Hooray! Homoerotic Batman is back!

[fancycwabs]

There's a facebook group that a couple of my friends have joined calling for an Oscar nomination for Heath Ledger for his work in The Dark Knight--considering that the group was started weeks ago, before anyone in the group had actually seen the film, I was (and still am) skeptical of whether it came out of the marketing department at Warner Brothers or if it was the result of Heath Ledger's untimely demise and the resulting "martyrdom" (that's the wrong word. Is there a word for people whose talents and contributions are vastly exaggerated in the wake of their untimely deaths? There should be).

In any case, the hyperbole is justified. I caught a promotional screening last night and found Ledger's portrayal terrifying; if superheros are our modern-day Greek myths, with gods walking the earth and causing the Sun's motion across the sky, volcanoes, lightning, etc., Ledger's Joker is the closest thing I've seen to something approaching a force of nature in human form. That force of nature is entropy, and Ledger somehow captures that essence with every grin and reptilian flicker of his tongue. It is an amazing performance, and one that nothing in Ledger's previous work had hinted at being available to him.

That's not to say that everyone else in the film is sitting on their hands. While Christian Bale's Batman isn't given much of a character arc, he's still giving it everything. Aaron Eckhart does his finest work as well transforming from the boy scout DA Harvey Dent to Two-Face, who (in a movie without Ledger's performance) would have easily stolen the show. The gritty realism that marked Batman Begins is enhanced here; there's nothing that looks like the giant soundstages of the Burton-Shumaker era. The plotting is dense; there's a lot of story to tell here, but Nolan does it with aplomb--punctuated by a couple of really nice action set pieces.

All that said, I wouldn't recommend the film to anyone under 10 AT ALL, and I'd be hesitant about taking someone under 13. Bad stuff happens in this movie, and is likely to give the little ones nightmares about clowns and disfigurement (and other things--there's some Saw-level shit here, leaving one to wonder how it managed a PG-13 rating) for weeks. Besides, having to haul a child screaming in terror from the theater isn't fun for anybody.

Comments

[mybadhairlife.livejournal.com]

Since I spent my one exposure to actual Saw-level shit hunched down in my seat with my eyes closed and my fingers in my ears, I will probably give this one a pass.

Sorry to get on my soap-box here, but why do we need to hear flesh ripping/bones cracking and see blood and guts in order to convey that some bad shit went down? Give me Hitchcock any day, folks. My imagination works just fine, thank you very much.

GAWD. This movie gets a PG-13 because it protects us from the evils of showing the kiddies a boob. If I had kids, I would rather have them watching some good wholesome sex and nekkidness than torture, murder and mutiliation, anyday.

- signed, I hate violence-porn.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

Not saying that Dark Knight = Saw, especially in terms of graphic content and gore actually shown, but there's some violent and disturbing stuff. (You don't see knife penetrating flesh, and there's precious little blood, but the actions are the same whether they show it onscreen or whether they cut away, or show the aftermath).

[mybadhairlife.livejournal.com]

Okay, in that case, it IS something I want to see.

Like I said, I'm all about the implied shit and the power of the imagination when it comes to the creepy violent part.

[atothek.livejournal.com]

I like a little gore or at least cartoonish glorification of violence now and then but I totally agree about the sex vs. violence rating system being completely insane.

My children see breasts every day -- the twins, of course, using them for their food source -- so nudity is no big deal. Sex is a different level of appropriateness and context and the kids' level of understanding are very important -- but violence is a whole different category to me, and for some reason it seems that current rating systems approve of a whole lot more violence and a whole lot less sexual content than I would think OK for kids to watch.

Don't even get me started on gay *kissing* and the rating system.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

*wonders what atothek really meant by "kissing."

[babs-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

I think the PG-13 is because while a lot of it is disturbing, the Saw-level shit is left mostly to the imagination. It's done with such a level of subtlety - it's not until you get out later that you realize that there wasn't much gore (except for the horrorshow of twoface). It's like the old horror movies where all of the nastiness happens off-screen and your mind is left to shudder in its own fantasies. Brilliant.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

It's really only one particular bit involving a phone call that I thought ventured into Saw territory, and even that really doesn't fall into the "torture porn" sort of category. Still, even without that it's seriously Frank Miller-level Batman we're talking about here.

Don't get me wrong--I loved the movie; but there's stuff in there that would have given me nightmares as a kid.

[babs-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah definitely not for kids, and I was tensed up during the whole thing, so I hear ya.

[esme454.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to see this. I envy all you people who already got to see it. Seriously, who was I supposed to be blowing to get advance tickets?

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I walked up to the theater where I knew the promo screening was taking place about an hour and a half before showtime, and asked folks if anyone had a spare ticket. Because less than half of an audience will show up to a free event, they normally distribute lots of extra seats and someone usually has a spare. Wednesday's show was less than half full, and I KNOW they gave away at least a theater's worth of tickets.

Although if you offered to blow someone in the crowd for an extra ticket, you might be Even More Successful.

[babs-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

Janric, but I beat you to it :p