Talk about the art of Film

When you get the chance, definitely watch it! Though, I wouldn't want your kids anywhere near when you watch it. It's extremely dark and depressing, as well as very vulgar in some scenes.

Maneater_Mildred wrote:

PlasticandRage wrote:I'm actually a literature major with a focus in romantic era poetry. I love Blake. He's so complex it's unreal. I have a paper due on him in 4 days. I'm making a comparison between his perspectives and Taoist ideals.

Respect.
I dont have the education that you have but love blake's work! Which helped abit with dead man.

You ninja edited me lol and i agree fully.

Part of the great thing about poetry is that you don't need to know every single little thing about it to appreciate it. Blake's all about internal struggle leading to external change. Definitely a relevant concept to Dead Man.

I really enjoyed Drag Me to Hell too. Same over the top tone as Evil Dead for sure.

Tolvo wrote:Those are also excellent films, I own all of them haha. Ever seen world's greatest dad? It is a very, very weird film with a lot of dark humour in it. Robin's son is played by the ginger boy from Spy Kids, as a teenager. He looks the same, which is weird. I've got to say, whoever was behind just making that film has extreme balls because of what the story is about.

I really wanted to like this movie, but just couldn't. I really felt like Robin Williams was the only actor in it whose performance didn't feel forced. I can't quite put my finger on what it was exactly that did it, but something about this movie just really rubbed me the wrong way.

I'll admit, his son isn't a very great actor in it, but other than that everyone else seemed acceptable. Maybe the issue was just having average actors working with Robin, so by comparison it makes everyone else seem just a bit too weak.

That could be it. I think in part I felt like the issue that the movie approaches was riskay for the purpose of being riskay. Like it went way out of its way to try to be shocking.

PlasticandRage wrote:That could be it. I think in part I felt like the issue that the movie approaches was riskay for the purpose of being riskay. Like it went way out of its way to try to be shocking.

Well usually if you're making a film dealing with an issue, you need to put in the risque parts as they can be integral to the message the film wishes to put across, though this does have a pitfall for commonly falling into excess truthfully

That I'd have to disagree on, I thought while extremely dark and something people would probably never want to make reference or a joke to, that the subject matter was pretty interesting and done in a tasteful matter.

Spoiler:

You're in titled to enjoying it. I'm just saying I didn't really. I didn't despise it or anything. It just didn't really do much for me.

Well yeah everyone has different tastes of course. Like, people are going to probably explode on me for this one, but I absolutely hated the Dark Knight.

EXPLODE

Well while I really enjoyed both Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, I'm interested in hearing what you didn't like about it. One criticism I have, not just about the Dark Knight, but about a good deal of contemporary films, is that I feel like editors are getting worse and worse. It's felt to me a lot lately that movies are being cut in such away that it feels like they're jumping extremely fast from one idea to the next without really giving the audience a chance to process anything. You know what I mean? Like instead of any individual scenes really taking their time to articulate a complex message, there are a million 2 second scenes that each try to articulate a different, really simplistic message, and then it just jumps right into the next. A lot of the later Harry Potter films did this too I thought.

As a member of the audience it makes me feel like they're not giving me a chance to really identify with anything they're trying to say. Sort of just makes my head spin. Like I'm being confronted with a wall of television monitors, all trying to tell me something different at once.

That is one of the issues I had with it, as well I'm more of a story driven guy and the plot is kind of just the typical hero flick. I can put aside Christians "Batman" voice, as I get he was trying to make them sound like two different character, but again it just seemed like so much of the time was nothing really going on. I found myself really bored half way through the film, as well I just didn't care for Heath Ledger's Joker. I really like him, but not in that role. it also didn't help that everyone I knew quoted that movie for a year straight every day, and how many jokers went around with face paint on, in high school. Probably the fans did it in for me, I would have just thought, "Eh, average movie." But with how everyone talked it up and acted about it, I held it up to an extremely high standard so of course it just completely fell. This sort of thing happens with me sometimes, fans can easily ruin a series for me. It's the same reason I can't enjoy Halo or Mass Effect.

I really liked both the Dark knight and Batman begins, I thought it was refreshing in terms of superhero films because it was much darker than most, though I suppose if any hero is suitable for that kind of take it is Batman.

One part I hated is there was so much focus on the joker compared to Harvey two face. Yeah, I liked him, and he was a great portrayal of the joker, but frankly two face got swept to the side, very little depth was given to his character and it just meant it just meant nothing when he was killed. I just didn't care.

Also, the jumping around like plastic brought up. The Dark Knight had a really bad habit of jumping form plot point to plot point without explaining enough. It was there, but it felt like the plot was rushed slightly to put in more explosions and stuff.

However still though, I thought it was one of the better movies of it's year.

I like them both but those are valid points. I also had higher hopes for The Scarecrow

Ya know I actually totally respect your perspective there. There are so many cases for me personally disliking something due to its fans driving me nuts. Usually happens to me with bands. Whats funny is for me, and almost everyone I know that I discussed this movie with, is we hated Heath Ledger to begin with, but respected his Joker. It's definitely one of the highlights of the movie for me. I really enjoy the new Batman series's attempt to create a real world environment for the events of Batman to take place in. Like twisting a lot of the facts of the comics to suit the real world. I feel like in that light Ledger's Joker was pretty well suited. He brought a completely twisted, psychotic, realism to the role that Nicholson's portrayal just didn't have. I don't think it really tried to have it though.

I like how many twists there's been on the characters. Even Adam west and Cesar Romero brought in some interesting facets

Serious_Much wrote:I really liked both the Dark knight and Batman begins, I thought it was refreshing in terms of superhero films because it was much darker than most, though I suppose if any hero is suitable for that kind of take it is Batman.

One part I hated is there was so much focus on the joker compared to Harvey two face. Yeah, I liked him, and he was a great portrayal of the joker, but frankly two face got swept to the side, very little depth was given to his character and it just meant it just meant nothing when he was killed. I just didn't care.

Also, the jumping around like plastic brought up. The Dark Knight had a really bad habit of jumping form plot point to plot point without explaining enough. It was there, but it felt like the plot was rushed slightly to put in more explosions and stuff.

However still though, I thought it was one of the better movies of it's year.

Ya know something that's always stuck with me in regards to super hero films is a point that was brought up in the movie Unbreakable. Samuel L Jackson's character discusses how there are two kinds of comic book villain, the soldier, who fights with his body, and the mastermind, who fights with his mind. The one who fights with his mind is always the real threat. I think this point can totally be applied to just about every super hero story there is, The Dark Knight absolutely included. I agree that a lot more emphasis was put on the Joker than on Two Face, but I also feel they were right in doing it that way. Two Face was totally the soldier villain while the Joker was the real threat. I loved how the portrayed Two Face though. For the first time he was so disturbing just to look at, and I mean come on, in real life he would be disturbing to look at.

Yeah that's true, but in fairness that's because thats the way the film portrayed two face, yeah was scary to look at, but he was like that and alive for like half an hour.. The majority of the Batman villains are the mastermind kind of villains and I'd count two face as one of them.

It kinda bugged me that he had a lot of influence but he never used it against Batman once he was out to kill him, the whole reason I feel they didn't flush out two face was because they were shaping him into the Soldier type cannon fodder where he is swept aside before moving onto the real villain. It was just laziness really on the part of the writer and I felt it wasn't done justice.

My point is that I think these stories require one of each. While I agree with you that the majority of Batman villains could probably be portrayed as either category, the story required a soldier villain too, and Two Face pulled the short straw. I thought they pulled it off well. His lack of resolve to really use his power against Batman said to me that he was still conflicted as a good man. I understand what you're saying completely though. I think they did it in Batman Begins with Scarecrow and Roz Algoul too (not sure how to spell that second one). Scarecrow was totally made the Soldier villain, while Roz was the mastermind. I agree with you too though Skare, not only am I generally a fan of the Scarecrow, but I love Cillian Murphy too. 28 Days Later rocked my world.

It was a daring choice for actor and with your point The Scarecrow can also be either type. They made him a soldier but I don't feel like he was effective in that role. Pretty much he was there to connect the fear gas. Which is awexome of course

I think I generally agree with that statement. It seems to me that the Scarecrow is kind of defined by his psychological attacks, which say mastermind to me also. I feel he definitely could have gotten a more emphasizing role. But look at poor Zasz. They essentially made him an extra.

lol, I think two face drew an extremely short straw, though I hope in the next batman film the villains will be better suited to their roles

Its funny though how they turned twoface ( and scarecrow) into the Jaws of the Batman films

Lol. Very true. I might be a bit biased on The Scarecrow front too of course. He probably should have won...

You have to admit the scene where the whole city was tripping out on the gas and he galloped up on the black horse was pretty awesome. The horse was like breathing fire and he was shrieking like a lunatic

I did love that scene. And him messing with Batman was good too. Although in the comic when Scarecrow gets nailed with his own fear gas it went a little differently....
Not sure it woulda worked for the movie