The Dark Knight and a Band That Did Something I Always Wanted To Do

The Dark Knight. Best movie ever? Quite possibly the most entertaining and most exciting. Without question the best PG-13 movie ever made. Probably also the best movie ever made without an ounce of blood in it. It’s already #1 on iMDB’s Top 250, and while there will be a lot of debate from film purists, there are not many movies that I actively have gone back to see a second time in theaters, let alone 3 days later.

The acting of Heath Ledger is this picture is as good as everyone has hyped it to be, if not better. Ledger is completely lost in this role, physically, orally and some argue even mentally. Regardless of his tragic death (and his heart-wrenching last line of dialogue) this performance is the finest I have ever seen in a movie. I say this as someone who was not a Heath Ledger fan prior to this movie. I have no interest in Brokeback Mountain and A Knight’s Tale was… well… yeah. I am also someone who is rarely, if ever, affected by the death of a celebrity. Regardless, I went into this movie inundated with all the hype that everyone else had been and came in with the same critical thoughts of “there’s no way he’s THAT good.” He isn’t… he’s better. I put his acting performance up against any other actor in any other movie I’ve ever seen.

The rest of the cast ranges from adequate to excellent, but they are all outshone like candle flames in the presence of the sun by Ledger. Eckheart is excellent as Harvey Dent, District Attorney, but flounders a bit as Two-Face. And I didn’t put a SPOILER warning there, because if you didn’t know that already you’re a moron. Gary Oldman is perfect as Jim Gordon. Maggie Gllynehal does her job, that’s about it, but her personality is outshadowed by a Russian ballerina (one of Bruce Wayne’s many female companions) and it sort of cripples the love story because you wonder why Bruce Wayne even cares about her. Morgan Freeman is on point, as he always is. That man can do no wrong. He’s played God, for crying out loud. Michael Caine is the perfect Alfred.

Christian Bale spends most of the movie in form with his performance in Batman Begins. The problem with this latest version of Batman is that because they gave all the clever lines to The Joker and to Alfred, there’s nothing left for Batman. So they make up for it with a number of monologues, some tolerable, others not. The movie ends with two monologues, and the one from Batman is atrocious, because Bale is forced to deliver it in that God-awful “Batman voice”. I chain-smoker with a voice-box would’ve sounded better.

Other than the uninteresting Rachel Dawes character and Batmonologuing, this movie is beyond excellent. The action is exciting, the tense moments are heart-pounding, the Joker is the most engrossing villain in any superhero movie to date and will probably remain so for a long, LONG time. This is an excellent throwback to the early Batman comics of the 1940s and there’s a nice homage to Frank Miller’s semi-homoerotic Joker in one scene that gave me chills.

Not only do I recommend seeing this movie, I recommend seeing it more than once.

Also, bad-ass trailer alerts: WATCHMEN, The Spirit and Righteous Kill all look incredible. There’s also trailers for Quantum of Solace (WTF does that mean?) and Terminator 4 with Christian Bale as John Connor.

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http://www.myspace.com/thegaslightanthem

The Gaslight Anthem is a band my best friend just turned me onto. They’re kind of a garage-like, almost punkish Bruce Springsteen band. They mix Springsteen like vocals and lyrical themes (because let’s be honest, few can match Springsteen in lyrical prowess) with a very cool, almost grungy sound.

So yeah there sound is very cool and then they did what I’ve always wanted to do if I had any musical talent at all and formed a band. They took lyrics from another band’s song (in this case “Round Here” by Counting Crows) and reworked it to fit into their song.

The original Counting Crows lyrics are: Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand/Says she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis/She walks along the edge of where the ocean mights the land/Like she’s walking on a wire in the circus.

Gaslight Anthem reworked it to: And Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand/I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis/And in my head there’s all these classic cars/And outlaw cowboy bands
I always kinda sorta wish I’m someone else.

So that’s it for this little tidbit.

Peace,

{V}