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| mo_flixx |
 Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:14 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
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Syd --
Spoilage corrected. Maybe you can do the same with my quote in your post.
Yeah...I kind of "got it" that the entire city of Chicago went ga-ga over Batman and let them wreck the place... Obviously the Big Apple said no.
...but I meant why is Gotham Chicago in terms of the story?? I mean when you give out directions and mention "Cicero," you're probably talking Chicago, I would think.
Hope this is NOT a spoiler IMO because Gotham is a fictitous metropolitan center. BTW, another unlikely city gets credit too - I shall not mention its name here. The imdb.com lists all the locations and some are very unlikely! |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:33 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| This might irritate some, but as a sort of faceless New York, it could be argued that Chicago works better as Gotham. |
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| seagull |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:44 am |
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Joined: 11 Jul 2008
Posts: 1525
Location: Philadelphia PA
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today's chicago rese.bles what I imagine is the 1950s new york in its crumbling facelessness.
I doubt if there are too many super villains there though.. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:53 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| Well, that would explain why we here at Gotham magazine didn't get free passes. (There was some discussion of requesting them, but I don't know if anyone did.) |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:37 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12933
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Son of Rambow is a small story of two British schoolboys who become unlikely collaborators in film. Lee Carter (Will Poulter) is a class troublemaker who is currently living with his brother because his mother is busy in Spain with her boyfriend. He also is a beginning filmmaker, secretly borrowing his brother's camcorder for his projects, including bootlegging movies. Will Proudfoot (Bill Millner) is being raised by his mother (his dad died of a burst aneurysm while mowing the lawn. One day Will is excused from class because the teacher is showing a film and meets Lee one day when Lee is thrown out of class for acting up. The two boys get into a bit of horseplay which results in a broken fishbowl and a trip to be disciplined. Lee says he'll take the blame (it is his fault) and will endure the torture the school used to extract confessions. Will buys this and wanders off. When Will's out of eyesight, Lee takes off, too.
Will bikes Lee home (since Lee is faking pains from his torture), where Lee plays his latest bootlegged tape, First Blood. This has an unexpected effect on Will.
The Proudfoots, you see, belong to a tight-knit religious group like the Mennonites and Quakers. Will has never seen a movie or television since they are forbidden by his religion, which believes on avoiding evil by avoiding outside influences, including friendship outside the sect. Will still has a very active visual imagination which he exercises by drawing. When he sees First Blood, it's like nothing he's ever seen, and he becomes the Son of Rambow (apparently the name wasn't shown in print) fighting monsters (scarecrows and ninjas). When Lee next sees him, Will has dressed up as the part, and Lee thinks Will has gone off the deep end, but the two start to collaborate on an amateur film project. Will's mother and the minister (who seems to have an earthly interest in Will's mother) become suspicious and Will's life becomes very complicated. Will art triumph, or will Will go back to his faith like his mother did? What do you think?
Nice film, not too complicated but pretty odd, with muted emotions for quite a while till things come to a head and you realize how much emotion you have in these characters including Will's mother and Lee's brother. There's a funny subplot involving what is apparently the school's sole exchange student, a French kid who becomes the class cool kid since he's exotic (really, he's more than a bit of a dork). The film is more or less the kind of film you would expect two pre-teens to make with a camcorder (eventually the cast expands to some of their fellow students). The camera-work is nothing special for either the framing story or the film-within-a-film, but some of the improvised stunts are inventive and funny. There's one involving a hang-glider and a dog that's particularly delightful.
Will Poulter and Bill Milner remind me a lot of River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton in Stand By Me, and the two films have a lot of that film's keen observation of their lead characters. It also reminds me a smidgen of Bridge to Terabithia in its view of how imagination can be used to deal with life's problems. Will Proudfoot is a cinematic cousin of Jess and May Belle Aarons from the earlier film. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| lshap |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:59 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 4248
Location: Montreal
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I loved The Dark Knight. I mean, it really went beyond my tepid expectations of the comic book genre and became almost as deep and dark as the hype proclaims. There's a recurring theme of order and chaos played out with edgy imbalance by each of the main characters, as they walk a tightrope between the two worlds. Being tempted by the dark side in this film is more a survival mechanism than a tilting toward evil. Nobody comes off shiny and clean.
Christian Bale's Batman has been overshadowed by the walking timebomb of Heath Ledger's Joker, but Batman has the harder job. He has to hold the middle ground between order and vigilante justice without becoming a rogue outcast or sounding as beige as Superman. He's the anchor of the film, if not the icing, even if he sounds like a cross between Darth Vader and a throat cancer patient. But it works, stoicism and all, and even Bale's dour hissing becomes more and more appropriate as Gotham tears itself apart.
But yeah, this is Heath Ledger's canvas, and he positively goes to town with every line. With the Joker he obviously found one of those rare grooves actors wait a lifetime for. I won't give too much credibility to all the Oscar talk just yet. True, Ledger leaves a deep impression, but it's still not a role that traditionally gets award votes.
Nolan's direction was better than some have said. The film is long, but it moves confidently with nothing wasted. Plot is blockbuster-sized and well-paced, and the action is ratcheted up notch by notch by notch, silly in some places but eminently satisfying. |
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| seagull |
| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:04 pm |
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Joined: 11 Jul 2008
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Location: Philadelphia PA
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| my only gripe with the film was, and you didn't cover this lshap, why didn't they ley maggie gyllenhal walk off the screen and marry me. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:48 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12933
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| My regret was that Katie Holmes' breasts didn't make a cameo appearance. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 2:15 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| Damn it, Lorne. You're supposed to help discourage me from seeing the thing. You're supposed to aid me in my elitist refusal to acknowledge its existence. Then you chime in, as yet another person whose opinion I respect, and praise the thing to the sky. Thanks a lot. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:27 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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| Dark Knight is worth seeing if only for the sake of its ambition. It is the Hamlet of comic book adaptations. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| seagull |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:33 am |
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Joined: 11 Jul 2008
Posts: 1525
Location: Philadelphia PA
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jeremy wrote: Dark Knight is worth seeing if only for the sake of its ambition. It is the Hamlet of comic book adaptations.
where did that come from?
did i miss Batman's mother somewhere in the flic? |
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Palin : Bush in a pantyhose. |
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| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:34 am |
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Joined: 30 May 2004
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jeremy wrote: Dark Knight is worth seeing if only for the sake of its ambition. It is the Hamlet of comic book adaptations.
How so? See almost zilch similarity. |
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| seagull |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:41 am |
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Joined: 11 Jul 2008
Posts: 1525
Location: Philadelphia PA
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| Dark Knight is more similar to Broadcast news (Johnny To movie) than any British stage play...Globe or not. |
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Palin : Bush in a pantyhose. |
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| tirebiter |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:45 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4011
Location: not far away
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Proposition: That The Dark Knight is more similar to Hamlet than to any other of Shakespeare's plays.
Annnd.. begin. |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 9:46 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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Joe Vitus wrote: Damn it, Lorne. You're supposed to help discourage me from seeing the thing. You're supposed to aid me in my elitist refusal to acknowledge its existence. Then you chime in, as yet another person whose opinion I respect, and praise the thing to the sky. Thanks a lot.
There. Does that help? I assume my opinion of the movie will remain the same if I ever actually see it. |
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