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E-PrinceThis year's Best Picture nominees are a disappointing mix of solid but deeply flawed films. While each has its charms, these nominees are often less than the sum of their parts. The two nuanced lead performances of "Milk," for ...
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TDK is better than some of the nominees, but the best movie of 2008 was Revolutionary Road. That the critical reaction to it was so bipolar will be a source of amusement in ten years' time.
dark knight best picture? you must think keanu reeves is a great actor, too.
"dark knight best picture? you must think keanu reeves is a great actor, too."
That's a bit wrong. Batman Begins would be completely undeserving, but TDK is a good movie. Slumdog is well-crafted, but I think I prefer all of the other nominees to it, except for Milk.
Cannot agree with you more. The Dark Knight, despite its subject matter, is undoubtedly an amazing movie that will go unrecognized this year at the Academy Awards.
People who think they're too sophisticated and classy to admit the level of achievement of Nolan's The Dark Knight need a reality check. You're just being retarded. If you really just genuinely dislike the movie though, I have no problem with your tastes.
Great post. I wish we had better writers for my school newspaper (University of California, Berkeley). Oh, and I wholeheartedly agree with you. Good luck on your thesis.
Ah Mssr. Ben-Youssef, you always do impress. I agree with much of your assessment of the film, but some part of me has a hard time placing TDK in the realm of Oscar. I thought certain parts of the film were brilliant--the opening sequence was captivatingly slick--and Nolan's reconstruction of the Batman story in a terribly real world certainly deserves every ounce of the critical acclaim it receives, and then some. And, of course, it's an absolutely stellar action film. I was giddy watching the bat-pod thread a cable under the Joker's 18-wheeler before turning itself around on the surface of a brick wall--just giddy.
So, with all that the film had going for it, I've had a difficult time figuring something out. Why didn't I love this movie? And, after thinking about it, I've decided it was just too much film--for me at least. I saw it twice in theaters (1AM on IMAX, and then a week or two later for a regular afternoon show), and both times I just felt exhausted by the film. The first 80 minutes or so were frenetic but flawless, and ripped along at a beautiful pace, but the second half got bogged down by its treatment of certain moral issues. Rather than weave them into the narrative, Nolan and the Joker introduce the moral conundrum (literally!). Do you save yourself by killing a boat full of prisoners or do you die to keep your hands clean? This is in some ways the question the film had more interestingly posed by Harvey Dent: Do you "die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain?" It's also the question put to Bruce Wayne when he must choose between the revelation of his identity or continued Joker mayhem. That choice itself is one of whether or not to make a deal with devil, and adds a great deal to the film's depth. But, instead of leaving the question for audience members, Nolan does something with the 'two-boat' sequence that I really hate in film making, he tries to have the discussion for you. And, for an otherwise very "real" comic-book world, he does so in a needless and implausible way.
The other story element which was good in certain respects but weighed the film down was the forced development of Two-Face. In the pantheon of Batman's foes, Two-Face is not one of my favorites, and I did not think much of the casting choice for this film, so those things certainly color my opinion of the part. I would have been much more pleased had they simply sewn the seeds of evil and left the creation of the character for another film, if at all. Because, ultimately, Two-Face was an unnecessary and blatant embodiment of the moral dualism more subtly addressed in the character of Batman.
The film is good, but in these regards Nolan overreaches dilutes some of the better qualities of the film. I think if you remove these two elements, the film isn't as overwhelming, and I leave the theater with the sense of joy instead of a headache. I liked the film, but I don't think it was the best picture. My vote in that category would either go to Gran Torino or The Wrestler, but that's for another time.
Your final jab at the Oscars is particularly on-target. Seeing Sean Penn take the Best Actor trophy over Mickey Rourke further proves to me that the Academy has an agenda (different every year, because Crash was not better than Brokeback Mountain) but it is seldom if ever to award good filmmaking.