Sunday, July 20, 2008

I'd Like To Disagree

Look! The best movie of all time (according to the users of the Internet Movie Database) is The Dark Knight.
I'm never one to side with popular opinion on this type of thing. I thrive on controversy.
Like gun control. I think guns should be freely available to all citizens, even convicted felons. I think child-proof trigger locks, on the other hand, should be banned.
This way, we eliminate the problem completely within a generation.
See? I don't follow the crowds. I like to make up my own mind about things, including Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Batman villain.
People argue about all kinds of things. High gas prices help the environment because people drive less and we should be happy about paying $4 a gallon on a good day, they say.
I say someone should invent a car which runs on orphans or the homeless, since we would then be actively working towards solving multiple problems at once.
I'm not afraid to voice my opinions, no matter how "anti-social" I may be branded. I do not cater to herd mentality. I make up my own mind about things and then post my quiet little rants here (or in person with a follow-up explanation to HR).
So. The Dark Knight. Without spoilers.

The Dark Knight is not the greatest comic book movie ever released. The Dark Knight transcends comic book movies altogether and joins a group of work consisting of actual films. Gripping character studies and analysis of the Human Condition and examination of the concerns of society and justice and the concepts of Right and Wrong and all kinds of things which normally completely piss me off in a theatre experience exist in The Dark Knight.
But it works.
And Heath Ledger does not merely re-define The Joker, he re-defines clowns. And, as it turns out, I was right all along where those guys were concerned.
He can't be on screen without upstaging Batman, and that is exactly how it should be.
The Joker in The Dark Knight is a combination of all the most horrifying bits of The Joker from the comic books. This is the psychotic, mass-murdering, terrorist Joker who only seems to exist as a counter-point to Batman. Even his origin story (mercifully unexamined, yet discussed a number of times) is unimportant to the audience because it is unimportant the The Joker. The Joker is an in-the-moment kind of bad guy.
So, while I'd like to disagree with the people shelling out millions and millions of dollars to see The Dark Knight, I can't.
What do you do when the masses are correct?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dude, I haven't read this yet because I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet *kills self* but I can tell you this without any doubt:
The IMDB top 250 is pure, authentic, Grade-A bullshit. Here's why:
1) Look at the fucktards
ON that site. People grade a movie ten stars or one just because they like it at THAT moment. There are no cohesive thoughts that goes into making these decisions. It's either YEAH THIS MOVIE ROCKS TEN STARS, or OMG FUCK THIS MOVIE, IT GETS NOTHING FROM ME!
And 2), the IMDB mods go around looking for people who vote everything a 10 or a 1 and they delete their votes. So in about a week, the Dark Knight should go where it's supposed to on the list (I'm sure it'll make it, but I'm also sure it won't be number one).
Either way, IMDB is no source of substantial movie ratings. It's an okay source at best. I just wanted to say this because I've had similar feelings about IMDB before, until I went and discovered that the rating system is crap.

:D

Cheers, man.

Garrick said...

You haven't seen it yet?

Are you okay?

What's . . . you know . . . wrong with you?

My question comes from concern.

G

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm a bit inebriated. Also, I'm pretty livid that the town I live in has like one movie theater that takes four years to get to, resulting in my STILL not having seen this movie.

Poo. Yeah, I usually don't curse or yell on a first impression. But it's true, what I said. It happens all the time.

Garrick said...

I understand.

Four hours?

Holy crap you have to move before the third movie. It should feature The Mad Hatter and The Calculator as the bad guys.

Anonymous said...

Ugh, you're not kidding. I wasn't aware that this part of Florida is still in the stone age.

Man... I would've been first in line, too. Dressed appropriately and everything.

Fucking Florida.

Anonymous said...

I told you that. And you didn't listen. Faaag.