Dark Day

In my attempt to blog about the mundane, and the pure excitement of the event...I must say...GO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT! I hate recommending movies, but this one deserves it. I can't and won't say anything that hasn't been said before, but I will give my review. Great...there you have it. It isn't your ordinary superhero movie, it has a depth, complexity and shading of characters that is not found in busllshit art house film.

There is an overarching theme that is brilliant, simple, and profound. People will immediately dismiss it because it is a "superhero movie." It is much, much more than that. It was brilliantly shot, acted, written, directed and produced.

We saw it in IMAX and if you have access to an IMAX theater...GO!!! We have perfect seats and the first 5 minutes it felt like I was sucked into the scenery, and observer of a real life epic. I remember the movie "Dreamscape" and if you saw it...I felt like Dennis Quaid when he would enter patients dreams...a voyeur surrounded by a tale...powerless to stop...not that I would have wanted to.

Of course the 600lb elephant is Heath Ledger...watching his performance and knowing that he is dead made every brilliant second he was on the screen that much more chilling. Ledger's performance easily goes down as the best comic villain portrayed on the large screen. The comic genius of Jack Nicholson's Joker is easily...easily...forgotten the first time Ledger appears on the screen. They may be the same character, but they are as far from each other as they could possible be. Ledger did the smart thing, he played it like he wasn't wearing the make up or the suit...he was just a fucked up guy who wanted to hurt the world. That's it. Any pain he could cause was for sport and for fun...his own fun. If you strip away the make up, and Batman's mask, the story would still work...it has worked in other films. Add the "superhero" stuff and it is actually and addition to the story the way it is done here. Not like Spiderman 3 where everything was bad.

Very few things were not good about this film. Maggie Gyllenhaal is the love interest, but she is not attractive and not that good of an actress in it. And here is one critique probably not said about an almost 3 hour movie...but I could have seen more. I would have liked to have seen more. I think some parts were rushed when they shouldn't have been...but time constraints for a theatrical release required it. Other than that is was perfect. Best picture of the year for sure.

See it, and see it in Imax if you can.

One thing about IMAX...it is such an amazing viewing experience that it really does ruin you for non-IMAX movies. The size, the clarity, the sound...it is just leaps and bounds above the regular movie theater movies.