Mary and I finally saw Evil Dead on Friday and were not disappointed. Of course, since this is a remake, everyone’s going to want to know how it stacks against the original, and let me tell you that as someone who grew up with thoughts of Ash kicking zombie ass for many years, this movie does not disappoint. In fact, I welcome it to the Evil Dead family.
Basic Rundown
Evil Dead is about Mia, a young woman trying to kick a serious drug addiction, and her friends and brother who have taken her to an isolated cabin in the woods to help her detox and quit cold turkey. As usually happens, they find an artifact of ancient eldritch power and one of these people is stupid enough to read from a book bound in human skin and filled with images of dismemberment and demonic possession.
Cue an hour and a half of five people trying to figure out how to stop the demon possessing them one by one until it claims all their souls and can escape into the real world.
The Good
Is it the same plot and characters as the original?
Of course not. It’s a retelling, a modern take on Raimi’s original idea. The special effects are updated and make as little use of CGI as possible. Actually, that’s a lie. While I know CGI was used, it’s not noticeable. It’s subtle make-up as opposed to a mask. Not to mention that practical effects just make the kills that much more painful to watch… in a good way.
Best of all, the music and gore are an homage to 1980’s horror movies. Think of it like an old, classic car that’s been given a new paintjob and wax job. Even better, the sound system is updated and the seats got new covers and cushions.
It’s pretty much what I wanted in a horror movie. It’s brutal and bloody without being cartoony. Okay, maybe a moment or two are cartoony, but the movie does a good job of creating tension and using gore to create an unsettling effect, not just for gore’s sake. It manages to keep raising the stakes and still feel believable. The tension keeps mounting for the last two thirds and it works.
Combined with good sound effects, the movie is scary, creepy, and it plays its few jump scares right.
The Bad
No Ash.
Okay, this one isn’t really the movie’s fault, but it’s following in the footsteps of a very famous movie series. Comparisons are bound to come up, but I say let the movie stand on its own. It can do it. As a horror movie, it works.
As a remake… well, I think it works as well as a remake can work. It takes some elements from the first two Evil Dead movies and strips the comedy, something that really made the originals memorable. Gone are the quips and the one-liners, though, which could really have helped move the movie from good to great.
Final Verdict?
Much like The Thing, this movie is a good attempt at trying to follow a series of movies that have colored the horror genre for more than thirty years. This remake/ retelling is its own animal, and by itself is a very creepy, very atmospheric horror movie, if formulaic.
Check out the red-band trailer below and tell me what you think if you’ve seen it. You can also check out the original on Netflix instant right now if you’re so inclined.
Just your average screw-ball romantic comedy featuring genocidal madmen and Nazi superweapons…
November 26, 2011
How long is long enough for “too soon” to be long ago enough?
More specifically, when can we start using real-world events for fiction? I recently managed to catch a piece of the film Iron Sky, a dark satire of modern world events, American attitudes, and racism that tells the story of Nazis on the moon who have decided to finally invade Earth after hiding for 60 years.
Yes, Nazis. On the moon. With spaceships. Just try to not make too much sense of it.
The movie has its moments, such as the gorgeous space battle between weaponized space satellites and the Nazi fleet, the Sarah Palinesque American president and her shallow bid for reelection, and one moon Nazis conflict with her own morality after learning the true history of Nazism. Overall, not perfect, but it did get to me wonder.
When did Nazis become acceptable as comedic villains? As dark as the movie could get, the villains were over-the-top and as comical as villains on any old movie serial. Nazis have been fodder for pulp action for decades now, and Mel Brooks led the charge, I believe. He once stated that his goal was to make Hitler so ridiculous that no one would take him seriously as a leader. Maybe it’s worked. Brooks, though, is also a World War 2 veteran and was at the Battle of the Bulge, so as far as rights to mock Hitler, Brooks is covered.
But when can we start making fun of modern-day despots and terrorists? The Film Four Lions tried to do this and was met with positive acclaim. The sting of terrorism, though, it very much fresh for many people. Nazism pretty much died with Hitler, and although modern-day Nazis still exist, they are labeled as nuts and whackos, radicals without a home who have been fought and defeated, yet they still cling to an ideology that sent the world into war.
Terrorism, though, is much more complex. It still exists today, and between drone strikes and invasions, there are many who view it as a legitimate tool to fight oppression and bring vengeance upon the enemy. American imperialism is also very much tangled with exceptionalism and other extreme patriot movements.
The key is that comedy is aimed at the perpetrators of these heinous crimes, not the victims or the crimes themselves. For example, I’m not sure anyone would seriously think a comedy about the holocaust would be either appropriate or funny. Comedy based around terrorists, then, must be about the perpetrators, not their crimes.
Unless you’re racist.
Likewise, it seems we’re not too preoccupied about making movies based on recent events. How long did it take for 9/11 movies to come out? A few years? Television shows set in the modern world obviously had to address these concerns, but how soon is too soon to make a drama about terrorism? 24 was well into production when 9/11 occurred. Now, we have Homeland.
It’ll be interesting to look back on this time from twenty, maybe thirty years from now and see just how our entertainment dealt with a dark period in our history. Will we groan at our dash to capitalize on tragedy or see terrorists reduced to inept, albeit scary, movie monsters?
Just something to think about.
In any case, here’s a group of people who really wish they’d stayed in bed. See you later, and keep sharing posts!
If you read horror with more than one light one, you don’t DESERVE HORROR!
October 30, 2012
While horror movies are all fine and good for this time of the year, nothing really tops a good book in a dark room while you’re wrapped in a blanket. To that end, I picked up a copy of Specter Spectacular and read through it to get my ghost story fix on.
The Good
The stories range from the witty to the macabre, so there’s something for everyone. Those stories that go for creeps certainly deliver on this promise. “Alabaster” has a suitably atmospheric cabin in the woods and a mysterious location, as does “The Little House at Bull Run Creek” with its abandoned Southern manor and mysterious noises. The beginning story, “My Rest a Stone,” has a suitably creepy child narrating the events on a life boat as everyone loses his or her mind.
The stories that really handled description well were my favorites. Horror is all about putting yourself in the characters’ situation, empathizing to the point where you actually
Perhaps my favorite story, however, was “Death and Taxes,” about a ghost desperate to be scary. The very British humor would not have been out of place in a Monty Python sketch, and while I may have been thinking Harry Potter, I could very much picture John Cleese as Jeck, the hapless ghost. On the other end of things, “Wendigo” was very subtle and had wonderful characters to latch on to, as well as a story that was equal parts unsettling and sad.
The Bad
As far as ghost stories and scary tales go, few of the entries in the anthology actually gave me chills. Then again, I’ve been pretty desensitized to those sorts of things and it takes a lot to scare or creep me out. That’s not to say, though, that this is a terrible thing.
Some stories also felt forced. “The Haunts of Albert Einstein,” for example, felt like more of an overtly-long description instead of a story. There were other missed opportunities for great stories. For example, “The Secret of Echo Cottage” was all about a World War II site that was now a home to a pregnant couple. The final twist in the end was obvious, at least to me, but by playing with those expectations, each story could have easily been something different and much more subtle.
The Final Word
While it didn’t give me nightmares, it certainly was fun to read. I enjoyed the patchwork of stories and styles and many of the stories, especially the funny ones, were a good change of pace. If there’s a sequel, I’m defiantly buying it.
Overall, a good read. 8 out of 10.
You can pick up a copy here and see what others have said.
And speaking of ghost stories, let’s see if the remake of Evil Dead is any good. It has all the players behind the camera, but I still think it needs Ash. Tell me what you think in the comments below.
It’s Halloween season again! It’s like Christmas, but watching movies about idiots getting butchered is not frowned upon, so I’m good.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been helping students from several classes, but one class in particular is making students write their review essays on a horror movie. You can imagine my excitement. However, not everyone is willing to just sit down and watch a good dismemberment. And that’s fine. Here are a few films to watch this Halloween season if you don’t want to see blood and gore but would like to see what all the hoopla is about.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
An old manor somewhere in New England has a dark secret, and a father and his daughter, along with Daddy’s new girlfriend, are moving in while the happy couple restores the home to its former glory. However, something has been let loose in the basement, something small and with teeth.
The story has a bit of violence, mostly with one unfortunate victim of the creatures in the basement, and aside from a brief moment in the beginning and the hint of blood, it relies more on suspense and character development. It definitely looks like a Guillermo del Toro movie, too, which is just icing on the cake.
The Last Exorcism
A pastor who specializes in performing exorcisms hires a camera crew to follow him around so he can show them just how the game is played. He’s tired of conning people in the name of God and wishes to show what exorcists actually do. A worried father writes him a letter saying his daughter is possessed, but as soon as our intrepid preacher arrives, he thinks this case is different. This one might be real.
While not the greatest exorcism movie out there, it’s light enough on the blood and gore to still meet expectations. What blood there is mostly shows after the fact and the camera moves away from anything too graphic. The primary horror comes from the mystery of whether or to this young woman really is possessed or if she’s playing an elaborate trick on everyone.
Fair warning, though. The ending really divides people.
Mimic
Another Guillermo del Toro flick, this one has his trade-mark bugs and slime. As a plague seemingly moves to kill every child in New York City, a group of scientists identity common roaches as the problem. Using some slightly unethical genetic engineering, they create the Judas breed, a new insect whose only mission is to destroy the roaches… And it works.
Fast forward a few years and something’s hunting people in New York City. It’s big, strong, and looks oddly bug-like.
Being a horror movie with a monster, of course there are plenty of deaths and eviscerations, but they’re off-camera and mostly in the shadows. There’s blood, but nothing you wouldn’t see in an episode of CSI. It also has plenty of creepy crawlies.
Bubba Ho-Tepp
This is perhaps the best example of a weird idea that just works. Elvis is in a retirement home after having faked his “retirement.” The man in the home is an impersonator, or so everyone thinks. The man in the unassuming room really is the King of Rock after he paid an impersonator to take over his life.
But now, something is stalking the halls of the retirement home, and it’s up to Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy, also in hiding, and now black, to save the day.
The movie is pretty light on horror at first, being more of a character study, but when it gets going, it gets going. This may not be the best “party” movie, but it’s certainly great once you get a few drinks in you and you want the kind of movie that just screams “acid trip.”
Lo
Man loses girl. Man summons demon to find out what happened to girl. Demon proceeds to give man the It’s a Wonderful Life treatment with a theater set that seems to break the universe’s fourth wall with everything from poorly-staged productions to dance numbers. It’s equally sappy, narmy, and disturbing, but it has a sense of humor about itself hat just oozes class.
It’s fairly trippy and very dialogue-heavy. Watch at your own risk. Honestly, I can see people getting bored with it early on, but if you stick with it, the payoff is worth it.
So there you go. Some nice, non-gory horror. And now, for those of us that remember good, old horror, let’s see if the first teaser for the Carrie remake lives up to its source material.
Also, all the previous movies are currently available for streaming on Netflix.
I did it. I finally sat down and watched Transformers 3.
And there isn’t a drug on this planet that will make me forget what I just saw.
Let me be perfectly honest. I detest Michael Bay movies. They’re vapid, shallow affairs that could only ever be truly appreciated by a 14 year-old boy who’d never seen a breast in real life and has an unhealthy fascination with fire. Also, it helps if said 14 year-old thinks fart jokes are funny.
That being said, this movie was a big step up from Transformers 2. That compliment, however, is a bit like saying that getting kicked in the happy sack by a steel-toed boot is better than getting kicked in the happy sack by an out-of-control 18-wheeler. You’re still getting kicked in the happy sack.
I’m not going to go into too much detail, mostly because I have Charcoal Streets to edit and I need to find a BIG drink. Suffice to say, at least Bay wasn’t jerking the camera around like the was jerking… you know what? Too easy. I’ll just say that at least I could see the action. I’m fair. Plus, the music was pretty good.
Everything else sucked a fat one.
It’s bad enough this movie somehow managed to get good actors. It’s worse when the movie makes blatant references to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and somehow thinks its subtle. It’s bad enough when every woman aside from Sam’s mom looks like a model and somehow manages to wear clothes one size too small. It’s bad enough when the human stories feel like they’re tacked on and the movie has five or six genres it tries to get off the ground, kind of how Bait 3D tried to cram five movies into one.
In short, the only way to watch this movie is to fast forward to the fights. That’s it. End of story.
Speaking of “end of story,” the film just ends with a devastated Chicago and the heroes standing around with a “huh” look on their faces. I’m sure I had the same look on mine.
It’s sad.
Let’s wash that feeling away with a trailer for the new horror film Mama. Let’s hope it’s good.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s OH DEAR GOD RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
September 14, 2012
I’ve made my distaste for Superman known before. I think he’s an overpowered brute that’s too far removed from humanity to really matter. He’s as close to a physical god as DC can show and still remain viable as a recurring character that won’t break the story.
And yet…
I was pleasantly surprised by Superman vs. the Elite. If done properly, I believe nearly any story idea can work. Well, almost any, but you get the point. I was intrigued because the movie is based on a Superman storyline, “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?” that asked the eternal question.
Superman fights the Atomic Skull on the streets of Metropolis and causes millions in collateral damage. To draw Superman out, Skull nukes several civilians. At a meeting of the UN, Superman is asked how he can keep just locking up supervillains when he could easily just take care of them permanently. He counters that his ways don’t involve killing, that he wants to show the world that even if all his power, he can be better than a common thug.
Some, however, feel that Superman could be doing more to keep dangerous super-powered criminals down.
Enter the Elite, a group that vocally supports Superman’s efforts to rid the world of crime, but their tactics are much more brutal. And they’re not afraid to kill. After seemingly putting an end to several catastrophes ranging from super-powered villains to terrorists to a possible war in Eastern Europe, the world sings the praises of the Elite over Superman, but Supes thinks the world may regret it…
The Good
The story is an interesting one for me from a thematic standpoint. Does Superman really matter anymore? Do we need the “Boy Scout?”
Yes, the movie says. Like I said, Superman is as close a god as the DC Universe has to offer (aside from those other gods) and puts criminals away. He doesn’t kill, which means villains have a chance of coming back. His adherence to the law means that he’s constantly tied down by bureaucracy and politics. The Elite, however, have no qualms about such things and easily stop a war and deal with Atomic Skull in the most permanent way possible.
They blow his head up in a public execution. This is just one of many times where the sound effects and animation really sold the fact that, yes, these are demigods we’re talking about, but they’re still getting hurt and it SHOWS.
When Superman decides to show the Elite just what their methods will lead to, he seemingly kills each member one by one, until only their leader, Manchester Black, is left. The true horror of an enraged, vengeful Superman has to be seen to be believed.
Seriously, it’s both awesome and hilarious as Black just loses it and actually cries, begging for his life. Of course, that’s not the end of the story, but I won’t give the ending away.
Overall, the movie goes back and forth between very dark action and black comedy, mostly courtesy of Manchester Black, a villain with style and the rage to be both hilarious one moment and sociopathic the next. I figure if the Joker got telekinesis and tried to be a good guy, he’d be Manchester Black.
The dialogue can get pretty cheesy, especially at the very end with Superman’s monologue. I’m sorry, but it sounds too much like a motivational poster. Up until that point, I was rooting for Supes, but then I had the urge to put up fliers for the elite. The sentiment was there, but as much as I wanted to side with him, he came off like a bad after-school special.
The Weird
Overall, the movie was fun, but I was actually kind of shocked at the level of violence in this one. People get twisted until their arms and legs break, Manchester Black gives a couple of terrorists strokes (complete with blood from the eyes and mouth), and let’s not even mention Atomic Skull’s victims.
This movie has more cursing and gore than other DCAU movies out there, so it’s really better for the adults than the kids.
Overall, a nice romp. It can get a bit preachy, but I think it delivers in the end. ESPECIALLY in the end. I’m talking of the last twenty minutes.
Last week marked the 46th anniversary of Star Trek. That short-lived series spawned an entire culture, but for me, Star Trek was about more that cool ships, ham and cheese, and cool effects.
Star Trek taught me how hard heroes can fall.
It was 1996. I walked into a movie theater and saw the trailer for Star Trek: First Contact. Soon afterward, I tracked down where I could watch Next Generation and, within three years, I’d tracked down stations showing Deep Space 9, Voyager, and the original series. I rented the movies at Blockbuster and read about the making of the show, bought books on the artwork, technology, everything. I couldn’t ingest Star Trek fast enough.
As I grew up and new movies and series got off the ground, something felt off. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. As I re-watched old episodes, I didn’t feel the same excitement. Yes, I enjoyed the episodes, but there was something missing, and it was the same feeling I was getting from the newer episodes of Enterprise and the later movies like Insurrection and Nemesis.
By the time Enterprise was cancelled and Nemesis flopped, I finally figured out what it was that had bothered me for so long. Part of it, I think, was the fact that Star Trek was no longer about analogues to real-world problems or philosophy. Episodes like “City on the Edge of Forever,” “The Measure of a Man,” and “In the Pale Moonlight” are classics that asked big questions about ethics, the nature of sentience, and the morality of war.
By the time Insurrection, Nemesis, and Enterprise came around, Star Trek was about Star Trek. Voyager was probably the worst offender. Every other word was made up and made sense if you knew the internal science on the show and had a complete disregard for actual physics and engineering. Characters were there to function as set pieces. The biggest slap came with Enterprise’s final episode, a supposed grand finale to the story that was really nothing more than a chance to do a B-story to a Next Generation episode.
Don’t get me wrong. I do still love Star Trek, warts and all. My friends and I made it a game to pick out the production errors or blatantly wrong scientific terminology. I still think it made a huge impact on my love of science and speculative fiction, and I have fond memories of finding out my mother was a Trekkie in her youth, watching the redeeming 2009 movie with my now-fiancé, and the shared geekness that links me with millions of people around the world.
But Star Trek did force me to admit that even that which we love can betray us. Oh well. We’ll always have Vulcan.
I waited three days before writing this review mostly because I knew I was going to fanboy all over it. I’ve waited for this movie for over three years. I wanted to see what Nolan would do with the story since the end of Batman Begins. When the first film was announced, I wanted the Dark Knight to get redemption from Batman and Robin and, to a lesser extent, Batman Forever.
Ladies and gentlemen, I was not only satisfied with the finale of the Dark Knight Trilogy, but utterly blown away by it.
The first half of this review will contain zero to minimal spoilers, or at least spoilers that should be obvious to anyone who saw the trailers or is familiar with Batman lore. The second half, which will be CLEARLY marked, will contain MASSIVE spoilers, so keep going until the end at your own risk.
The story begins eight years after The Dark Knight. Bruce is broken, both physically and mentally, following the ordeal with the Joker and Two-Face. He’s been retired for years, but Gotham has seemingly gotten by without him. Because of the events in the second film, the Gotham Police Department has been reformed and crime has dropped to historic lows. However, when a mercenary called Bane arrives in Gotham, all bets are off. He’s as trained as Bruce, as unpredictable as the Joker, and more dangerous than Ra’s al Ghul.
And that’s just the first fifteen minutes.
The movie did a lot of very good things with both story and characters. Bruce, for example, is showing the real emotional and physical toll of crime fighting for years. His leg is busted and he’s retired due to the events at the end of The Dark Knight. His reluctance to return in this movie shows that Batman may be the peak of human training, but he’s still human. His desire to become a symbol has succeeded and Gotham is safe (at least until Bane arrives), but in the end, Batman must succumb to Bruce Wayne’s own human frailty, both physical and emotional.
At first, the movie felt like it was moving way too fast, but then I looked at it through the point of view of traditional narrative structure. The entire Dark Knight Saga can be seen as one massive story, so in this third act, we can do away with traditional structure. It’s definitely a movie that needs the first two in order to make sense since every bit of backstory is based on those films.
But how does it stack next to The Dark Knight, a movie few think can be topped as far as superhero movies are concerned?
Bane is no Joker, but that doesn’t make him any less interesting. He’s scary. He’s the intelligent, manipulative, BRUTALLY effective warrior from the comics, not the mindless ape from Batman and Robin. While he’s a bit difficult to understand with his mask, he’s not unintelligible and it’s easy to pick up his patterns. I don’t see Tom Hardy winning an Oscar, but I don’t see him NOT taking a place among the great villains in movies. When he speaks or appears, he steals the scene, and his humor, while dry, is very creepy.
Story-wise, the movie moves quickly. It takes bits and pieces from Batman lore, such as the iconic storylines Knightfall and No Man’s Land. One review I read already said the second half of the film doesn’t do the first justice, but I think the author missed the point. The movie is split almost entirely in two due to a single event around the halfway mark that should be obvious to those familiar with the Knightfall story. From that point until the end, the movie moves in a very dark, and very epic, direction. The review in The Atlantic complained that instead of going for the realistic noir approach of The Dark Knight, Nolan went for the epic comic-book feel of the first film.
Like I said, this is the third act. This is where everything comes to a head, and despite Alfred’s insistence that Bruce had to find another way aside from being Batman, he was wrong. The city needed his example many years ago, and right now, he’s the only one who can save them from Bane’s master plan. These films are a deconstruction of the superhero myth. They break down what it would take to be a superhero, then they built the myth back up. The Incredibles did something similar, and the big payoff for the audience in this case is that yes, Batman can be real, and yes, he’s a symbol that’s larger than life.
Make no mistake, though. This movie is the last for Nolan and Bale. This is the end. There will be no fourth Nolan Batman movie. As such, the movie has the massive task of ending Bruce Wayne’s story and Batman himself, and without giving anything away, I firmly believe Nolan pulled it off with grace and a sense of believability. Others have tried to write how Bruce Wayne would end his career as Batman. One of the most famous, The Dark Knight Returnsby fallen hero Frank Miller, showed an aging Bruce Wayne taking up the mantle one final time before finally succumbing to age, but not before he fought Superman to a standstill.
Other versions, such as the one from the DC Animated Universe, showed Bruce also retiring when his body simply couldn’t take it. He eventually passed the Batman mantle to another and served as a mentor for many years.
Nolan doesn’t really go that route, but it’s a wonderful ending to Bruce Wayne’s life as Batman. The movie is, in its entirety, amazing. There was ONE little moment where I chuckled at an inappropriate moment, but I’m sure my mouth was hanging open the entire time. I would see this movie on loop for a week if given the chance.
Solid work all-around.
SPOLIERS AFTER THE IMAGE! STOP READING IF YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
The complaints I’ve heard so far has been with the second half of the movie. It’s too bright and Batman runs off with Selena Kyle and abandons Gotham. Also, we have the ridiculous accusations from both sides that Bane is either a stand-in for Romney and the Bain Capital fiasco or a condemnation of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
First off, the movie HAS to be bright. Think about it. Bruce has lost his fortune. His secret is compromised. For all intents and purposes, his life is over, but he can still give Bane one final fight. Batman can’t operate in the darkness after the League of Shadows cuts Gotham off from the rest of the world. He can’t just be a symbol. He must be a symbol and a man, someone who leads by example, and sure enough, there he is at the end, fighting in broad daylight with rescued police officers to reclaim the city. Fittingly, the final battle takes place at dawn, during a new day, and as the movie showed in the beginning, Gotham itself is entering a new day.
Batman won. His crusade overcame fear, anarchy, and iron-fisted order to create something better.
As for Bruce running off with Selena, this one’s trickier. How much longer can he remain as Batman? The doctor told him it would be dangerous, and he’s already suffered broken vertebrae and his leg is busted. He can want to do this all day long, but his body just can’t take more. This is perhaps the most realistic aspect of the movie for me. Bruce realized, like the beginning of The Dark Knight, that he would eventually have to step aside. While Harvey Dent was a massive failure in that regard, when the city as a whole came together, they did what one man could not do. With the Wayne fortune gone, Bruce really has nothing but burned bridges behind him. Faking his death after saving the city from the nuclear bomb allowed him to move on. Bruce Wayne and Batman are dead. No one will look for him, and he could leave confident the city would survive with its new protector: Robin John Blake.
As for the accusations of what Bane is supposed to represent, this one is not as clear-cut.
Some on the Right are mad because he’s supposed to represent Bain Capital. I already said why this was such an idiotic theory. However, the speeches about Gotham reclaiming its wealth from the rich and Selena’s speech to Bruce about how the wealthiest people can’t live that way for too long make it sound as though the villains are supposed to stand in for the Occupy Movement.
That is also extremely stupid for a number of reasons.
Bane is “liberating” the city by taking out the police, much like Republicans have stripped police departments across the country of resources and manpower. His idea of freedom is to get rid of every social program and structure and just let people fend for themselves. The regular people are at the grip of courts run by the most powerful. Military hardware is being used against those who would oppose them, much like anti-riot hardware such as sonic weapons were used against Occupy. The final fight sees police fighting armed thugs. The police, in this case, are the people. They are the ones who have been powerless. If anything, Bane represents the establishment, status quo. This is even more explicit when you remember that Bane is working to fulfill Talia al Ghul’s plan of getting rid of Gotham because of its immorality, a line often parroted by right-wing fundamentalists.
So, no, Bane does not represent Romney’s former company, but he does represent a lot of the things the people on the Right do. It’s not a perfect analogy since the tactics he employs are superficially similar to what Occupy did, but the results and rationale are vastly different.
That’s my interpretation at least.
The movie rocked. I’d see it again. Now to wait and see if the next DC hero, Superman, gets a similar resurgence. The first teaser already looks wonderful, shot realistically, and has two versions: one with Pa Kent narrating and one with Jor-El.
One of these is a megalomaniac who ingests drugs to give him the power to keep going in a tough fight. The other one fought Batman.
July 19, 2012
Ladies and gentlemen, I know I am known for my verbosity. I have a love of words and sometimes that takes the better of me. I think my YouTube videos should attest to that. However, please record the time and place. As of right now, I am speechless.
Behold.
There are so many things wrong with that speech that it would be easier to list the things that are correct. Let’s start.
“Bane” and “Bain” are homophones. That means they sound the same.
There. We’re done. That’s all that was the same.
No, really.
Bane was introduced to Batman comics in 1993. He was a formidable foe, just as smart as the Bat but more ruthless. In fact, Bane figured out Batman’s secret identity within a year and put together a plan to finally defeat him. It ended with Bane fighting an exhausted Batman in Wayne Manor, then snapping Bruce’s back like a toothpick. The event was mentally and physically traumatic and it was only through sheer will that Batman eventually recovered. Over the years, Bane has been a recurring villain, and sometimes ally, of Batman.
For The Dark Knight Rises, Bane is re-imagined as a terrorist of sorts. I haven’t seen the movie, but from interviews and promos, it seems he is just as cunning and fearsome as his comic book counterpart and not the movie we will all pretend never happened.
Oh, and did I mention Dark Knight Rises was drafted back in 2008?
That’s right. Four years ago. WAY before this election cycle. Does Rush honestly believe this was planned out on the off-chance that Romney ran for president? Did Nolan magically intuit that Romney would be the presidential nominee and that the Bain Capital would be ammunition from both Republicans and Democrats? And before someone says, “Well, Romney ran in 2008, too, so this must have been relevant back then,” let me remind you of something…
ROMNEY WASN’T CRITIQUED FOR BAIN CAPITAL LAST TIME.
Did I mention the sheer divination powers needed in order for this to make sense? Seeing a conspiracy where none exists with a character that’s been around for 19 years is a sure sign of lunacy. Let’s apply this kind of Right Wing logic to other comic book characters. Here are a few more conspiracy theories…
Batman is some rich guy who takes his own money to help others out of charity. He even gives jobs to people in low-income areas. This is obviously a dig at rich people who know how the market really works. Batman is an attack on capitalism.
Captain America embodies the ideals and spirit of the Greatest Generation, but he’s not the strongest or fastest superhero. In fact, he’s just a man. This is clearly an attack on American exceptionalism.
Superman is an illegal alien who fights for the American way. He’s also the most powerful being in the comics. Whenever he is gone, things go badly. This is obviously a metaphor for illegal aliens being the backbone of this country, even though they’re not here legally.
Wonder Woman comes from an island populated by women, and you know what THAT means. Making her super-strong is obviously meant to imply that women don’t need men in their lives. This is obviously an attack on the family.
Green Lantern is an obvious propaganda film for the United Nations and usurping control from local governments. An American gets drafted in a galactic police force and does THEIR will on Earth? And he saves the day when Earth can’t? This is obviously an attack on American sovereignty.
So, no, Rush, Bane is not a stealth smack against Romney. And the Bain debacle? It’s not a made-up conspiracy. It’s real. Romney keeps running on his supposed economic intelligence and ability to fix the economy.
He sent jobs overseas. He SLASHED jobs to make money for executives. John Stewart said it best, so I won’t rehash it too much. The point is that Romney is getting hammered from all sides, Right and Left, because he’s a job-killing ape who couldn’t fix a bendy straw if he tried. It has nothing with him being rich and more with him not realizing his success and wealth came at the expense of others.
Leave Nolan and Batman out of it, Rush! If you were a Batman villain, you’d be the current Penguin. You’re not TECHNICALLY a criminal, but damn if you’re not asking for it.
Sure, Rush. We obviously have a time machine that let us do this. First, we planted the birth announcement. Now, we modified the third in a film franchise that’s made over a billion dollars JUST to poke fun at Romney. If liberals really had a time machine, we would have made George Bush Senior pull out.
Duh.
Let us now enjoy something far more entertaining: the final trailer for Dark Knight Rises. And if ANYONE spoils this movie for me, I will hunt you down like the dog you are and turn you into barely-recognizable human play-doh.
I just saw… something. I’m not sure I can adequately describe what it was, so I’ll just let you watch the video. Warning, though. It’s a red band trailer and includes some gore.
From the movie description:
Torn apart by a tragic accident, former couple Josh (Xavier Samuel) and Tina (Sharni Vinson) come face to face in a supermarket for the first time since their break up a year earlier. The awkward encounter comes moments before a robbery takes place; and then the unimaginable occurs, a tsunami swallows the sleepy beach community.
Josh and Tina find themselves in a desperate situation, trapped in the underground supermarket along with other survivors from the store with no escape. Rushing water quickly floods the supermarket threatening to entomb them in a watery grave. Before long the survivors discover they are not alone, the tsunami has brought unwanted visitors from the depths. The survivors quickly realise their battle is not only to overcome the threat of drowning and the predator within their midst, but a threat far more sinister — hungry great white sharks.
Okay… just what the hell were they trying to sell? It started off like some romance movie right out of Nicholas Sparks. We start off with a couple in some sort of trouble that’s trying to get their lives in order? Okay. Sounds pretty standard. Then we get a robbery complete with scary-looking masks. Okay… so is it now a crime drama? A thriller? Then we get the tsunami that levels the town and now it’s turned into a disaster survival film. And of course, it doesn’t end there.
Any one of those set-ups would have been good for a movie. I don’t watch romantic movies, but I’m sure many of you might have been interested in the story of a couple trying to stay together after a tragedy. Then things go downright weird. It makes me think people just really don’t care about the movies that get put out. As much as I’m waiting to see The Avengers, The Hobbit, and The Dark Knight Rises, those are all derivative from older works or sequels. I can’t really recall the last original movie I saw that really gave me a thrill.
Mary and I just saw Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, though, a GREAT horror thriller with zero gore for all you horror newbies out there, and that was a really good time.
If this movie actually makes good money at the box office, I’m going to start pitching my own ideas until one of them sticks and I get a movie deal.
A jaded Iraqi war veteran returns home to start his life over. But the town mayor, his old high school rival, has stolen his woman. Then, they decide to settle it once and for all with a table hockey match, the country’s leading sport. That’s when the zombies attack. I’m thinking Will Ferrell as our veteran.
No? Okay, how about this?
A bumbling IT guy tries to get a promotion at work by installing new servers in one night, accidently creating an AI that help him in life and love. However, his father has recently died and willed him a mansion purported to be haunted and he must spend the night to receive the rest of his inheritance. However, the house is filled with teens having a wild weekend party while being stalked by a mysterious psycho-killer.
Oh! Even better! High school sweethearts get invited to a raucous party in the middle of the woods. When they get there, everyone is missing and a mysterious figure is stalking them. It turns out to be an adorable alien stranded on Earth who needs their help. The catch is that they’re also being hunted by government agents. Who are also aliens. From the future.
Trailers and movie descriptions are not above making a movie sound different than it really is, so I’m sure this is mostly a monster movie of some sort, but it really irks me with the way five different plots were seemingly strung together. At best, Bait looks like a hastily-put-together monster movie. At worst, it’ll be thirty minutes of watching these idiots go through their lives before something interesting happens.
I’ll skip this one.
Instead, I think I’ll watch these other idiots hurt themselves through sheer stupidity.
