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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 5, 2022 18:55:06 GMT -8
I didn't mind the ending, because to me, Nolan's Batman was always more of a Bruce Wayne than Batman story. And it was very much its own thing. To me, most of the character-beats felt of-a-piece with the rest of the trilogy, and were compelling enough, even though the Robin aspect was obviously underdeveloped. But like I said before, the wacky Bane character is really the deciding factor for most viewers: some are on its wavelength, some aren't.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 6, 2022 17:57:59 GMT -8
I was indeed never really on the Bane wavelength. Obviously Nolan's original plans for TDKR had to altered after Heath Ledger's tragic death, but it feels like he went for broke with the alternative. I like the idea behind Bane's character and how he turns Batman's law-and-order philosophy on its ear, but it's no coincidence that Harley Quinn is getting a lot of mileage out of their Tom Hardy impression.
On the subject of Nolan's Batman trilogy, I just watched Michael Mann's Heat, which is occasionally cited as an inspiration for The Dark Knight. It is probably no surprise that the three-hour crime film with a consistently dry tone (not to mention some thoroughly atrocious sound editing) didn't click with me, but I will say there is probably a great version of this movie that runs 100 minutes long and focuses more exclusively on the Pacino-DeNiro dynamic. There are definitely parallels to be made to the Nolan film (notably the chaotic heist near the end of the second act), but very little that really connected with me for long stretches. (I am starting to think that Mann's films in general are not my speed, as I was also bored by Last of the Mohicans and wasn't able to sit through Public Enemies.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 7, 2022 18:29:50 GMT -8
Eh, you could also say that the success of the Tom-Hardy inspired Bane character on Harley Quinn kind of confirms that it's become an iconic portrayal, that will potentially influence many versions of Bane going forward. I mean, obviously it's parody, but so is their version of Commissioner Gordon and countless other characters, and Bane on Harley Quinn is still rendered in a rather endearing way, with all of his insecurities and whatnot.
As for Mann's Heat, I like it, but never loved it. It's definitely pretty dry, and unnecessarily overlong. And I'd say only the opening bank heist in TDK is significantly influenced by it.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 8, 2022 18:08:39 GMT -8
I dunno, it's pretty widely accepted at this point that contemporary superheroes and villains are defined by their big-budget movies, and everything else trickles down from there. That's why every Harley Quinn comic since 2016 (plus the animated series) has her sporting the Margot Robbie hairdo, and also why Marvel Comics post-2008 turned Tony Stark into RDJ.
Anyway, the Bane parody is very funny/endearing, but it would be very difficult for me to rewatch TDKR without thinking of it.
Speaking of superhero trilogies written by David S. Goyer (I hope you folks appreciate all these awesome transitions), I also watched the Blade trilogy recently, inspired in part by Jay's recent viewing of the series. I had seen part of the original Blade years ago, and had been instantly turned off by the extreme gross-out blood-n-gore. But I was able to handle it more easily now, and while I don't think any of the films are particularly strong, they have their charms, with the middle installment (helmed by a pre-fame Gizmo del Toro) particularly inventive in its visual palette. Character-wise, Blade's arc dries up after the first film, and the remaining films do little to make him an interesting lead. By the time we reach Trinity, and Goyer himself is in the director's chair, the series has all but given up on crafting a coherent story or action scenes, and instead turns into a proto-Deadpool, with Ryan Reynolds baiting the audience with lame wisecracks and general tomfoolery. All in all, not a great series, but one of the more interesting Marvel relics of the pre-MCU age.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 9, 2022 14:58:35 GMT -8
Temperament-wise, I'd say Harley Quinn's Bane owes a debt to Stephen Root's character from Office Space. ("Nobody pays attention to me or takes me seriously. I'm gonna blow up the building." Etc.)
And re: not being able to forget the parody when watching the original, well, there are countless College Humor and How It Should Have Ended videos on YouTube that may very well come to mind whenever Bale's Batman is talking in that trilogy as well (I'm so glad that Pattinson pretty much nailed the voice in his version, so we don't have to go through that again).
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 11, 2022 10:26:31 GMT -8
Oh, I'm sure College Humor would have a field day with Pattinson's Emo Bruce/Batman the way they did with Bale's voice back in the day, if they hadn't since evolved their comedy output to trendy observational humor, or whatever they're doing these days. (Note that Internet comedy has changed a lot in the past decade, and now most Batman parodies are variations of this.) Speaking of gritty three-hour movies with deep-voiced, leery-eyed protagonists and repetitive musical cues (I'm sorry if these transitions are starting to feel forced), I watched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly this weekend, after previously checking out Leone's prior two Dollars films. Fair to say that you do not need prior knowledge of the first two films in order to enjoy TGTBATU (as I'm fairly certain it has been viewed and loved by many more people than the other films), but it provides a nice background for the final chapter. The film itself does feel long at points (I watched the extended English edition, which was the only one available for streaming), and the dubbing over of mouths that are themselves speaking English remains distracting at points. But it's a heck of a film, at times both very tense and very funny, with grand spectacle and commendable performances from the lead trio. Love the musical score, though as indicated up top, the central theme did grow a bit stale after the first dozen times, though it was thankfully used with some variation throughout the film.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 11, 2022 14:39:04 GMT -8
Oh, I'm sure College Humor would have a field day with Pattinson's Emo Bruce/Batman... Speaking of gritty three-hour movies with deep-voiced, leery-eyed protagonists and repetitive musical cues... The "emo" thing is overstated -- yeah, he's relatively young and dark/depressed, which is very much in keeping with the Batman mythos and internal (as opposed to faux-public) Bruce Wayne character -- and is mostly focused on the black eye makeup, which is a practical thing, rather than a fashion statement. Anyways, it's a very shallow and lazy critique, but I don't expect much more from these glib "satirical" websites, especially if that clip you offered is a good indicator of their current output (very, very lame). And the signature ("repetitive") musical cue would be more of a problem for The Batman, IMO, if the score didn't have so many other more rangy, emotionally nuanced themes surrounding it. Zimmer's themes for the Nolan Batman films are more strictly tied to their two-note signature, stylistically, though, which could prove a bit exhausting. As for TGtBatU, every version of it, to the best of my knowledge, was overdubbed, because every actor was just speaking in their native language, with everyone being overdubbed in one language for each particular market. An odd approach, but it is what it is. I find For A Few Dollars More a bit more emotionally engaging than TGtBatU at times, even though the former has a smaller scale, BTW. Also, Eli Wallach's character gets on my nerves a bit.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 11, 2022 17:07:27 GMT -8
The "emo" thing is overstated -- yeah, he's relatively young and dark/depressed, which is very much in keeping with the Batman mythos and internal (as opposed to faux-public) Bruce Wayne character -- and is mostly focused on the black eye makeup, which is a practical thing, rather than a fashion statement. Anyways, it's a very shallow and lazy critique, but I don't expect much more from these glib "satirical" websites, especially if that clip you offered is a good indicator of their current output (very, very lame). I admittedly don't understand much about 2022 Internet humor, other than the fact that every other joke seems to be a variation on the "no soap radio" shtick. That said, the video I linked to, and many others like it), are not the sort produced by the larger online content outlets, which have a budget and (sometimes) clever writers to work with. The Dark Knight came along just as YouTube was exploding in popular creative content, and it was the butt of many an online meme. The Batman got its own comedic treatment as well (HISHE, Honest Trailers, etc.), but Internet comedy has now transformed into a devil's playground. As for the score, I just found the overuse of the central theme in The Batman to be pretty exhausting, even if the theme itself was quite good. Zimmer's score didn't have much tonal variation, but he also didn't repeatedly use the same theme a dozen times in one movie. (Didn't love the Nine Inch Nails song either, though that band has never been my vibe.) I actually found For A Few Dollars More to be the weakest film in the Leone trilogy, in part because of the melodramatic villain (and the distracting use of overly tense music during some of the standoff scenes). Still an admirable trio of films, and undeniably influential for Westerns at large, but I'd still probably take The Quick and the Dead over any of them.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 11, 2022 19:08:11 GMT -8
I can see complaints about the four-note theme, but it weaves in and out with more elaborate themes, and the main hero theme (the crescendo, if you will), to me, has some real nuanced emotional punch. Also very much like the Selina (almost Bond femme-fatale-like) and Riddler (riffing on Ava Maria) themes. As I've noted in the past few months, to me, it's Giacchino's best overall score since The Incredibles, and the best Batman score (I'm speaking the overall score, and not specifically that four-note signature) since Elfman's (which was rousing and ambitious, but not particularly poignant).
Zimmer used a two-note signature, as well as a five-note (duh, duh, duh, duh-duh) many, many times in the three films, and the style and instrumentation was very similar throughout. Giacchino's has more variation overall.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Oct 6, 2022 17:48:54 GMT -8
Glad you enjoyed Perfect Blue, by the way, Jeremy. Kon's one of my favorite directors/creators all around--surrealistic and inventive, yes, but in a way that always, always stems from the story being told. Almost never does he engage in oddness for its own sake. Millenium Actress, Paranoia Agent, and Paprika are all worth checking out as well.
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Post by Jay on Oct 7, 2022 10:02:28 GMT -8
Glad you enjoyed Perfect Blue, by the way, Jeremy. Kon's one of my favorite directors/creators all around--surrealistic and inventive, yes, but in a way that always, always stems from the story being told. Almost never does he engage in oddness for its own sake. Millenium Actress, Paranoia Agent, and Paprika are all worth checking out as well. I forget if Quiara also voiced this opinion or if it was just me, but Tokyo Godfathers is one of my favorite "Christmas" movies (in the spirit and time period, but that's about it).
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 7, 2022 11:09:17 GMT -8
Perfect Blue was one of the more horrifying films I've seen in recent years, and quite effective even after seeing the more recent Black Swan tread that ground. Just a total mindscrew of a motion picture. (On a grounded note, I was amused by all the talk about that newfangled thing called the "Internet" in a 1997 film.)
I will definitely check out some more of Kon's work. (I've seen Millennium Actress, but not the others.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Oct 7, 2022 11:20:57 GMT -8
I wish I'd realized that Millenium Actress and Perfect Blue were on Amazon Prime when I had briefly had that service, as I would've watched them. Because neither is available from my public library.
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Post by Jeremy on Oct 7, 2022 13:33:50 GMT -8
I actually got lucky with Perfect Blue, as it was added to AMC+ here in the US just before my discount subscription to that service was about to expire. It was part of Shudder, which is a horror-themed streaming service included with AMC+.
Speaking of horror-themed: much like Guttersnipe, I'm watching a lot of classic (and not-so-classic) horror films this month. In addition to new releases like Werewolf by Night (good!) and Hocus Pocus 2 (bad!), here's what I watched this week:
The Descent - This starts out with a fairly innocuous premise - six girlfriends bonding on a spelunking adventure! - and then turns edge-of-the-seat intense. Director Neil Marshall (who is probably best forgotten for that flimsy Hellboy reboot a few years back) here makes great use of claustrophobic settings and minimal lighting, plus shocking moments of brutal violence. Though bloodier than it needs to be, it's usually tense and at times genuinely scary, with strong performances from the leads. If you haven't seen it, try to avoid reading up too much beforehand. (8/10)
It Follows - One of the early pioneers in the modern mainstream age of elevated horror, with skillful, purposeful direction and a delightfully creepy score. The sex-based plot seems like something out of a bad Buffy standalone, but the film builds tension carefully and craftily, forgiving the confusing "rules" of the monster (i.e. to what extent it can be seen and felt) and some sore spots in the supporting cast. Only weakens with the climax, which features the dumbest use of a swimming pool since Piranha 3DD. (7/10)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - Even leaving aside the confusing title (none of the main protagonists from the first film reappear in this one, so who is Freddy taking "revenge" on?), this is a definite weak point between Nightmares 1 & 3. The rules surrounding Freddy's physical presence in the dream world vs. the real world make virtually no sense, and the film pretty much gives up on them by the third act. The gay subtext - if it can even be called subtext - is perplexing in its own right, too incoherent to read any clear message into (though hey, maybe it made more sense in the '80s). Some creative visual effects and a few good jumps perk up the story every so often, but not enough to compensate for the lulls. (4/10)
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Oct 9, 2022 8:56:24 GMT -8
Glad you enjoyed Perfect Blue, by the way, Jeremy. Kon's one of my favorite directors/creators all around--surrealistic and inventive, yes, but in a way that always, always stems from the story being told. Almost never does he engage in oddness for its own sake. Millenium Actress, Paranoia Agent, and Paprika are all worth checking out as well. I forget if Quiara also voiced this opinion or if it was just me, but Tokyo Godfathers is one of my favorite "Christmas" movies (in the spirit and time period, but that's about it). I've never seen Tokyo Godfathers. I saw Paprika as a teenager when it first came out and it made a huge impact on me, although TBH I don't know how much I remember about it 15 years later. Apparently Wolfgang Petersen wanted to turn it into a live-action film, which would be incredible - guess that won't happen now But that's it for me and Kon, weirdly.
(The best Christmas movie of all time is of course Arthur's Perfect Christmas.)
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