finally, i’ve been able to find the new twilight trailer on YouTube. here it is!! i can’t WAIT for the movie!
let’s put a smile on that face: dark knight review July 20, 2008
well, it’s been a few days, and i’ve managed to see “the dark knight” twice in 24 hours. i went and saw it at midnight with some friends, and went again friday night (coincidentally, i saw one of the people i went with at midnight, too, haha).
first of all, i just want to say that it might have been the best movie i’ve seen in a long long time. definitely goes in my top five. if you’ve read my blog before, you know that i’m not a comic book person, but i do like the movies. however, this movie went far above and beyond a “comic book movie” (think “iron man,” “the incredible hulk”). in my opinion, it was on the edge of being practically a psychological thriller. my boyfriend, who is a comic aficionado, absolutely loved it, too.
according to this article on CNN ShowBiz, the movie took in $155.34 million this weekend, making it the top grossing film for opening weekend so far, finally beating out the idiocy that was “spiderman-3.” i’m still mad about that – they made two awesome movies and then beat the pulp out of the third one until it was barely passable as a film, let alone a succession of the “spiderman” films. on opening night, “dark knight” took in $66.4 million, again beating out “S3.”
if we’re going in terms of rating, i give this film 4.5 stars out of 5. i’d really like to give it the full 5, but some parts were a little long/slow. the reason they were long, though, is because of all the story that had to be explained – and they did it very, very well. let’s go with a 4.9 – it was really just that good. it was good for the comic fan and for the non-fan (me), and explained enough to have it make sense to me, but left enough open that i had to do some research to understand some things, like why the joker told a few different stories about how he got his scars (because he’s just insane and has nothing to lose).
from here on out, spoilers are guaranteed. so don’t read further if you don’t want to be spoiled.
the plot: amazing. i was thoroughly impressed. it really sets up the show for you, giving you all of the characters and making you really like them. it starts out with the joker already basically running the mob scene in gotham, but they are not happy about it. the city slowly breaks down as he continues to take control of everything. there’s a lot less action than in the first film, but that doesn’t make it any the lesser. i was definitely impressed. especially since the joker ended up winning, with corrupting harvey dent into two-face, making gotham’s white knight the darkest of them all, besides himself.
characters: christian bale definitely creates an outstanding batman, flanked by a wonderful array of sidekicks in michael caine, morgan freeman, maggie gyllenhaal, and aaron eckhart (to an extent). he’s beautiful and talented, proven yet again. he was really just awesome. batman really ran the gamut of emotions in this film, experiencing great highs and the lowest of lows.
i am SO glad they replaced katie holmes with maggie gyllenhaal. they look a lot alike, but maggie is just way more talented. my boyfriend even asked me if i was sure they had changed the actress – that’s how much they look alike. maggie really did an amazing job – even though she died, she was amazing. i thought it was really fitting that her character died – it seemed like everyone was disappointed, but we all know that batman doesn’t have a girlfriend/wife as an adult, so she had to go sometime. this is what really made batman the “dark” knight of the film, and it was good. i loved that the joker told him dent’s location and said it was hers – it truly made the joker the sadistic character he was meant to be.
aaron eckhart was a fantastic harvey dent – turned – two-face. i couldn’t imagine a better actor for the job. he did so well as harvey dent, and there was so much foreshadowing to him becoming two-face. when he was around, it seemed like every other word was “face” or he was flipping that two-headed coin of his. this was a lot clearer the second time i saw the film, even though i had known what was coming the first time. his two-face was scary, too – i knew christopher nolan had said it would be unlike any other two-face we’ve ever seen, and he definitely lived up to that statement. it was a little CGI-y for me, but still terrifying and enough to keep me rooted to my seat. i’m praying that he’s not really dead because i’ll be so sad if two-face, one of the “big baddies” for batman, only gets a half hour in such an epic movie dedicated partly to his creation.
told you it was scary, didn’t i? eckhart is amazing.
michael caine, gary oldman, and morgan freeman all stood out as incredible actors, like always. they provided the perfect sidekicks to bale, and did a lot in their own right. they really helped the character of batman flesh out and stand as a force to be reckoned with.
and then we come to the joker, our wonderful heath ledger (RIP). ledger played the joker the way everyone has always wanted to see him. he was the perfect mix of funny and sadistic, often at the same time (early on, he does a magic trick where he sticks a pencil into a table, eraser side up, and slams a mobster’s head into it, and then the pencil is “magically gone”). the chemistry between ledger and bale is amazing and often a little frightening, as they do their dance to see who’s finally going to win out. the sad part is that the joker does end up winning, but he’s locked up for another time. even though ledger is gone, i’m sure they’ll bring out another fabulous actor to fill his shoes because that’s such an important role. ledger, practically unrecognizable underneath his makeup (except for the one scene where he doesn’t wear any and it’s scarily familiar even with the scarring), really plays the joker as he was meant to be, set on wreaking havoc upon gotham with no strings to be pulled and nothing to lose, almost causing batman to lose his mind and causing harvey dent to completely lose his. this is the joker as everyone has always wanted to see him, and he truly made the film the incredible epic that it was.
although the movie was nearly three hours long, it was completely worth it. however, it is rated PG-13 for a reason, and i don’t think people should take younger children (there were a LOT of scared elementary school kids at the midnight showing). it may be batman, but it’s not a fun family film – like i said, it’s practically a psychological thriller and is not meant to be taken lightly. it will emotionally drain you if you’re paying attention at all, so don’t plan on doing anything else except sleeping or discussing it with friends.
in other news, there was a TWILIGHT trailer at the midnight show!! i think we might have gotten the wrong trailer reel, haha, because no one else who saw dark knight saw this trailer, but it was absolutely awesome. makes me even more thrilled for the movie in december!!
i haven’t been able to find it on YouTube except for this stupid E!T link, but here’s the link to it on Yahoo! Movies: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810010670/video/8858452
unfortunately, there wasn’t a harry potter trailer with “the dark knight,” but there was a “mummy 3″ trailer, so it looks like HP will be with the new mummy. i loved the first two mummy films, but i’m afraid this is going to be a disappointment. oh well. it’ll have the HP trailer, and it comes out in a few weeks, so that’ll be nice.
accutane, the dark knight, and wall-e June 23, 2008
i finished my last dose of accutane today. well, technically i was on the generic brand isotretinoin (more commonly known as sotret?). i feel thrilled that i’m finally done with my cycle, but i’m interested to see where this is going to take me now. my symptoms have only been dry skin – especially lips and nose, but only one minor nosebleed. i did moisturize my face like nobody’s business, so that’s probably why that was ok. and i traded off between aquaphor and cocoa butter for my arms and legs to keep them from drying out too bad.
i’m excited to be done, but, like i said, i’m nervous. i know there’s a huge success rate, but a lot of people have to do it twice, and i hope i don’t. i feel like it put me in a lower mood than i used to be in, and i’m hoping that’ll lift now that i’m not on it anymore. but don’t get me wrong – i am so glad i did it. i used to have pretty bad acne, but now my face is as clear as the sky in july. i love it. love it love it love it.
i’d definitely recommend it to someone. i know there are 2385230 awful side effects, but they only happen to the vast minority of people, and across the board results are great. it was definitely worth being a little crabbier and having to apply chapstick about fifty times a day to have clear skin.
i’m currently reading jodi picoult’s “salem falls.” i just finished “the pact” and remembered that i had this one tucked away downstairs, so i pulled it out. i wish i owned “nineteen minutes.” i may have to buy it, but i have about a million books on that list, so we’ll just have to see. i really can’t afford to buy any more books on top of my college book costs, although i seem to be mysteriously addicted to the five-dollar-movie rack at wal-mart. good movies at an awesome price. i just can’t stop. seriously, who puts “catch me if you can,” “something’s gotta give,” and “A KNIGHT’S TALE” on the $5 rack?? seriously, have some respect for mr. ledger.
speaking of heath ledger, i am so pumped for the dark knight. seriously, it’s going to be awesome. i’m a little nervous because on all the trailers he looks really pretty terrifying. and i haaate scary movies, but i don’t think this is going to be that scary and besides, who passes up christian bale and heath ledger and batman and a midnight movie experience? all four great things. i’ll post my favorite trailer and a few screens.
scary, huh? oh heath. i am so sad that this movie killed you because you were so amazing.
sorry, i couldn’t find a good screen of batman, unfortunately. but let’s look at some more of these names, ok? michael caine, gary oldman, and morgan freeman, all fantastic. and maggie gyllenhaal replaced katie holmes, and it was about time that they got someone who can act their way out of a box into a movie (not katie holmes). we’ve already seen aaron and katie getting it on all over his apartment in “thank you for smoking,” and i don’t need to be blinded again. i just love maggie, especially in “stranger than fiction.”
also, side note – did anyone else know that the beautiful and talented nestor carbonell is in this?? i fell in love with him on LOST and i am so excited to see him again!
one more thing i am absolutely thrilled about in this movie is the introduction of harvey dent, who becomes two-face. and who better to play him than aaron eckhart? a brilliant actor (thank you for smoking, no reservations) who deserves such an awesome part. he always seems to play the “bad guy who’s really good,” but here he’ll just be the bad guy, so it’ll be interesting to see how he does that.
speaking of other fantastic movies, disney pixar’s wall-e comes out this weekend. some of their new movies have been flops compared to the greats, but i think this one will be another classic, like nemo did when it joined their ranks. cars was pretty good, but it barely scraped the surface. some of the others…just no good. anyway. wall-e looks promising. i just love disney pixar and it sounds like it’s going to be great.
i suppose i’m done name-dropping for tonight, but i can’t wait for either of these movies.
all i’ve been listening to for the past few days are those audiobooks still. i’m on “eclipse” right now, and about 2/3 of the way through, i think. i think this might be my favorite book. so good. the characters do tend to grimace, hiss, glower, sigh, and cry quite a bit, though. oh well. i suppose i can take a few sacrifices for a good book. i downloaded “anne of green gables” from librivox, where you can download a ton of audiobooks that are in the public domain, so i guess that’s next on my list.
my newest musical addiction, however, is charlotte sometimes. on her myspace she lists her influences as being Fiona Apple, Roy Orbison, Van Morrison, Carol King, The Everly Brothers, Death Cab For Cutie, Lisa Loeb, Simon and Garfunkel, The Cardigans, Tracy Bonham, Snow Patrol, Billie Holiday, The Postal Service, Buddy Holly, The Violent Femmes, Rilo Kiley, Tegan and Sara, so you can make your judgments based on that. i personally love her.
and courtesy of nice facts, here are some, well…nice facts.
did you know that males sweat 40% more than females? mon dieu!
and from the quick quotes quill:
“Models are like baseball players. We make a lot of money quickly, but all of a sudden we’re 30 years old, we don’t have a college education, we’re qualified for nothing, and we’re used to a very nice lifestyle. The best thing is to marry a movie star.” – cindy crawford
the incredible hulk…take two June 17, 2008
so i went and saw the new hulk movie last weekend, and i thought i’d give it a little review here. marvel definitely did the right thing in buying back the rights to its characters for movies. first iron man with robert downey jr., which was AWESOME (although i’m ashamed to say that i didn’t see it until last weekend, either – my boyfriend and i had a “marvel”ous weekend. corny, i know.), and now edward norton starring as the hulk (unfortunately, it’s not staying that way). i’m a huge ed norton fan, so that’s a big downer. but i digress.
- acting – ed norton, as bruce banner/the hulk, was brilliant, as usual. it’s too bad marvel wouldn’t listen to him and make the movie a little more “human” as opposed to action, but he did a fantastic job of making banner really sympathetic in this role. liv tyler as betty ross, banner’s love interest – i’m not her hugest fan, but her babydoll voice didn’t kill her in this movie. she did pretty well. fortunately she’s mostly in the second half. tim roth, as blonsky/”bad hulk” the antagonist, was quite good. talented actor who did well in his hunt of banner. i liked ross’s new boyfriend – he kept me laughing out of sheer ridiculousness.
- speaking of “humanistic v. action” – you’d think the US army would have figured out after a battle or two that the hulk cannot be defeated with pistols. and if you had banner as a human, why would you do things the hard way and force him into being the hulk before you shoot large explosives at him? it just seemed like the US army couldn’t figure it out…oh well, that’s nothing new.
- computer graphics – good thing marvel bought back their rights and made the hulk look the way he should, not like he came off a can of jolly green giant. blonsky’s hulk was pretty nasty looking, especially with those spikes up his back. i wouldn’t want to cross him in a dark alley…anywhere, really. flying objects and things thrown by the hulk twins looked much more realistic, and there were no jumping/throwing helicopters across a desert shenanigans this time around.
- plot – again, marvel, fantastic. they pretty much rewrote the hulk’s origin, showing it as a science experiment gone badly badly wrong rather than some nuclear crap that happened when banner was a bebe. i felt like the relationship between banner and ross was a little forced at times, but that could be tyler’s slightly-above-par acting.
overall, it was probably worth the $9 my boyfriend’s parents paid for me to see this movie. i’d probably pay to see it again. none of us are “comic book crazies” and we all enjoyed it a lot. can’t wait for the next marvel movies and the final avengers movie coming out when all of the movies for the avengers have been made.
i suppose that’s about all for today. i downloaded the twilight audiobooks this morning from audible.com, so that’s keeping me definitely entertained while i work in the basement at the office all by my lonesome.
i’m looking into setting up a twitter account for the blog. we’ll see. still reading “the pact” by jodi picoult and listening today mostly to death cab for cutie’s new cd “narrow stairs.”
did you know that mel blanc, who played the voice of bugs bunny, was allergic to carrots? ehhh, what’s up, doc?
the premiere: twilight, jodi picoult, and jim dale June 17, 2008
well, i suppose this is my first post for this blog. with the exception of my high school xanga, i’ve never been able to keep a blog up consistently. i’m not planning on having a huge fanbase or anything – i just want to keep up with things. during the school year, i’m a pretty avid journaler, but i can’t seem to keep up with that in the summer. i figured a blog might be a better way to keep track of things – especially things trivial enough to keep out of my journal, like books, my classes, school, just kind of whatever.
i’m a junior at oklahoma christian university majoring in english writing and minoring in spanish, international studies, and accounting. so basically i’m almost picking up another major in liberal studies, but just short a few hours. accounting does seem like the odd man out, but i’m doing it for the business knowledge, since you have to know not only business accounting, but general business, management, and marketing, as well. my mom’s a CPA so she talked me into it – but i’m taking basic accounting one this summer and i really like it, so maybe it’s inherent. we’ll see.
i’m going to try to keep my posts pretty short and to the point and only write about a few things per post, maybe four or five if i’m feeling frisky.
tonight i think i’m going to start out with talking about the “twilight saga,” which has quickly risen in my stock. i know, i’m even judging myself for loving them. i tried so hard to resist, but they’re just too good. i think the characters are generally pretty flat, and i don’t think i’d be a fan of either bella (too whiny and cries too much) or edward (too perfect/noble, well, except the whole vampire thing) in real life, but i do enjoy a good page-turner. and it did keep me up two nights in a row, reading when i should have been getting valuable sleeping done in between work and evening accounting class (i know, right?)
BUT here’s the kicker – the movie. i cannot wait. it’s got a wonderful cast, and rob pattinson is making me fall in love with edward out of sheer good looks. i applaud whoever did the casting – can’t wait. kristen stewart (in the land of women, panic room) is playing bella, and so far the trailers, etc., look good. i’ll post the official trailer and a clip shown at some mtv awards show or something. i don’t watch mtv. it sucks these days. but if they’re posting twilight clips, i’ll watch those.
here’s the mtv clip
and here’s the official trailer
it’s going to be good. i promise. and if i’m lying, i’ll be right there at midnight gouging out my eyes with you.
mm. sheer beauty.
currently i’m reading “the pact” by jodi picoult. it’s definitely my third or fourth or eighth read, but it’s just so good. i can’t put it down. the basic premise is of two teens, chris harte and emily gold, who grow up together and start dating as teens, and then one night emily is found dead, a bullethole in her head, with chris next to her the whole time. he claims it was a suicide pact between the two of them, but it’s up to time and the courtroom to decide whether it was a pact or a homicide. it’s an incredible pageturner. i cry every time i read it.
other books of hers that i enjoy are “my sister’s keeper,” “nineteen minutes,” and “salem falls.” i wouldn’t recommend “the tenth circle,” but only because it delves into the supernatural, and that’s not my thing (and probably shouldn’t be hers, either, but that’s just my opinion).
currently my musical addiction is PlayRadioPlay!, which is a one-man electronic/pop band from aledo, texas started by daniel hunter in december 2005. he writes, performs, and records all of his own music. the sound can be compared to The Postal Service, Hellogoodbye, Electric President, and other electronic acts. (thanks, wiki) but for real, if you like postal service and hellogoodbye, you’ll love him. his voice also sounds almost identical to the singer from death cab, so there’s another good tip. love it.
other topics i may talk about include my favorite tv shows (lost, grey’s anatomy, heroes, i love new york, flavor of love), harry potter, classes i take, going to a christian university, what i do in my spare time, podcasts, writing, work, just whatever, really.
shoutout to jim dale tonight. i just started listening to his harry potter audiobooks, and i’ve got to say that he’s amazing. if you don’t listen, you should get on it. his voices are fantastic. if you get on itunes and download mugglecast episode 137, it’s mostly an interview with him. he does a few voices and talks about recording and all. heck, while you’re at it, download all of the mugglecast casts. they’re great.
did you know that TYPEWRITER is the longest word you can type out using only one line on the keyboard? try it. i know you did.
