The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

By -

I watched The Dark Knight again with my oldest three boys. They hadn't seen it yet. I was disappointed in it the first time around and I still didn't like it nearly as much as Batman Begins, which is an excellent origin story movie, I think. The Dark Knight is (surprise!) dark and the plot is fairly complicated. And yes, Heath Ledger does a fine Joker. But I didn't enjoy it that much. Maybe Two-Face is too sad or something. But I'm glad I watched it with my boys, partly so I could remember its darkness and know what the boys were seeing and partly because it's important to the plot of The Dark Knight Rises.

Which we were lucky enough to see in a second-run theater just a couple of days after watching The Dark Knight. It wasn't the best theater experience -- the focus was off for a little while and there are other things that make this particular theater second-run -- but it's a great movie. I loved the villain and his populist rhetoric. Catwoman was wonderfully conflicted and complicated. And the surprises were pretty surprising. (It's always fun to compare notes after a movie like that. I figured out the Big Plot Twist before the boys did, so I won!)

Jon might be sick of hearing me say this, but I appreciate the fact that Batman changes his voice in these Batman movies. It always seems kind of dumb to me when, for example, Spiderman sounds exactly like his alter ego -- voices are pretty distinct, and I think people would recognize his. So even though Batman's voice is a little ridiculous, I'm glad he sounds different from Bruce Wayne. It makes the disguise part more believable to me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cicely, Alaska (Roslyn, Washington)

By -
Image
We missed out on the TV series Northern Exposure when it first aired, but Erin got into reruns of it in the late 1990s, and we’ve watched most of it on DVD since. Phin has lately started watching it from the beginning too, during his rare allotted blocks of TV time. During our recent drive up to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada , we took the opportunity to make a little side trip to Roslyn, Washington, which was the actual location of the fictional Cicely, Alaska portrayed in Northern Exposure. It’s a very small town, and we were there late enough in the day that most businesses were closed, but it was fun to see it in person at last.
Read more

Gilmore Girls

By -
In the last few months, I have watched almost every episode of all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls . Ridiculously, I feel a sense of accomplishment about this. Also a sense of embarrassment. That's approximately 106 hours of TV watching. In my defense, while I watched, I did a lot of knitting and caught up with a few years worth of entering receipts in GnuCash . Mostly, I enjoyed the show. I liked all the references to books, music, art, etc. I liked the quirky characters. I liked the clever, funny, fast dialog. I did not like the soap opera-like pace of the show and obvious manipulation to keep people (me) watching. It was so convenient for the money-makers that nobody on the show learns that honesty in a relationship is the best policy until the seventh season. But at least it all turned out right, and I can pretend that they've all learned their lesson and will never act like idiots again. This is the nature of TV, though, and I'm hoping to stick with the 20
Read more

Wheat Thins Too Salty!

By -
I don't know why, but some time last year, Wheat Thins started coming with tons of extra salt on them. The first time I encountered it, I thought it was just a bad box. But it's been consistent every time since then, across various varieties (except the low-salt kind). Nabisco, stop it! It's way too much salt! You're killing us. You took out the trans fats a few years ago, which was fine. The crackers got harder then, but that's a minor deal. But seriously, cut back on the salt!
Read more