Friday, August 01, 2008

Two Moderate Disappointments

In addition to the current voting percentages not being shown on the Sports Radio Walk-on-Week site, I just noticed this bit of weasel-ese on the site: "The final results will factor in to picking the winner, who will be invited to fill in for Wes McElroy in August!" "WILL FACTOR IN"?!!? Hmmmm.... Sounds like 910AM has gone a little American Idol on us; our votes counted for something, but for how much, perhaps we'll never know...

Also, finally slipped out to see "The Dark Knight" last night. Perhaps my expectations were too high but...I wasn't over-the-top impressed. Didn't have as much fun as "Iron Man." The combat -- like in all of these movies these days -- is filmed so you can't tell what's going on. Thought the many plot implausibilities were annoying. Thought Batman's gravelly rasp was a bit ridiculous.

On the plus side, loved most of the supporting cast including Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and of course the supreme effort of Heath Ledger -- truly awesome. Thought the ferry stand-off was generally well-done. My favorite scene was the Joker walking out of the hospital with his faulty detonator.

So -- great movie but not as transcendent as the huge box office would have you believe, in my humble opinion. Of course, I'm not a film critic...

8 comments:

Angelika HausFrauSki said...

No, it certainly wasn't as much fun as Iron Man, but it wasn't supposed to be. I do agree that Bale's Batman voice was a little out of control sometimes, but I love him and can't be mad for too long. :)

I, too, saw it for the first time last night, and it reminded me once again how sad I am that Heath Ledger is dead.

My favorite scene was not the faulty detonator but the bit with the hand sanitizer that preceded it. That was brilliant. :)

JB said...

According to Scott's facebook page - they have won the contest!!!

Andrew Hamm said...

Congratulations to them!

I too didn't think The Dark Knight was as transcendent as so many others seem to, and I too found Iron Man to be more fun and overall a superior film.

In addition to your complaints, Dave, DK is about 20 minutes too long (can we trim the Batman-in-Asia subplot that doesn't affect the final 90 minutes?), and it really bothered me how clearly Gotham has the wide avenues of Chicago.

But I also share everything you loved about it. It's not, in my opinion, in the stratosphere of greatest superhero movies (like Iron Man, Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2, Superman), but it's just below.

Anonymous said...

i enjoyed the dark knight, but i agree with you, its success at the box office is insane compared to how good the movie really is. i think there are two factors in this: heath ledger's unfortunate death and 2) an advertising campaign that relentlessly focused on his role in the movie. (which, i thought was brilliant. man it made me sad all over again)

plus, i feel like his death and this movie being his last film will go down in film history similarly to brendon lee in 'the crow.' (though we know ledger didn't die filming the movie, the press manipulated the story to sound like his role 'messed with his head' and such.) sad, but true. man i'll miss him. so much awesomeness.

basically, for MANY reasons, this movie was a sure fire hit if you ever saw one.

my favorite part?

wanna see a magic trick?

hehe.

Andrew Hamm said...

The disappearing pencil was indeed the best moment in the film.

Angelika HausFrauSki said...

OMG, the disappearing pencil. :)

Scott Wichmann said...

We WON!! Check out my blog...

Anonymous said...

I like Michael Cain and all, but I really don't think Alfred is a cockney...