More often than not a film is hyped up before it is released so much that there is no way it can live up to expectations. I feared The Dark Knight was going to fall into this category — everyone was going on and on about how Heath Ledger was simply amazing. Of course my concern didn’t stop me from cyber-stalking this film for over a year.
Fortunately this film didn’t disappoint me at all, in fact it blew me away (as, judging from it’s box office performance, it did for many others). It wasn’t without flaws but it deserves all the praise it’s been getting. The Dark Knight wasn’t just a simple superhero movie that relied on fancy CGI and action scenes to distract the audience from a lack of any substance (in fact aside from Two-Face there was very minimal CGI). The characters were real, their decisions believable, and the themes running throughout the movie very serious. Never did the film really seem to drag on, never did the humor of the Joker distract from the seriously dark tone.
And let me tell you, seeing it on the IMAX was beautiful.
As a bonus the trailer for Watchmen was attached to The Dark Knight. I honestly think the trailer was just created to show fans of the original comic to have faith, that they aren’t going to screw it up (here’s looking at you, Transformers). Bonus points for the Smashing Pumpkins music. They’ll have to take some liberties if it is to work well as a movie, but so far the trailer has at least got me hyped for it, giving me something to look forward to now that The Dark Knight has been released.
Other media of note: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog. Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Houser), Nathan Fillian, and Felicia Day in a three-part mini-series that’s reminiscent of the Buffy Musical episode, but so much better. Worth a buy on iTunes, it really doesn’t get much better than this folks.
Of course I got the iPhone 3G, I am an Apple whore. Hardware-wise I’m very impressed — the 3G speeds are a welcome relief from the old EDGE network, and the GPS works very well. The software (v2.0) leaves a bit to be desired though, it really feels like it was really a beta release and the next version will iron out all the bugs. Bugs aside the Application Store for the phone has impressed me especially considering the great software out within the first month of it opening. Super Monkey Ball is a blast.
I started up D&D again with some friends from work. We ran a quick demo campaign to try out the new fourth edition and it went very well. They’ve certainly learned from the mistakes of 3.5 and streamlined a lot of things making the game much more fun with less book-searching for obscure rules. We’re starting a full campaign next week.
One week till Otakon an one month till vacation in South Carolina, woo.
Comments are closed on entries older than two months.
