Weekend Round-up

If you are not aware of what happened this weekend, then it is truly possible that you have been pent up in Wayne Manor for the past 8 years, without access to a super-bat computer to give you every bit of information you need.

On Friday (July 20th), Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises was released nationally to hordes of crowds waiting in line to see the flick.  The midnight showing of the film brought in a reported $30.2 million dollars at midnight showings, placing it second behind Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II.

Fans across the world, one side supporting Nolan and Batman, and the other side supporting the Avengers Initiative, have been arguing about which movie is best and which movie will make more money.  Today, fans will get an answer to that question.

Normally, we get box office numbers day by day as they are reported, but this weekend that was changed.  In Aurora, Colorado at a screening of TDKR at midnight, 24 year old Neuroscience PhD candidate James Holmes, went into a theater and started shooting.  He killed at least 12 people and injured another 50.  This guy is an absolute psychopath, in one of his first statements to the police he told them, "I am The Joker and I paint my hair red."  Clearly he is delusional because he is not the Joker and the Joker's hair is not red.  He is simply a fame-seeking crazy who did whatever he could to be on the news.  Nothing about what this man did was justified and he will be pursued with the harshest of punishments by the Denver District Attorney.

With people mourning the losses of dozens of their loved ones, studio executives thought it a good idea to hold off on reporting box office numbers out of respect for the fallen.  This was a classy move by WB and its affiliates because the opening weekend had fans and executives alike salivating at how much cash they would be pulling in.  Waiting, shows that life is surely more important than a movie and how much money it makes.

Well, the weekend has passed, and I have it on good authority from one of my sources at Entertainment Weekly what the box office numbers are.  Again, no official announcement has been made, but early projections have The Dark Knight Rises earning an estimated $162 million at the box office on its opening weekend.

That number comes nowhere close to upending Marvel's The Avengers seat at the thrown, but it is enough for the third highest opening weekend of all time.

1. Marvel's The Avengers: $207,438.708

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: $169,189,427

3. The Dark Knight Rises: $162,000,000

4. The Dark Knight: $158,411,483

I am a bit sad seeing the top four rounded out like that, but still very pleased with the amount of people that went out to pay their respects to Nolan's final Batman film.  It didn't even come close to passing Avengers, but for good reason.  TDKR is not a children's movie like Avengers, it caters to an older audience with much more violence, and brooding political themes.  Nonetheless, TDKR had a very impressive opening weekend and I look forward to seeing how much it continues to make with such positive word of mouth.

The question now becomes quality.  Avengers made more money, but is it the better movie?  I will have a column on this subject in the coming days, but for now I would like to hear from the fans.  Which movie was better?  Can you even compare them?  One was the beginning to a franchise, the other-an end.  Will either of these films get a nomination from the Academy this year?  Or can we finally lose all faith in an ancient Academy, that doesn't recognize achievements in film because they are about superheroes, or science fiction, or any number of movies that the Academy ignores?

Please comment below and be respectful.  NO TROLLING!

The Dark Knight Rises Review

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."


Those lines (as quoted from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities), spoken by Gary Oldman in the final moments of The Dark Knight Rises, reflect how I feel after seeing the conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.


This film has had unreasonable expectations placed on it ever since Heath Ledger donned the white make-up in 2008's The Dark Knight. 


Were these expectations, bordering as unrealistic, fair?  No.


Did TDKR meet these expectations?  In almost every case, a resounding yes.


Christopher Nolan sets his finale 8 years after the events in The Dark Knight.  Batman has taken the fall for District Attorney Harvey Dent's death, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) has taken the burden of hiding the truth from the citizens of Gotham, and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has taken an emotional and physical beating at the hands of the Joker; leaving Bruce limping around Wayne Manor in an ultra-depressed state of mind.  Hope is lost- read one of the trailer's tag lines- and for Bruce Wayne, it truly has.


He is brought back from the living grave by suspicious cat burglar, Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway).  Kyle is caught stealing pearls and fingerprints at Wayne Manor by Bruce, but Mr. Wayne is not even strong enough to stop a sexy Ms. Kyle.  This meeting piques Bruce's interest and sets the events in motion that would bring back the Batman.


The first act of the movie is purely for set-up.  It moves slowly at times, but is the perfect balance of action and exposition needed to provide the audience with the proper amount of back-story moving into the film's explosive second and third act.  In the opening sequence we meet Bane, as played by Tom Hardy.  Bane is not as well-known as Heath Ledger's Joker, but I think he is just as mesmerizing.  His voice, although hard to understand at times, is menacing enough that you don't mind that you hardly see Hardy's face.  The key thing for me about Bane, is what Tom Hardy did with his eyes, invoking a sense of terror in each of the characters he comes across.


We find out, at least in part, that Bane's plan is to fill out the legacy of Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson).  For those of you who need a refresher, Ra's plan in Batman Begins was to bring Gotham to it's knees, for "any city who has reached the pinnacle of its decadence--we return to restore the balance."  Bane is an intelligent villain who, for the first time in Nolan's series, presents Batman with a physicality he has not yet seen.  This is shown in a gruesome opening battle between hero and foe.  A scene played without Hans Zimmer's booming score, a tactic that intensifies the battle in my opinion.


Batman has come back into the game too early and needs some...time away, to get his thinking right.  This is the movie's major flaw--the timeline.  The movie takes place over several months, but at times, feels like several days.  I know Warner Brothers couldn't let Nolan make this film two- weeks long, but I think that it deserves it.  Batman is gone and Bane has taken control of the city as a mastermind war-lord with nuclear bomb, created by Wayne Enterprises.  Oh, the irony.


Politics has an overwhelming presence in this movie, from Bane's attack on the stock exchange, to Miranda Tate's (Marion Cotillard) clean energy program.  I liked this direction very much, as it is very relevant in today's climate.  Christopher Nolan has been awarded the right to make this movie as dark and depressing as it is, and just as a movie like The Avengers can be all gloss and no story, TDKR is all grit and no flash.  This is a political/disaster/war/crime/suspense/thriller set in Gotham City.  It is not a superhero movie with the aforementioned undertones, and Nolan makes that clear from the start.


Nolan worked with his usual crew on this movie.  Wally Pfister (D.P.) and Lee Smith (Editor) pull of Oscar-deserving jobs in this film.  It is shot beautifully and edited with precision.  What makes this movie even stronger though, is the acting.

(Director Chrisopher Nolan, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

Christian Bale is an Oscar-winning actor.  I have seen nearly every film he has been in, and I think that this is his best job to date.  He portrays Bruce with such emotion and drive.  We can really tell that Mr. Bale is living his character on the screen, and it pays off in a big way.


Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman give outstanding performances as Mr. Wayne's moral compass, and it is interesting to see how the three work together to give Mr. Wayne a direction whether it was in Batman Begins in finding his identity, The Dark Knight in getting lost in it, or TDKR finding it all over again.


The newcomers are often the brightest spots of the movie.  I have already talked about Bane in detail, but Anne Hathaway as the other lead villain (never called Catwoman) delivers easily the best performance of her career.  Hathaway's casting is what gave me the most anxiety about this movie, and even to the minutes leading in I was hesitant.  But as with Ledger, Hathaway pulls of an incredible performance that few thought would happen.  She is the perfect Yang to Bruce's Yin, even if it is never clear whether or not she is on his side.  


Both Hardy and Hathaway were great, but out of the newcomers, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the best.  He plays police officer John Blake.  A role that has had fans speculating since the casting, is one of the most enjoyable to follow, and at times it seems as if TDKR is the story of Blake and not Batman.  JGL's character has the most specific arc in the movie. I could tell you what that arc is, but why should I have all the fun?  Follow the story, and leave the theater amazed as I did.

The Dark Knight Rises is nothing short of an epic movie-going experience.  Along with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan has masterfully written and directed the best film trilogy to date.  The pacing of the movie, accompanied by Hans Zimmer's amazing score, is intense.  The visuals are as stunning as Inception, which won an Academy Award for visual effects.  The acting is nearly flawless.  The script, penned by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, is clunky at times--but lets not forget: despite the thematic elements, the scope, and the emotion, it still is a movie about Batman.


This film has a series of twists and turns, much like all of Nolan's movies, but some of them just don't seem deserved.  Faithful fans of the comics would know certain things that happened, but for an average fan, the pay-off is not as strong as it could have been.  Christopher Nolan is a master filmmaker, but perhaps his best trait, is his ability to create a cathartic and engaging ending.  TDKR is no different.  The last five minutes of this film are as satisfying as even the most hard-core fanboy could have imagined.  It leaves us wanting more, while extremely grateful of what we have been given.


I have waited for this film for 4 years, with expectations as high as one could imagine, and in no way did it disappoint me.  I was actually a bit surprised on how well Nolan & Co pulled it off.  If the The Dark Knight  was Batman Begins on a Red Bull, than The Dark Knight Rises is The Dark Knight on the harshest steroid known to man.


Having tried to be as spoiler-free as I could have been, I will say one final thing that could be deemed "spoiler-ish:"  Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale have repeatedly said that they are done making Batman films, and that Nolan knew how it would all finish off for him.  He has even gone so far as saying that he will not be involved in the proposed Justice League film.  


With that information in my head, and after seeing TDKR, I couldn't help but think that, Christopher Nolan is NOT done with Gotham City.


The Dark Knight Rises is the film we deserve.


5 stars out of 5 stars.


*** I would like to take this time to give my thoughts and prayers to the victims of the shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.  What that man did was a disgrace to humanity and he deserves to die for the atrocities that he committed.  Movies are made for us to escape reality and enjoy living someone else's life for a few hours.  They are not made to entice people to live out their fantasies in whatever sick, sadistic way they feel they need to.  May the families of the victims find some sort of peace in the coming weeks.  And may we, as the movie-going public, remember what a movie is made for.  Despite how big this movie is, and how excited we are for it, we must never forget to live our lives in reality.

The Dark Knight Trilogy IMAX Experience

The legend has ended.


On July 20th, 2012, Christopher Nolan's epic finale to The Dark Knight Trilogy was released, leaving me wanting to rise to the goals I have set for myself throughout my entire life.  That's right, this film produces that much emotion.  The Dark Knight Rises truly was a perfect ending to a remarkably well-done trilogy, the best trilogy in the history of film.


Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy, and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy are just a few of the great cinematic trifectas we have had the luxury of seeing.  These sets of movies have mesmerized audiences for years and have provided countless debates as to which set of films is best.  After seeing Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, there is no doubt which trilogy is now the king.


In 2005, an up-and-coming filmmaker by the name of Christopher Nolan was granted Warner Brothers stamp of approval to re-boot Batman on screen.  Batman is one of the best money-makers for WB, but it was in somewhat of a slump after Joel Schumacher famously shit on every citizen of America with Batman and Robin.  With no cash coming in from the caped cash cow, it was time.


Batman Begins was a critical success and earned $372 million dollars world-wide.  It was a grittier take on Batman with a plot that the filmmakers wanted to base in reality.  Any person can relate to the characters in Begins.  Batman himself doesn't have the luxury of a superpower.  Aside from his wealth, he is just an everyday man like you and me.  He wasn't born on Krpyton, he wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider, and he is not the Norse God of Thunder; Batman is just...a man.  Nolan did a fantastic job of portraying that on screen.


After the success of Begins, came what many consider to be the greatest comic book movie of all time, a game changer, and a bar-setter.  The Dark Knight shook the world up in the summer of 2008.  With Nolan at it again, this time with the most famous villain out of Batman's rogues gallery--The Joker (played to Oscar-perfection by the late Heath Ledger)--he changed the CBM landscape forever.


TDK earned over $1 BILLION dollars at the box office, which at the time, was a record for a CBM.  It was nominated for various Academy Awards but was famously snubbed for a Best Picture Nod (which, in the following year, had fans so outraged that the Academy expanded the field of nominees to 10.)


The Dark Knight is my third favorite movie of all time, behind only James Cameron's Titanic, and another Christopher Nolan film- Inception.  With Nolan setting the bar so high with TDK, anticipation for the finale, The Dark Knight Rises hit a fever pitch.  You couldn't go on any film website in the last two years without reading at least one bit of relevant news from production on TDKR.  From guessing the movies villains early on, to how it would all end, to if the film would include Robin, to even such fantastic ideas as: "is it all a dream?"  The journey to get to July 20th was one of the most fun I have ever had being a fan of film.


The Dark Knight Trilogy was finally here.  This is not my review of TDKR, this is just a post on my experience at the trilogy.  For my review, go HERE.


I got my tickets for the trilogy the day they were available.  And to me, there was no other way to see this film than in IMAX, as Nolan shot nearly 100 minutes of this 164 minute film with 70 mm IMAX cameras.  Once I got my confirmation email that the tickets had been purchased, it had finally become a reality to me.  I had been waiting for this day since the Joker was literally left hanging from a building at the end of The Dark Knight in 2008.  The fact that I could see my actual ticket to the end of a legend was heart-stopping.


I have been a fan of Batman since my parents first showed me Batman in 1989.  I remember running around my circular carpet in my living room to Danny Elfman's beloved Batman theme for hours on end when I was a child, and--to some extent--as an adult.  Now, in my mid-twentys, this was MY Batman.  Not my father's, or my grandfather's, this was MY Batman.  My story.  My saga.  MY Dark Knight.


When July 19th hit, it was time.  I couldn't sleep the night before knowing that the legend would end in less than 24 hours.  As the movie's tagline read, a fire will rise, and all I hoped for, was for Nolan to rise to the occasion with his finale.  And he did, in a major way.


The experience at the theater was by far the best time I have ever spent at a movie theater.  I got to the theater at 4 p.m. and wasn't back in my hotel room until 3:45 a.m.  Nearly 12 hours at the cinema, and every minute was well worth it.


The IMAX theater I was in, theater number 8, had a capacity of 509 people.  509 people just like me, all wanting the same thing--a satisfying ending.  As the room filled up, and with each passing minute, I could feel the palms of my hand getting sweaty, the butterflies in my stomach whipping around, and the thoughts in my head twirling like a spinning top (pun intended fellow Nolanites).  Continuously checking my cell phone for the time, I sipped on my cherry coke and fiddled with my commemoration lanyard until the Warner Brothers symbol hit the screen to the first few notes of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard thrilling score.  And so, it begins.

When Batman Begins initially came out, I did not enjoy it all that much.  It was too dark, the music wasn't fun, and Christian Bale's voice as Batman was annoying.  It took my multiple viewings on blu-ray to truly grasp the scope of what Nolan was trying to do with the film.  My review for the film after various viewings is put right at 3.5/5 stars.  Re-watching the film in theaters and in IMAX for the first time, was easily the best viewing experience of Begins that I have had.

I thought it would drag on, knowing that the fire was going to rise soon, but it didn't--it flew by.  The other fans in the theater enjoyed it too.  Many different moments in the film entice applause out of the audience, and to me, that is one of the best things about the early screenings of these big films.  The best moment for me during my screening of Batman Begins, was the final scene atop a building in Gotham where Gordon shows the Batman the Joker card for the first time.


The audience erupted.  Everyone knew what was coming next.  And the goosebumps on my arm flared up like a nasty infection.  Begins was made better by what followed.  Nolan's interpretation of the origin story was mesmerizing and infectious.  His basis in reality was astounding, and the emotional connection the audience feels with the characters, especially that of Bruce Wayne's makes this movie all that it is.  When that Joker card flashes on screen at the end of the film, you know that we haven't seen the end of Batman on screen, and that a bigger, better, and bolder sequel would follow.  


With the fans clamoring for more, and the time ticking down until midnight.  Hans Zimmer ushered the fans out of their seats as the credits rolled, to refill sodas and popcorn, smoke cigarettes and text, and best of all--discuss the film everyone has just seen.  I was thrilled to have just seen Begins again, and had just a half hour more to wait until The Dark Knight.

In between viewings of BB and TDKR, the show-runners came into the theater to do a trivia session and give out prizes.  This was another great moment for me, one that I will remember for a long time.  I was the winner of the trivia session, answering questions right in front of 508 other avid Batman fans.  The question that sealed the deal was: Christopher Nolan and Michael Caine have worked on five films together, can you name them in chronological order?  The answers, at least to me, came as quickly as the Pledge of Allegiance: The Prestige, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises.


I won a gift set of posters and stickers for The Dark Knight Trilogy.  It was a small gift, but the experience is what made it for me.  Getting that right in front of hundreds of people, having those same people cheer and clap for you, as well as a select few chanting "nerd" at me, made me even more proud to consider myself a "Nolanite."  In Nolan I Trust.  


Fresh off my big win, came the screening of The Dark Knight.  Everyone in the theater was amped up for this one, as it truly is the best CBM of all time.  The experience was amazing.  Knowing that everyone in the theater has seen the movie at least a few hundred times (or maybe that was just me?) it was fun to see people laugh and applaud at the same scenes that we did 4 years prior when it was still fresh and exciting.


This movie flew by for me, it felt like I was watching a trailer.  Even though I know every line of dialogue and how every frame is shot, I still found myself on the edge of my seat, filled with suspense.  "The Pencil Trick," the chase scene, the classic Bale growl, and Ledger's once-in-a-lifetime performance.  These moments are what made this movie great.


When it finally got to be time for Gary Oldman to deliver his gut-wrenching monologue at the end of the film, I started to cry.  "This is it," I thought to myself, "it is really going to end."  It was 11:11 when the credits stopped rolling (and yes I did make a wish, and yes, it did come true).  49 minutes until the epic conclusion to The Dark Knight Trilogy.


I left the theater to call a few of my friends and express my emotions and thoughts, and to have once last little debate about how the whole saga would end.  I looked around and saw over 2,000 other Batman fans all thinking and doing the same thing.  The scene was surreal.  After ten minutes of pacing and feelings of sadness and excitement, I went back to my seat to get ready for The Dark Knight Rises.

When the opening credits hit, I had a rush of anticipation course through my veins and into my head where I just burst out and cheer and a laugh, because this was the moment I had been waiting for.  The applause was deafening.


I didn't know exactly what to expect from this film.  I knew what I wanted, but I didn't know what I would get-and it NEVER even came close to disappointing me.


I am not going to spoil anything or give any major plot points away because I am saving that for my review, but I will say that there are moments in this film that had my jaw drop and look to my left and right to see hundreds of others with the exact same facial expression on.  This film is grand in scale and even bigger and better than TDK.  I was on the edge of my seat for the entire thing.  I remember getting that feeling that I was still living in real time, and that in real time--this film would eventually end.  In my dreams, this movie goes on for ten days.


Tom Hardy's Bane was a character that I had followed since it was first announced.  I had spoken in Bane's accent for weeks on end, and even started the Bane chant on countless opportunities.  "DESHAY! DESHAY! PASHA! PASHA!"  This film was amazing.


I cried twice during this film.  Once, during a very emotional, hard-to-watch scene; and the second, as the credits started to roll.  When the title of the movie splashed on the screen as it does at the end of every one of Nolan's films, I became paralyzed.  Completely muted from feeling emotion, from speaking, from moving. This film had that strong of a reaction in me.  It took 20 minutes after the film ended for me to regain some semblance of normalcy.  The last credit rolled, and it was over.


The fire had risen, and the legend had ended.


This near-12 hour excursion to the cinema to see one of my favorite characters of all time portrayed on screen by my favorite filmmaker of all time was a once in a lifetime occurrence.  You only get to see a film for the first time once, and this was as good as it was ever going to get for me.


The sum of it's parts are never greater than the whole.  Christopher Nolan has fashioned the greatest film trilogy to ever be told.  Each film compliments one another, before coming together masterfully in it's epic finale.


I can only wish that my son will someday be able to experience such a strong experience at the movies as I did on July 20th.  This is what we go to the movies for: spectacle, and The Dark Knight Trilogy is truly a spectacle.


You can label cinematic adventures into two categories: movies and films.  These three Batman stories are films, and three of the finest films ever assembled.


I witnessed the entire legend in IMAX on July 20th, 2012.


5 stars out of 5 stars.