OMG A BATman: Part II

I intended to post a comprehensive review of The Dark Knight upon returning from seeing the film as I just have, but unfortunately I find this task impossible. I cannot at present view this movie as anything less than a quintessence of raw cinematic majesty, its masterfully engineered components so seamlessly integrated that I cannot scrutinize them separately. Though I’m sure that eventually I’ll be able to pierce the proverbial veil and perceive The Dark Knight’s inner mechanism, for the time being that feat is beyond me. I am able, however, to share with OMG A BAT’s readers the opinion that this movie is fucking supremely awesome- if it were 80 years long and maintained the length to awesomeness ratio it presently demonstrates, I could most probably spend the rest of my life watching it and die with very little regret. Previously I was as unconcerned with Heath Ledger’s death as I am with those the thousand people who passed from this world in the short period during which I wrote this blog post,  but, in seeing his final film, I’m powerless but to be immensely grieved by the knowledge that no one will likely be able to do what he did in this movie as well as he did what he did in this movie. Gary Oldman’s likewise impressive performance has redeemed him completely for the abomination discussed previously in the annals of OMG A BAT, which I will not name so to avoid indirectly associating it with, and thereby savagely insulting, the subject of this post. 

Ultimately, while I’m certain that The Dark Knight possesses some flaws of which I could make fun in order to render this tirade more interesting, I won’t detect them until subsequent viewings allow me to more completely process so overwhelmingly tremendous a picture. I do hope that a sequel will match or equal this achievement, but at once I suspect that it will mark the apex of Batman’s career as a pop culture icon for some time. It kicks ass. 

On a related note, the tantalizing trailer for the screen adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen features a song originally composed by The Smashing Pumpkins for Batman & Robin, the stain on comic book movie history perhaps best remembered for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s portrayal of Mr. Freeze. I love those Smashing Pumpkins, they’re so wacky. 

-Gothicus Maximus 

OMG A BATman: Part I

In approximately twenty hours and thirty minutes, I will bear audience to The Dark Knight, the anticipation of which film I feel, in retrospect, has been my primary occupation for the past two months. Professional reviews of the movie have been overwhelmingly positive, but no critics’ words so excite me as those of the few who found it to be unimpressive. Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle asserts that Batman’s latest cinematic adventure is “shrouded in grim portent, overlaid with a filigree of despair, and, for good measure, covered in a patina of dire consequence”, while David Edelstein of New York Magazine proclaims, “The Dark Knight is noisy, jumbled, and sadistic.” David Denby of the New Yorker writes, “The movie is grim and jammed together. The narrative isn’t shaped coherently to bring out contrasts and build toward a satisfying climax. The Dark Knight is constant climax; it’s always in a frenzy, and it goes on forever”, and Marshall Fine of Star Magazine states succinctly, “this movie is too in love with itself to make you love it.” Indeed, each of these criticisms has, on at least one occasion, been leveled against my character and/or sexual performance by a girl I’ve dated, a fact whose evidence provokes me to deduce that The Dark Knight is nothing less than me in motion picture form.   

– Gothicus Maximus