Hulk screaming bloody murder anyway.

Basically, The Incredible Hulk is not as good as Iron Man, nor should we expect it to be, given that Marvel hasn't released Thor and thus, still can't harness lightning to strike the same spot twice consecutively. But this film is in the same vein of quality and that is a very good thing for the upcoming universe films. Norton and Leterrier were wise to approach this reboot with a very basic premise rather than overstuffing it with villains and subplots (*coughSamRaimicough*), because it lays a very firm foundation for a potentially titanic series.

Hulk Smash. Hulk Smash indeed.



SPOILERS. Oh, and I expected a much cooler Tony Stark cameo, not a rehash of Sam Jackson. I guess putting the scene before the credits is supposed to drive home the fact that they're REALLY making this Avengers crossover and it's REALLY going to be canonical for these movies, but I found it kind of tacky. Still....I will be lining up to see it. END SPOILERS

Is there a God?

....WOULD have been the topic of my second post on this page had I not gotten sidetracked by the latest marcher in the degenerative parade of American trash TV, America's Got Talent. I'm serious. I'm dead serious. I was considering going into theology.

And then something like this started happening on my screen.



Maybe that answers the question.
------

I watched the first American Idol. A lot of it anyway. I was part of that crowd who assimilated Kelly, Justin, and William Hung into their daily cultural lexicon. At 12 or 13, I had nothing better to do. Over the years, the series lost its interest along with Survivor, Big Brother, and whatever other crap I used to heap onto my cable box. But the rest of the country apparently didn't stop watching. Other networks started to ape it.

Which brings us to the third season of America's Got Talent.



The premise is Idol with talents other than singing and tryouts in front of a giant audience in conjunction with the three washed-up celebrity judges. You've got Piers Morgan who plays the wholly original role of the snarky British critic, Sharon Osbourne in an attempt to restore family dignity, and David Hasselhoff, itching to belt out Du at a moment's notice. The show pulls a classy move in casting Jerry Springer as Ryan Seacrest (Which reminds me, wasn't it a PAIR of hosts in the first season of Idol? What happened to that other dude?). What follows is the familiar guilty pleasure of watching wave after wave of delusional psychos get torn apart, with the occasional eyebrow-raising act.

I guess there was a name for this sort of thing before the turn of the century. It was called Star Search.


Trash TV has a spot in my life, particularly when it airs on NBC. American Gladiators is a nice, brainless punctuation mark at the end of dreary Mondays. Of course, Gladiators has the indisputable boon of hot women in skintight gladiator outfits, so there's actually very little reason NOT to see it. In the words of my friend, "It has more Crush, therefore it is Win."



I acknowledge that there are more insulting things on television than a glorified talent show, but it is concerning to see how the Idol formula of manipulative narrative, sappy music and caricature judges has found its way into every showcase show. I guess the closest thing Talent comes to Ed McMahon is Jerry Springer, but I don't think Ed got as emotionally involved.

But I don't know. Something about America's Got Talent kept me watching. It wasn't Piers Morgan's Simon Cowell impression, or the Carmina Burana send-ups in the soundtracks...Terrible as it is, NBC pulled the right heartstrings and got me to care about the contestants. Those bastards. I hate it when I fall for this shit.

But fall for it, I did and some of the characters stuck with me:

- The baller trombonist who came off as unassuming and meek in his interview, but a showstopping badass during his performance. Kudos, one of my favorites.
- The Romanian twin act, Indigo, with a suitably entertaining attitude that you know won't make up for their God-awful singing when they go to the next step in Vegas.
- The 80-year-old who, humanely, was denied the chance to break her hip tap-dancing at the next level.

- The four year old who induced some of the most patronizing lines this side of the Special Olympics. "Does singing make you happy?" Give me a break. The kid was cute and all, but a four year old cannot compete on this level. I mean, did you see the parents' faces? Did they seem ecstatic? No, they probably didn't expect the girl to get past this part. Tell me, is it ethical to expose this child to seedy Las Vegas? Well...maybe, but that doesn't give her the right to belt out a song from An American Tail in a saccharine-ly revolting manner. Face it, I'm a horrible person for saying this, but the main reason Mrs. Osbourne was tearing up was the fact that she was probably remembering her own daughter before she became a fat, ugly guttermouth.

This is where Simon Cowell would have had his uses. He wouldn't have cared if the studio audience swooped down on him and tore out his gonads. He would have buzzed that little sneak and made her cry. That would've been quality television.
















- The burlesque dancers with the laughable claim that they were going to show people that burlesque could be classy and then proceed to strip off their skirts.
- The cool double-headed guitar dude who got booed off by a crowd of impatient cretins.
- BATON-GIRL! Er...I mean, the extremely heart wrenching story of a boy who got picked on for following his drea....

Excuse me, I just threw up a little.

Baton Girl did a cool act, though. I'm rooting for him.

- The dance team with the eyesore costumes. Morgan had it right when he said their look was enough to bring them down, but I'll be interested to see if they top their little Riverdance impression.
- And finally, Big Opera Dude, who is far from Andrea Bocelli. He was one of the many examples of the pity vote. But that's a fact of stardom, right? No charisma, no ticket? (But wait then, how do you explain Courtney Love?)

Basically, I was kept mildly amused. Now there's a part of me that wants to boycott all reality TV out there, but then there's the part of me that knows that it's a closed-minded approach, as well as futile if I'm ever going to use a television regularly in my adult years. Besides, these shows have been around since the dawn of television, back to the days when Elvis shocked and appalled with his shaking Pelvis of Doom. In its own, Idol-tainted way, it hearkens back to traditional family TV time, when mom, dad, brother, sister, and grandma could sit down and rot their brains as a unit, as opposed to letting adults do it separately through Fox News and kids do it fifty times as quickly on Myspace.

So it's manipulative and its sappy and it's far from thought-provoking. But it made me root for someone in a television contest again. I think that makes it potentially worthy of a second, third, or fourth look, until I get tired of the contenders. Still, it doesn't get me any closer to the definitive proof of God's existence.



Though, if Indigo ends up winning the thing, I think it'd be safe to assume that He's out there and that He's Romanian.