The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Christian Bale

© Warner Bros Pictures

I've already written 1000 words on this picture, so I don't think I have it in me to craft anything resembling a complete essay with a narrative though-line. I do, however, have a lot more thoughts and reactions to the movie as a whole, which will now take the form of bullet points. This probably goes without saying but, just in case it doesn't, SPOILERS.

• I must be the only person alive who loves Hans Zimmer's score. I love the tribal beat of Bane's theme and the way it goes crashing up against Batman's bombastic horns. I love the sneaky switcheroo when you realize that Bane's theme is like Bane himself -- not at all who you (or even he) thought but something entirely different. Above all, I love that when Bane and Batman come head to head for the first time, there is no score whatsoever. Just bone crunching and breathless anticipation in one of the most knock-down, drag-out fights I have ever seen on screen.
  
• My best friend's already made remarks to the extent that she is over Christian Bale, but I think he's my mafia: just when I think I'm out, he pulls me back in. It's not just the streaks of grey hair, the hollows under his eyes, or the fact that he is visibly thinner and more fragile than previous incarnations that break my heart to realize that he may have "aged-out" of the role he defined for himself. It's the way his voice softens when he's speaking with Alfred about Rachel. There's not only sorrow in that voice but innocence, like Alfred is a time machine that brings Bruce back to a moment when he was truly himself. It's the way you can tell, even at first blush, that there's no way Bruce/Batman could ever be more interested in Miranda Tate (though Marion Cotillard has never been more luminous) than he is in the Cat/Selina Kyle. It's not just the challenge that thrills him but the possibility of finding a single human being who may also understand.
  
• Speaking of Anne Hathaway, could she be any more killer in this movie? Sure, her first scene with Bruce when she flips from ingenue to seductress to criminal and right on out that window is gangbusters, but so is the moment in that scene when she hikes her skirt from just under her knee to just over her knee so she can climb (no one would wear those tights or the shoes to cater a party). Her dancing body can go from purring to ready to pounce in nanoseconds, but it's never campy. Above all, she gets to go through Harvey Dent's arc in reverse -- from apathetic to finally having some skin in the game. It was never really a matter of which side she would chose. It was just a question of how long it would take her to get there.
  
• If it weren't for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I think I would have fainted right out of my seat when Blake told Bruce he knew Bruce's secret identity 'cause he was also Batman (essentially). Mind you, it highlights the essential difference between them and further makes my point that you have to be a fuckin' weirdo to not become a cop or a prosecutor or the world's most dedicated lobbyist, but it also really smartly sets up the whole structures becoming shackles stuff and the way the movie lets you imagine that Blake just knew Bruce would leave him a little something special in his will. Of course, what I would really like to see is the "Becoming Batman" journal that would go along with it, full of handy tips like Lucius Fox's direct line, the best way to appear out of a shadow, and a guide to better growling.
  
• Actually, I'm also probably the only person who doesn't hate the Batman growl. On PCHH Glen Weldon posited that the movies could be a solid 10% better if it weren't for that growl, but whatever. He's got to disguise his voice somehow. Maybe he should have sunk some money into those Mission: Impossible voice patches.
  
• For that matter, I don't mind Tom Hardy's lilting based-on-an-Irish-Romani-'cause-he's-that-guy voice either. It took me right out of the movie the first time, I started to groove on it the second go 'round. It's just on border of being too silly, but, when you introduce a voice like that and follow it up with an impossibly menacing* hostile plane takeover, you start to see the character behind it. You see it in Bane's strut. You hear it in lines like, "What a lovely, lovely voice," followed immediately by mass murder and destruction. In fact, when you hear his voice for the first time, it's overwhelming loud - not just coming from behind you but in front of you and below you and in the seat next to you. Unnerving. 
  
• I don't really get Talia's point -- she hates her dad for disowning her protector but decided to follow through on his plan to destroy Gotham because his murder liberated her from her hate? That's pretty much what she said, I know, but I just don't understand. Why not enjoy the freedom to make your own decisions or reform the League of Shadows or use philanthropy to save the world like you've been pretending to anyway?
  
• To the nit-pickers who want to know how Bruce gets from the unspecified prison location and back to a secured Gotham in an unspecified amount of time, I say, "Did you not watch Batman Begins?" He spent seven years figuring out how to get from A to B without any money or notice. I'm sure he had it in the bag.
  
• How weird is it to see Batman in the daylight, though, right? It's a testament to both how broken the city is yet how accustomed they are to his presence that there are no double takes during that climactic showdown at City Hall. Gotham's just like Bruce in that regard -- they take Batman for granted.
  
• The song/video that inspired my article title.
  
  
  
  
• Besides the above, I think this is my favourite image that I came across in my research:
  

  

  Christopher Nolan

  © Warner Bros Pictures

A touch too long and a touch too reliant on Michael Caine's moist eyes to carry the emotional beats, but otherwise a near masterpiece. A-

 *I was going to say "badass" here but decided against it in part because I think the term is overused, in part because I don't want to associate any positive connotations of the term with the character, and in part because I heard a very convincing argument against the very character of Bane (in that he is a less product of storytelling needs and more of a need in the 80s and 90s for more "badasses" in comics).

Inception (2010)

Again, next to impossible to discuss without discussing the whole, so SPOILERS ABOUND.

Christopher Nolan has always been very, very good at layering his films, taking us through them as a characters experience them so that the twist, the reveal, whatever it might be, cuts the audience, too. It's clever without being stagy, giving the narrative thrust with little trickery. It's storytelling in the fullest possible way.

And Inception is filled to the brim with ideas and possibility. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) assembles a dream team of extractors -- an architect (Ellen Page), a point man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a forger (Tom Hardy), and a chemist (Dileep Rao) -- for a client (Ken Watanabe) who wants them not to steal an idea from his rival's (Cillian Murphy) mind but to plant one. "Can't be done," Arthur (Gordon-Levitt) insists. "The subject’s mind always knows the genesis of an idea."* Cobb knows otherwise. He's done it before. So it begins, a heist of Fischer's subconscious, getting him to carry them deep enough to make inception possible.

*I agree with Lucas on this one: "Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear."

The idea is brilliantly conceived, and there are set pieces, like a zero g fight in a hotel corridor, that that go like gangbusters, in part because CGI is eschewed for good old fashioned guys on wires. Yet for a movie about dreams, so much of it is too literal -- particularly some character names (Ariadne, Yusuf, Mal, though the last works better if you interpret it as "hurt" or "pain" instead of "evil") --, while it simultaneously lacks any sort of levity or surrealism outside of Arthur's humourously literal take on Escher's Ascending and Descending and its inherent paradox.** In fact, Arthur and occasionally Eames (Hardy) are the only ones who seem to be having any fun here, like the idea of creating new worlds and using them to unlock the mysteries of people's minds might be kind of cool. Everyone else is all dour, dour, look at my psychological problems (DiCaprio), please explain them to me (Page).

**Completely unrelated: in the last few weeks, I have also been amused by paradoxes, remembering first year when I didn't understand what they were, and a rez mate tried to tell me that they always involve time travel. Even when I had no clue, I still went, "I don't think that's right."

Which is why . . . alright, here's what I think: the entire Saito/Fischer rivalry is a set up for Cobb. It's his mind that they trying inception on as a radical form of therapy. A once brilliant architect so paralyzed by guilt that he lives in exile in the very place where he once wooed his wife, and along comes a job whose payoff is making all his legal trouble disappear. Part and parcel with this plan is an asexual neckerchief sporting cipher who needs regular doses of exposition to live and who's main concern isn't the heist at hand but Cobb's degrading mental state in it. Other characters get left behind in the dreamscapes they create; only Cobb can travel further toward limbo, a space who's architecture (a mash up of memory and imagination) he spent 50 years exploring. Even when he finds Saito, it's in a space that Arthur first created to trap him. Cobb has to go down to the bottom, to the place where he made his most significant mistake, in order to find a measure of forgiveness.

Of course, I could be wrong about all this. The movie could only be operating on the level on which it is overtly operating (though I highly doubt it), and there is an extent to which, like The Prestige before it, the movie is a metaphor for filmmaking itself: all its oddities and eccentricities (like how characters invisibly travel from one location to the next while suspending their conversations until the camera joins them again at their destination) brought to the fore instead of hoping for suspension of disbelief. Regardless, whether you think the top keeps spinning at the end or you see it falter on the way to falling, the movie is excellent: genius editing (Oscar to Lee Smith), sumptuous set design, rich score from Hans Zimmer. It's one Cheese Man*** away from a masterpiece. A-

***I am telling you, it all comes back to Buffy.

"They never have rat exhibits in the zoo. I could start a new trend!"

I normally find a quote that utilizes the month's theme, but it turns out that "liberation" quotes didn't go that well with my latest (Cult)ure article. It's a handy checklist to the trends behind the movies that defined the decade. It will also help explain why your favourite movies from 2000-2009 didn't make anyone's top of the decade list.

Also, I believe I forgot to tell you about the interview I did with writer-director David J. Garfield last month. Enjoy!

It can't be that bad, can it?

Dear Academy,

Was 2008 that bad a year for movies? I've suspected it was for a while, and your nominations this morning only confirm that theory. Little seems unexpected and a lot seems overlooked, which I suppose is your stock in trade, but c'mon. Fortunately I don't think you'll ever disappoint me quite as much as you did when you failed to recognize Children of Men as one of the single greatest movies ever, but let's talk about what you're doing here.

I've yet to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but I doubt that it's 13 nominations good. David Fincher's last movie, Zodiac, was possibly that good, and you paid it no mind. Are you trying to make up for that?

It's nice to see character actors Richard Jenkins and Melissa Leo get a Q-rating boost from their respective nods, and it's nice for you to throw hardest working actor in Hollywood Robert Downey Jr. a bone.

Less nice are the lack of nominations for the following: The Dark Knight for best picture, Christopher Nolan for director, Jonathan and Christopher Nolan for screenplay; In Bruges for anything other than screenplay; acting nods for Slumdog Millionaire; Bruce Springsteen for song; Rosemaire Dewitt or Debra Winger for supporting actress, Jonathan Demme for director, Rachel Getting Married for best picture.

Much like the middling melodramas you've insisted on celebrating, your nominations feel less than inspired. Most people would tell me that you're like that every year. When is it going to stop?

Heart,

April

P.S. I am going to go hang out with Dana and Troy.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Premise: While Batman (Christian Bale) and Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) are busy trying to clean up the mob in Gotham, the Joker (Heath Ledger) is slowly accruing more power. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne (Bale) is frustrated to find Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) in so serious a relationship with new DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) now that end of Gotham's need for Batman seems to be in sight.

I was always a Superman kind of girl. I read Spider-Man comic books, I watched Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, and Superman TV shows, but I was always a Superman kind of girl. I'm sure Dean Cain's adorable dimples on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman played no small part in my childhood love, but there it was. There's just something about Superman: he's a genuinely nice, decent person, as raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent. He's also tragic figure, the last of his kind, trying to protect the beings on his new home when he could easily rule them, forced to keep his identity a secret for fear of what they might do to him. There's a lot of pain, and he hears all of it, and he tries anyway. It must be lonely.

By contrast, as much as I watched the cartoons and the various incarnations, there was always something that bugged me about the Batman. He was a rich, privileged brat who decided that he alone could be above the law in order to enforce it because he suffered a personal tragedy at a young age. There were never any real consequences for his vigilantism; he never seemed to answer for anything.

Over the years, perhaps largely due to weekly doses of idiocy from Smallville and the growing popularity and quality of comic book adaptations on the big screen, I've become disenchanted by Superman and drawn in by other heroes, super and not. Then Christopher Nolan came along and gave me an origin story that I didn't know that I wanted. Now, it's like he's heard about all my nagging doubts and chosen to address them. What if Batman's vigilantism did have unintended consequences? What if someone did want him to pay for his actions? What if he wasn't the best at what he does? What if he didn't want to be? Most importantly, what if, as I suggested in my initial review, I could get a sequel to outrank the original?

You want to know how Nolan does it? He doesn't put Bale/Batman in the centre of the movie. Bruce Wayne's not the protagonist. Neither is Batman. Although it is an ensemble drama (yeah, that's right), he isn't the standout character. It isn't Ledger/Joker either, posthumous Oscar campaign be damned. It's Eckhart/Dent/Two Face.

Eckhart may have been leading in movies for years now, but this is it. This is the kind of star making performance that should, in an ideal world, net him an Academy Award. This is the kind of perfectly paced, heartbreaking, gut wrenching, white knuckle performance for which we should all be on the look out. It's Dent, and only Dent, that goes through a complete character arc in this movie, and it's Eckhart, and only Eckhart, that could bring him there convincingly. What Eckhart does goes beyond convincing. He reaches Chandler/Taylor levels of character embodiment that you start to feel deep down 'til it makes you shudder. You think you believe in Harvey Dent, Bruce? You don't know the half of it. I've never even met him.

While I believe the attention should be focused on Eckhart, director and co-writer Nolan doesn't skimp in a single area. Suddenly Gotham seems more like a real city, one that you could visit or even live in, than ever before. Thanks to Gyllenhaal, Rachel is suddenly a smart, sassy, sensual lawyer who seems both real and necessary, qualities she lacked in her previous incarnation. Oldman continues to play Gordon as the most regular joe, upstanding cop as only Oldman could, and Michael Caine still has a winning way with a one-liner and an inspirational speech.

Ledger is as terrifying, and as thrilling, as the Joker as you expected him to be. No connections, no motivations, no origin story. The Joker simply appears, a force for chaos that cannot, will not be stopped. Everything about him, the walk, the voice, the smacking lips,* was invented for this exact purpose, and it takes you outside and beyond Ledger. You can no sooner think of any actor in the role than you can entertain a thought about this actor's tragic passing. Those things are outside the movie, and Ledger is so present that he forces you, without you realizing it, to be present as well. So long as the movie runs, there is only this. Even when he's not on screen, his presence lingers over the movie. It's a creepy, crawly feeling that makes you nervous in the dark. He's a Nietzscheian superman, outside and above not only the law but morals and justice as well. With him against Bale's Batman, there is no good vs. evil. Good and evil co-exist, and, perhaps, they must.

Thank goodness for Bale. Though he isn't the protagonist and does have limited screen time, he anchors the movie. It's Batman's actions and, yes, their negative consequences that fuel each plotline, and Bale acts the hell out of each and every one. He's so focused on taking down the rest of the mob that he misses, repeatedly, the growing danger that the Joker represents, and it costs him dearly. He'll finally get the chance, it seems, to put aside the sublimated rage that drove the first movie, only to pick it back up again. But now it's different, and you can feel that thanks to Bale. He thought he understood the consequences of being Batman before. Now he's forced to live them, and it is only through Bale's tightly wound performance that we could feel how a person so beaten down could make the right choice for the right reasons and take on the negative consequences that sometimes accompany those choices. Only through Bale could we, in the midst of all that, find room for hope.

Only with Nolan at the helm, co-writing with his brilliant brother Jonathan, working out the story with Batman Begins co-author David S. Goyer, scored intensely by an unthinkable combination of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, could a sequel this dark outshine the original. Yes, it's very dark. It's downright bleak. But it is also exactly how it has to be. Nolan executes exactly what he needs to without hesitation or remorse. It's the kind of filmmaking that, despite how dark it is, inspires. A

*There was big debate about what, exactly, was going on there. Was he smacking his lips? Licking his bottom lip? Tonguing his scars? Only subsequent viewings will tell.

Confidential to Sean: You're right. I won't say about what to avoid giving anything away, but that possibility certainly exists.

I know this post is crazy long, and I am just going to take a moment to give props to the crowd in the theatre on Friday night. It was packed in there, and somehow we managed to behave ourselves. Two cellphones went off, but we held it together with barely a murmur. The girl behind me talked non-stop during the previews, going so far as to call Watchmen stupid, but she (mostly) clammed up during the feature presentation. Nolan must be working some serious magic for that to happen. Coincidence or miracle?

Pop Culture Round Up XV

This list rocks for Nº 9 alone. That scene is the bravura sequence that makes the entire film.

Hee. Knut brings cuteness wherever he goes.

Put Christopher Nolan in a headlock? This story just keep getting better and better.

Aw, 73. Also, I totally have a t-shirt of 56.

Momma's boy edge? What does that mean? Ah, well, just off-the-wall enough to make me like it.

I can't imagine why people would lie about seeing The Da Vinci Code either.

Could someone tell me how to feel about the top story?

I saw . . . this: Part 6

Because sometimes, I see movies.

For Your Consideration (2006)

Christopher Guest outlines and directs the kind of movies that I always mean to see. I think I'll watch it, I set aside time to watch it, I never watch it. I made a point of going to see his latest, about a film set that is overrun with Oscar buzz after one of the stars hears about a blog rumour, but it didn't click with me. I liked it just fine. I had a few laughs. Even so, the satire never kicked in. It had no bite. For my money, I'd hit up State and Main for a Hollywood send-up.

Insomnia (2002)

Years ago, I tried to watch his movie because Jonathan Jackson is in it. I knew it was a small part, but I wanted to see him. I watched exactly one scene with him, got really bored, and turned it off. I had already read whodunit, so there was no allure. A while ago, the movie floated back up to the surface because of director Christopher Nolan. I love Nolan, so I put it back on my Zip List. Sure enough, I enjoyed the movie. As operatic as Pacino can be in his later years, he shows up to do the work more than anyone. Under Nolan, he manages something of a low key performance, and it was a nice change. Finding the killer is only half the game with this one. The cat-and-mouse work to bring him holds your attention far better. I don't know that I can think of a man who better knows his way around a plot twist than Nolan.

Northfork (2003)
I'd never seen a Polish Brothers movie before, and I can't say that this one will deter me from seeing another. It appears that a lot of the critical comments marked this movie about the stragglers in a small Montana town about to be turned into a lake as poetic. I'm not sure I agree. I can certainly see how one might find it allegorical, especially the plot line about the family searching for the unknown angel and the little boy who believes he can help them, but I wouldn't call it poetic, exactly. It's more surreal than anything. It's a quiet movie, nothing in particular happens, but it's a nice way to an hour and a half if you feel like being quiet yourself.

The Faculty (1998)

If you feel like being highly amused by a bad movie over the same time frame, however, this one's for you. Emily reminded me that Jon Stewart was the science teacher. We had to see it again. There's nothing in this movie that isn't funny. The plot loves to make no sense, Josh Harnett is one of the least convincing bad boys I've ever seen (unless making it seem like a really obvious affectation was a sly comment on the characterization of teens by the media . . . nah), and Laura " Daisy, Daisy Adair" Harris is hilariously checked out as nude but menacing alien. Personally, nothing is funnier than watching wee little Stewart toss six-foot-plus Harnett across the lab.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Now, you have to know that when a movie isn't screened for critics, it's going to suck. I know it managed $52 million in its opening weekend. I was one of the people that helped put it there. It's so bad, you pretty much have to have fun watching it. Much like the above, nothing about it isn't funny. I used to think I disliked Nic Cage because he was always mugging for the camera instead of acting. Now I get the laugh at him phoning it in, too! I used to think that I maybe liked Eva Mendes, or that I could in the future. After she decided that her best option was to act like her character's development was arrested at 12, I'm thinking maybe I don't like her. I do, however, like Sam Elliott. He makes everything better. Also, Ghost Rider's powers are lame. He stares at people. What's the point of looking that cool if you aren't going to do anything cool?

The Prestige (2006)

Premise: Apprentices Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Rupert Angier (Hugh Jackman) are competitive but friendly. An accident during Milton (Ricky Jay)'s magic show leads to a death, and their competition turns to rivalry. Angier's the better showman, but Borden's the better magician by far, forcing Angier to wonder if Borden has gone beyond tricks and illusions. Angier's obsessive need to beat Borden feeds Borden's own obsession, consuming both of them until it leads to murder.

Co-writer and director Christopher Nolan is a prima ballerina. His moves on the screen are so graceful, so delicate, and so disarming that you are hardly watching a movie at all. I was about 40 minutes in before I even remembered it was a movie. He and his brother, Jonathan, composed the screenplay, based on Christopher Priest's novel, in the three acts of a magic trick: The Pledge - the magician shows you something ordinary. In this case, it's a trial. The Turn - the magician makes the ordinary extraordinary. Film making is magic in and of itself, and here the magic comes from making you believe. Obviously the suspension of disbelief is required in all storytelling, but the Nolans go beyond that. They don't care about your disbelief because they do a lot more than get you to suspend it momentarily - they get you to leave it behind entirely.

Getting a convincing performance out of Bale is hardly extraordinary. Borden isn't one person but a plethora - a magician, a showman, a husband, a father, a lover, a friend, and an enemy. The characters are a lot to keep track of, and Bale's best moments are when the discrete personae begin blur and overlap. He never plays one emotion without the undercurrent of at least one more, if not two, and it's in that conflict that he achieves the extraordinary. He doesn't have to will you to believe in him as a great magician - he is one.

Perhaps the more extraordinary feat from C. Nolan comes then in Jackman's performance. It's not that I didn't believe that Jackman was a good actor before. It's just that he's not had much of a chance to prove it. Here he takes on a plethora of roles as well, but there's an emotion that each must possess and that Jackman embodies with a ferocity never before seen: hate. Hate is a complex human emotion, and a lot more goes into it that simply intense dislike. There's jealousy and admiration and loathing, and all of it is only a split hair away from love. I was awestruck by how much Jackman put into this role.

Another extraordinary feat was making me maybe, a little bit like Piper Perabo. She's not in the movie for long, but she didn't annoy me once, so I have to credit where it is due. Where isn't it due? Scarlett Johansson. What was that crap? I can get past her Gwyneth Paltrow English accent, and there's still nothing to get to. Her husky voice and opaque sexiness mean nothing if there isn't something behind them. And there wasn't. None of the love or hate or betrayal she should have felt as a pawn of these men was there. Instead Johansson was the apotheosis of John Berger's comment that "Men act. Women appear."

It certainly didn't help that Rebecca Hall, as Sarah, created a complete and compelling character. Or that Michael Caine delighted as Cutter, an engineer and inventor who made Angier's illusions possible. Or that David Bowie made quite an impressive entrance as Nikola Tesla.

David Julyan's score gives the movie just the right atmosphere of deception, as does Wally Pfister's compelling cinematography.

It is the third act, the Prestige, that gets you. The Turn on its own isn't enough. It's clever and nice, but figuring it out is too easy. No, the Prestige is the twist that makes you believe. The Prestige is the moment you realize the ordinary thing you thought you saw at the beginning was never ordinary. A

Later Bale

Batman Begins (2005)

Premise: After his parents' murders, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) travels to the ends of the earth to understand the criminal mind. In Northern China, Wayne is released from prison by Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) and Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), who train him and teach him to channel his energies. Later, Wayne returns to Gotham to fight injustice and restore the city.

Or, to quote whomever at IMDB, "The story of how Bruce Wayne became what he was destined to be, Batman."

Quite possibly, for the first time ever, I am more giddy about a movie after I've seen it than I was in anticipating it. I know that sounds bizarre, but you'll see what I mean.

After about a year of anticipation, it's finally here. The movie that is supposed to reinvigorate the franchise after a slow and painful death. The movie that is to provide a shot of imagination that had only existed with the delightful Tim Burton at the helm.

Oh, what to say, what to say. I joyously pronounce this fifth installment the best of them all. The best!

With Christopher Nolan, master of tension, co-writing and directing, I was both eager and anxious. Eager because I know how expertly Nolan can pace a movie, how telling his shots can be, how provocative every frame of his work is. Anxious because I was wary of him possibly selling out all those things and more with a bigger budget at his disposal. Also, how would a pitch perfect thriller director handle an action movie/comic book adaptation?

My anxiety was completely quieted in the first act. Nolan is a force to be reckoned with, Hollywood. His Batman was as sleek and stylish as a matinee idol but with the polish and grace of a true box office star. Nolan's interpretation of the story held true to the Bob Kane original with the kind of embellishments that demonstrated his respect for the subject. Nolan and David S. Goyer's (co-writer) Batman didn't just pay lip service to his chilling past, he embodied it. They had my chin trembling (take that, Claire!) on at least three separate occasions in the first twenty minutes.

Also, the story throws its familiarity out the window by presenting as many as three timelines simultaneously. Even though a lot of the in-between of Wayne's life (i.e. between the murders and Batman) is new for this version, I really felt like it explained a lot. Wayne is too literal (occasionally with hilarious results)! Of course he's a ninja! And of course that other's guy's not.

And to my especial delight Wayne's enemies were not necessarily the same as Batman's. I truly appreciated watching him fight battles on all sides.

The thanks goes, in large part, to the brilliantly cast Bale, using two accents of instead of his usual completely new one. I recently added Bale to my list of actors who just act the hell out of everything they're in, and he has once again proven no exception. Bale powerfully played the way Wayne's patrician upbringing and totally disillusionment in adulthood would result in his self-tortured soul. Wayne is a man searching for the meaning he lost at so young an age and is completely unable to accept it until he can find it in himself, until he can find his own forgiveness. Only Bale's quiet and rage fuelled performance could lead me to all these conclusions.


Neeson and Bale

Of course, there are no slackers in the supporting cast, and you're often distracted by spotting other Nolan alums. Neeson's one goal is to steal every scene he's in, turning in a deviously paternal performance. Michael Caine as the new Alfred is never short of a one-liner, a teary-eyed remembrance, or a harsh glare exactly when Wayne needs them. Gary Oldman proves once again that he is not only the man of a thousand faces but also a thousand characters as the not-quiet-yet Commissioner Gordon. Cillian Murphy rocks his mad scientist villain, his American accent, and he rocked his glasses hardest of all. Morgan Freeman has fun as Lucius Fox, as Wayne Enterprises' answer to Q. Tom Wilkinson works it as an improbably cast Italian Mafioso. Rutger Hauer proves wonderfully underhanded, if none too bright, as Earle, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises.

My only regret is the tacked-on romantic subplot with the unfortunate Katie Holmes. Although I despise that show that launched her, she has done some work that I have enjoyed. Here, however, she exists solely to annoy me. A more credible actress could have made this tedious plot contrivance work to her advantage, but all Holmes did was fail to act appropriately frightened.

Clocking in at 141 mins, I can honestly tell you that it didn't feel anywhere near that long. I knew that it had to be, but I still felt like I could have kept watching.

As another plus, I have always believed that Gotham more aesthetically resembled Chicago than the Big Apple it is more frequently likened to. I found it immensely gratifying that some of the film was shot on location in Chicago and none of it in New York.

Nolan and Bale have captivated me separately more than once. Together, they should prove an unbeatable combination.

I know that you are sitting here waiting for my seemingly inevitable A+. But you are mistaken, gentle reader. And that's where my giddiness comes in. That's why I'm bouncing in my chair, rubbing my hands together with glee. That's why I was concerned that a day later, I still shouldn't be writing this review because I haven't quite absorbed the whole thing. All the pieces, you see, were there, but it still hasn't come together. It's forced me to anticipate a sequel, if you can imagine, that will be better than the first. So, for now, A.

Following (1998)

Premise: A young writer (Jeremy Theobald) follows people for material until a thief, Cobb (Alex Haw), turns the tables on him. Cobb takes the man under this wing, teaching him his personal style of robbery.

Is it me, or is Christopher Nolan kind of obsessed with the criminal mind? Think about it: Insomnia, Memento, soon-to-be-seen Batman Begins, this one. The original. Where it all started.

Ah, who cares if he is. He's a genius filmmaker with a wonderful sense of atmosphere, and he's a master of suspense. As a writer-director, Nolan's unparalled in these unconventional timelines (yet another film with two occuring simuletaneously), but his cinematography and editing reveal someone who revels in storytelling. He loves the details: a business card flicking against a telephone, a single pearl earring.

In the same way that I believe you learn more from a teacher who loves their subject, I think you get more out of a film when the director loves what he is doing, loves the story he's telling. Nolan obviously feels that kind of love. He lives for tension.

Also, because I am constantly anticipating interruptions, I need a film to go above and beyond in engrossing me to garner my complete attention. Sure, it helped that it is a scant 71 minutes, thus leaving less time to be interrupted, but Nolan pratically had me begging the DVD player on my hands and knees when it found an error on the disc in the last scene and quit working.

My heart goes out to Theobald. It's his story through and through, the rest (although talented) just bit players by comparison. He's two men, two roles to play with one body, neither fitting the way he thought they would.

An over-reaction to this gloriously crafted noir thriller? I think not. Yay Colin for recommending it. A

The Machinist (2004)

Brief: Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) hasn't slept in a year. He divides his time between his work as a lathe operator, a 24-hour café where he chats with waitress Maria (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), and hooker named Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh). After he causes an accident at work involving Miller (Michael Ironside), Trevor admits that he was distracted by Ivan (John Sharian). When everyone else denies Ivan's existence, Trevor suspects a larger conspiracy at play.

It has taken many a sleep to come to terms with what this film, and I think I've got a handle on it now.

Much has been made of Bale's astonishing 63 pound weight loss, and it is credited as the most weight change ever made for a film. Compared to Robert De Niro's weight gain for Raging Bull, Bale reminded me more of De Niro's performance in another Martin Scorcese work: Taxi Driver. I don't think I understood what De Niro was doing back in 1976 until I was caught up in Bale's mesmerising performance. It's true that he does a different accent for every character, and I honestly believe this to be his best work to date. He just keeps getting better and better. Bale, looking horrifyingly like a Holocaust victim, overwhelmed me with the latent guilt that drives this movie, and he managed to make, without giving too much away, even the most despicable of characters worthy of wonderfully wrought sympathy. His above and beyond performance should be rewarded accordingly.

Brad Anderson's direction of Scott Kosar's paranoid and thrilling screenplay combines elements of Alfred Hitchcock and Christopher Nolan, forever confounding the audience and driving them forward with an alternatively creeping and racing pace. His direction is electric and harrowing, always hinting but never giving you enough to go on.

Trevor's flirtations with Maria were insubstantial, but Sanchez-Gijon makes her smaller role worth remembering. Stevie is Trevor's true lady, and Leigh works hard to avoid relegating her character to a stereotypical hooker with a heart of gold. In the end, it's just enough to avoid tipping the balance, but there's still something missing from her performance that you can't quite put your finger on. A pulse, maybe. Something other than a black eye to make Stevie as worth caring about as Maria.

Of course, Anderson and Kosar make sure all you really care about is the other characters in relation to Trevor. Sharian's the most compelling of these, with his toothy grin, massive noggin, and air of a bounty hunter about him. Trevor's never clear on what Ivan wants from him, and Sharian makes sure that the audience feels just as toyed with.

If any of you doubt why I believe Fight Club to be a comedy, I recommend you see this one. You feel the theatre feeling not afraid but nervous, like someone will be waiting for you when you get home. Someone you owe, somehow. You know what the ending will be by the time it rolls around, and Anderson and Bale manage to make you still long for it. A-

Memento

Premise: Did you ever see the backwards episode of Seinfeld? Well, it's like that, only not as funny. Leonard (Guy Pierce) seeks to avenge the rape and murder of his wife with the help of a police officer, Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), and a waitress, Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss).

The film does indeed go backwards from the death of Leonard's suspect to his clues of who the subject was/is. It also goes forwards in black and white to tell a similar, but equally disturbing, tale. Some flashbacks are in colour, others black and white. I'm sure you can pick up the significance of this one. The reason the film itself goes backwards is Leonard was smacked in the head during the attack on his wife, and he suffers from anterograde memory loss. Basically, he cannot form new memories. By consequence, the film occurs in fifteen minute segments like Leonard's memory does. You'll notice that a heightened anxiety level shortens those segments.

This film is powerful. Christopher Nolan's direction is masterful. He has a gift for timing, creating and sustaining suspense as time goes backwards and forwards simultaneously. He adapted the screenplay from a short-story by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. I believe because he was close enough to the writer to do so that his adapted screenplay is better than many out there, and, thus, he garnered himself an Academy Award nomination.

Guy Pierce, although he has gone on to some questionable material, is provocative as the crippled and crippling Leonard Shelby. Movies are generally shot out of sequence, so the case could be made that acting in this film is no different than any other. I disagree. Pierce must inhabit a character who does not inhabit his own body. His disturbing quest to avenge his wife's death is his only motive to get up in the morning, and, even then, his first thoughts are not of her. Because, as he says, he "can't remember to forget [her]." What I found to be the most sad of all was his first thought when he does wake up: "Awake." I couldn't imagine what it must be like to live when life holds no meaning for you.

Carrie-Anne Moss, who pushed to have Joe Pantoliano hired, and Pantoliano himself are excellent supporting actors. They shape the film's mood because they shape the actions of Leonard. They both seem to know their power, and their performances are demonstrative of such.

I have to admit, no matter how many times I watch the film, I find myself rooting for the wrong guy. You'll see what I mean.

Overall, this film is the best of 2000. If you haven't already seen it, then you should. Take time to watch it. Take time to savour it, to ponder it. It will control you, if only for couple of hours.