Starring: Christian Bale, Garry Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Written by: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, David S. Goyer

Directed by: Jonathan Nolan

Okay, so… obviously you can’t really talk about this film without mentioning the elephant in the room that is Aurora Colorado.  But I kind of  feel like I addressed that as best I could a couple of entries ago so I figure I’ll keep this strictly movie talk.  Here’s my assessment of this, the most anticipated film of the year. Be aware that there are massive spoilers throughout.

DID I LIKE IT? Yes, a hell of a lot actually.

IS IT AS GOOD AS THE DARK KNIGHT? Nope.

IS IT AS GOOD AS BATMAN BEGINS? Possibly. Batman Begins has really grown on me through repeat viewings but I could see The Dark Knight Rises having a similar effect. We’ll see.

IS IT AS GOOD AS THE AVENGERS? Close, but nope.

IS IT BETTER THAN ALL OF THE OTHER SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS THAT CAME OUT THAT WEREN’T THE AVENGERS? Yup.

IS BANE AS GOOD A VILLAIN AS THE JOKER? No. But in fairness no one is.

IS BANE THE BEST VILLAIN OF THE SUMMER? That’s a resounding yup. Much as I loved Tom Hiddleston’s shit disturbing Loki in The Avengers or Charlize Theron’s ear shattering dark queen in Snow White and the Huntsman both of them, powers and all, would probably be too scared to ride on the same elevator as Bane.  Tom Hardy’s over pumped asthmatic ninja is a brick hate-house with the added bonus of being a crafty devil.

IS CATWOMAN BETTER THAN RACHEL DAWES? Yes.  Nothing against the highly talented Maggie Gyllenhaal but Catwoman IS the girl for Batman and Anne Hathaway portrays her perfectly. Some of my favourite scenes in the film involve Anne Hathaway transitioning from Selina’s ‘scared little girl’ act to a full on femme fetale with nothing more than a shift in her eyes or a slight change of poster. And in a weird way, it’s her contribution that has me the most sad that the series is ending. Christian Bale’s had three good kicks at the can and his character has grown as a result but Catwoman, christ, we just met her and that’s it? I do wish there was a way around it but in the world of reboots where everything MUST be started from scratch, it just isn’t meant to be.

DOES IT NEED TO BE TWO HOURS AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES? Honestly? No. I’m not saying I’m against giving the story breathing room but there’s definitely some fat that could have been trimmed. Most specifically, Mathew Modine’s Lt. Foley. This has to be one of the most unneccessary central characters I’ve ever seen. Not just because his sub plot of an anti-Batman cop who also turns out to be a spineless wimp is kind of boring, but because none of his scenes are particularly connected to what’s going on. You seriously could have cut out every single one of his lines and none of it would have been missed. Still really confused why they gave this guy so much screen time while Juno Temple’s sidekick to Catwoman barely even gets a line.

HOW ABOUT THE OTHER RETURNING CHARACTER? HOW THEY DOIN? Well, Lucious Fox is still cool as ever, and Commissioner Gordon is still the driving moral force even if some of his decision come into question, but there was one big disappointment here and it was Alfred. With the exception of a few bits and pieces here and there Alfred has two set piece scenes, both of which boil down to him begging Bruce Wayne to not go back to being Batman, then crying, then quitting his job and leaving Master Wayne seemingly for good. First off, I’m not sure I buy Alfred leaving Bruce for ANY reason but even beyond that, I just think that an actor as powerful as Michael Caine (whose Alfred has been more important to Bruce Wayne than any other on-screen incarnation of the character) should get to do more than just squirt out some tears then bugger off. I think Alfred could have been a real force for good in this film, especially during the massive city siege. I could see Alfred helping out the orphaned kids and using his charm to sneak the city’s few remaining cops to safety. Having him disappear for the bulk of the conflict seems kinda weak honestly. But speaking of the conflict…

HOW WAS THAT WHOLE CITY SIEGE THING? Fucking awesome. This is one where I’ve noticed some serious online grumbling, mostly because Bane’s complete takeover of Gotham is such a large chunk of the film and, while Bruce pops up in a prison cell off in the desert, the section is mostly Batman free. But for me, the concept of a massive American city actually being taken over and occupied by terrorists for an extended period of time is crazy fascinating as a “what if” scenario and having Christopher Nolan pull it off with his grounded-in-reality feel is almost too good to be true.

WILL IT GET NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE? Nope. Not because it won’t deserve it necessarily but movies that get nominated for best picture tend to have a certain feel. The Dark Knight just kind of felt like a Best Picture nom, that’s why it’s exclusion felt like such a crime. But this one, with its climax that centres around defusing a nuclear bomb and its melodramatic plot twists, well, it just feels closer to a straight up summer blockbuster. Not a bad thing but not a great way to score points with Academy members.

And finally…

WILL IT MAKE MY TOP TEN? Honestly it’s too early to say. There are flaws in this movie and, while I believe that a lot of the online hate is severely nit picky I do have to admit that the hardcore comic fans do have a couple of points (for instance, it would be nice if the next incarnation of Batman isn’t constantly wanting to retire from his “lifelong” quest) but there’s just so much to love in this film. I even love some of the hate it’s getting because that discontent means that those fans who call it the best of the three will get to feel a certain sense of satisfaction as they defend it to their hater friends after seven cups of Denny’s coffee. As for me, I may not watch it over and over as intensely as The Dark Knight but I am really looking forward to delving into this world again. Studying different sections, clueing in on themes and references that I missed the first time around. Hell, maybe I’ll suddenly like Mathew Modine on the third time through, who knows?  So, is it the best movie if the year? No. Is it one of the best? Probably. Is it a great fucking movie? Hells fucking yes. No doubt in my mind.

Okay, next up, hopefully by the end of the week, will be a round-up of reviews including Ice Age: continental drift, When in Rome, Take this Waltz, The Intouchables and Beasts of the Southern Wild. 

Cheers.

Sef. 

Okay, first things first, I’m not really covering new ground here.

A lot of movie lovers on the internet are in the same place I am right now and a lot of them have a much bigger audience than I’ve got. I don’t suppose I have a great deal that is new to bring to the table as far as discussion but the thing is I’m feeling a kind of pain right now, a numbness and a helplessness and an anger that I don’t really know what to do with so I figured I’d take to my blog (which, let’s face it, is read by my family, a couple friends, and whichever work buddy was drunk enough to click the link I put up on facebook in the hopes of upping the hit count on my charts page) and talk about what happened in Aurora Colorado before one of the first screenings of The Dark Knight Rises. 

Four years ago me and my best friend Dylan went to see the midnight screening of The Dark Knight at the Silver City Metropolis in Metrotown. It was only the second time I’d ever done a midnight screening and the first time was the unfortunately forgettable Dick Tracy eighteen years before hand. This one felt different though. The word had already broken and everyone kind of knew that something special was happening.

For me, I was still kind of a newly minted movie geek. Having accomplished the somewhat impressive feat of getting a theatre degree while reading as few plays as possible, I seemed to posses a fair amount of artistic energy but not a lot of options as to where to put it. When I graduated and made the decision that I’d rather eat glue than continue with theatre I found myself reverting to my first love, the one that I’d been into in Middle School before the instant gratification of the stage had become such a clear distraction. I’d gotten into comics again. I’d always kind of paid attention to them throughout school but now I was back in hard core. This lead to authors like Neil Gaiman, and web pages like ain’t it cool news and, somehow, got me into film something fierce. I was one of the many that jumped on the geek culture bandwagon at the exact right time and that meant comics, games, and movies.

Being there at the midnight screening for The Dark Knight was a joyful and shared experience. Most, like me, had brought comic books to read while we waited. Some even dressed up (but not too many, this was a fairly low key midnight screening and we are Canadian) and everyone had a single vision. This was when our distraction, our procrastination tool, our love for something childish could be worn like a badge of honour. Some would argue that the emergence of geek culture has given us permission to wear those badges twenty four seven but the thing is there’s a difference between talking about movies on your lunch break and actually lining up for hours to see a film that makes you more excited than a seven year old on Christmas morning.  It’s that realization that it’s actually going to happen. Whether it’s a new Batman or a new Avengers or even a new Star Wars movie, the anticipation, the knowledge that you are standing in line to be a kid again.

So over in Aurora Colorado a guy dressed in a gas mask opened fire on a crowd of movie geeks about fifteen minutes into the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. Twelve people were killed, countless were injured, and The Dark Knight Rises will now and forever be associated with one of the worst lone gunman incidents in America’s history. People thought it was a joke at first, some sort of publicity stunt. I can understand why they would think this as who the hell would use an event like this to make a name for themselves in the worst way possible. And yes, I know that terrible things happen every day and yes, right now somewhere in Africa a twelve year old girl is getting HIV from a fifty year old man whom she has to have sex with in order to get school supplies. There are horrible things all over the planet and I shouldn’t be surprised by it but this isn’t just a horrible thing that happened, this is someone tarnishing our favourite escape.  Taking the film that all of us were drooling over and making sure that, for a small town in the States, that film would always be associated with the meaningless death of a family member, a friend, a child, a lover. I think about that midnight showing me and Dylan went to and how we had some random conversation in line with a guy we didn’t know about how the best thing about Tim Burton’s Batman Returns was its rendition of Catwoman, and having that taken away by some madman who called himself the joker but dyed his hair the wrong colour. I’m so fucking mad at this guy. I don’t want to be, all evidence says he’s too crazy and too stupid to deserve my hate but I just get so angry. I think of families taking a chance and sending their kids out to see a film way past their bedtime and then getting phone calls from officials asking them to come down and identify the bodies. I think of people who had read the reviews on the internet and were prepared to write their own, maybe they were already thinking of clever one liners as they sat down (something I fully admit I do). I think of Christopher Nolan getting the news and I have this image of him with a knife through his soul, wondering if it was all worth it. I hate that image, I want it the fuck out of my head but it’s there and it’s not going away.

I read a quick blurb on Ain’t it cool news today (yes, I know I mention that site a lot. It’s the price that site pays for having such quality writing). One of the sites regular contributors, who goes by the name of Nordling, wrote an article in which he urged people to see a movie this weekend not as an act of defiance but just to remind themselves that there is joy to be got out of it. He also referred to the movie theatre as his Church.

It was this second comment I think that got me the most, that explained to me why it was this was hitting me so hard despite the fact that it was a world away. I’d been a fake movie geek for a long time in my life, calling myself a film lover despite the fact that I’d never seen La Dolce Vita or The Seven Samurai. Then, three years ago I started  this site and I dedicated myself to being an actual film geek, to loving movies so much that it hurt. To marrying them, to giving them my dedication not because that dedication would necessarily lead to something greater (though I do hope it will) but because everyone’s got to be an expert at something and it wasn’t too late to make this my field of choice. Maybe I couldn’t re-write my history, which involves procrastination on an intergalactic scale, but I could start on the ground floor and see where it took me. And I’ve loved it. I even love the squirley looks I get from people at work when I let them know that I just saw The Smurfs and Monte Carlo and I actually kind of liked both of them. I like that this is my weirdness.

And then some guy walked into a theatre in Colorado, killed twelve people ranging from six years old to Fifty one, wounded many others, some quite seriously, and ruined the lives of more potential movie geeks then I can count. This was where we were safe. This was our Church. And the sad truth is that this was why he picked it, because he knew that it would hurt more there than anywhere else. He probably thought of the Joker’s line from The Dark Knight about introducing chaos, and he selectively forgot the third act of the film which was dedicated to the fact that people are inherently good and, given the choice, will always help before they hurt.

That lesson would be lost on him, but I do hope it’s not lost on those most effected by this tragedy. My thoughts and prayers go out to the community in Aurora who are dealing with the kind of pain that is so outside of our realities that most of us don’t even take the time to fear it. Know that the entire film geek community, from the hardcore to the tourists, send their love and their condolences during this terrible time.

And for those of you who feel like me, on the outside but still torn up by the story, my recommendation, much like Nordling, would be that you head out to a movie. Any movie.  Not because of some trite bullshit along the lines of “if we stop seeing movies then the terrorists have won” but because it’s at times of stress when it’s best we go to Church.

Once again, condolences to those who have lost someone they loved.

Sef. 

Hey all.

So being sick sucks and playing catch up sucks even more. Nothing like trying to see seven movies in five days, especially when four of them only seem to play when you’re at work. The sad truth is I might actually miss one of last weeks soon to disappear entries. The less sad truth is that it will be a Tyler Perry movie.

Here’s the first in a series of three round ups to get us back up to speed. Enjoy.

Magic Mike

Okay, first things first. I really hate Channing Tatum.

Not because he’s talentless, he’s actually quite gifted. And not because he’s got a bad rep or anything, from what I’ve heard he’s hard working, easy going, and respected by his peers. No, my issue with Channing Tatum has nothing to do with anything tangible or easily justifiable. It’s simply because I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that any girl that I would ever fall for would shove me into a gutter full of broken glass and hobo puke if it meant the chance to watch Channing Tatum assemble a spice rack. And the worst part is that the overly blessed mother fucker would probably make a really good spice rack!!! And so, jealousy has made it necessary for me to loath the man without genuine cause. I despise him. I want him to die in some sort of tragic “I killed him” accident. I’d wish Cancer on him but you just know he’d find a way to make Cancer sexy. I can almost picture him rocking leukemia like it was Axe Body Spray and going from room to room in palliative care banging bald headed chicks like some XXX parody of the make a wish foundation. Channing, god how I hate you. I hope you don’t find it confusing if this hate is equalled by my overwhelming desire to be you for two hours of my petty and uneventful life.

Aaaaaaaanywho.

Magic Mike is a really good movie and Channing “your girlfriend is probably going to fuck me so I apologise in advance” Tatum is really good in it. You should go see it. Seriously.

Katy Perry: Part of Me

This is my third 3D concert movie since I started seeeveryfilm and, unfortunately, it’s the first one that wasn’t a ‘pleasant surprise’ and was, in fact, just a ninety minute infommercial.

The problem for me wasn’t the subject matter, the other  3D concert movies I’ve seen both had subject matters I had very little interest in (Justin Bieber and Glee) but what made them work was the spine of the story. The Justine Bieber movie was about the impossible task of creating a child singing sensation without the Hollywood machine helping you. For Glee it was showing you just how many people this surprising little dramedy has touched.

But with Katy Perry: Part of me we’re really just following Perry across country on her tour and watching her perform her biggest hits. The background story of her making it big is impressive but it’s not a particularly singular story. She was a girl with a dream, she worked her ass off, she achieved that dream. That’s not a ninety minute movie, that’s a fifteen minute segment on E. Add to that the tedious scenes between her and ex husband Russell Brand (all designed to gain audience sympathy for Perry before the movie gets to their mid tour divorce) and you’ve got a fairly boring piece of fluff that’s for hardcore fans only.

Safety Not Guaranteed 

Another in a recent spat of ultra quirky indie films, this tale of a magazine intern who falls for an apparently mentally disturbed man who believes he can time travel is at times quite sweet but it’s also a lot less narratively daring than it lets on. In my recent review of Seeking a Friend for the end of the world I talked about how happy I was that that film didn’t use its outlandish premise as a vehicle for a formulaic story. Well this film sadly doesn’t dodge that bullet and once all the elements are in place you can pretty much guess where it’s going. The film is redeemed some by the performance of its lead (Aubrey Plaza, playing a truly vulnerable character for the first time I can remember) but it’s not enough to make the story work. This one’s pretty forgettable.

Your Sister’s Sister

I came up with a new set of film terms while watching this film. Micro Predictable and Macro Predictable. Here’s how they work. Take The Avengers. Everyone going into The Avengers already knows a lot about how the film’s going to go even if they haven’t read the promotional material. They know that the heroes are going to win, the villains are going to lose, and humanity will be saved. We know the big picture. It’s a Macro Predictable film.

However…

Did anyone know what would happen to Agent Coulson? Or that Hawkeye would spend the first third of the film as a bad guy? or that there wouldn’t be a tagged on romance sub plut for the Black Widow? And don’t tell me anyone called the big reveal at the end for The Avengers next potential villain.You see, just because we know what’s going to happen doesn’t mean we don’t know how it’s going to be achieved. So, despite the fact that The Avengers is Macro predictable it’s not Micro predictable as, though the arc of the movie is predictable the scenes within the movie aren’t.  It’s this mix of giving us what we want and surprising us that makes The Avengers an almost perfect blockbuster.

With Your sister’s sister, however, we have the exact opposite. This indie about a man sent by a friend to a cabin to sober up and get his head straight, only to find himself starting an inappropriate romance with his friends sister, is by no means Macro Predictable, I didn’t know where the story was going. However it was Micro predictable in that every single time a scene started it was painfully clear what was about to happen. In the film’s opening moment, where a group of friends are eulogizing one of their number who died a year before, It’s blatantly obvious that the guy leaning up against the wall is about to say something horribly inappropriate to ruin the mood. And when the protagonist (played by the suddenly unavoidable Mark Duplass) shows up at the cabin we know right away that him and his friend’s sister are going to have sex and it’s going to complicate things with the friend who sent him (who happens to have a massive crush on him). This sensation of not knowing where the story is going but knowing exactly what’s going to happen with each scene never ceases once during the film.

I was trying to think of different combinations for the two terms, which work and which don’t, and I came up with this; for a movie to be good it can be Macro predictable but not Micro predictable (The Avengers, Star Trek) or it can be neither Micro Nor Macro predictable (Memento, Young Adult) but it can’t be both (MIB 3) and it definitely can’t be Micro but not Macro as the result is a tedious journey that manages to take you to an undisclosed destination yet still remain unsurprising the entire time. It’s a great way to make ninety minutes feel like four months and it’s an experience I recommend you find a way to avoid.

Note: I’m fairly certain I just made up these terms and I’m pretty freaking happy with them, but feel free to say Big Predictable and Little Predictable if you want to sound less like a pretentious douche.

Okay, that should get the catch up ball rolling. Next round up should include Savages and the Amazing Spiderman. 

Cheers.

Sef. 

Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Written and Directed by: Lorene Scafaria

 Before I start off a quick warning; the other critics are being pretty hard on this one so if you are new to my blog I would like to insert this quick reminder that when it comes to gauging a  film’s quality, I’m right and the other critics suck lab monkeys.

Here is a touching little film about the end of the world as we know it. There is a meteor heading towards earth (what Billy Bob Thornton would call a “Global Killer”) and all rescue efforts have failed. Humanity is doomed. It’s all over. Stick a fork in us.

Dodge, our hero, is meeting the end with only slightly less enthusiasm than he faced life. He is your traditional everyman character and Steve Carell plays him with the perfect amount of pathos as he watches his friends descend into embarrassingly predictable tailspins. Everyone around him is trying to find some sort of catharsis, be in with an orgy or experimenting with Heroine or with suicide. For Dodge, he just seems to be keeping his head down in the hopes of finding one honest moment before Armageddon.

By chance he meets up with Penny (Keira Knightley). Now, there is no normal world in which Dodge and Penny would  become friends as they are vastly different in age, manor and tastes. However, fate (in the form of a murderous mob) forces them together and the two become a team, traveling across America during its last days in the hope of A: Finding Dodge’s lost love and B: finding Penny a plane so that she might get back to her native England and be reunited with her family before it’s too late.

The movie is quirky, sometimes a little overly so, but it also gives an unexpected weight to its subject matter. For example, when we are introduced to Dodge’s workplace it’s portrayed as being comically depressing  (his boss asks the few remaining staff members of any of them would like to be CFO). Then the next morning when Dodge is pulling in the parking lot a body crashes onto his windsheild, presumably a suicide. It’s not a moment played for laughs, even the dark kind. It’s actually pretty fucking horrifying and it perfectly illustrates the world Dodge is inhabiting; a mix of emotional numbness and emotional extreme.

But besides it’s tone, this film is also well structured. My biggest fear going into this one was that, like many “quirky” films before it, Seeking a friend for the end of the world would use its zany premise as nothing more than a vehicle for a totally formulaic story. But Seeking avoids that trap skillfully by either circumventing stereotypical plot points or, at the very least, giving it’s cliched moments an original twist.

I will admit that the story does meander a couple of times but I loved the characters so much that I was able to forgive the occasional hiccup. This is a genuinely funny film that managed to even get me chocked up on occasion.Seeking a friend for the end of the world takes a goofy premise and really invests in it, resulting in a moving story that’s worth your time

Okay kids. I gotta admit that it’s looking like my recent non threatening but still annoying as hell illness may rob me of a couple of this years indie films but I will do my best to catch them before they disappear. My goal? Get out of bed and see Safety not Guaranteed, The Woman in the Fifth and Your Sister’s sister before fate and/short screening windows rob me of my chance. It’s gonna be tight but, if all goes well, those three should be in my next round up.

Cheers.

sef.