Silent Bob

More glowing praise for Dark Knight, this one from Garth Franklin at Dark Horizons.

I actually thought emo-Parker was one of the more entertaining parts of the movie. But the plot was just terrible. Sam Raimi obviously didn't know what to do with Venom, so he threw him in for the last, what, ten/fifteen minutes? Why even introduce Gwen and Captain Stacy if you're not going to do anything with them? The Sandman killed Uncle Ben? The villains team up for no apparent reason after meeting for thirty seconds in an alleyway? And for godsakes, is Raimi ever going to let Spidey crack a fuckin' joke? The movie was a mess. Just because fanboys are screaming for something, doesn't mean that throwing it all into one movie and hitting "liquefy" will make it any good.

No! Don't do it! Please!

No you're probably right, but it still wasn't as bad as most people say it was. Spider-man 3, that's as bad as people say. X3 is not.

Meh, I don't understand the X3 hate. Yeah, it wasn't as good as the first two movies (what threequil is?) and it did a few things wrong (wait...Cyclops is dead?) but it was still better than three quarters of the comic flicks out there.

I found a site that has 13 clips from The Dark Knight that run about 30 seconds to a minute each. All of the clips are high quality, which leads me to believe that they're officially sanctioned previews and won't be immediately yanked by Warner Bros, but you might want to check them out soon just in case. There isn't anything in them that's a major spoiler, but they do add up to about 10 minutes of footage so if you want to go into the flick completely cold, I'd avoid 'em. Some things we learn from these clips (minor spoilers): 1. Anyone who didn't like Christian Bale's scary voice from Begins (I didn't mind it so much) will be disappointed. It returns. 2. If the brief fight scene in one of these clips is any indication, Nolan's greatly improved his fight direction. It also helps that Batman's new costume is a helluva lot more flexible than the last one. 3. Not that anyone needs more convincing, but Ledger's Joker really is unlike any other performance of the character. Darker, quieter, a little more grounded, and much scarier. 4. Apparently one of the Joker's big schemes is that Batman needs to go public and reveal his identity or he promises that (according to the very first teaser) "starting tonight, people will die". 5. Nolan must shoot a lot of takes, because many of the most memorable lines from earlier previews ("The dawn is coming." "This city deserves a better class of criminal. And I'm gonna give it to them." "I'll settle for his loved ones.") sound completely different in their final version. 6. Taking place just after the end of Begins, neither Wayne Manor nor the Batcave seem to be rebuilt yet, so Batman has a new lair (we've seen plenty of it in other previews already). He has, however, started putting together his classic, huge, multi-screen Bat-computer. By the way, scroll down through the site if you get the chance. Not only has this guy collected every trailer and poster that has been released (and some that haven't), but he also has a clip on there that I haven't seen anywhere else - one that shows the briefest of glimpses of Two Face himself.

Yeah, he's a big fan (note the Incredibles' masks...not to mention the comic appearance in the Iron Giant) and tried for years to get the rights. I heard he was pretty close around the time of Eisner's death. I even met and talked a little bit with one of Eisner's friends and biographer, who said it was practically a done deal (and even suggested that Bird might bring the property to Pixar for consideration as his next project). But I guess, being a close buddy of Eisener's, Miller was able to snatch up the rights before Bird had a chance. This is all just second-hand info, of course, but if even half of it's true, it's a damn shame.

(Sigh) Yes it does. At first Miller tried to justify it by talking about how Eisner took the Spirit to such "dark and scary" places and he wanted to bring that forth in a modern way to a modern audience. Now his line is that this is his interpretation of the Spirit, so he's going to do it the way he knows how to do. To which I say, "Fuck off, Miller. Give it back to Brad Bird because he could have done it the way Eisner knew how to do it."

I liked Superman Returns too except for . That was crap.

(Sigh) It's going to be a painful two weeks.

Yeah frankly I think this is going to be a battle between Frank Darabont and Rob Reiner. Neither of them can do any wrong as far as Stephen King is concerned.

Thanks to the recent advance screening of Dark Knight, some early reviews are trickling in, and the word is good. Insanely good. Here's Peter Travers from Rolling Stone: That's the second review I've read to compare the movie to Godfather Part II and A Clockwork Orange, and probably the fifth or sixth that has compared it to Heat. A Batman film being favorably compared to Heat...wow. I simply cannot wait.

Guys, the Marvel studio exec is named JIM BECILE.

Since pretty recently. I hadn't heard about that one, but it has enough buzz behind it to be on his IMDb page.

You're in luck, then. After he finishes (swear to god) Marvel's Doctor Strange movie, Pete Jackson's two Hobbit films, and possibly a third Hellboy, he's planning to make At the Mountains of Madness.

Y'see? Dr. G agrees with me. Dr. G's word is law.

Last I heard, his Silver Surfer movie got dropped thanks to the anti-success of Fantastic Four 2.

Not necessarily. I think the best way to champion the validity of comics as an art form is to show the variety that is possible in the medium. In this country, comics and animation are treated the same way by the majority of the public - they consider it a genre instead of a medium. A superhero movie is a genre. A comic book movie should not be. Like animation, you can tell any possible kind of story through the medium of comics and therein lies its artistic validity. Some of the most acclaimed comic book movies have showcased the range of stories that most people wouldn't expect to find - Road to Perdition, V For Vendetta, A History of Violence, Ghost World, Sin City, Persepolis, even well done but drastically different superhero films like X2, Spider-man and Batman Begins. A Punisher movie shouldn't strive to be any more than what a Punisher comic book is. Instead, it should strive to show the general public that comics can do bloody, r-rated vengeance stories that are just as good as anything they'd find in Man on Fire, Kill Bill, or Death Wish.

Speaker of The Punisher, War Zone director Lexi Alexander recently posted this in her blog about the trailer's inability to show just how the movie will be.

You lie! Dillon has three faces, Bradstreet has four covers. I can understand the animosity towards the guy, but he does what he does very well and I give him credit for that.

I saw parts of it. I actually found it to be a pretty good movie if you turn the sound down and keep your eyes focused firmly on Jennifer Garner's midsection.