(I'm not the only person to make these observations, but I wanted to vent about them. So, y'know, cut me a little slack here.)

I saw the "Twilight" movie recently.

I watched it to be ironic, mostly--the wife told the cashier ringing us up at the BlockBuster that we were not, in fact, renting this movie because we thought it would be good. There was a little, eternally-hopeful part of me that wanted to find something to like about it. Not that I want to be one of those fangirls, but because I want to understand why people are so excited about these books.

Unfortunately, watching it has only confirmed that people who like these books need to improve their taste in reading. The movie is crap, in a way I haven't yet encountered in a film. Nothing. Ever. Happens. Since everyone already knows that Edward's a vampire before they even crack open the book/DVD case, the one "surprise" in the story's done with before one even begins. The only twists and turns in the film involved the director and scriptwriter(s) expertly ducking and weaving to avoid anything remotely interesting ever happening. Whenever something seems like it may happen, such as the Vampires Playing Baseball scene, you may take it on faith that the director and scriptwriter(s)--like Stephanie "Stephen King Is Just Jealous Of Me" SMeyerS before them--will swoop in at the last moment and bravely prevent any true action from taking place.

What I didn't expect from "Twilight" was how disturbing Edward Cullen is. When people whimper about how they want an Edward to sweep them off their feet, I know that I am dealing with someone who is either insane or an emotional infant. He's not romantic; he is a textbook abuser-in-waiting.

I think that this glamorization is a deliberate theme in the book and the movie; and that Edward's vampirism (such as it is) can be interpreted to fit in with this theme. That some of Edward's behavior can be explained by his vampirism makes no difference to me. All abusers can explain their actions, and having an explanation does not make the actions acceptable or understandable. And the point here is that the book/movie is glamorizing behaviors associated with domestic abusers--what better way to make it seem acceptable than by giving the "but he's a vampire" excuse?
( Read more... )

Comment here and I will give a brief honest assessment of what I think of you, with no sugarcoating or holding back, bearing in mind that my opinions are only based on personal experiences exclusive to me so it's not worth taking for anything more than the value of only one person's opinion. Do not comment unless you are willing to possibly hear bad things as well.

Not that, you know, anyone should care too much what I think.

They finally got around to laying off all the people they were going to lay off at my work.

I spent much of the morning freaking out, worrying that I'd be called into a meeting in which I'd be informed of losing my job. I became overwhelmingly dismayed as I heard of all the people being cut. People who've been with the company for over fifteen, twenty years. People who've been there far longer than I.

I was passed over. My position is cheap, and apparently necessary.

My girlfriend's father was not passed over. He will be leaving in another month, the date by which he will officially be fired. Or let go. Or whatever.

Real life has been slightly overwhelming recently. Now I just want to crawl off and hide for the rest of my life.

This didn't help: A ruling has been issued in the case of "Harry Goddamned Potter" author JK Rowling bullying suing a fan for producing a lexicon.

The judge has (shockingly) ruled in favor of Rowling and Warner Bros. He generously awarded one of the biggest movie production companies in the world and the richest Briton in the world $6750 in statutory damages, to be paid by the evil, overwhelming, copyright-thieving empire, represented by the small independent book publisher RDR Books.

He also has made it legally impossible for the lexicon to ever be published, period; the ruling will also, I imagine, make it difficult or impossible for anyone but Rowling herself to publish any such lexicon. It did, after all, accept Rowling's own phrasing--that Van Acker was a wicked "thief".

The judge specifically ruled that the lexicon "appropriates too much of Rowling's creative work". He went on to say that "reference works that share the lexicon's purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged". How, exactly, people who publish such references are supposed to feel encouraged when they will have to worry about what constitutes using "too much" of an author's creative work is not mentioned.

Regular readers know that I strongly disagreed with Rowling's decision to file the lawsuit in the first place. The phrase "goddamned whiny bitch" has come up at least once. That she won the lawsuit doesn't change my opinion: in fact, it makes it stronger.

Look: I understand maintaining a certain level of control over one's own creations. I get that. I would certainly file suit if someone published, say, a novel based off of one of my original works. But Van Acker wasn't trying to publish a novel with the "Harry Goddamned Potter" characters, and he certainly was not arguing that he owned "Harry Goddamned Potter" or any of the information contained in his Lexicon. He was publishing a fucking reference book. Reference books on fictional stories are published all the time.

Rowling only got her granny-panties in a tangle over this because she intended to publish a "Harry Goddamned Potter" encyclopedia, and she was terrified that her book(s) might have to compete with someone else's. As if there's truly any doubt that if her slavering, mindless zombie fans have to pick between a book written by Rowling and a book written by anyone else, they'd ever opt for a non-Rowling source. As if people who would buy the lexicon would, naturally, not buy her encyclopedia. As if it's really rational for the person who has composed the most popular series of novels ever written to bitch about unfair competition.

As if to prove my point--that it's all about obsessive control, and has nothing to do with Rowling's so-called integrity as a writer--Warner Bros. is now suing a Bollywood production company for producing a movie titled "Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors". The plot has absolutely nothing to do with anything like "Harry Goddamned Potter". "Hari" is a common name in India. And "Puttar" is the Punjabi word for "son".

But, because the title kind of sounds like "Harry Goddamned Potter", Warner Bros. has just got to send forth their lawyers.

Whiny fucking bitch and her whiny fucking legal teams.

P.S.: I do not care what "Potter" fans have to say about this. Honest. I'm one of those evil people who was glad--glad, I say--when I saw Potter fans bitching, weeping, and moaning about the latest movie's release date being pushed back almost a year. Get over your fucking selves. You people act like Rowling invented magic, and that you own the entire fantasy genre. Go back to fantasizing about how your acceptance letter to Hogwarts was just lost in the mail, and pretending that (insert name of character here) is going to marry you one day.

"Cable & Deadpool". Oh my balls, what a great book that is.

That is all.

Oh damn it all.

"I’ve got to spend some time with Guy and I love his take on [Sherlock Holmes]. We’re both martial arts enthusiasts and in the original stories of Sherlock Holmes, he’s kind of a bad-ass and a bare-knuckle boxer and studies the rare, fictional martial art of baritsu..."

-Robert Downey Jr., on his role as Sherlock Holmes

Here's the thing: Guy Ritchie is, by all appearances, making presumptions about Holmes's personality and skills that are not there.

Let's look at the Canon and see how many times Holmes actually boxes, or even talks about boxing, over the course of his career.

1. In the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, Watson famously keeps notes on the conversations he has with Holmes in an attempt to ferret out what his expertise is, and thereby, what Holmes is doing for a living. Among his notes are that Holmes "is an expert singlestick player, boxer and swordsman". Most of his notes also turn out to be hilariously wrong--Holmes's knowledge of literature and politics, as later stories prove, cannot be summed up accurately by the word "nil", as Watson does.

2. Holmes mentions during The Adventure of the Gloria Scott that, while he was at college, fencing and boxing were the only physical pursuits he enjoyed.

3. Holmes claims in ... the Empty House that he lost a tooth when someone punched him in the face, and that he used baritsu/bartitsu to overcome Moriarty.

4. In ... the Solitary Cyclist, he punches out a drunken cad. He does this when Watson is not there, and tells him about it later.

5. In The Sign of the Four, Holmes is said to have boxed four years prior to that story, which was set in 1888. This would mean that the last time he professionally boxed would have been three years after his partnership with Watson had begun. The boxer he's speaking to also mourns Holmes's decision to go into detecting, and says that he thinks it's a shame that Holmes no longer boxes.

6. Finally, it should be noted that Holmes never, in any of the canon stories, uses either a sword or a singlestick in combat, although he's supposedly an expert in both.

So, out of four novels and fifty-six short stories which span the course of twenty-odd years, we have five somewhat-concrete examples of Holmes boxing, or discussing boxing. All of these examples are secondhand; one actually takes place during a case; the others are all anecdotes that don't have any bearing on the case at hand, and typically are anecdotes set years in the past.

In the vast majority of Canon stories, we find instead that it is Watson who comes to Holmes's physical defense. Watson is described as being bigger--not fatter, but broader and more muscular--than Holmes. Holmes has frequently called on Watson to bring his pistol to a crime scene. In ... the Three Gables, Watson quietly picks up a fireplace poker with the intent of braining someone who was threatening Holmes, and although I don't have direct cites in front of me, that's not the only time Watson has offered to break someone's head open with a blunt object.

In fact, the only time that Holmes is particularly physically rough on anybody is in ...the Three Garridebs, where he pistol-whips someone. This isn't to say that Holmes is a wimp, but it isn't as though he'd bragged previously about his pistol-whipping skills.

Sherlock Holmes was a cerebral detective who was unafraid of danger and of being threatened, but not because he was whipping the lard out of suspects with his bare hands. I'm of the belief that Holmes was certainly a boxer and a fencer when he was a younger man, but that he'd largely given up these pursuits around the time that he began his real career, and that he stopped them entirely later. (I'd argue that he'd initially stop because the side effects of cocaine, particularly the uncontrolled muscle spasms, would make it impossible for him to practice in his spare time. If he had to choose between coke and boxing there wouldn't be much of a choice.) Watson's purposes included being a biographer, a dear friend, and a sounding board, but he was also Holmes's bodyguard. Men who like to use their fists do not generally need bodyguards.

This portrayal of Holmes as "kind of a bad-ass and a bare-knuckle boxer" is a Holmes that was not presented to me in Doyle's stories. This isn't Law & Order: The Baker Street Irregulars we're talking about here.

I like Guy Ritchie's work, I really do. Snatch. is one of my favorite films, one that I've seen over twenty times. But one of the immediate hesitations I had when it came to this new Holmes film was whether or not Guy's action-drenched style was really appropriate for Sherlock Holmes. This doesn't mean that I think he's a bad director; but I did think he might have been the wrong director, in the same way that I'd say that Wes Craven would be the wrong director for a remake of The Importance of Being Earnest.

This "Sherlock Holmes, action hero" that Guy's film seems to be going for only solidifies that opinion.

And yes, I spend a lot of time bitching about movies I haven't seen before they've even come out. And yes, most frequently, those complains arise from me being a huge fucking stickler for following the source material, and my dismay and frustration with people's inability to follow or even respect said source material.

In my own defense, I'd like for people to consider where I'm coming from. I'm the kind of nerd who loved The Dark Is Rising when I was a teenager, and as a grown-up, I got stuck with the embarrassingly shitty and inaccurate film "adaptation" The Seeker, in which the plot of the book was eviscerated in order to remove all the paganism and replace it with Harry Goddamned Potter plot tropes. I'm the kind of nerd who loves A Wizard of Earthsea and other Ursula K. LeGuin tales, and I've gotten stuck with one incredibly awful and faulty "adaptation" after another, with plot alterations and character rewrites so gratuitous and painful that, if it had happened in a Harry Goddamned Potter movie, the fans would have arisen as one and burnt down Warner Brothers Pictures.

I don't ask for perfection from movie producers and directors, nor do I expect for every adaptation of a book, movie, or comic book to follow the source 100%. What I do expect is for characterizations to not be altered extensively and for no other reason than the director's own preferences. I also expect for people who make adaptations that barely follow the source material to acknowledge that this is what they're doing (as Walden Media did, by changing the name of The Seeker to reflect that, well, it wasn't The Dark Is Rising).

It both worries and pisses me off that Guy Ritchie, and Robert Downey Jr., are presenting their gratuitous butching up of Holmes as being canon and accurate. It's bullshit, but--like the myth that Dr. Watson was a total idiot--a lot of people won't know the difference. I find that dismaying.

"Frame" (last night's season finale) is a perfect example of the reason why I watch "Criminal Intent": lots of drama, psycho serial killers, twisted familial relations, and a heaping helping of Goren angst.

Becca, on the other hand, observed that it seemed too contrived, and that it was breaking her ability to suspend her disbelief. That's fine, too. My suspension of disbelief functions a lot differently from other people's. I've found that if the setting of a story is real-life Earth--with no "plus", i.e. "real-life Earth plus vampires/magic/aliens"--I can suspend my disbelief a lot more easily, and allow for a lot more nonsense than I do in other storylines.

"Criminal Intent" has always been a show that challenges one's ability to just go with the flow. As time wore on, I found it hard to believe that Goren could simply summon up all the trivial information he has indexed in his head at will. And as much as I love Nicole Wallace, I also found her hard to believe. But that's what the show is about: these characters aren't mean to be real-life. They're larger than life.

Really, it does help to keep in mind that three of the show's characters--Nicole, Goren, and Eames--were modeled in part off of Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes, and Watson. The cases that Holmes worked were bizarre and unusual. Holmes himself was a genius who could recall almost everything having to do with his areas of expertise (although, like Goren, Holmes wasn't above digging through a book, or asking Watson/Eames for information on topics he didn't care about). And it wasn't for nothing that Professor Moriarty was known as the Napoleon of Crime, or that Irene Adler (Nicole's other probable inspiration) was The Woman.

In any case, people like me--who are looking for the Victorian gothic-esque level of drama from the show--were not disappointed by the season finale.

( Spoilers go below the fold. )

In addition to admitting that he's a political conservative because he went to jail, Robert Downey Jr. has stated that he's too stupid to understand The Dark Knight.

In an interview, Downey recently said: " ...I saw 'The Dark Knight.' I'm like, 'That's not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.' I loved 'The Prestige' but didn't understand 'The Dark Knight'. Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character... I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high-brow and so fucking smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie. You know what? Fuck DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from."

Granted, Downey has even less of a formal education than I do, him having dropped out of high school to start up his formal acting career. Even so, I don't have a college degree and have never taken any college courses, yet I managed to figure out what went on in The Dark Knight with no issues. In fact, I found it to be a far better movie than the original, precisely because it was more of a grown-up storyline.

I've been catching up on my comics collection recently. One comic I've been reading is Ultimate X-Men. This is a comic I probably wouldn't have liked as a teen, for the precise reasons why I like it so much now. It has a stronger and more coherent connection to real-world events and real-life politics than earlier Marvel comics. The comic treats me like an adult who grew up reading comics, but who needs something with a little more substance than I did when I was younger.

I really like that. I like feeling as though comics, and films based on comics, aren't just aimed at kids and teens; that they work on multiple levels, for people of different ages. I liked that about the X-Men movies, Iron Man, and yes, The Dark Knight.

I am very sorry that Robert Downey Jr., an actor whose work I like, is publicly confessing that he's too stupid to understand a storyline that people half his age could follow. I fail to see, though, how his inability to follow a movie's plot means that the movie was bad.

Also, I thought that we all grew out of the DC/Marvel Comics wars once we were old enough to drink. Guess I was wrong.

In other dismaying news involving Robert, he has signed up to appear in a Guy Ritchie movie. Robert will be playing Sherlock Holmes. The film promises to "plumb Holmes's brawn as well as his brains".

It chills me to the soul that I had to write that. They apparently were not reading the same books I was reading, because while Holmes was a boxer, he also almost never threatened violence. It was far more in his character to have Watson (a trained soldier, a bigger and more muscular man, and a good shot) threaten people for him. The idea of Sherlock Holmes becoming an action hero makes me want to go sit in a corner and rock for a while.

Even better (if by "better", you mean "more heart-rending"), Columbia Pictures will also be producing a Holmes movie. This one is a "comedy". Sacha Baron Cohen will be playing Holmes, and Will Ferrell will be playing Watson. If their past roles are any indication, we can all look forward to an intelligent, sensitive film where fart jokes and nudity are considered the very epitome of comedic genius. I'm sure it'll be a movie that even Robert Downey Jr. will be able to understand.

We are not amused.

EDIT:

laurazel has (correctly and justly, I think) suggested that I not judge movies before I have the chance to see them. Specifically, she was talking about me grousing over Robert Downey Jr. being cast as Sherlock Holmes.

Here are four reasons why I respectfully disagree.


<sub>This is an illustration of Sherlock Holmes that appeared alongside the story The Man With the Twisted Lip in Strand Magazine, 1891. The artist, Sidney Paget, illustrated all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories as they were published in Strand. His illustrations are a visual influence that has been used in every single Holmes film ever made, and incidentally, were also an influence in the visual stylings of the noir/hard-boiled novel.


This is Basil Rathbone, one of the first men to portray Sherlock Holmes in cinema. Rathbone is considered to be the actor who most clearly captured the character of Holmes in his time, partly because he looked like the character as he was depicted by Paget.


This is Jeremy Brett, who portrayed Holmes in the BBC's Granada series. Like Rathbone, Brett's portrayal is considered to be the most accurate in his time; like Rathbone, part of the reason for this is that his physical appearance fit the character.


This is Robert Downey Jr. He looks absolutely nothing like Paget's original illustration, and he looks absolutely nothing like either Rathbone or Brett.</sub>

The plumage Robert's acting skills don't enter into it.

I have not seen the new Star Wars film. I originally didn't plan on seeing it because the animation looks fucking awful, the Clone Wars section of the saga is (IMHO) the worst and most boring of all the Star Wars storylines, and because Ewan MacGregor doesn't do the voice for Obi-Wan. In my view, the film already had three major strikes against it.

So, even if I'd never seen this, I would not have seen the movie. But that doesn't help.

Essentially, George Lucas created one of the villains, Ziro the Hutt, to be a stereotypically gay character. The Hutt is purple-skinned, wears peacock feathers on his head, and--unlike the usual graveling voice given to Hutts--has a voice which George Lucas demanded should "sound like Truman Capote".

On a nerdy level, I'd like to note that the article is wrong in asserting that Ziro would be the first gay alien in Star Wars history. First of all, there's Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn. In the video game Knights of the Old Republic, there was originally meant to be a romance between the player's avatar and a female character--but only if the player's avatar was also female. Explicit mentions of the storyline were cut from the final version of the game. However, even though Lieutenant Hawk in Star Trek: First Contact was not played as being actually gay, he is still considered to be the first gay character to appear in "Star Trek" history. So, I think, the logic still applies.

This is, of course, merely one in a very long line of films which portray male villains as being effeminate. The only crime worse than being an effeminate man in such films, usually, is being an intelligent and well-spoken person (or a woman, if you're looking at early Disney). If you ever wonder why it is that American children behave ignorantly, consider the fact that nearly all their heroes are muscle-headed idiots, and that nearly all their villains are bookish and articulate.

I find it truly sad that, in a galaxy as large and complicated as the Galaxy explored by the writing of Lucas and others, the first "official" portrayal of a queer-ish character* has to deal with embarrassing stereotypes. And that this character is, yet again, one of the bad guys.

I'm sure that Lucas's pocketbook won't be hurt if I don't see the film, but I'm not out to hurt his bottom line: I'm not going to go see something that will make me want to hock a loogie at the screen, that's all.

_{*Further nerdery: as the MTV article notes, as a Hutt, Ziro is technically genderless. However, Hutts do have physical appearances that make them seem more male or more female, and Ziro both looks like and identifies as a male Hutt.}

I originally thought that the only reason they wanted to give Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar was because he died.

Then, I saw the movie.

Now, I know that it's because that was one of the best performances I have ever seen.

Whether you want it or not.

TITLE: Clocks and Cabbages
FANDOM: Sherlock Holmes
RATING: G. I will be astounded if anyone is offended by this story.
SPOILERS: None, unless you don't know who Mycroft Holmes is
PAIRING: n/a
WORD COUNT: 3110

( ... When Sherlock was reading, he was not bored. This had the happy effect of keeping him out of trouble. )

xposted at deviantart

I wrote before about how I have officially 'resigned my membership' to the Mormon church.

I expected for the church to disrespect a few of my requests--for example, I knew they'd ignore my request to waive any waiting periods, and I knew they'd also ignore my asking them not to contact me, except to let me know that my name had been removed. I expected, and received, the "An Invitation" pamphlet. I expected, and received, a letter warning me of the "eternal consequences" of my actions. I also expected for this letter to be sent in such a fashion as to delay the processing of my request as much as possible. They received my first letter on June 30, but did not type a reply until July 18. Meaning that I'll have to wait even longer for it to be processed.

All things considered, it's gone as I was told by various websites that it would go. Until today.

Today, I received a "letter" from the Relief Society President from the local ward. (The Relief Society is an organization for adult women in the Mormon church.) This letter was printed on cheap, thin, colored paper. The paper was cut so that only half a sheet was in the envelope--they apparently need so many of these letters that they print two on a page, then cut the sheet in half. The letter referred to me as "My Dear Sisters" in the salutation. It welcomed me (such as it is) to "my" ward, and informed me of the times that the ward meets on Sunday. The writer offered to visit me if I would rather meet them in person than meet them at church. It concluded with "We Love You" as the last line before the signature (and the writer's email address and phone number).

The letter arrived today, but it was postmarked for July 28. That gives me a vague idea of when the local authorities probably got my letter, at least.

The correspondence I have received from the church, if nothing else, has shown what a sham the entire enterprise is. The two letters I've gotten were sent to me after I said I wanted no such contact. They were both impersonal and designed to tug at all of my emotions, yet their impersonality (and in the case of the Relief Society letter, the obvious cheapness) puts the lie to all the guilt-tripping. It's very hard for me to believe someone who says that they love me when they address me as "Sisters". It is also hard for me to believe that the church wants me back when their pamphlet issues a blanket "We're sorry if we offended you"--instead of sending a personalized response that actually addressed the ten points of contention I mentioned in my resignation letter.

Most of all, they are sending me these letters when I'm no longer a Mormon. I officially stopped being Mormon on June 30, 2008, at around 10 in the morning, when a church member received my letter and opened it. They have no religious or legal right to treat me like a Mormon, anymore than they'd have the right to try and excommunicate someone who hasn't been baptized. That Relief Society president has no right to try and invite herself over to my home. I have no idea which member of the local priesthood received my resignation, but he didn't have the right to pass on my information to anyone, in the church or otherwise (I specifically asked for my request to be handled with confidence).

I'm not angry; I'm just resigned. So long as they don't try to call me or stop by my home, they can send as many damn letters as they want. Just as long as they go through with taking my name off the rosters.

Ever since I read "The Zombie Survival Guide", my girlfriend and I will half-jokingly discuss ways to survive the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

We have discussed in-depth ways to defend ourselves in, for example, the local Wal-Mart, as well as our own home. We've talked about setting up food supplies. We live on the second floor of our apartment, so we've also discussed ways of destroying the steps outside, to prevent people from reaching us.

I can't tell if we're joking or not.

And because I can never resist a meme. Also because I've been waaaaaaaay too antisocial of late.

Comment with a fandom and I'll tell you my:

One True Pairing Ship:
Canon Ship:
"If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" Ship:
"You are one sick bastard" Ship:
"I dabble a little" Ship:
"It's like a car crash" Ship:
"Tickles my fancy but not sold just yet" Ship:
"Makes no canon sense but why the Hell not" Ship:
"Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" Ship:
"When all is said and done" Ship:

I have a lot of fandoms I've participated in, so if anyone would like any hints as to What I Like, let me know.

I like the recent trend in films based on comic books.

Starting, I'd say, with "X-Men", the majority of the recent comic-book movies have tried to move away from the cheesier aspects of their source material. These movies are still presenting characters that comic fans such as myself know and love/loathe, but they do so in a fashion that is more plausible and down-to-earth. For example, "Iron Man" obviously features technology that does not exist, but instead of being little more than computer-based magic, almost all the technology feels like it could reasonably exist--if not now, then soon. It's almost as though everyone took lessons from "Minority Report", where Spielberg convened a group of scientists to help him conceive of what technology will be like twenty years from now.

Now, this does two things for the sub-genre of comic-book movies. First, it doesn't insult the intelligence of the viewer, and makes these films watchable by children and by adults. Second, it brings in a far greater audience than a movie geared solely towards comic book fans. Fans of "Batman" can forgive a shit-ton of campy cheese, because both campiness and cheesiness have accompanied "Batman" comic books, TV shows, and movies for decades. People who don't have that kind of history with "Batman", however, would be far less forgiving.

So, making comic-book films srs business helps the sub-genre to thrive like never before. I don't have a problem with that.

With that in mind, I think that "The Dark Knight" is unquestionably the most mature of any recent, similar offering. It's not perfect, but it does marvelously succeed at what it's trying to do.

I should note two things: first, I hate Christian Bale as an actor, and second, I absolutely hated "Batman Begins". I tried to watch "Begins" twice. The first time, I fell asleep about five times in the first thirty minutes of the movie (no, I was not particularly tired). The second time, I managed to stay awake all the way through, but only because I was surviving off of all the scorn and snark Becca and I were directing at the script. I still maintain that "Begins" has one of the most awful scripts of any popular film that isn't a romantic comedy or a right-wing action flick.

The difference between "Knight" and "Begins", in this aspect, was like night and day. Becca and I both believed that someone else must have written the script. It appears, though, that the same writer did both movies--but in "Knight", he brought in his brother to co-write. This means that "Knight", unlike "Begins", officially had the same scriptwriting team that brought us "Memento", and it shows.

One of the major complaints I had with "Begins"'s script was that, while they had an admirable attempt at examining the theme of fear, they used the word "fear" about as often as the word "fuck" is heard in "The Blair Witch Project". The theme was painfully obvious, cumbersomely handled, and tiresome after only a few scenes--trust me, you will get drunk out of your mind within the first hour of "Begins" if you take a shot every time someone says the word "fear". "Knight" has its own themes--vigilantism, doing what's right vs. doing what's popular, the corruption of power--but it doesn't grind your nose in them. It simply presents these underlying themes and lets you draw your own conclusions.

The entire cast from "Begins" is here, save Katie Holmes (and Liam Neeson, but that's for the obvious reason). Holmes's character, Rachel, is played in this film by Maggie Gyllenhaal. I loathed both Holmes and her character in "Begins", but Gyllenhaal made Rachel a great deal more likable. Not only that, but the vast improvement in the script meant that the extremely talented cast could work their magic. Again, I'm not a fan of Christian Bale, but I will happily admit that he was excellent as Batman. Bruce Wayne, not so much--I still think that Val Kilmer was the best Bruce Wayne--but put that fucker in a black rubber suit and let him rip.

Now, the most obvious addition to the cast was Heath Ledger as the Joker. People who know me know my feelings on Heath, so I won't go into another depressed rant on that score. Instead, I'll say that I believe that the character of the Joker should be retired, and never used in another Batman movie ever again. Not only because it would be an insult to Heath's performance, but because it wouldn't be fair to ask anyone else to try and top it--or even equal it.

First, Heath brought a few tics to the character that I thought were both subtle and appropriate. For most of the movie, the Joker appears to be hunched over, something that gives him a slightly predatory appearance. During all his dialogue, the Joker is constantly licking his lips--as if he still isn't used to talking with his scarred and distended mouth. And the voice he affects is perfect.

( Mild spoilers below the fold. )

Now, as I said, the movie wasn't perfect. One of the flaws is that "Knight" feels longer than it really is. I think part of this is because, apart from Alfred and the Joker's utterly different attempts at bringing in humor, the film doesn't have much that alleviates the grindingly dark storyline. I have been told that slasher and horror movies tend to have either a murder or a joke once every seven minutes, because seven minutes is about as long as the audience can be frightened or held in suspense before they become frustrated and bored. There has to be something to blow off the tension, and there isn't much in "Knight" that does so. As a result, the two hour, fifty minute film felt like it went on for longer than it did--I personally thought that it ran for over three hours.

I also still hate the way that the Scarecrow, and Cillian Murphy by extension, was undercut in both movies. This was a character who had potential--and an extremely talented actor--and both were never effectively used.

The worst part was, I think, a technical aspect: the movie's too damn loud. I spent most of it wincing, or plugging my ears. During one five-minute action sequence, I did not unplug my ears once, yet I could still perfectly hear all the dialogue, explosions, etc. If you have sensitive hearing, this is a movie that you should wait to see on DVD. (No, this wasn't just my theater, either; one blogger I read, who resides in West Virginia, had the same complaint.)

That being said, "The Dark Knight" is a superhero movie in the same class as "Iron Man". The hype surrounding the movie is well-deserved, and the talk of giving Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar is not based solely on his tragic death. If you get a chance, go see it.