Monday, January 19, 2009

death of batman

in my last entry, i talked about my dislike for the end of "the dark knight"
batman gives up everything that makes him batman.
grant morrison recently did something similar.
so let's some things straight, batman, having been captured by the new gods, is hooked up to "the blob" a creature that's in his memories pretending to be alfred, getting him to relive his life to train an army of clones. batman, being, well the goddamn batman sees through this ruse, and fights back, first with a false memory, then by overloading the clones with all the torment he's suffered throughout his life. so ridiculous, so awesome. this of course happens right after batman overcomes the attack on his life by a bunch of bored rich bastards that have been manipulating his life for years. leaving him both physically and mentally exhausted.
using his mind as a weapon batman manages to get the blob to act in the physical world and wreak some havoc and free himself.
then we don't see him again until this...



you see, the moment he welds that gun with the intent to kill darksied, batman ceases to be batman. he's giving up everything that's ever made him batman.
this is evident by the fact that batman doesn't even attempt to dodge the omega sanction.
he destroyed himself before darksied could.
and in my opinion it works, batman is created by a gun, and then destroyed by one.

and that is why the ending of the dark knight annoys me so, it's batman giving up everything that makes him batman, and then trying to keep on going.
sad.

so yes kids, batman is dead.
for now anyway, these are comics we're talking about.
great death for him though, i mean for all the ways there are to go out, taking a god down with you has to be up at the top.
it's the cowboy dan way.

Friday, January 16, 2009

the dark knight revisited

so now the hype has died.
it's been nearly six months since the dark knight hit the silver screen.
and the general feeling of this movie: meh.


it's just frustrating i suppose, i enjoyed it greatly at first, ledger's joker and other things helping me gloss over the bad. but now with time to reflect and copy on dvd and the problems become more apparent.
it's just a poor representation of batman.

they make bruce wayne a whiny jealous brat. "hah, i stole the whole ballet cast so the girl i like couldn't go out on a date!"
of course this was one of the problems with batman begins as well, something i was hoping they would fix, but no instead we get "she was going to wait for me alfred!"
it didn't humanize bruce, just made him a chump.
i really don't care to see bruce wayne hopping in fountains with models or crying about his childhood sweetheart.
look to the batman cartoon for a good portrayal of bruce wayne. he's kind hearted and bumbling.
not really awkward, but likes to play clueless, he does charity and swanky parties. he's the cat's pajamas. if you know what i mean.
the movie did get one moment right, where he pulls out in front of the truck so the would be whistle blower doesn't get killed, and tells gordon he was just trying to beat the light. well it was a nice try anyway.

and then there's the portrayal of batman.
bales voice, just bad. as pointed out in my initial review batman is not a grizzly bear!
and then the rubber, suit, why always a rubber suit?
there was a clever comic involving iron man giving batman a cease and desist for copying his schtick as an armoured hero.
okay fine so you don't want your dark and gritty and serious super hero running around in his long johns, fine! but at least give him a suit that keeps him agile and lets him turn his fucking head.
they tried so hard to create this realistic world, and i totally buy into the joker and two-face and the gangs, everything. except for the goddamn batman.
i mean that suit and his voice, no wonder the joker laughs at him.
everyone in gotham should be laughing at him.

they also made the mistake that every single super hero movie has made.
they killed off two-face.
i mean amazingly they kept the joker alive, but with heath ledger gone i don't see the character coming back.
and there was no need to kill harvey, keeping him alive would have damaged batman more, then he wouldn't have been able to cover up with dent had done.

and that's the other thing i can't get over. batman would never take the wrap for murder.
never. i think in good conscience batman would have let harvey's character take the fall, because harvey failed, he crossed the line batman never would, he became a villain and must be treated like one.
that's what this movie was all about, lines the characters would and would not cross.
gordon as willing to cross the line of the law for batman, he believed in batman.
harvey wasn't willing to cross the line, he wanted to take down crime legitimately , until he lost it all.
batman wasn't willing to cross the line of becoming a psycho, a killer, he wanted be better than the joker.
now see the joker, he knows batman would never kill anyone, and he knew dent would, so i'm sure he's laughing away in whatever cell they have him in.
he won, the batman was willing to give up everything he believed in for two face, a dead villain was more important to him than his own reputation as hope for the people.
i understand this was the way of dealing the wannabe batmen and having batman say a normal man should be their hero and not him, but it just doesn't work.
batman wants to be the defender of the people, not the enemy.
as darwyn cooke had him say in the new frontier "i set out to scare criminals, not children"

and since i don't like bale, if you're looking for a good batman other than kevin conroy, this fan video has made realize that clint eastwood would be the best batman ever.



this should be made, just keep miller a reasonable distance away from it.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

farewell old chum.


i'm going to need a moment...

Sunday, January 11, 2009

let the right one in



forget twilight (seriously it was bad)
this is the vampire romance to see.
beautiful movie, great story, and just some amazing scenes.
the hospital bed combustion and the pool scene being two of the most amazing scenes in any movie.
right up there with the hallway fight in old boy. (it's like fucking ballet)

honestly i don't want to to get in depth with this movie, because i like how it tried to stay ambiguous about everything.
so instead a brief synopsis; a smart and quiet twelve year old boy, having family problems and getting picked on by bullies, starts falling for the odd girl that only comes out at night. mostly...
good ol' joe dunn summed this up nicely.
so yes, the blood sucking girl gives the boy the confidence he needs to stick up to the bullies.
murder, blood, and fun ensue.


a bit of a spoiler about the end ahead:
the movie was fairly ambiguous about everything, hinting at it, showing it subtly, never coming out and saying quite a few things. and that's why the end felt out of place to me.
i think it should have ended after the return to the snow at the end of the pool scene.
and while it was cute they were tapping "kiss" to eachother in the train scene, i feel it was tacked on as a not so ambiguous "yes they did run away together, now go home" message to the folks that may not have gotten it.

then again i'm someone that liked the ending of "no country for old men" and felt that "children of men" should have cut to black before the boat showed up.

oh well, ending oddness aside, i still loved this movie and highly recommend it.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

the umbrella academy

ah, where to start with gerard way.


he's a kitty

way back in the mists of time (late '02 early '03) i went out to see the awesome band piebald.
in this small bar, played the small opening act few people had heard of, this small band a small amount of people had heard was my chemical romance.
i had the small pleasure of standing right in front of the small stage in this small bar, as the small band played, this translates to mr. way shaking his small junk covered by his small girl pants in my face. not to mention the not so small amount of spittle he managed to cover everyone in the surrounding area in.
i'm sure any teenage girl reading this has by this point fainted... or worse.
the performance was fairly unremarkable except for their last song, a rather amusing ode to vampires.
which contains one of the most badass vampire lines ever (we'll shoot back holy water like cheap whiskey)
fast forward to years later, my chemcial romance has started dressing stranger and somehow become popular with the kids, then i find out mr. way is writing a comic book.
wtf mate?

after some research it turns out gerard way was interested in writing comics and cartoons and such from the get go, and it was because of the events on september 11th 2001 that made him decide he was wasting his life and started a band.
well i guess you do get more teenage girls that way.
so i decided to write off the umbrella acamedy because forget him if he felt he was wasting his life doing it before the band stardom.
however, i was recently shown this...


i'm sure you can guess where it goes from there, not only that but he manages to fit in what i can only assume is a reggie and full effect reference.

you win this round gerard.

bonus reggie fun:


Friday, January 2, 2009

oasis



oh amanda palmer.
you are nothing short of amazing.