TV/Movies Megathread

[FunkMonk]

The Dark Knight Rises.

I should have known better than to doubt Christopher Nolan. Excellent movie to end his trilogy.

Thought it flawed but interesting, like the Dark Knight before it.

I was dismayed by how, I dunno, reactionary it seemed?  You know how the Joker was sort of a stand-in for terrorism?  Bane and his army are sort of a stand-in for poor people.  I think I missed the part where Occupy Wall Street obtained a neutron/fusion/atomic (as it is described throughout the film ) device and used the threat of its use to carve out their own city-state.  But maybe Tim was sick that day?

I'll start off by saying that I really liked this movie. I'll have to watch it again but I think I might rank this above TDK. Oh and Michael Caine was brilliant.

This movie ties in perfectly with the previous two films. You know how TDK just kind of floats on its own merits, without any real connection to Batman Begins? That's not the case here. There are constant callbacks to the previous movies, which Nolan expertly handles. I suspect that DKR suffers without having seen the first two. I will say that I originally thought Batman Begins only a mediocre movie, but after DKR I watched it again and I really enjoyed it. It seems to connect more with the succeeding films.

In DKR you see the consequences of their decisions (Batman's and Gordon's) and the consequences quite literally blow up in their face. By the end of the movie, nearly every character has gone through complete hell, including Gotham City itself. If there is a central theme to this movie, it's that our actions have consequences. Batman and Gordon lie about Harvery Dent's death to enact a draconian anti-crime bill, which leaves the city ripe for Bane to inspire it into revolution. Bruce Wayne and Gordon are both still haunted by their big lie; Gordon's wife leaves him and Bruce is a shadow of himself. And when Bane shows up to fuck everyone and Bruce wants to fight him RIGHT NOW THIS INSTANT IT'S NOT LIKE I HAVEN'T AGED OR ANYTHING Alfred lets Bruce know that he's taking things too far. And the consequence? Everything gets much, much worse.

[Kleves]

2)[spoiler]Maybe not 100% spoiler but OK--what, precisely, was the point of Bane's, and I guess Talia's, social experiment?  They had a bomb that could be triggered if they were interfered with, but which was going to go off at the end of a certain amount of time regardless of what they did.  I guess they could have put it back into the reactor to stabilize it--this was established--but they seemed to have neither the plans nor desire to do so.  Indeed, their goal was explicitly to finish Ra's al-Ghul's work--btw, I was disappointed by all the intimate connections to the shitty Batnolan film, although I appreciated that the plot wasn't quite as retarded as Begins' "microwave gun + fear toxin + L-train = some kind of threat?" story.  So, uh, if their goal was to destroy Gotham... why didn't they destroy Gotham in the six months they were sitting unopposed and planning to destroy Gotham?[/spoiler]

Obviously spoliers (since I'm quoting something that's been redacted):


My take is that destroying Gotham is never an end in itself; it's only a means to "restore balance" and bring about necessary social/political/whatever change. Just blowing up Gotham won't bring this change about - it would be a tragedy, but not something that would bring about fundamental social/political/whatever change. On the other hand, having Gotham - the world's foremost city - publically tear itself apart for months, thus laying bear the hollowness/rottenness of its social/political order, might cause the rest of the world take notice and make the changes the League of Shadows (lame name) believes necessary to bring the world back into "balance."

As for why they didn't just blow Gotham up after 3 months or something, well, why would they? All variables were accounted for - the police either incapacitated or being hunted down, the American government is compliant and powerless to act (and Tate can just tell Bane whenever the U.S. tries to do something covertly - like with the special forces guys), and Batman is crippled - so there is nothing forcing them to act before they have to. Additionally, the longer the "revolution" goes on, (presumably) the greater the impact will be on the rest of the U.S./world. Finally, even terrorists would probably rather live for 6 months than for 3, all things being equal.

[garbon]

I like this notion of not using spoilers tags if you quote something in spoiler tags.

[FunkMonk]

So once Bane kicks things off by [spoiler]literally breaking Batman's back[/spoiler] yet still not succeeding in killing Hines Ward we're left with [spoiler]Gotham City in a reign of terror because the lunatics have taken over along with a whipped-up mob of proletarian thieves and malcontents while the police are trapped. I thought it was a nice touch; the Gotham City Police Department, which for two movies has been throwing criminals in either Arkham Asylum or prison, is now trapped in a prison of rubble while the criminals have effectively become Bane's secret police.[/spoiler]

Which leads to the next theme: We're nothing if we don't have hope.

Early in the movie Alfred confesses to Bruce that he had hoped Bruce would never come back to Gotham after he disappeared to go become a ninja in Tibet or wherever because he wanted to see him have a normal, happy life with a family. This hope is crushed after Bruce becomes the equivalent of an old cat lady, sequestered away in his giant house.

As the movie continues, virtually all hope in the movie is extinguished, little by little. [spoiler]Alfred leaves Bruce. Batman gets his ass kicked so bad it takes five months for him to rehabilitate. Gotham City is in a reign of terror while a nuclear weapon ticks away, ever closer to holocaust, and Bruce is forced to watch his city, his only reason to exist, eat itself until it's to be put out of its misery. [/spoiler]

So, after all that has happened, what reason is there to fight? [spoiler]The Cowardly Lion, played by Matthew Modine, just plain gives up. But Bruce still has hope (the daylight shining into his prison of the damned makes this a little too obvious), but so does Gotham, in the form of Joseph-Gordon Levitt's character and Commish Gordon. They play the two sides of Bruce Wayne/Batman: One the idealistic crusader, the other the compromising pragmatist. So they play "Batman" while the real Batman is busy having hallucinations of Ras al Ghul and being regaled by stories of how a child learned to become a dare devil. And in the end, after they all join forces, is there really any doubt of the outcome? [/spoiler]

Indeed, by the end of the movie, hope is triumphant over fear (which, by the way, was a nice tie-in to Batman Begins, which is all about learning to overcome fear). [spoiler]There is literally a giant bat in the city which inspires hope in the people. JGL, his hopes of escape for his kids ended because the idiot cops blew up the only remaining bridge, still tries to give them hope and talks down some tool who's telling them its useless. Batman in the end sacrifices himself (seemingly) to save the city, an act which inspires the city to clean itself up. There's a callback to the scene in Batman Begins when Gordon comforts young Bruce Wayne after his parents were murdered in front of him. Alfred's hopes are answered when he sees Bruce at a cafe with a Anne Hathaway. Even the Cowardly Lion picks up his gun and dons his uniform to fight.[/spoiler]

[FunkMonk]

The more I think about the movie the more I like it. Unlike Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne actually has a character arc (and not just, OMG my almost-girlfriend died why why why ). The supporting cast is great. Gary Oldman owns. Michael Caine stole every scene he was in. JGL was very good. Anne Hathaway was perfect. Tom Hardy's Bane was magnificent.

[Ideologue]

Interestingly, the first fight between Bane and Batman in the comics was a bit more strategic on both sides.  In DKR, Batman goes in half-cocked, and Bane has been spoiling for a fight, at the strongest he's likely to be (despite the apparent atrophy--and, fwiw, Bane doesn't actually have any way of knowing that the cane is not just part of his Bruce Wayne mask, and that Batman hasn't been training away just like a Batman does).

Whereas in Knightfall Bane purposefully weakened Batman, forcing him to work round-the-clock to clean up Gotham after engineering a massive escape of Arkham Asylum inmates.  Since Batman has no choice, he doesn't come off as, well, arrogant and frankly kinda stupid, and Bane comes off as devious and ingenious when he arrives in the Batcave, having deduced Batman's secret identity all along, to cripple an exhausted Bruce Wayne.

I actually don't like the idea that Bane was letting Gotham suffer just to make Wayne suffer.  I guess that's the text I've been given, but while Bane should have a hard-on for Batman's destruction, it probably shouldn't be his only defining characteristic--hell, at least in the comics, Bane's on-again-off-again obsession with (re)breaking the Bat comes from Batman having overcome his defeat and going on to kick Bane's ass.  And fucking with Batman for fun is sort of the Joker's bag.

In the movie, the obsession with Batman is just strange, barely explained by the [spoiler]reveal of Talia al-Ghul, which like I said severely undermined the Bane character and, it can be argued, was a poor use of Talia in the first place.  Then again Talia is poorly used in 95% of her appearances, so at least it's faithful.[/spoiler]

The other parts you point out, Funk, are things I liked.  Michael Caine's great.  I liked the way Alfred suggested, without quite saying it--and I'm not sure Bruce ever quite got it--that he basically became a crazy old cat lady taking care of Bruce, and his only reward is serving this total asshole in his retirement years.

[Sheilbh]

Rampart.  Great film.  Superb dialogue and soundtrack, and a stellar performance from Woody Harrelson.  It's also beautifully shot and gives a real sense of place.  I very highly recommend it.

[CountDeMoney]

Rampart.  Great film.  Superb dialogue and soundtrack, and a stellar performance from Woody Harrelson.  It's also beautifully shot and gives a real sense of place.  I very highly recommend it.

Hell yeah.  Rampart Division was the most fucked up in the LAPD before they purged the shit out of it.  Excellent film, and Woody hasn't nearly gotten the kudos he should for his performance.

[viper37]

Did you guys saw Batman in Imax or in regular theater?  Is Imax really worth it?

[viper37]

Well, Imax it is.  Dubbed.  Yuck.

[mongers]

Finally watched The Wrestler. It was good and Marisa Tomei well....... . She had me sold since My Cousin Vinnie.

Yeah, we had to wait 20 years for those titties, but what the hell, right? We got 'em. 
Oh, and the movie was good, too.

I thought I'd seen them somewhere else before this ? 

edit:
OK I was right, but damn you I had to google "Marisa Tomei topless film"   

Details here on this page:
http://voices.yahoo.com/academy-award-winner-marisa-tomei-naked-6891048.html

[Admiral Yi]

I would definitely remember if Marisa had aired her fun bags on camera before.

[CountDeMoney]

I would definitely remember if Marisa had aired her fun bags on camera before.

There was borderline nipplage in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, but I believe she had a body double during the sex scene.

[Duque de Bragança]

Did you guys saw Batman in Imax or in regular theater?  Is Imax really worth it?

Depends how much you pay for it (bloody expensive in the Greater Paris) but I will not watch it dubbed, that's for sure.

[Admiral Yi]

Depends how much you pay for it (bloody expensive in the Greater Paris) but I will not watch it dubbed, that's for sure.

My impression was one did not have much choice when it comes to foreign films shown in France.