"Now there's a Batman." - a review of The Dark Knight

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Written by: Christopher Nolan, Jonathon Nolan, David Goyer

Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal

Probably by now you have figured out whether or not you want to see this movie, as is the case with most Hollywood movies with a major ad campaign in front of them, and certainly The Dark Knight, which by now has won over it's installed base of comic book/superhero fans through year long viral marketing and however much of the general public is possible with a blitzkrieg of advertising. Such is the way of things. But for those interested in seeing opinions or who genuinely haven't made a decision yet, here it is.

To provide yet another drop of water into the bucket, I present Sean Riccio's review of The Dark Knight.

There aren't any real spoilers here, but if you want to go in pure as the driven snow, then maybe hold off. I'll sum the review up: it's awesome, go see it.

The basic outline is that one year out from Batman's decapitation of Gotham's organized crime world, things in the not-so-fair city have gone from bad to worse in many respects. Though the authorities have finally reached into their pants and found a pair and the Caped Crusader harasses the criminal element beyond what the law's rules will allow, the bad guys are not taking this lying down and have been escalating their war. Enter Gotham's new D.A. Harvey Dent, a daylight counterpart to Batman who is equally as exuberant and unorthodox in his quest to save his town, but wrestling with Batman and ally Lt. Gordon on the proper way to go about business. Through all this snakes a brilliant and insane terrorist known only as “the Joker”, who threatens to rip everything apart.

First off, the movie is good; very, very good. Terms like “best Batman movie” and “best superhero movie” are ones I generally try to avoid, seeing as they are completely subjective based on what you want. To some Batman hit it's stride with the tone set by Comic-Code era zaniness and Batusi-busting Adam West. And some people like their super-heroes all campy fun (Fantastic 4) or bombastic mythology (Spider-Man 2, Superman Returns). People who demand any of this will find little to like. Even those fans who have salivated for an adaptation of the tone set by Grant Morrison and Frank Miller in the Batman comics may not get exactly what they want, though this movie is decidedly dark and edgy, like the best of both writer's works with the character.

No, the closest texts I can compare this film to are M. Night's Unbreakable (for my money the seminal piece of superhero moviedom) and Frank Herbert's Dune mythology. I know, bear with me here.

The reason being is that Chris Nolan and David Goyer have decided to be very bold with their intent in The Dark Knight. Like Dune and Unbreakable, this is a philosophical experiment, an exploration of applied ideas. This is about questioning the true nature of “heroism” in the real world, what we do when stripped of our ideals, and what really happens when a man puts on a mask and sets out to save the day.

In a nutshell, it's all very complicated.

The Dark Knight isn't a feel-good movie like most super-hero tales. It doesn't steer away from uncomfortable realities that its narrative creates, and in fact embraces them. This at times gives the film an air of nihilism. It can seem that as the best laid plans of Bats and men come crashing down that the Joker is right; destruction and chaos are the only real truths in our world. It's a rather Freudian concept, that society is a thin veil over roiling madness, and the more we pull it taught the more the madness thrashes and lashes out. Batman attacks the mob, the mob redoubles their efforts. The police and the D.A. office crack down, and the mob side-steps. Batman blocks them, and the mob turns to madmen for aid. Everything escalates in an increasing attempt to restore or subdue – depending on one's perspective – the natural order.

There's also the questioning of the very concept of heroes and heroism. Nolan and Goyer call into question whether Batman is a hero at all, compared to the likes of Harvey Dent and Jim Gordon. A picture is painted in which Batman is just another burden upon Gotham, the impetus for a great deal of pain and misery. At the same time though, he's the only person who can put a stop to the madness. In the midst of this, his normal self Bruce Wayne is wrestling with the implication that maybe the city doesn't need him now that Dent has stepped up to plate.

There is a plot of moral ambiguity in the last act of the movie (the 4^th and/or 5^th, depending on how you break it up) that still troubles me. I won't go too far into it (see? Trying to keep the spoilers at bay), but suffice to say that the use of the term “terrorist” earlier in the picture, combined with the actions of Batman and by-then Commissioner Gordon gave me an undesirable taste in the mouth. Has Batman gone too far? Is he really doing the right thing in this plan? The question is one left largely unanswered, though the film does try to assure that yes, Batman is still a good guy even though he's doing this dishonorable and arguably immoral act.

This is the beauty of the thing, though. We are presented with a very troubling set of philosophical questions by the entire movie. Has Batman done any real good? Is corruption and decay at all stoppable? Is chaos the only constant? Can you defeat one evil without resorting to another? This is heavy stuff, not what we in America accustomed to, certainly not in our mythological figures. But it's what raises The Dark Knight above being a genre film, though a very well crafted and entertaining genre film, and brings it to the level of Art. It is not easy and it is not simple, but it is honest.

Along with the story, the craft and technical aspects of The Dark Knight are all top-shelf as well, but with some minor missteps. The look of the film, using natural lighting and little filter, is perfectly suited for the “this is the real world” tone that's set. The only time this becomes an issue is with some FX shots near the end that jarred me, oddly enough because they looked like something I would see in a Batman comic book. The music, likewise, is pitch-perfect. The score composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard is purposely subtle and not flamboyant while still properly epic and engaging. The Joker's theme music stands out in this respect, deeply unsettling and leaving the listener unable to place what exactly is so jarring about it.

Which leads to the performances, Heath Ledger's first in line. I will not dwell too long on his Joker because so much has already been said, and it is all true. Ledger has set the bar for all further interpretations of the character, tapping into the darkest parts of the human psyche for a truly terrifying force of nature. He has a left a masterpiece with his final performance.

The other stand-outs in the cast are Aaron Eckhart as district attorney Harvey Dent, bringing a bright and likable heroic idealism that makes the characters journey all too painful, and Maggie Gyllenhaal taking over for Katie Holmes as Bruce/Batman's love interest, Rachel Dawes. I was not as unimpressed by Holmes' turn in Batman Begins as others, but I enjoyed Gyllenhaal none the less. She did bring more gravitas and emotional involvement to the character, perhaps because she was given more script to work with this time. Bringing gravitas was no issue for Christian Bale, in the previous or current film. In fact he at times seems to have too much, his gravel-toned “Batman voice” bordering on parody. It's understandable that Bruce Wayne must disguise his voice, but at times it was near impossible to make out what he was saying. This may be more an issue with my aging theater's sound system than the actor, though. Fortunately Bale's take on Wayne suffers no such problems, a marked improvement and evolution. Bale's brooding is tinged with a palpable sense of emotional and mental fraying as the film progresses, and he allows real emotion to enter Wayne's personal interactions this time around.

As I sit finishing this review, the numbers have already come in, announcing The Dark Knight to be a financial triumph as well as an artistic one. Pleasing, as this film richly deserves the rewards. With any luck and justice, Nolan and crew will receive at least a nod of nomination from the Academy come next March.

If you haven't seen it yet, make a point. If you have, I would suggest a second run. I know I will, and look forward to posting a more in depth analysis, riddled with spoilers. Maybe for the DVD release. Take it in and mull it over; there's a lot to think about. This is one for the ages, folks.

"Everyone Must Go!"

So, like most good red-blooded American 20-somethings, I'm a big fan of The Colbert Report; it's one of the few things on television that I will actually make time to sit down and watch on a first run.

If you're bothering to read a blog at all you're probably already familiar with the show, like it or not, so I'll get right to the point. Last night's show featured "The Word" segment, in which the word was "Priceless". The gist was that the EPA has lowered the value of a "statistical life" from an estimated $7.8 million to $6.9 million over the last five years, in an attempt to avoid placing regulations on American industry.

It breaks down like this: based on such measurements as payroll stats and opinion surveys, the EPA calculates how much consumers are willing to pay to protect against risks and what employers pay their hires to take on those risks during the job. More information can be found through this AP story.

With this data the EPA and Congress adopt regulation and law based on cost-benefit effectiveness. To use the AP's example:

"Consider...a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted."

As the AP reports, the EPA says this shouldn't be viewed as a "price tag on a life." Maybe. At least not in the most literal sense. But what we are talking about here is how much we (theoretically) are willing to shell out to cover our own asses from various things that can harm us if imposed upon us (tainted food, dangerous work environments, release of pollutants, etc.)

My first question coming off reading all this was why is this even a fucking issue? Why are we having a circle-jerk about how much is too much to make living quality better for American citizens, and ostensibly global citizens – because the shit that we do here with our water, land and air (specifically air) affects a good portion of planetary climate and conditions. Why the need for this dehumanizing dicking around with “statistical lives”? What kind of patriarchal expendable-population bullshit is this?

After biting down on a piece of leather for a few minutes and going to my happy place, I tried to take a step back. Okay, so on the surface this whole cost of life deal may seem like a despicable application of utilitarianism. But the fact is, there's only so much money in the coffers at any one point and we have to figure out where and how to apply it. Inconvenient act of life.

So let's take another look at where this American life monetization comes from (and by the by, the EPA is not the only federal department that writes up figures like this; there are several. Hell, the Transportation Department's is even lower.) The EPA says it's based of consumer evaluation. “Consumers” initially might make you think of folk like you and me, the normal citizens who work the jobs and breathe the air and pay the taxes. But looking further, we get a better idea of what the title consumer is supposed to refer to here.

A lot of this data comes from collectivist business entities – corporations – who have to pay employees more for hazardous work and have to change the way they do business based off environmental regulation. Because corporations have almost all the same rights as legal persons, they are “consumers”: they consume and use energy, resources, products and labor. When a group like Exxon-Mobil or Phillip-Morris is asked what the value of keeping their employees healthy and looking after the welfare of their industrial sites – cutting into their bottom line – how do you think they're going to answer?

Because these business entities have almost exactly the same rights as individuals, but with far more access and ability to wield raw and monetary resources, they have a huge sway on how these kinds of decisions go both in the executive and legislative branches of government. It's here interesting to point out that the EPA and Congress have been in a long-standing game of hot potato over who's responsibility it is to act on climate change and other environmental/health issues.

So these bougie motherfuckers are almost invariably going to sell short their human resources and physical sustainability for short-term profit, because hey, that shit's expensive.

But if the EPA and Congress were to actually consult and listen the populace (especially Congress, seeing as in a democratic republic they are theoretically supposed to do what we will), I think the American life value would be a hell of a lot higher. It might mean a spending more on these regulatory legislations, but there's a lot of places we could be dipping for that cash. How many billions is it going to cost for us to bail out Fanny Mae? When I talk to people out in the world, the biggest problem they seem to have with taxation in this country isn't so much the amount they pay, but how little they see of it in their lives.

If they were presented with the choice of propping up failing banks and padding energy industry coffers, or better ensuring the health and safety of their siblings, parents, children, themselves...I can wager a guess as to how that's going to swing.

Just a thought.

A Productive Day By Any Standard...

So I wrote a few sentences in the background fiction for my foreground fiction, and almost a whole page for that short story that's been sitting in my .doc folder since last semester. w00t, as my chronological peers would say.

Now that I'm no longer burdened by a modern serfdom gig or school for a few weeks, I'm quickly getting my sea-legs back under me for the whole creative process. It feels good, as it always does, to sit down and just create, gettin' that sense of doing what you were made to do.

Of course, being an emotional masochist, I cannot possibly let myself feel good about anything before tearing it to tiny crinkled shreds.

Reading Aasimov's Complete Robot, flipping through my copy of The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower and catching up on a few reviews, I sit here asking myself just what the hell it is I think I'm doing.

I have no idea how it is or was for other artists, but I am constantly racked by feelings of self-doubt about my skills. It's probably not fair for a journeyman to try and compare himself to masters of the craft since you're always going to come up short there, but even the earliest stuff from Lovecraft or King shows a promise that I just don't know if I have. I just don't feel as possessed of the same penetrating eye or protean genius that my heroes seemed to be.

I comfort myself with the perhaps false comfort that few people probably set out to be geniuses, and few succeed. It's something that's there or isn't, I suppose. I hope that I'm a great artist deep down inside, and somewhere in me I've got one of those genre defining, generation inspiring works of fiction kicking around in the ol' noggin, but if not I don't really care. Right now I'm writing about dragons and magic and a ranger in ruddy leather, because goddammit that's what I feel and that's what I want to do.

There's a lot of "I" stuff in that last paragraph. Already this blog is turning into some self-absorbed bleeding heart affair. Ai-ya...

The thing is, the real reason I'm worried about all that crap is because I don't want to disappoint the one audience that matters. That if I can't bust out that save-the-world-through-my-art masterpiece I won't be good enough in their eyes.

Ah, well. Someday it'll come. Who knows, Weyard might even be it. Right now though, I think it's best to just make sure those dragons and rangers come out the best they can. I think she'll like that...

Like A Giraffe Taking It's First Steps, But With A Gimp Leg

So I've finally set up my first blog. Or rather, my first blog that I intend to keep regularly and make public. Whatever.

Though I've been meaning to do this for a while, the impetus to finally get off my narrow ass and start was my new girlfriend, writer and geek extraordinaire Arinn Dembo. She's actually been encouraging this for a few weeks, but being supremely lazy/ambivalent about these sorts of things I put it off, waiting for the right "milestone" to use as a starting point, or some other bullshit to get out of actually sitting down and writing something. Seeing as I just got fired yesterday from my wage-serf job at Cumberland Farms for snacking without rendering unto Caesar (for the record, Cumberland Farms is a gas station chain that's a subsidiary of Exxon-Mobil. Somehow, I don't feel too bad about it), I figure why the hell not now? Also, I'm bored.

This blog is going to be a pastiche at first, acting as personal journal, news analysis and reporting platform, fiction repository, media review site and whatever the hell else I feel like yoking this free internet workhorse for, at least until I can get enough headway to a) focus in on one thoroughly or b) get each one it's own location. So bear with me, folks. In reality though, you'll probably be reading this after having dredged it up from the bowels of the archives. If so, then hi! Thanks for being such a big fan! There's probably better stuff in the front, though.

So, um...what's going on?

Okay, tomorrow I'm having a big yard-sale (huh, I'd have thought that yardsale would be an actual word by now in American English. Anyway...) to both get rid of some of my now-useless crap (though, let's be fair, alot of it was useless from the get-go. Why did I ever need Pogs?) and earn some extra scratch in preperation for moving in with Arinn. More on that another time. For now though, I will sign off and get back to sorting through my stacks of VHS tapes and affixing teeny-tiny price stickers to them.

...Holy crap, Power Rangers: The Movie? Maaan, I was lame!