Be warned, this is not a film about Batman. It’s not about the Joker either. If you have to pin it to anyone, I would say the main character of this film is the city of Gotham. More than that though, this is a film about solitude; a film about one tiny pebble in a vast ocean of problems; maybe even two pebbles.
Solitude is a common theme in the films of Christopher Nolan. He addressed it with Memento; then went even deeper with Insomnia. He toyed with it in Batman Begins, and you’ll even find it in The Prestige, but it wasn’t until The Dark Night that he really brought it home, and IMAX made it twice as powerful. The majority of the movie is filmed in standard 35mm, but a few choice scenes were filmed on IMAX cameras, using 70mm film, giving Nolan twice the scope possible with the rest of the movie. These scenes were not picked willy nilly. Every scene filmed in IMAX consists of either a lone Batman (Christian Bale), or a lone Joker (Heath Ledger), sometimes together, doing their thing – two solitary forces trying to affect a gigantic 70mm world.
These scenes enact what amounts to a few small ripples in the lake of problems affecting Gotham City. Crime is at an all time high and Batman can barely keep up. Out of nowhere, a new kind of villain shows up and turns the city upside down - the Joker. These two opposing forces make small jabs at society - one for its good; the other for its demise, but as long as these forces are acting on their own, society remains largely unaffected and right back where it began. It is only as these characters learn they cannot do it on their own that they start to see some change, and Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is the key to this change. He is the only one that can rally the city for good or for evil. Batman and the Joker are merely symbols for the city to embrace; two sides of the human ethos. It is when these two opposing forces realize this that the movie really takes flight.
Believe all the hype. This movie is THAT good. The acting is superb. Ledger is as amazing as everyone says. My friend, Kyle, said that Bale gave the weakest performance, but even his performance was leaps and bounds over anything else in the theaters right now. That’s saying a lot, and it’s true. Each character brings his/her own deep story with him/her, which Nolan places perfectly in the dark, lonely world he has created, then he adds a whole new level - IMAX, bringing twice the power to his themes and in turn, twice the power to the film. If you haven’t seen this film on the IMAX screen, you haven’t seen it.
Watch it, then watch it again.
- 4,346,527,918 arbitrary stars
Tags: Christopher-Nolan, IMAX, Movie Reviews, Movies, The-Dark-Knight, theater
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George Clooney is a great actor. He is one of the few today that approach legend status. He stays out of the tabloids, resurfaces only to promote a movie, and always delivers (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Batman & Robin). There is a sense of mystery that adds to his screen presence in any film. His directing however is still in the childlike discovery phase.
In Leatherheads it becomes apparent that Clooney is a strong advocate of the Coen brothers. The Coen brothers are masters of character study. Their art is in putting a wide assortment of interesting characters together and letting them run free, filming their interactions. What results is almost an experiment in anthropology. Clooney attempts his own experiment in Leatherheads, but falls well short of the masters.
Each character on his/her own is very interesting. Clooney’s performance as an old-school football bruiser is flawless, as is John Krasinski’s portrayal of the college football hero. Even Renee Zellweger excels despite a poorly written reporter archetype. It’s in the interactions that this movie fails. They’re just not that interesting.
In the end, this movie was entertaining, but more so like a child imitating his favorite cartoon: largely unorganized, yet likeable, and sometimes funny, but it could have been so much more. It could have been the Coen brothers.
- 42 arbitrary stars
Tags: Coen Brothers, George Clooney, John Krasinski, Leatherheads, legends, Movie Reviews, Movies, Renee Zellweger
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This movie is as perfect a casting job as I have ever seen. Jesse James could have been played by no one but Brad Pitt. Jesse James was a legend. His name was plastered all across the west on everything from story books to wanted posters and the public ate up every last bit of it. His name alone demanded respect. He was bigger than life.
Brad Pitt is as close to a legend as we have today. His name is plastered all over the newsstands and tabloids, yet he mostly keeps to himself. When he steps onto a screen, he instantly brings with him the respect he’s earned from every film he’s done. Because of this, the reverence Casey Affleck’s Robert Ford shows Pitt’s Jesse James is instantly believable and this movie becomes much more than just a biopic.
The Assassination of Jesse James is about celebrity worship and the fall from grace that can happen to any obsessed fan, and when viewed in this vein, is almost haunting. It’s about the humanization of one major celebrity and the discovery of the many demons that come with celebrity status. It’s about the assassination of an American icon by his biggest personal demon.
- 237 arbitrary stars
Tags: brad-pitt, casey-affleck, celebrity, legends, Movie Reviews, Movies, the-assassination-of-jesse-james, western
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An art dealer marries a man from backwoods North Carolina. They make a trip there to buy some art and stay with his parents. Throw in some random shots of trees and an empty country home and that’s pretty much it. Nothing happens in this movie. It’s just a slice out of the life of a rich, pretty British woman who is exposed to a backwoods American lifestyle. Like the main character, this movie tries way too hard to be artsy. Not even Amy Adams, who is the only lovable and/or interesting thing in this movie, could keep me from banging my head against the wall with boredom. Adams deserved every bit of her Oscar nomination, but she was like a daisy planted in a concrete slab.
- 5.2 arbitrary stars, but only for Amy Adams
Tags: academy-award, amy-adams, junebug, Movie Reviews, Movies, oscar, waste-of-time
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