(no subject)

[2eclipse]

okay here's the entry i wish i had time to post earlier.
assembly of the spinning wheel was not an option yesterday due to the finish not being dry yet. it is SO hot and muggy this week...rather more muggy than hot...and it is keeping the finish from drying out. that and the fact that i have to keep the garage door shut when i am not home so that no one pilfers my project or damages it.
but i did get to hang out with ross for a bit and then we went over to shawn and thistle's for dinner.
cedar and phoenix are almost obscenely cute.


seeing this movie was especially fun because i was with lonewolfnight and shawn isenhart and we got to hash through it afterward. a lot of my opinion of this movie was formed because of some reviews i listened to of this movie before i saw it, including one negative review by a guy i normally agree with. this is a definite acception. i agree with him that i don't think heath ledger will get an oscar. i don't think this type of comic book movie gets taken seriously enough for oscars no matter how good they are. this is a pity, but i just think it's true. i was extremely impressed by the contrast between the affect of ledger's acting in this movie vs. brokeback mountain. the reserve vs...well, the opposite. i was especially impressed by his voice acting. ledger really showed his versitility with this role. i think it is a fine tribute to him. i liked the wear shown on joker's grease paint. i liked that he was creepy because a character like that COULD exist...where as jack nicholson's joker, as fun and great as he was...didn't feel as realistic to me. i liked the consistant emphasis on chaos he presented, and that he lied about himself a lot. he was creepy and deeply crazy and full of surprises.
the npr reviewer i heard talked about this joker as not really having fun - and that the audience therefore did not either. this strikes me not only as unfair, but also wrong. in fact at one noteable point near the end of the movie, joker actually SAYS he is having fun. i think you just have to have a darker sense of humor to appreciate that what is fun/funny to a crazy schizophrenic is not the same as what is fun/funny to the rest of us. ross pointed out that the idea that the joker represents a "funny" character brings in a lot of pre-conceived notions and that the history of the joker is a lot broader than that, and has much more to do with chaos than humor, although humor often results from the unexpected. i thought this point very astute and it put me in mind of one origin of "joker" characters in the traditional court fool - who's role is to make people see uncomfortable truths. i don't believe this is joker's aim in the movie, but it is certainly a side effect of his behavior. all in all, i am sorry this joker will not be back.

BEWARE SPOILERS - SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH
this movie also had other villians. scarecrow is captured in the first few minutes of the movie, and another creepy villian develops in this movie as well. ross and i both thought that two-face's background was well built up, but that he went a little too quickly from being good to being evil. i thought his death was untimely early as well, though i can see why the nolan chose to do it that way. my main problem with two-face is that i didn't feel that pre-transition, he cared enough about fairness, and that while i believed his good, i didn't really believe his evil. his character is supposed to be in constant pain. i didn't see that reflected in the acting, or the craziness that i think that kind of pain would produce. there was bitterness...but not nearly enough bitterness.

christian bale, morgan freeman and michael kane were outstanding as before, although i didn't feel that the writing of this movie gave them as much to work with as in the first movie - not their fault, and not really a problem in the movie either. this movie was relentless. it kept going after i thought it was done..but the pacing was handled so well, that i wasn't at all bothered by the length. i'm not normally a great judge of that sort of thing (since i have an immense attention span), but shawn and ross had a similar reaction. i also enjoyed the running theme through the movie of characters taking a beating and going on despite the pain. it was something that both good and evil characters dealt with and i was impressed by the balance - and that it seemed almost a shared value between them. this is definitately a movie i want to own.

Comments

[dimfuture.livejournal.com]

Yeah, great movie. I disagree with the NPR reviewer as well -- it sounds like maybe he wanted a more Cesar Romero interpretation of the Joker character, with bad puns and laughing gas. This Joker was far more sophisticated on every level -- and much more frightening because of his intelligence and the depth of his insanity.

One of my favorite parts was the homage they paid to Moore's Killing Joke -- "if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice."

[sooper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the problem there was definitely the reviewers incorrect perception of what the Joker is. Thing is, the Joker isn't supposed to be funny or make us laugh. The only one who is truly in on the joke is him.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i think that is exactly right.

[2eclipse.livejournal.com]

i think that is exactly right.