Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises: A Tale of Two Blockbusters [Review Time]

Since the incredible hype surrounding The Avengers and its box-office smashing release this summer, the biggest question on everybody's lips has been how The Dark Knight Rises, the final instalment of Christopher Nolan's Batman films, will hold up to Joss Whedon's comic book movie. The Avengers made $207 million in its opening weekend, beating The Dark Knight Rises at $160.8 million. A lot of people are making excuses for TDKR such as that the midnight launch massacre in Colorado scared people off, and that TDKR didn't benefit from 3D ticket sales, but I will concede to the facts: The Avengers won in the category of opening weekend box office scores. But here's another fact: box office numbers are not proof of movie quality.

Don't believe me? Check out this list of opening weekend box office records. You'll find some real stinkers on there, for example, all of the Twilight movies (may I mention that Twilight (2008) suffers from a 5.3 user rating on IMDB.com), Spider Man 3 (which has a 6.3 on IMDB), the worst rated Indianna Jones movie (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has a 6.4), the worst rated Pirates of the Caribbean movie (On Stranger Tides at 6.6), and the worst of the Matrix franchise (Revolutions with a 6.6). Sure, there are great films on there as well, but let's all stop pretending that the box office scores were some kind of definitive proof that Avengers > Batman.

For the record, here's what I thought of The Avengers.

As for The Dark Knight Rises, I think it was the most tense 164 minutes of my life. I once read a good bit of practice for writers is to always brainstorm ways to raise the stakes, and I think screenplay writers Christopher Nolan and brother Jonathon Nolan took that exercise to the fricking extreme - just everything that can go wrong...

Batman is in bad condition after taking the fall for Harvey Dent's murder. As you figured, Gotham is mad at him, but beyond that, Bruce Wayne has become a recluse, and his years of fighting crime have taken a toll on his body. Imagine a wrestler 8 years after retiring. I mean, your joints are just not going to be great and you're going to be a little out of shape. That's our Batman at the beginning of this movie. And then he gets beaten to a pulp by Bane. No, a pulp doesn't cover it. Oranges don't have spinal cords. Bruce Wayne does.

Without spoilers, it's difficult to convey just how bad things are going to get for Gotham. I left the theatre with a stomach ache from being so stressed out. Tense is the only way to describe it.

As a literature student, this review would not be complete without divulging all of the delicious parallels with between The Dark Knight Rises and A Tale of Two Cities! Any book nerd you had with you in the theatre already whispered it in your ear when Alfred read from a thick paperback at a certain not-to-be-spoiled funeral that those were the famous last lines of Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

People have tried to pick it apart and discover flaws, plot holes, and failures in suspension of disbelief, but unlike The Avengers, it holds together against the criticism. If you go into it trying to pick the plot apart, you're probably not going to enjoy it; that goes for any film. I went into it just waiting to see what Nolan would throw at me, and I wasn't disappointed.

Donnie Darko and More Time Travel [Review Time]

If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories.

You know how I love cult movies. Donnie Darko was a low budget film at 4.5 million, and didn't even manage to make that much back at the box office. It only started to have mass appeal as it spread as a cult phenomenon. Take a look at the 2001 trailer, and I think you'll see why this film didn't attract a widespread audience. It's difficult to really tell what this movie is about, what to expect, and that doesn't exactly change upon watching it. This is definitely a very complex movie with many undercurrents that are difficult to grapple with. A lot goes unsaid.

Source Code and Alternate Histories [review by starlight]

"It's the same train, but it's different..." "Deep! I hope it's different."

Ok, I know we can't stand Jake Gyllenhaal's face anymore, and no matter how excellent a performance he pulled off in Donnie Darko and Brokeback Mountain we will never forgive him for even considering doing Prince of Persia, but Source Code ain't bad. We even get to see a little bit of his earlier talent seep through. Colter Stevens is a pretty cool character. Kind of like if Jack Bower was given 8 minutes to stop a terrorist instead of 24 hours. But it's fitting because it's in the future, where everything moves faster.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 [review time]

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?"

What I expected when heading to the theatre to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was to be wildly excited to see the final installment unfold before me, accompanied by underwhelment at the actual quality of the film. Other than a few inaccuracies to the book, I would argue that the film may have been one of the best in the series. Then again, the goosebumps I felt during the epilogue scene were probably from the expectation of greatness due to my love of the book much more than anything the film actually achieved. Yep, kind of have to say this was pure fanservice.

James Cameron, Terminator 2 [Musings and Review]

"There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

Just a few thoughts on Terminator 2 as I watched it last night.

Great story about mankind being wiped out by machines. I noticed the point keeps being driven home that it's man that is a force of destruction. Sarah Connor and her son John are repeatedly placing the blame and responsibility for what's happening on human nature.

"The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope. Because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too."

Reading Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club [review time]

"Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything."

It's very hard to review this book without comparing it to the movie, but Fight Club as a novel really impressed me. It's unsurprising, given that typically an original book will be better than it's screen adaptation, but Fight Club is a rare case where the movie comes close and in some ways even supersedes the novel. The ending of the film adaptation has been praised by critics, but I find that it's very epic and world-relevant - it makes a clear point about Tyler and what he wants for society, his world view - where the novel's ending is more character-centred and I find it magnificent. If you haven't picked up this book yet, you really should. The movie stayed fairly close in terms of plot and even specific scenes, but there are extra goodies that you'll really enjoy if you're into Tyler Durden's philosophy.

Excited for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2! What a mouthful. Midnight showing July 14th? I think so!

Pottermore Announced!

(Click on it for a full size)

I was a little underwhelmed by the Pottermore announcement - until I saw this image! Looks incredible. From what Rowling said, it seemed to me this would just be something along the lines of an RP/Fanfiction site, the only difference with those already found on the internet being bonus features - Rowling's own additions. But look! House points! If this is something closer to a great Hogwarts themed RPG, then I'm super excited!

Let's hope this leaked image is the real deal, and not someone's clever ploy ;)

More Potter! JK Rowling launches PotterMore.com for an exciting announcement! [breaking news musing]

The countdown is on to a big Rowling announcement in 5 days time! This sounds really exciting, like something I've been waiting for for the past 4 years since The Deathly Hallows came out, but let's not get our hopes up that there will be a Harry Potter 8. Speculation is that it could just be a Harry Potter themed Android phone (lame). On the other hand, if there are to be further Harry Potter books, is this really a good thing? Can Rowling keep up the quality of the previous 7 books?

I know I'll be the super optimist, don't get me wrong. Just hope I'm not let down! I hope there's more Harry Potter books to come, and I hope they'll be amazing!

At first I thought it would be best to wait to hear what the news is before starting the debate, but I'm curious - what do you think the announcement could be, how likely do you think it is that we're talking more HP books, and do you think this would be a good thing? Let me know what you think!

Box Office Treasure Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides [breaking news musing]

Despite my hopes for humanity, the fourth installment of the Pirates franchise managed to bring in $90.1 million on opening weekend. I'd really been hoping that people would be able to tell this would be a stinker, but what can you do. The temptation of 3D is partly at play here, as well as high hopes from the quality of the past three films. I'm surprised people still haven't realised that the pattern with Pirates of the Caribbean has been a decline in quality. The Curse of the Black Pearl has been able to maintain a respectable 8.0 rating on IMDB, Dead Man's Chest has a 7.3, and At World's End has a 7.0. As you can see, the movies have gotten successively worse.

If you check out IMDB right now, On Stranger Tides will have something like a 7.2 rating. If you're unfamiliar with how IMDB works, don't get excited. Ratings always start really high with a new blockbuster, and drop really low with time if the movie doesn't hold up against harsher critics. At the time of writing, it only has 11,000 votes, as opposed to CotBP with 268k.

Why am I smashing the new Pirates movie without writing a full-on review? Come on, I'm not made of money. I can't go buy movie tickets for every p.o.s. movie that comes out. The reviews I've heard are mixed, the highest praise being that it continues to deliver juicy fan-fair, and the lowest being that it was a convoluted piece of garbage. Don't be surprised when On Stranger Tides sinks over the next few weeks.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Trailer [breaking news musing]

As always, I cried as I watched this. I don't know why Harry Potter trailers do this to me. The trailers are better than the films. Except for the part when they spoil the ending by showing clips of Harry fighting Voldemort. I hate when they do that.

I'm excited for this movie, because there's no way it could -not- be epic. They just can't screw it up... can they? In theatres July 15, 2011.

Open-ended Sci-Fi: Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys [review by starlight]

"Ah! Ah! There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion. You... you... you believe in germs, right?"

The immortal and yet completely loony words of Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys really hint at the point of this film. No one interpretation is right or wrong, but throughout human history we've tended to assume that the majority is correct, even if the minority is one Galileo Galilie. Or, to use Jeffrey's example, the first scientists to come up with the idea of bacteria. Science fiction is a genre that works beautifully with an open-ended approach, where the credits roll and there is no one answer as to what just happened (much as I observed in Mulholland Dr). We really are given nothing conclusive at the end of 12 Monkeys, but of course, watchers everywhere have come up with many theories. And who's to say that the least advocated one is any less likely to be the correct? The majority used to think that the sun was one of seven planets visible to the naked eye that revolved around the earth. Shows what the majority knows.

The Allegory of the Matrix [musing time]

"I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did."

The above quotation occurs early in the film, and is probably the first indication that this movie has a much deeper meaning than meets the eye. I think when most people watch The Matrix, they see a hard sci-fi action flick with an interesting premise and a guy who can dodge bullets. New breakthroughs in cinematography, a dystopia with the twist that our world is really just a computer simulation, cool black shades and lots of guns. But what these lines spoken by Trinity do for the film is pull the audience into the world of The Matrix and include them in Neo's struggle. Not the struggle against machines that have enslaved humanity, but his struggle against enslavement of the mind - something the Watchowskis are claiming affects us all.

Why we love Christopher Nolan's Inception [review by starlight]

Inception: It's the action packed heist movie with the best of special effects, taking place inside the psyche. It's Leonardo DiCaprio all intense and grown up. It's Ellen Page - who doesn't love that short little Canadian? It's the incredible and memorable Hans Zimmer score that blends perfectly with the world of the dream. It's the hard-hitting lines between the gunshots, the conceptual madness, and the art direction that taps into something most films can't ever touch - the human imagination. We love to see the rules of reality bent and snapped into pieces, and to know that it's all possible inside the mind.

Lynch's "Molhulland Dr." (2001) - A tribute to the old art of film [review by starlight]

Ever watch a movie and when the credits roll feel that you have no idea what just happened? Actually, it doesn't happen much these days unless you fall asleep and miss part of the plotline. Hollywood really likes to spell it out these days. The last time I had this sensation was with 2001: A Space Odyssey. I watched this with perhaps not the best frame of mind for a challenging film and when it was over, I headed to IMDB to find an explanation for the past 141 minutes of my life. It's a rewatch in the sense that on the first watch, you will probably get lost. I mean, the flicks these days just really don't challenge you in the same way. I even watched it after the lecture in my Sci-Fi class and still felt pretty lost, despite the fact that I was decently well-prepared.

Re-watching The Butterfly Effect (2004) [review by starlight]

"You can't change who people are without destroying who they were. "

Always a fun watch, if a little holey. Evan (Ashton Kutcher) has had something of a tragic life that has taken him away from his childhood friends and left them all miserable and alone, particularly his first love, Kayleigh (Amy Smart). As he nears completion of a psych undergrad, he begins to uncover the past, including memories that he'd "blacked out" before and couldn't remember even moments after they happened. He soon finds that he can do more than revisit these blackout moments - he relives them with the ability to change them, and completely change the course of his life.

Sci-fi and Fantasy at the Oscars [breaking news musing]

I'd like to take a minute to talk about the success of Sci-fi and Fantasy at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. It wasn't a bad year for speculative fiction. Could have been better, but then, it is the Oscars. Best picture is going to go to a realist drama, so let's just tally up our wins and appreciate the recognition.

Tiny Ball of Light at the Oscars [musing with sherbet lemons]

For anyone looking for the Oscars autotuned sensation, here is a decent version I found on youtube. Enjoy!

David Fincher Tribute [musing for recognition]

The man deserves some recognition, and quite possibly the Best Director award. Maybe the King's Speech deserved to clean house, but how long is Fincher going to go unappreciated, even when he makes a film that the Oscars should eat right up? It's unsurprising that best picture and best director don't always go to psychological thrillers and action flicks, but The Social Network was a perfectly tuned drama. Quite disappointed in the Academy.

Moulin Rouge (2001) - a musical with a few magical touches [review by starlight]

Moulin Rouge is a classic story of love-at-first-sight, with the twist of the hopeless romantic falling for a prostitute. I know we all claim to be tired of this sort of thing... but just stop whining and enjoy its charms. Please? For me? This film is complex enough to make that overdone plotline incredibly rich and fantastic.