Bi-polar Film Reviews

 There is a problem in America with how society view and reacts to mental illness. Too often the attitude is "get over it" and from this i can speak from personal experience. Telling someone that's depressed to just cheer up, is about as sympathetic as telling someone with a broken leg to just walk it off. Something else i've had to do, by the way. Ah, the days before cellphones... but i digress.

There is hope however, social awareness about mental illness is on the rise, and certain taboos about shrinks, drugs, or just being "crazy" are fading away. Slowly, but they are fading.

Last year in particular had a pretty great push in this direction in the form of two movies.
They both deal with how society treats mental illness, but go in completely opposite directions.

This first movie is :
Excision

Originally this trailer had Nine Inch Nails' Closer, but they didn't really have the rights, so they had to pull it, but honestly, i feel the music here is better, less cliche anyway. Speaking of music though, the song from this film's credits (Waterflower by Pacific Ocean) is really beautiful, reminds me of the paper chase in a way.

i'm not sure what to make of the trailer, it doesn't convey the film in the best way, almost trying to sell it as perhaps an average teenage drama (and in a way, this is true) However the first time i saw it, i knew i needed to see this film. i mean come on, look at those beautiful and disturbing dreams of sex and violence, and John Waters as a priest!

Oh, like we all haven't had this fantasy.

AnnaLynne McCord gives a fantastic performance as Pauline, a teenage girl with some normal teenage problems, but also some really serious mental problems. And the tragedy of this film, is she's on some level aware of how troubled she is, and repeatedly calls out for help, only to be ignored. This sort of thing happens every day.

Pauline's younger sister has cystic fibrosis, so most of the attention is going to her, society treats physical illness more importantly than we do mental. And it seems to be implied that since they're saving money up for the sister's lung transplant, they're not really willing to send Pauline to a psychiatrist, so instead they send her to a priest.

There's this really interesting dichotomy in that every time Pauline acts out as a normal teenager, it's a huge drama, you know "Why must she be so unreasonable?"  but every time she acts out, in really troubling ways, it's ignored, by family, classmates, teachers, everyone. As mentioned great moments of tragedy come from her moments of clarity, realizing how she's acting.

Pauline has aspirations of being a surgeon, while being delusional to how it all works, and sister needs a lung transplant, so, you might be able to guess how this film ends.
How it plays out, however, is truly astounding, i've never seen a film end so brutally, so horrifyingly, so fucking tragic, it's almost beautiful.

While her mother is out, she drugs her father and ties him up, then drugs her sister and the girl across the street, takes them to the garage, and well, cuts them open and switches their lungs, all the while completely oblivious to the fact that she just murdered them.

Now i might just be speaking for myself here, but i have this real existential horror of the body. Not my body, not your body, i'm not talking Cronenberg body horror here, i mean the body, one that is not living anymore. There's just something absolutely terrifying to me, about being in a room with what once was a human. And to me, that horror is perfectly realized in this film when Pauline's mother walks into that garage.

i must take an aside to commend both the writing and Traci Lords performance, from the trailer i was afraid Pauline's mother, would just be some two-dimensional bitch, but she does try in her own misguided way, and she really does have depth.

So when her mother walks into the garage, Pauline is just so proud of what she's done, and everything that her mother has been ignoring comes rushing to her, she charges at Pauline in a rage, but just ends up embracing her, the film ends with them crying and screaming.

By far one of my favourite horror films.


The next film is a much lighter, romantic comedy:
Silver Linings Playbook

This film is actually generating Oscar buzz, which is interesting, i just thought it would be quietly ignored by the majority of people, but like i said, awareness of mental illness is on the rise.

So first up, i also wanted to see this movie based on the beginning of the trailer, the scene where he's ranting to his parents about Hemingway. i can relate to that, and many other things in this film. Though embarrassingly, i somehow missed this movie was by David O. Russel until his name came up in the end credits, which is funny because I <3 Huckabees is on my favourite films, and definitely my most watched.

So handsome Bradly Cooper plays Pat, a man who lived most of his life without knowing he had any issues with mental illness, until he caught his wife cheating on him, which caused him to snap and nearly kill the guy. His wife pulls a restraining order on him, and he's ordered to spend some time in a psychiatric hospital. The film opens with his mother checking him out, it's been long enough for the court, but they ignore the doctors that think he should stay. She's well intentioned anyway.

Pat is in denial of many of the problems he has, and is trying to get better for all the wrong reasons, he wants to get back with his wife, he wants to be better for her.

He then meets the also troubled Tiffany, played by the lovely Jennifer Lawrence. They have an interesting chemistry, they're drawn to each other but also drive each other crazy, drawing out whatever each of them is ignoring about themselves. Eventually they come into an agreement to enter a dance competition, and it all comes together and a cute and romantic way. And i'm not dismissing the film, it really is cute and romantic, it's just the means of coming together isn't as important as the meaning. Like Chuck Palahniuk has said, Fight Club, could have just as easily been Knitting Club, or anything else really.

Tea and cereal. Cereal and Tea.

i did like that Pat almost messed it up by waiting so long to reveal something to to Tiffany, all because he wanted to be romantic, it's just a fun moment with a touch of realism.

i've heard a lot of bitching and moaning about the end of this movie, how it's some unrealistic Hollywood Happy Ending, and you know, that's bullshit. The entire film is about two people trying to get better, overcome their problems, accept their illness, and move on from the past. The final scene of the two of them being and cute and cuddly, it isn't a happy ever after, no more than it's some foreboding sign of doom. The scene takes special care to show their ring fingers, they're no longer wearing their wedding rings. That's huge, it's symbolic, the movie has showed us that there is no such thing as normal, everyone has problems (and the various healthy and unhealthy ways they deal with them). There is no happily ever after, but there is happy. They're not magically absolved, they're just happy. And i like that a lot.

I hope this means Chris Tucker is returning to acting.

The acting must also be mentioned, phenominal performances by everyone, Cooper, Lawrence, Tucker, Oritz. Though honestly, De Niro gave probably the best, he seems a bit unsure over what to think about everything going on with Pat, but is still trying to be a loving father, and he's completely in denial about his OCD and other issues, the two do eventually admit that Pat is a lot like him though. But the moment that really sealed the performance for me was when he was sitting on Pat's bed, crying to his son, about how he wanted to be there to help his son, and how he was afraid to admit he wants his son to be there to help him as well, it was touching.

It's just a fantastic movie.

And while i'm not as angry as Pat was with the ending of A Farewell to Arms, it did bother me that of all the mentions of Metallica, there was none of their music featured in the film. And i don't even like Metallica! So here, take out your stress in unhealthy ways to this:

i hope i've made the case, not only to why these were two of my favourite films from 2012, but why they're important films as well. Mental illness is just a fact of life, it isn't something that's going to go away if you ignore it, and seeing these two films taking on the issue was really refreshing.

Fuck the Cabin in the Woods

So at the end of this film, an Elder God rises from the pit, destroying the cabin and everyone in it, and then it turns to the camera, and destroys it and the audience watching the film.

That was me, i am the Elder God, i have nothing but contempt for this film and the people that enjoy it, and i want to see them burn.

No really, not only is this the worst film of 2012 (which i'm just amazed something managed to be worse than MiB3), it's one of the worst films i've ever seen.

The best way i've come up with to describe this film is it's an ironic episode of Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo is only fun, only charming because of how sincere it is. The same is true of horror movies, the last thing the horror genre, or any genre needs is this self aware, cynical bullshit.

It's often toted that this movie is somehow a deconstruction of horror movies, however, my question is; How can you deconstruct something without even understanding it? Sure Cabin in the Woods points out that there are character archetypes in horror movies, and that everyone get murdered, but that's not deconstruction. It's just stating what the horror genre is, it's about as meaningful if i were to say "Everyone dies at the end of a Greek Tragedy"

The main influences on this film seem to be The Evil Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hell, the main monsters of the film, The Buckner Family are described as "Zombie Torture Redneck Family" which is just combining the monsters from the two. The problem is, Goddard and Whedon seem to have completely misread these films, viewing them as comedies, or worse, films that deserved to be mocked.

A laugh a minute, i tell you what.

Let's talk about the Buckers for a bit. Now, they come out into the world like part of a gameshow, yet our meddling teens are terrified of these things, and the scenes are shot like conventional horror. There is however, no weight attached to any of this, never do you fear these redneck zombies, they're just gross looking and dumb. And there's nothing particularity funny about them either, they're just killing the kids. So what is the tone? When people think of Evil Dead, they're most likely really thinking of Evil Dead II, which is a mix of comedy and horror. But the thing is, it never forgets it's a horror movie, and it's very sincere in both the jokes and the gross. The original Evil Dead is a straight up horror movie, the only thing funny about it is Bruce Campbell's acting. That's part of why Evil Dead II works so well, Sam Raimi realized what he had with Bruce's charmingly bad acting.  Cabin is uninteresting horror until those behind the cameras think they've won. There's a "joke" where the one guy is talking about how he feels for the Virgin, but then fuck her, booze! This is the detached irony i'm talking about, "Oh how deeply I care, NOT!" It's fucking juvenile. Anyway, during the wrap party, we see our heroine getting the tar beaten out of her like a cartoon character. And i ask "Why?" It's far too over the top to be horrific or to fear for her, and we already get the Crew are uncaring assholes, so it doesn't add to that. It's just more unfunny schlock.

Another really weird thing about the Buckners is that the film goes out of its way to tell us that they're different from other zombies. The woman didn't win the pool because she bet on vanilla zombies, not torture redneck zombies. So the movie is telling us that monsters in movies are different. But then there's the purge scene. Shaggy and the Virgin release all of the terrible monsters unto the compound. And we see that the film makers understand nothing about the symbolism of these creatures, they're all treated exactly the same. So despite what the movie told us, it's showing us that yes, zombies and torture redneck zombies are in fact the same. We see a bat rip some dudes head off, then we see a unicorn impale someone (ugh). It's the same senseless violence with every monster. The worst offender is probably the Angry Molesting Tree. For fuck sake. i get it, a girl was raped by the forest in Evil Dead, but what is wrong with you that you'd concieve of making it into the cutesy joke? Angry "Molesting" Tree. It also shows the movies reluctance to go into horror, the unpleasant. Rape isn't funny you see. Nothing worse than a horror movie that's afraid to be, well, horrific.

The closest to horror this film ever gets.

The merman is another problem with the tone in this film, one of the two main guys watching over the teens really wants to see the mermen, he's disappointed that no one ever picks the conch. Well during the purge, guess what monster is coming right for him? Of course this movie being what it is bungles the joke and he's disappointed to see it, we get a sad trombone "Oh come on!" When really, he should have been elated to see it, his dream is finally coming true, the merman in action. He knew he was dead at this point, would he preferred to have been eaten by the giant snake?

i suppose more than ironic Scooby Doo this makes the movie TV-Tropes: The Movie. It's not about anything, it's just data to collate. Look at this nonsense. An index of all the monsters, stat cards of their origins and attributes. Not a word on what they mean, because in this film they're just a name on whiteboard.

Then symbolism, the hierarchy of the film all falls apart at the end. So we have the kids, they're the actors, we've got cameras everywhere and the Crew behind them, directing things, doing the special effects, essentially writing it. Then we've got Sigourney Weaver as the Director, she's in charge, get it? And what bizarre commentary that the director is a unseen and non-influential force behind a movie until things go wrong. Then there's the Elder Gods, you know, me giving you the middle finger. The Director claims they're going through this horrorshow to appeal to these gods, so one would think they're the audience, this vicious cycle of cliche stories will continue as long as we demand them. Well,  firstly i'm annoyed anyone thinks that horror movies are anyway lacking in creativity or originality. And secondly the Four Temperaments is something really weird to rage against. This isn't cliches in horror movies, this is basic human story telling that Cabin seems to have a problem with. Anyway, as mentioned at the beginning of the review, after the kids fail to appease the Elder Gods, they break free, first destroying the kids and the cabin, and then breaking the fourth wall, and coming out for the audience. So, The Audience Will Eat Itself? i imagine the film is trying to say, "Hey guys, only you can prevent bad movies." But the decision of using the audience surrogate in the film to deliver that is beyond me.

This isn't the worst film i've ever seen because it fails at being either a horror or comedy, it's not even trash because it fails to say anything interesting about either genre. What i've really got against Cabin is its lack of sincerity. Take the scene with the cute little Japanese girls defeating the demon, "Fuck you!" the crew member impotently screams. This the ideology of the movie, sincerity and happiness are things to be met with contempt. If the movie is saying only we can prevent bad movies, it doesn't give us an idea as to what a good movie would be. The kids at the end, they destroy the world because they can't think of anything better, they can't turn the evil into a cute animal. If they had actually joined with the monsters (the Cenobites looked sympathetic) and done something new, something with meaning, it might have been an interesting movie. But no, fuck the world, let's get high. Once you stop being a teenager, you should have grown out of the "edginess" required to tell the totality of history of humanity to suck it.

No Donny, these men are nihilists.

Twenty twelve in song

2012 was the quite the year for music, so here's a few songs that stood out to me.

Cartoon and Cereal by Kendrick Lamar featuring Gunplay


Probably the most emotional song of the year, its just a hard hitting song, i mean damn. i'm honestly disappointed this wasn't on good kid, m.A.A.d city

Vodka & Ayahuasca by Gangrene


Favourite video of the year by far, it's just ridiculous. Also, i never really thought of psychedelic rap as thing, but i really dig it. Dat bass.


Born to Die by Lana Del Rey


Oh how i love Lana Del Rey, Born To Die is most likely my favourite album of the year. It just seems a somber rebuttal of #YOLO, it's less let's do stupid shit because we're young, and more, let's enjoy what time we have. i mean, she does end up dead in the video, that's not on accident, it's showing how dangerous being reckless is, and how unfortunately love isn't always enough. Lana takes on this very Lolita like persona, most obviously in the song Off to the Races, which in not only does she sing in a Betty Boop voice, it directly quotes the book. It's a story of a young troubled girl getting into older, bad men. And how they get her into drugs, money, and sex, and there's this very tragic tone to it all.

Eula by Baroness


i never knew metal could be this pretty. :3

Terrorist Threats by Ab-Soul featuring Danny Brown and Jhene Aiko


This is probably my favourite song of the year, not only was it my introduction to Ab-Soul, but it features everyone's favourite Danny Brown, and he fucking kills it on this track. Just a great political song. "I ain't trying to be nobody's chattel"

God Wants Us to Wait by The Magnetic Fields


This is the first Magnetic Fields album i've really enjoyed since I. But this song just sums up everything that's fantastic about them. Andrew in Drag is pretty fantastic too, and has a beautiful video.

Niggas in Poorest by Yasiin Bey


Just want to say first, there have not been nearly enough songs by Yasiin Bey this year. i love the line "Don't get caught up in no throne" in both what it means politically and a dig at the Jay-Z/Kanye album. Definitely looking forward to more Top 40 Underdogs.

How to be a Heartbreaker by Marina and the Diamonds


Best pop song of the year right here, really catchy and upbeat. i like it because it's all about how to use men, but then it gets serious and reveals it's all a ruse so her heart doesn't get broken, that perhaps using people is bad?! It's that kind of awareness that has always made Marina one of my favourite artists. i also love it because it's honestly the only video by a female artist that sexualizes men more than the artist that i can think of.

Die Young by Ke$ha


Similar in a way to Born to Die, but not as somber, i read somewhere that Ke$ha almost didn't want to record the song, for fear that it'd be misinterpreted. It's just a cute song about finding love and enjoying the night, even if the consequences might not be so great. "Stripping down to dirty socks" is seriously one of my favourite lyrics of all time. It's like when she giggles after saying "I like your beard" in Your Love is My Drug,  adorable.

Smoking like the Barrel of a Gun by Candice Gordon


Awesome voice. She screams like a girl, and it rocks.

Go Hard by Kreayshawn


Oh, Kreayshawn. While i have no comment about the rest of the album, i love this song, it reminds me of weird 90s pop songs, like something that would be in the soundtrack to Tank Girl. Something like that anyway. i want a whole cutesy album of songs like this.

Hit Me by Mystikal


Man, i thought James Brown was dead.

play by iamamiwhoami


i actually did a bit of a write up on this earlier in the year,  but this song and video, this is pop music, this is entertainment. It's a beautiful work of art. kin fits nicely in both my favourite albums and movies of the year.

Batmania Rising

This review has been sitting in my queue, only partially written for the past few months, and in all of the time of reflection and thought on this film, the most I can come up with is "Batman pays for his sins, except not really."

This movie cribs a lot from Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Returns, in that it starts out with older versions of Bruce and Gordon, both completely miserable with the world they've created. i suppose the distinction, the Nolan twist, other than there being no crime in this film, is that they realize they're to blame. It's a fun angle.

Now the plot focuses on Talia al Ghul and her goon, her front, Bane, coming to Gotham to finish her father's plan, and to make Bruce pay. And it almost works. Hi-jacking some magical fission device Bruce had developed in his peace-time boredom, the new League of Shadows holds Gotham City hostage and turns it into a beautiful anarchy, or as Žižek had to say:

...the prospect of the OWS movement taking power and establishing people’s democracy on Manhattan is so patently absurd, so utterly non-realist, that one cannot but raise the question: WHY DOES THEN A MAJOR HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER DREAM ABOUT IT, WHY DOES IT EVOKE THIS SPECTER? Why even dream about OWS exploding into a violent takeover? The obvious answer (to smudge OWS with accusations that it harbors a terrorist-totalitarian potential) is not enough to account for the strange attraction exerted by prospect of “people’s power.” No wonder the proper functioning of this power remains blank, absent: no details are given about how this people’s power functions, what the mobilized people are doing (remember that Bane tells the people they can do what they want – he is not imposing on them his own order).

 This is why external critique of the film (“its depiction of the OWS reign is a ridiculous caricature”) is not enough – the critique has to be immanent, it has to locate within the film itself a multitude signs which point towards the authentic Event. (Recall, for example, that Bane is not just a brutal terrorist, but a person of deep love and sacrifice.) In short, pure ideology isn’t possible, Bane’s authenticity HAS to leave trace in the film’s texture. This is why the film deserves a close reading: the Event – the “people’s republic of Gotham City”, dictatorship of the proletariat on Manhattan – is immanent to the film, it is its absent center.

 Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Gotham City by Slavoj Žižek

Despite Bane and his forces having a military presence, they only exist to make the corrupt of the past rule pay. Another influence on the story was Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities, so "death by exile" is as much a guillotine as it is great joke.

Even if you don't agree with such politics, just look at how the characters are portrayed.

Bane is angelic, his voice is other-worldy, but it's light, it's authoritative, it's almost downright Connery at times. He commands a group that would die at his whim, without an objection. He punishes the rich and corrupt, gives the city back to the people, and is powered by love.

Batman is demonic, speaks like a bear, defends the lie of the corrupt police, protects the rich, and is fueled only by his hatred of the poor.

There's also the great bit that Talia is trying to continue in her father's footsteps, while Bruce has done nothing but destroy his father's legacy, literally in the case of the train system.

i also love that the fission device Bruce developed to help the world would be the downfall of Gotham. Honestly though, i feel the film would have been better had the bomb plot not involved a secret countdown, they should have just used the bomb as they said they would, and then only start the countdown once Batman showed his ugly mug. It would just reinforce how terrible Batman is for Gotham.

 This was also by far the funniest of the Nolan Batmen films, jokes and silly stuff abound, Bane was a complete blast to watch and listen to, and the climax of the film was stolen from the 1966 Batman movie:

Literally the last twenty minutes of the film.

As for the end itself... it was odd. It doesn't quite drag on as long as Return of the King did, but close enough. And honestly they could have cut away before it showed what Alfred was looking at, just him smiling. Hell it should have been cut like that, the arguments over whether he saw Bruce or not would be hilarious. When it comes to film endings though, i'm a bit cruel (Beyond the Black Rainbow, Excision, and Prometheus are all great examples from this year of endings i love, not surprisingly they're my favourite films of the year as well)

As mentioned in my revisit of the Dark Knight, this film continues the trends of ending on lies. Batman isn't dead, and now a celebrated hero. Gordon is a hero The rich and corrupt win. But then there's Robin, and Robin was amazing, honestly my favourite part of this film, was when everyone in the audience cheered when they revealed that was his real name. It's just something i never could have anticipated happening. A crowd cheering about the Boy Wonder, fantastic. So maybe there is hope for the future, Robin was sick of both the law and Batman, and now with the resources of an eccentric billionaire, perhaps he can do what Bruce failed to do, any good.

Over all it was a pretty decent, a bit heavy handed even for Nolan, and Catwoman's objectification wasn't quite as bad as the Black Widow's, but still not anything positive. On the plus side, Bruce and Selina's games were amusing, and Bane as already mentioned was a blast. What i loved about him, is that he was a man of myth, only talked about in about in half truths and exaggeration. He's kind of like a god, only strong as the people that believe in him. Once it's revealed that he isn't the mastermind (i do love that Bruce doesn't remember any of his teachings, the figure head of the League is never really the leader) nor was he mythical child that escaped the pit (he straight up tells the singled minded Bruce he didn't see daylight until he a man), he is promptly shot out of the film by Han Solo. Because much like Bane, Darth Vader was just a henchman, and the whole voice/machine head.... The point is, i laughed.

Spooks spooked, goblins gobbled, UFOs K.O.ed

This is something i've been thinking about all year, but it seems i should bring it up now that Dan Aykroyd insists that the third Ghostbusters will be coming without Bill Murray.

It's time to make the third one. - Aykroyd

 Mostly i want to talk about how wrong he is. (With or without Murray)

Not that i'm against sequels or anything, it's just the movie will be severely out of place if made now.

You see, Ghostbusters was a film built on the zeitgeist of the 80s. Ghost movies were rampant and New Age spirituality was on a rise.

The film came on the heels of the Shining, the Fog, Poltergeist, and countless other films not nearly as interesting. Not to mention everything that came after, culminating at 1990's Ghost. Ghostbusters II, opinions on he quality aside, was still set in the times of the paranormal.

These days however, ghost movies seem few, there aren't as many shows about hauntings either, the big topic today is, well:

Hamburgers

The biggest movie series right now is probably Transformers, a series about robotic cars from outerspace, then there's Cowboys & Aliens, Skyline, Battle: Los Angeles, Battleship, Prometheus.... and that's what, the last three years? Ancient Aliens nearly has its own channel at this point.

So instead of busting ghosts, a movie today should feature a group fighting aliens, and i know what you're thinking

But you'd be wrong. You see, i thought of all this before i had even heard of the Watch, and even if i hadn't, that just looks like some aggressively unfunny comedy that happens to involve aliens. i mean shit, compare that long rambling "I'd fuck an old dude" joke to this:  

Ray: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here. 

Peck: They caused an explosion! 

Mayor: Is this true? 

Venkman: Yes it's true. This man has no dick. 

i'm guessing all that movie is about is no one takes them seriously, and then they save the day, the end.

 But you see, there's another issue that Ghostbusters plays around with, namely classism.

The design of the Ghostbusters is brilliant, they dress like exterminators, drive in a hearse style ambulance, and work out of a run down firestation. They're the unsung heroes of society, i mean, it's no coincidence all of their clients are wealthy. Walter Peck is the primary antagonist, he's a government man, the enemy of the blue collar workers (which, despite their PhDs the Ghostbusters are presented to be). Just look at the simple scene where he goes to shut down the containment unit, the guy in the hardhat doesn't want to shut it down, and the cop calls Peck a pencil neck. It's Peck's fault the apocalypse starts. Damn the man.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

So, a new movie would have to have a ragtag group against some aliens, and also deal with some socio-poltical issues of today, and when this all clicked in my mind, i realized, this film had already been made:

 Yes, Attack the Block is the modern day Ghostbusters. You've got a group of inner city kids, it examines how they were brought up, how they live, how society views them, and the main antagonist is a drug dealer, oh and there might also be some aliens running about.

Ray. It's looking at me.

i have a feeling this isn't incidental, that Joe Cornish came to the same conclusion as me, that this is what was needed, hell, he even threw in a namedrop to the Ghostbusters. And while i wouldn't say Attack the Block is as great of a comedy as Ghostbusters, it's still a damn fine film, and one of my favourites.

How I learned to embrace anarchy, and love the Bat-man.

i feel i've come a long way since starting this blog, i've matured (somewhat!), i've read, watched, and listened to so much art, and have learned to appreciate it in ways that never would have occurred to me before.

There's a somewhat infamous internet forum poster, that claims Watchmen was the movie that "broke" them, that it got them to see the art of film, recognize and interpret the symbols and subtext, and so on. There is more to a film than what lies on the surface. My best guess to the film that broke me was Enter the Void "This is us, this is now" were my words, well close enough anyway. Since that film, i've written fewer reviews, but i feel, they're hopefully more well thought out than "i didn't like it because plot" or "comics books" and more thinking on what the movies are about, and why they do the things they do.

The first film i reviewed on this blog, would be the Dark Knight, i've reviewed it twice actually, once after first seeing it, and then watching it again months later. i also used it to contrast Batman's death in Final Crisis. And now, i'd like to talk about for the forth time. Because, what can i say, i love Batman.

Mostly, i'm interested in returning to TDK because of how bad my previous reviews were. "Not my Batman" seems to be my only point, and it's not even really a point, and certainly not anything i agree with now.

Let's start with Final Crisis:

pew pew

Previously i talked about how, in this scene, Batman dies by gun, the very act of picking up a gun and killing someone is the end of Batman, he knows this, hence the chuckle before the beam hits him. Now what i failed to realize is that at the end of the Dark Knight, Batman also dies by gun.

Dent has taken Gordon and his family hostage, Batman shows up, trying to save them all, but Dent wants to make the men responsible for all that has happened pay, he flips his coin and shoots Batman who falls down, dead. He then flips his coin again, to choose the fate of Gordon's son, but something comes back from the dead in the guise of Batman and kills Dent before the coin lands. This is shown to be pointless, as the coin lands "good" side up. Batman was gunned down, and whatever was left was let to come back and kill. i like it. Not really sure why i had such an objection to Dent dying anyway, it makes sense for his character, he wanted to share his pain, nothing else matters. Perhaps just some objection to the world feeling smaller, i mean seeing Crane in all three films was a joy, but i failed to realize Dent was more than just a freak of the week. He was a half-dead man, a tarnished symbol,  the other side of Batman.

Now i also complained about Bruce being a whiny baby.

My childhood crush was going to wait for me!

Batman is childish though, and this complaint is weird, because it's kind of what i love about him. You can go on about how fascist and classist Batman is, and you'll probably be right, but the most important thing is that he's a childhood fantasy. "I want to beat up the bad guys" says ten-year-old Billy. Bruce Wayne never stopped being eight years old, that childhood fear, confusion, and rage, it's all he is. This is why Rachel is so important to him, she was part of that childhood, his first love, his only love. This is true of Batman outside of this movie as well, i mean the reason he hangs out with a young boy isn't because he's sexually attracted to Dick, no, he's best friends with a kid because that's all he really is. Not to say Batman has never been portrayed as gay, but for the most part, i don't think Batman has a sexuality, he's too busy playing Cops and Robbers.

i was right about one thing though, that the Joker is the star, and that he is the man who laughs at how ridiculous Batman is.

Ha Ho He Ha

i actually have a reason for posting that meme. Batman is a superhero that can't escape his origin, to the point where "My parents are dead!" is also a meme. He's forever a kid bound to the death of his parents, now the Joker on the other hand, he's a man with no origin. When he offers multiple explanations for his scars, Nolan is quoting Alan Moore's the Killing Joke:

I mean, what is it with you? What made you what you are? Girlfriend killed by the mob, maybe? Brother carved up by some mugger? Something like that, I bet. Something like that... Something like that happened to me you know. I...I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha ha ha!

The Dark Knight really is the same deal as the Killing Joke, the Joker trying to prove he can make anyone mad like him, in the comic he goes after Gordon and fails, in the movie he goes after Dent and wins. And it's interesting because i've heard people argue that he loses because the people on the ferries don't blow eachother up, but as the Joker says, it was never going to come down to a fist fight between him and Batman, that was all a fun distraction, Dent was a main event. The Joker succeeds in ruining the holy trinity of Gotham. The White Knight is sullied, Dark Knight is dead, and Gordon, he lost everything he believed in.
Though it is interesting in how low key the movie plays the Joker outsmarting everyone, he flat out lies about the locations of Dent and Rachel, Batman goes to get Rachel, but finds Dent instead, so suddenly, this is the plan, Batman has always been going to rescue Dent, and in my experience, the audience goes along with it, without realizing anyone has been duped. The disappointment on their faces is amazing.

One really fantastic scene is Alfred's "Some men just want to watch the world burn." speech, he's so caught up in his sense of duty, the status quo of colonialism, that he fails to realize that the bandit is eliminating a currency that's being used to enslave his people, and that Alfred himself, was the one that failed to understand what he was up against. The further irony of this speech of course is that Alfred and his men are the ones that burn down the forest.

There's a theme of communication being a weapon in this film, i already talked about the Joker's misinformation, he does something similar when he burns the cash "I'm only burning my half" If you want to understand, let me drink the bottom half of your milkshake. But more than that, Batman and the Joker directly use cellphones as weapons. Batman gets his sonar ears all over the city and Hong Kong, and the Joker blows a dude up with his one phone call.

Of course, Batman's wiretapping brings comparisons to the Patriot Act and the War on Terror, breaking the law for "the greater good." And sure, it exists, that scene of Batman standing on the rubble is very clearly an homage to the aftermath of 9/11. However, the argument against that, is twofold.  Firstly, that has always been Batman's M.O. He's beyond the law, he does things that cops can't (and shouldn't) do. Fox's objection seems to be based less on liberty, and more on spirituality. "This is too much power for one person." This deus ex machina, turns Batman into a god, he's everywhere at once, hearing everything, look as his eyes glow white with his divine judgement. I Am Become Batman Secondly, the Joker has no ideology, he's not fighting for religious, social, or political  beliefs, he has none. As he says, he's a dog chasing cars (though again, he lies when he says he has no plan). And him calling himself a dog is rather important.

Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yay.

Not only is that short car ride my favourite scene in the movie, it's by far the most beautiful.
Batman comes up against dogs a lot in this movie, at the start with the drug dealer's dogs (which leads to the great quip about the armour being good to protect against cats), at the end with the K9 units, and everything in the middle with the Joker.

Two-Face: The Joker's just a mad dog. I want whoever let him off the leash.

 Now the better translation of that, or at least more interesting, is "A stray dog sees only what it chases."
Though i'm not bringing up Kurosawa's Stray Dog to compare to the Joker, but instead Batman and Dent.

Stray Dog is about a rookie cop chasing down a thief that stole his gun, by the end, we find out after returning from war, both men had their belongings stolen from them, both wanted to retain a sense of balance, but one became a cop, the other a thief. Remember, Dent tells Gordon to come to the place where his family died.

The Joker: Why don't we cut you up into little pieces and feed you to your pooches? Hmm? And then we'll see how loyal a hungry dog really is. It's not about money... it's about sending a message. Everything burns! 

 How wonderful is Burroughs voice? 

Batman: Then why do you want to kill me?

The Joker: I don't, I don't want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You... you... complete me.

Batman: You're garbage who kills for money.

The Joker: Don't talk like one of them. You're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve. 

That right there leads me to believe that Nolan read some Grant Morrison, as there's this in  Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

Dr. Adams: The Joker's a special case. Some of us feel he may be beyond treatment. In fact, we're not even sure if he can be properly as insane.
His latest claim is that he's possessed by Baron Ghede, the Voodoo loa.
We're beginning to think it may be a neurological disorder, similar to Tourette's syndrome. It's quite possible we may actually be looking at some kind of super-sanity here. A brilliant new modification of human perception. More suited to urban life at the end of the twentieth century.

Batman: Tell that to his victims.

Dr. Adams: Unlike you and I, the Joker seems to have no control over the sensory information he's receiving from the outside world. He can only cope with the chaotic barrage of input by going with the flow. That's why some days he's a mischievous clown, others a psychopathic killer. He has no real personality. He creates himself each day. He sees himself as the Lord of Misrule, and the world as a theatre of the absurd. 

And it is interesting to see Nolan give his version of popular comic stories, i already mentioned the twist on the Killing Joke, but the twists on the Long Halloween are also interesting. In the movie, Dent is the killer of the corrupt, it's Gordon in the SWAT suit, and Dent survives the courtroom scene unscathed by chance.

Puppy love.

i love the contrasts between the Joker and Batman, one hides his face, wears black, and clings to the edges. The other paints his face, is flamboyant, and stands out in the open. Batman is ridiculous in the Nolan films, from his bear voice, to his bulky suit, and tank-cum-motorcycle. And i think that's the point, the very idea of Batman is absurd. Every film ends with a lie, Begins with Batman's cop-out on how it isn't murder, Knight with covering Dent's crimes, and Rises, well, we'll get there. What Batman did in the first film, created the situation in the second, Sons of Batman running around with guns, the gangsters agitated, yet still untouchable, and of course, the Joker. The thing is, what brings down the mob, the corruption, and psychotic vigilantes, is the Joker. He is literally the hero of the story, and it's fantastic and weird.

Not that i'm saying the Joker is a good guy here, he's not, but neither is Batman.

Not sure if i've mentioned this before, but i love comparing this movie to Burton's Batman. In that film, we see the origin of the Joker, his rise, his insanity, his insights, the film follows him.  Batman shows up every now and then, when not brooding in the empty mansion. It made Batman more fantastic in that film, and it makes the Joker amazing in this film. The same idea, used in a different way.

Seems like i'll have to give Batman Begins another chance now.

Wubstep weapons.

Pomplamoose are an interesting group, they make cutesy covers of songs, and get a lot of flack for it, mostly "because hipsters"

You know, that word i've seen used to describe OFWGKTA fans, graffiti artists, people that wear hats...

If someone doesn't like them, that's fine, but i find it interesting that people spit vile over this band, like somehow being cute is affront to them. It's bizarre. i love that they exist, because, there ain't nothing wrong with being cute.

That said, this cover of Danny Elfman's Batman theme owns. They're literally using dubstep as a weapon to defeat evil agents in suits. I love it.