Monday, July 28, 2008

5 Off The Top Of My Head - Knight Files

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Guess what, kiddies? I saw The Dark Knight for reals yesterday. On an IMAX screen even. That's right - I'm living the high life. It's all velvet ropes and high rollin' for me. If I'm not smacking around a bartender for not understanding the concept of a DRY martini, I ain't livin'.

Point being, I rectified the SNAFU o' last weekend where the sound went in and out, and now I feel as if I've seen the flick proper-like. You know... right around the time the world's starting to stop caring. Me with my timeliness. Look for my review of Meet Dave tomorrow!

I shouldn't have thrown the word "review" out here since I'm not going to do a proper review... boring. Maybe if somebody was paying me I'd prop up my syntax with logic and a follow-through line (them things are SO overrated), but til then, here's five random thoughts I had while watching the movie for the second first time (beware the spoilers!):

1) Heath. My god, Heath. It's like the audience stops breathing when he's on-screen. Also, his "magic trick" makes me bust into a fit of giggles (best believe that'll be a Way Not To Die one day). If only everything were at his level. But it ain't.

2) The Two-Face stuff should've been held off for the third film. I don't know, maybe Chris Nolan has some grand arc that I'm not seeing yet that's already set for the third film, but everything after the Joker's ferry-romp feels superfluous. The film's too long. The last we should see of Harvey Dent is the scene with him and the Joker post-injury... not knowing whether he made it out of the exploding hospital or not until the end of the film where Dent could make an appearance, setting up the 3rd film. So I say.

3) I know this is a movie-making convention, but it's one I always find it so distracting - whenever someone getts hung up on while on the phone, the sound-designers give us an old-fashioned dial-tone sound to let us, the audience, know that has happened, even when nobody hears that noise anymore, especially on cell-phones. It happens when Dent hangs up on Jim Gordon, and it's so effing silly.

4) Morgan Freeman is so wonderful as Lucius Fox. I re-watched the first movie last weekend and that was what I took away then and here. I wish we got loads more of him, really. He's so relaxed and funny and it makes me less annoyed at everything else he does where he plays the same damned character over and over again. Also, Gary Oldman is giving the best performance in this movie that's not The Joker. (Eckhart is very good too, although the seams showed a little more the second go-round with him - seriously, that last act needed more room to breathe and should've been pushed to the next movie)

5) This movie was made to be seen on IMAX. Even without the sound issues screwing it up the first time I saw it on a smaller screen, seeing it on IMAX yesterday just made everything grander. The shots of Chicago and the Chinese city (Beijing or Shanghai? Can't remember.) were breath-taking. The action scenes were much more involving (although they really are Nolan's weakness; he really does need to sit down and watch some James Cameron movies frame by frame before next time). I feel like people who saw it on a smaller screen (i.e like 90% of its audience) were cheated.
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Bonus! I also saw The X:Files I Want To Believe this weekend. Wait... y'all remember that movie came out right? It did. Really. I know, it made what The Dark Knight made in five seconds, but it did. It did. I know because I saw it. Here are five thoughts I had during it.

1) What these people need to believe in is dermatology. They do know a movie screen is bigger than a TV one, right?

2) Okay, so Dana Scully, professional skeptic and actual trained physician, she has a patient about to croak. Everybody tells her there's nothing to be done. She agrees. Nope, nothing. Oh, wait! Stem cells! Shit, she forgot about stem cells. Those'll do the trick. So she announces she's going to save her patient's life with them lil' buggers. Next thing to do... SIT DOWN AT YOUR COMPUTER AND GOOGLE THE PHRASE "Stem Cell research". Because you have 24 hours to save this person's like and Google will make that all possible. Google saves lives, y'all.

SIGH. Remind me not to check into Dr. Scully's ward unless it's for something that gets a lot of internet traffic. Like... I got a spam filter stuck in my throat or I need a bigger dick.

3) You've got a two-headed dog in your movie and you're never going to give me a clear shot of the thing? It's this floppy black blur running through the snow, and then it's a dog lying on its side with a crappy prop head laying beside it. I mean... the choice to not tell a story about aliens and the mythology of the show sits very well with me, but to almost go there with the idea of monsters and then to say, you know, NO... that irks me. There was real possibility with the story, and it just never went for it. I wanted a bunch of freak-people made up of random appendages! Seven arms and four heads, that sorta shit! There was so much wasted opportunity here.

4) I am fairly certain that the dying little boy was played by Rumer Willis.

5) It was nice hanging out with Scully and Mulder again, which kept me feeling okay for the entire running-time. I was never even that big of a fan of the show while it was on - I didn't start watching until the last couple of seasons and have only seen a handful of earlier episodes (I know; then I ain't seen nothing) - but their routine, the skeptic and the believer, it's well-worn, comfortable, nice. It's a terrific place to spend some time. I just wish they'd worked harder at giving them a reason for being there. Also - Skinner! Talk about wasted, though.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re: The X-Files item #4: Once again, you've reduced me to laughing aloud like a crazy person when no one else in the office is in on the joke.

J.D. said...

And Mr. Willis looks like he's trying to impersonate Rachel Weisz in The Fountain in that pic, and he's failing miserably!

Ha ha, it's fun to mock.

Joe Reid said...

Ha! Way to beat me to the Rachel-Weisz-in-The-Fountain line, j.d. Damn you.

Anonymous said...

I think I have to agree with everything you said Jason... damn you, I hate that!! Basically it boils down to the fact that Mulder and Scully deserved a better story and a bigger budget, but I had missed them :( Anyways, I decided it is all Chris Carter's fault, I realized all of my favorite episodes of the X-files were written and directed by other people... He's the one responisble for the super cheesy lines, the gay organ harvesters, and the monkey butler suits!
-duh