Blessed by the Potato

I really, really liked The Dark Knight. If you want a gritty superhero movie, it really doesn’t get any better. On some level I did miss the Joker flourishes: this Joker was very utilitarian, with detonators that were little more than circuit boards with keys, bombs that were just drums of gasoline with car batteries and TNT, grenades that were right off the shelf. There were no smiley faces, no canned laughter… but all in all, a really excellent movie in my opinion. I don’t know what else to say since just about every other review has already sung the Dark Knight’s praises; I can’t really add to that.

Spoiler warning!

Orson Scott Card also liked it, but I have to wonder if maybe one of us is remembering the movie wrong or if they sent a different version to Canada.

“There are two key moments in the film where the Joker poses terrible choices. First is the time when he puts Batman’s true love, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), and her new love, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), in another [sic]. Both are tied up, surrounded by explosives. Batman has just enough time to save one of them, but not both.

We are deliberately not told — perhaps even misled — about which one Batman is rushing to save. It is assumed — because of the romantic conventions of American movies and comic books and western culture — that he will save the girl.

But it has been established that Batman believes that Harvey Dent is a true hero, vital to the survival of Gotham City as a civil society. So his choice is, at least in his mind, between saving the city and saving the love of his life.

He chooses the city.

And this is the morally right choice. It is exactly the choice that parents make when they send their children off to war, or into the police force or the fire department. If anything, the love of parents for children is greater than the love mates have for each other. Yet, when the needs of the overall society — the city, the nation — require it, parents make the choice to permit it, even to honor and embrace letting their children go into harm’s way. “

You know, that’s a lovely analysis and all… but as I remember it, we were told that Batman was going to save Rachel. He grumbled to Gordon “Rachel” and Gordon yelled to the other cops “We’ve got Dent!” and then Batman was surprised to find Harvey Dent at the building he arrived at. It was this switcheroo that added to the tension for the boat scene — would the Joker switch the detonators again, so that if the citizens did try to blow up the criminals, they’d just end up sinking themselves? The switch was part of the Joker’s whole “break the rules” thing. Even when the rules are terrible (kill this dude, or I blow up a hospital; choose which one dies), people can get used to rules, to not panic as much even though it may cost them their life one day. So the Joker sets up his terrible choices and devious scenarios, and then breaks the rules anyway. He makes Batman choose between Harvey and Rachel, but switches the addresses. He threatens to blow up a hospital unless a lawyer is killed — but even though the guy wasn’t killed, it sure looked to me like he was going to blow it up anyway, since at no point did we see him check to see if the deed was done. He warned people not to take the bridges or the tunnels, but it was the ferries that were rigged to blow.

I just got back from seeing Hellboy II, and we had a terrible time. Granted, part of that was not the movie’s fault: my pop was warm and flat, with no ice. Granted, I occasionally order it with no ice so it’s sweeter and doesn’t hurt my teeth, but then it’s usually at least starting cold or at least cool. This was like body temperature. Ick. The popcorn also wasn’t very good, and the theatre’s A/C didn’t quite seem up to the task of a Batman opening weekend — oh, and of course, we had actually gone to see Batman, but even 2 hours before the show they were sold out. D’oh.

So starting off in a foul mood, Hellboy II didn’t really serve as the fun-filled action pick-me-up we were hoping for. It just dragged. And I like good pacing and long movies. Normally, I’d try to do a full review, try to find the good bits, what could be built upon for a director’s cut, but Wayfare came out of it saying “that was the second worst movie I’ve ever seen” so I don’t really feel the need to even try for this one. There were parts, a number of parts, where I was bored. The effects were good, the acting was good, the cinematography was ok, the dialog was not terrible — but it just never came together. It wasn’t trainwreck bad, it was just… empty.

Don’t bother with it — if Batman’s sold out, try Wall-E or go home.

Edit: Ok, I’ve been talking with a few people who did like Hellboy II, so here’s a bit more about what I didn’t like. First up, it was visually stunning, I’ve got to give it that. The creature design was something else. But nothing that happened really ever seemed to matter. Right at the beginning, there was the bit about “what happens if someone does challenge the crown?” and we knew as soon as we saw Nuala, that that’s what would happen (it was a surprise that Hellboy himself ended up being of royal blood and challenging, but that was a strange, minor twist that just added a fight sequence, and didn’t really break the spell of predetermination for me). Once we figured out that she and her brother shared some crazy link, her suicide also became pretty obvious. But in a more general way, in almost every scene, nothing seemed to really matter. The guys in the suits got eaten alive right at the beginning, and Hellboy and crew just didn’t seem to care. At all. They found a troll market full of all kinds of weird creatures, and it was just like “whatever”. Perhaps they needed someone in the role of “outsider” to help the audience relate to the strangeness on screen, another John Myers. The outsider is often little more than a gimmick, but unfortunately they just weren’t able to get any kind of gravity into their situations as it was. Even when fighting the tree-god whilst holding the baby, Hellboy was all like “hey, relax, I do this every day” — there was no sense of peril, no weight to the action. The most human, meaningful scene seemed to be the drunken karaoke one, the one where the characters seemed to be most life-like and actually cared about what was happening. It was at that point where I sort of said “ok, this is some bullshit right here, that this cheesy scene that should be the best one yet, when it should be the first one up for the cutting-room floor if the running time needed to be shortened.” Not that it matters in an action movie, but there was also zero chemistry between big Red and Liz. She spent almost the whole movie being angry and sullen with him, not exactly endearing.

Well, Dr. Horrible Part 3 has been posted. It’s only 15 minutes, go watch it if you haven’t yet, then come on back.

Spoiler warning!

So, Dr. Horrible Part 1 and 2 were I think the best thing ever to come out of Joss Whedon’s brain. Better, for that brief 25 minutes, than even Firefly. I’ve watched each one about 20 times, and everything is just perfect: NPH’s facial ticks, that empty look in his face when he is first asked about Penny, the picture taken through the bushes, it’s just amazing. The songs are catchy and clever, and I was humming or singing them in my head for days afterwards. And there’s a great balance between the musical comedy aspects and the regular acting parts — which were incredibly well done. In just a few minutes of screen time there seems to be real depth to the characterization of Moist, Dr. Horrible, and Penny. Plus it was so incredibly true-to-life (slightly exaggerated of course, but it’s one of the best portrayals of a hopelessly romantic mad scientist I’ve ever seen).

The third and final part I felt was kind of a let-down today. It started off pretty strong, with Captain Hammer being such an arrogant tool that he drove Penny off, which is how I saw this part progressing in my mind. I really liked the very brief part with Penny in the laundromat with two frozen yogurts (what a crazy random happenstance!). But then they put a twist on it and went in another direction completely. Twists and going in a different direction is ok, just to get that out there, but they turned it from a musical comedy into a musical tragedy, which really didn’t seem to fit the theme and feel of the first two parts (ok, not fitting the theme of the first two parts makes the twist more effective when it comes, but it doesn’t bring to a satisfactory ending the story that I’ve practically memorized in the first two parts). Plus the third part seemed to have a lot more singing and a lot less cutsey, clever acting parts in-between. Again, not necessarily a bad thing in general, but I didn’t find the songs as good or as catchy. I might still be singing “with my freeze-ray I will stop…” or “evil on the rise” or “it’s a brand new day” in the shower for the next few weeks, but I don’t think “So they say”, “Everyone’s a hero”, “You’re slipping”, or “Dr. Horrible is here” will get much play, so to say.

I’d prefer a different ending, but nonetheless, it’s the best super-villain musical comedy out there, so I’m going to buy it on DVD once that becomes an option.

I put the link up on the right, but I also just have to give it a direct mention here to give it the attention it deserves. It’s a Joss Whedon production with Neil Patrick Harris starring as Dr. Horrible, a quirky, shy, evil mad scientist who’s trying to pull off a major heist to get into the evil league of evil when he runs afoul of his nemesis, Captain Hammer (played by Nathan Fillion, of Firefly fame). It’s hilarious and awesome and I want to buy the feature-length movie now (please: make the feature-length movie, pleeeeeease). Go watch it, it’s only like 13 minutes per act, and at the moment there are only two acts up (it looks like the 3rd act will finish it off).

Netbug, of course, found it (how, I do not know) and sent the link on to me, so of course props to him. And naturally, both our MSN quotes at the moment are from it…

San Diego’s been a bit of a hole. We’re staying at the Town and Country Hotel and the place is like a ghetto of little two-storey motel buildings all together. Our room in particular appears to be the worst of all — there is no sound insulation and the blinds don’t quite close all the way. Combined with the fact that we are under the outdoor stairs to the 2nd level and don’t even have the immaculate parking lot view of the other units but instead stare directly into a noisy ice machine and brightly-lit Pepsi dispensary, it made the night rather hellish.

The conference chose this place purely out of cost considerations, so I was expecting it to be a little shabby, but some things go beyond the pale. Internet is running at $10/day, and for a place that’s charging us $150 per night I would have expected a lot more than this. Especially since the internet was down all day after eating my $10, and it was really starting to wear on a lot of people who, well, really need their internet fix. Ok, the staff have been pretty nice so far, I’ve got to give them that, but even the conference facility is a little lacking: the speakers in one room have a terrible rumbling bass distortion problem so we can’t clearly make out what the speaker is saying.

I’ve only been here like 2 days and I’m done with Mexican food, thanks. It is kind of neat/weird that San Diego is incredibly close to the Mexican border, I had no idea — even the trolley system goes right to the border crossing — but this mexican for lunch and dinner got old by lunchtime day 2 (chips and salsa I’m good with, but I don’t really care for anything else on the mexican menu). I’m going to have to stop eating now for the rest of the trip because everything that’s not deep fried is slathered in butter and served four sizes too large (seriously, I only ate about a third of my lunch and I was stuffed, not hungry again until like 8 pm).

So tonight we tried to take it pretty easy, sitting back in the hot tub… until security kicked us out. Ok, it does close at 11 pm and I can see how, with the really shitty sound proofing in the rooms, allowing people to frolic in the hot tub can lead to issues… but we were really super quiet. Ah, well, back to the room, to find this waiting for us:

Quel Horreur!!! The picture doesn’t even do it justice for how shocking and gross it was. I mean we were facing a cockroach that was fast and nearly 2″ long.

I want to go home now, thanks. (Or, at least to PEI)