The Dark Knight Rises… I don't want to write out a long review right now, but I will say this is definitely a "see it first weekend" film.  It's a spectacular end to Christopher Nolan's Batman movies.  The character of Bruce Wayne has been very well developed through the series.  I also thought it was interesting that Nolan carried on the physical deterioration of Batman, which is one of the more realistic touches.

 

The script is also unusually good for action-adventure fare.  There are nice touches, like the explanation a character gives that fear can be a vital motivation, or the sharp exchange between Commissioner Gordon and one of his officers over just how clean his hands are.  This script doesn't let its characters coast by on expectations.

 

Great physical acting by Tom Hardy.  He's almost unrecognizable and he apparently modeled his voice after an Irish Traveller.  It's a very distinctive and intimidating accent.  And I always like it when an actor's body movements play a strong role in the performance.  When he smashes someone he throws himself so violently into the swing that you imagine instant coma.  Personally I think the result is every bit as impressive as Ledger's Joker and would hate to see Hardy fail to get proper credit for it.

 

Levitt is the other standout performance.  This guy has impressed me in everything I've seen him in, including some crap.  Levitt is just a smart actor, and he seems to have a perfect sense for what level of performance to give in each role.  He's not showy or stylized and seems to fit into everything.  A real chameleon, you would never dream he got his start on a three camera sit-com.

 

A note on critics.  A minority of the usual suspects have called Dark Knight Rises "clunky", which is simply inept criticism (I mean that it's inept for reasons other than that "clunky" is lazy snark used in place of acceptable critical description).  The movie flies by and is skillfully structured; its incidents proceed naturally and in proper proportion to one another.  There aren't many 2 hour 45 minute movies you can say that about.  But most critics can't write, so it's little surprise when they make expressionist stabs at language in their effort to get the jumble of almost-adult thoughts out of their heads.  (For a painfully bad demonstration, read this.)

 

Much more could be said about the abysmal state of film criticism, which is useless even disregarding the reliability of the critics to enjoy meaningful movies in our present film desert.  The biggest indictment of any decaying society is the low standard its elite set for themselves--not only do they promote triviality and self-indulgence, they do it with so little skill!  It is insulting to be lorded over by these people.   

The Man With No Filter… He's still at it. He's still writing that goddamn blog daily. He still has no filter.
 
The world of James Lileks is not particularly complicated, or interesting. A gourmand may talk about his favorite meals; Lileks just talks about how much he loves chewing. The man could survive for years on a diet of cellophane, compulsively gnashing it for no better reason than that he was out of paper. Unfortunately, Lileks does not require paper--the Internet is his bottomless mental spittoon.
 

More at My Posting Career.   

QUESTIONGATE… The Atlantic Wire -- President Obama spoke from the Rose Garden about his new executive order, a DREAM Act-like policy that grants work permits to many young immigrants who entered the country illegally as children, and it was punctuated with a mildly dramatic exchange between the president and a reporter. The Daily Caller's Neil Munro, identified by several reporters on the scene, seems to have shouted a question in the middle of the president's remarks, and Obama rather angrily stopped his address to say, "Excuse me, sir, this is not time for questions. Not while I'm speaking." Obama later began a sentence addressing Munro to say "and in answer to your question." Munro used that occasion to speak over him and the President, once again flustered, replied, "I'm not looking for an argument" and "The next time I prefer you let me finish my statements before you ask a question."

 

Developing…

 

PRESIDENT INTERRUPTED IN RACIST NEWS SHOCK

 

DAILY CALLER HACK "TRAYVONS" PROUD AFRICAN AMERICAN PRESIDENT

VOICE ANALYSIS CONCLUDES IT WAS PRESIDENT OBAMA SCREAMING FOR HELP

 

"ARREST HIM!" SHRIEKS MSNBC STAFFER IN TEARS

 

TIME MAGAZINE: ARE QUESTIONS RACIST?

 

WHO WILL BE THE NEXT AFRICAN-AMERICAN VICTIM OF VIOLENT "QUESTIONING"

 

NEW "QUESTIONING" ATTACKS REPORTED IN MAJOR CITIES

"FLASH QUESTIONS" STYMIE BLACK MAYOR

 

"NEVER IN ALL MY DAYS" - CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER DECLARES AMERICA HAS HIT "NEW LOW IN RACISM"

 

PRESIDENT FORCED TO JABBER BOILERPLATE RESPONSE AFTER RACIST QUESTIONING ASSAULT

 

BEER SUMMIT 2 CALLED

 

MICHELLE OBAMA CUTS SHORT EUROPEAN SHOPPING TOUR AFTER "QUESTIONING" ROW

 

SECRET SERVICE FIRES INTO CROWD OF REPORTERS, BUT "QUESTIONER" MAY HAVE ESCAPED

MASTURBATING KEITH OLBERMANN SURVIVES MAJOR HEAD WOUND

 

CNN VOWS TO STAY ON THE AIR UNTIL CRISIS IS OVER

CNN PREXY: "ANDERSON COOPER WILL NOT CASH PAYCHECKS FOR THE TIME BEING"

 

WOLF BLITZER WAR ROOM TRIANGULATES "QUESTIONER'S" POSITION DURING RACIST TIRADE

 

MADDOW: ELECTIONS ARE INSTITUTIONALIZED QUESTIONING

 

ROMNEY "QUESTIONED" "PROBABLY GAY" STUDENT IN HIGH SCHOOL

DOG WHISTLE QUESTIONING ABOUT DATE TO PROM   

Prometheus… It has taken 30 years, since 1982's Blade Runner, for Ridley Scott to return to the science fiction genre. Finally, one might add, for Prometheus represents a considerable rejuvenation of the 74 year old director after a long career spent doing polished, small-think popcorn movies only superficially more artistic than his brother Tony Scott's action flicks. Why did it take so long, and why did his genre return involve revisiting his most successful film? (It is a first for Scott, who has never directed a prequel or sequel prior to this.)
 
Prometheus began as a straight prequel to Alien, but during its development morphed into something else. Scott, who had a desire to revisit some of the unanswered questions of the first film, was reluctant to simply rehash the "xenomorph" in Alien. For good reason: the xenomorph itself was relatively uninteresting; despite its bizarre appearance and unique life cycle, the creature had no way of expressing intention and seemed to have only the most primitive motivations. Learning more about it had no emotional stakes, and even so the commercial franchise of Alien sequels had rendered this creature as stale and over-familiar as the Frankenstein monster: just another shambling horror cliche with bolts in its neck and a ratty blazer.
 
Curiously (or not, given the directors), none of the lame, lamer, lamest sequels had bothered answering any of the questions raised by the original film. The origins of both the xenomorph and the "space jockey" (the giant humanoid found in the same derelict spacecraft) had been left totally unexplored. This then became Prometheus' jumping-off point, and with Damon Lindelof revising Jon Spaihts' script to further de-emphasize the role of the xenomorph, the film became a prequel which despite existing under the shadow of Alien manages to launch into a very different, tantalizing direction.
 

More at My Posting Career.   

The Avengers… The Avengers smashed some box office records.  But why?

 

 

I can't get over how ridiculous those outfits look. This is the number one movie of all time? Jeremy Renner looks like a suburban dad who just came out of the closet (by the looks of it he has mixed feelings). ScarJo has a constant expression of annoyance and/or gas indigestion. Captain America is in a world all his own, where gay, dorky, and weird have fused together much like the thousand discrete pieces of fabric and padding that seem to have gone into making his plush outfit. Are those zippers?
 
Thor, with that novelty-sized styrofoam hammer, looks like a cosplayer who won big playing carnival games. I understand that in the stupid movie version of this character, he's an alien, not a Norse god, which makes his getup all the more bizarre. Only Iron Man, basically a robot, looks like he belongs in a battle to save the world--unfortunately it's a world not worth saving. And we've already seen that movie anyway.
 
I keep thinking I'm going to see this movie at some point--I feel like I've been drafted by box office returns--but when it comes down to the wire I think, "Why?" and do something else.
 
I have stronger feelings about seeing the Spider-Man remake, which at least appears to have some heart. Avengers just looks like a massive geek-out.   

Sweet Smell of Success: Paranoia in the 50s, part 2… Where Kiss Me Deadly hinted at the hangover from McCarthyism, Sweet Smell of Success openly addresses the culture of paranoia and excess of which McCarthyism was an exponent. Released two years after Kiss Me Deadly and Senator McCarthy's own self-destructive spiral, Success presents a thinly veiled attack on Walter Winchell, a powerful gossip columnist who became strongly anti-communist after WWII and supported McCarthy's Red hunts.
 
By the 50s Winchell's power and reach were on a downslope as television began to replace the radio and print world that Winchell was part of. Winchell, who was Jewish, underwent a familiar evolution from FDR supporter, interventionist, and civil rights advocate to a quasi-reactionary who waged battles for both political and petty reasons. One of Winchell's clashes of this period was with Josephine Baker, whom he labeled a communist after Baker complained of racist service at the Stork Club, Winchell's base of operations. His quips were examples of epigrammatic form: "Hollywood's a place where they shoot too many pictures and not enough actors."
 

More at My Posting Career.   

The Dystopian Kitsch of Hunger Games… The hallmark of the fake dystopia is that it wants to let its audience eat cake. It wants to indulge them with fake feelings and manipulated pity (and piety), feed them melodramatic moments that reassure them of their own correctness. The aim is to produce a rich surge of sentiment, to leave the rational mind disengaged and therefore untroubled when the sugary characters and story dissolve on their tongues as they exit unnourished.

 

More at My Posting Career.