Dark Knight Hype

Despite working on the same floor of the same office, 15 feet away from each other, I've seen very little of my ex-roommate C recently. It's not that I'm unaccustomed to people tactfully avoiding me, but C has admitted to being my friend in front of other people, so she doesn't really have anything to lose. Ok 1 other person, but it's not the quantity of ears that matter, as much as the quality of the sentiment... in this particular case the person in question didn't actually have any ears, but that's not the point. Long story short we made plans to see the Dark Knight this weekend, and to stop making fun of deaf people so much.


C, T and I met in Wallingford to grab a leisurely lunch before the movie. We met at Rain, one of Seattle's hippest locals to grab a roll of sushi. If you go I recommend the dragon roll, Superb! I also recommend going after 4pm as they're not open for lunch. 30 minutes later we're at Johnny Rockets in Pacific Place, root-beer floats are a fair trade for sake, but I don't mind saying here that the BLT leaves something to be desired.



I've been eager to see the Dark Knight [DK], but have purposely avoided consuming any DK media hype, which generaly is easy for me to do since I don't watch TV and my only source of news is NPR and http://www.slate.com/.



I managed pretty well and feel like I got to watch the movie with few pre-concieved notions of what to expect... Sure I heard the rumors that it was already prime for Oscar nods, that it was the best comic book movie ever made (Even better than Daredevil???), that Heath Leger actually went on a 7 day killing spree before shooting to get into character. And while I had managed to avoid reading any rave review of the movie, I couldn't help but catch one of the many NPR rave reviews of the critic's rave reviews and wasn't it amazing that everyone loved this movie so much?


One of my friends related to me that there had actually only been one non rave review written for the movie to date, but even this critic hadn't dogged it, and the only complaint being "...an inaccurate account of classical Mediterranean war practices." Suggests he may have actually walked into the wrong theater. Regardless he was writing for a hearing impaired publication, and had watched the entire movie in subtitles anyway, so who really cares?


Anyway the movie was fantastic, Batman's opening scene was a bit underwhelming, and more than a few plot twists came off as contrived, but the movie as a whole is as dark and maybe less deep as what you're hearing from everyone on tv.


My main complaint, is the common sentiment that Leger's Joker is by far the best Joker that's ever been played. True this is the most honest and frightening Joker anyone's ever seen, but more than a little is taken from Nicholson's '89 performance, and everyone seems unwilling to admit it.


You have to get past Leger's Rock persona, the morbid make-up and eye-rolling. But underneath you'll see that rasping, lurching 'psycho' jokester. When you hear him talk in the movie it's almost like he's doing a Nicholson impression at times.


That said the new Joker is a million times more relevant than the old, and Leger's additions to the character are Brilliant.

I guess Jack Nicholson was "furious" that he wasn't consulted for the film, or at least according to a variety of smutty on-line magazines, Hopefully the self righteous SOB is happy to see that his legacy has been added to and not wiped out in this movie.