Public Enemies - What Did You Think?
Essay: Is Kevin, the Tropical Bird in Pixar’s UP, a Nod to the LGBT Movement?
Posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 by Hunter Stephenson
Yesterday, CBS News aired a segment on an “ongoing blogger debate” over the representation of black people and negative stereotypes in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. Of course, after previous and longer segments on the failing economy and Air France, even the way in which Katie Couric mentioned “bloggers” carried a decidedly trivial tone connoting birds-on-a-wire. Snob. However, given that hardly anyone has seen a near-complete version of the fourth-quarter film, I have to agree that any “chirped” anger, feigned or genuine, is premature. Also: the world is mad, get over it.
But heated discussions about Disney’s movies, especially in this case, do have precedent: clips from the studio’s infamous 1946 film, Song of the South, are forever available to support and fan the issues of political correctness. Moreover, theories about sociological, hidden and subliminal messages in Disney films and characters are so prevailing that I have enjoyed intriguing classes on the very subject in junior high (for free) and at university (for a repossessed Porsche).
Which brings me to Disney’s Pixar, where animated films are made to awe kids and—and arguably more-so—adults. Feted, beloved, and at times “progressive” as it may be, Pixar is not immune to similarly “bloggy” issues regarding political correctness; a debate over the absence of female lead characters in their films began earlier this year and remains a valid and popular talking point.
Did The Wolverine Workprint Leak Cost Fox $29 Million?
Posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
20th Century Fox has released the final download number for the leaked workprint version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and according to THR it turns out to be four times greater than previous estimates. Wolverine has been downloaded an estimated 4 million times according to Fox. But truth be told, Wolverine wasn’t even the top downloaded movie on the internet the week after it hit torrent sites.
With last year’s average ticket price of $7.18, this equates to $28.7 million dollars! But did Fox really lose $29 million dollars due to piracy? The film made a whopping $85 million in its opening weekend, but Fox believes it could have cracked the $100 million mark if it weren’t for the leaked workprint. I call bullshit.
First Look: H2: Halloween 2. Rob Zombie Updates. BONUS RANT: Hunter Stephenson’s Take on Zombie’s Halloween vs. Platinum Dunes’ Friday the 13th (Of Suck)
Posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 by Hunter Stephenson
The gory image above is our first clear look at Laurie Strode, once again played by actress Scout Taylor-Compton, in H2: Halloween 2. Nice chipped teeth, eh? As you’ll recall, Strode is the (formerly) estranged sister of slasher Michael Myers, and according to horror visionaire Rob Zombie, “let’s just say this is the best part of her stay [at the hospital]. The worst is yet to come.” It will be interesting to see how Zombie’s sequel deviates from the original underrated 1981 follow-up, which was co-written and ghost-edited by The Shape’s creator, John Carpenter, and also set partially in a hospital to creepy effect. On his blog, Zombie has ended speculation about actor Malcolm McDowell reprising the pivotal character, Dr. Loomis, confirming that “he’s back and ready to deal with Big Mike.”As we’ve mentioned, H2 is due with the quickness this August and is now shooting in the state of Georgia.
After the jump: Hunter’s lengthy rant on the complete disappoinment and failure that was Marcus Nispel’s Friday the 13th, and Platinum Dunes’ annoying reign over horror icons vs. Rob Zombie’s polarizing Halloween and interpretation of Michael Myers. No friggin’ contest!
How to Disgruntle Loyal Viewers with Advertising: 30 Rock and SNL
Posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 by Hunter Stephenson
“What is comedy? Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.” - Steve Martin
“It is a sad fact of life, but the truth is we all have to eat a little shit from time to time.” - Bruce Willis, in the trailer for Fast Food Nation
Last Thursday night, in keeping with new tradition, viewers of NBC’s 30 Rock took to Twitter to declare “St. Valentine’s Day” one of the best episodes ever. And it was. Judah Friedlander sported a Troma t-shirt. Tracey Morgan intentionally endangered a hot blind woman. Tiny Fey’s mouth calculations sent 20something fan-gals off in secret to the nearest mirror. The superlative usual. It was the show’s embrace of cupid’s torturous holiday that added next levs hilarity and desperation to the ongoing romantic subplots between Fey’s Liz Lemon and her “cartoon-pilot” neighbor (Jon Hamm), and Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy and his Catholic caliente pursuit (Salma Hayek). At times, the marquee-value, the smart-date-friendly structure, and the plentiful LoLs warranted a bigger screen. It felt like you should be paying for what you were seeing.
Alas, the morning after was quite different. Online, some fans were now expressing remorse over the very same episode; some were angry as hell: Network pissed. Kurt Vonnegut once said that music criticism is like putting on a suit of armor to attack a hot fudge sundae; well, to me it seemed that an indeterminable number of 30 Rock fans were now sitting in cubicles or in pajama armor and going to war with 30 Rock’s manipulative use of a dessert from McDonald’s called the McFlurry. Indeed, last Thursday’s episode began and ended on a love note with Baldwin and Hayek savoring this highly feted plebeian ice cream treat; moreover, the episode ended inside a McD’s, where the couple reunited arm-in-arm with McFlurrys. A window display of the Golden Arches was in full view.
Update: Slashfilm and CHUD Still Divided on Facebook: The Movie, Remain Buds
Posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 by Hunter Stephenson
Update: No loving bitch slaps were ultimately exchanged. We can all sleep soundly. However, Devin did make an LOLCats: The Movie joke on air. FYI: “Andrew Stanton from Pixar is directing.”
Peter leaves for an epic film festival triathlon and suddenly Slashfilm is vulnerable to attack? No way, dudes. Our readers will easily guess who the first sneaky culprit is. Yep, one Devin Faraci from Chud.com, known here as the guy who labeled Wall-E a would-be date rapist on the /Filmcast. Today, Devin threatened via Twitter to “lovingly bitchslap” Slashfilm (more specifically: me) this evening on G4’s magnificent Attack of the Show.
The reason? Well, Faraci has quickly anointed himself as the web’s chortling spokesman for Facebook: The Movie, and he’ll be defending it on G4 tonight as such. Yesterday, FB:TM was announced by writer Aaron Sorkin on, duh, Facebook, only to be immediately and unanimously meh’d by /Film and its readers. Devin then responded by comparing the reception here to “bitching about email,” in reference to both the film and the site/company. He’s playing up Sorkin’s involvement (accomplished, talented, agreed) and presumes the rather typical controversy surrounding the company’s start will be the basis for a really good film.
Well, let’s say Sorkin was writing Wal-Mart: The Movie or Match.com: The Movie instead: would he choose to first announce the film on those respective companies’ websites, especially if he plans to deal fairly with controversy? Moreover, Faraci calls me “ignorant” and “snobbish” for not aligning with his view that Facebook isn’t much different “from email,” the phone book or Verizon. His Scrabulous-referencing headline aside, Faraci completely overlooks how sites like Facebook forever impact(ed) personal identity, relationships, consumerism, privacy, conformity, expression, for good and bad and who knows. I’m not championing or “rebelling” against the site or being a hippity hipster. Unlike Devin, I simply don’t think people hold Facebook dear enough to see a feature about it this soon, like they might, say, Atari or Nintendo, hence my comparison yesterday to The Wizard. Whatever.
And not to be disrespectful or ageist, but is the 47-year-old Sorkin of walk-and-talk fame—who admits to knowing nada about social networking and the site—the guy for a high profile film on this subject? And if so, who’s the audience? Grandpa meet Devin? Fun.
Good luck with that bitch slap, Devin!1111. FAIL. <3 Attack of the Show airs tonight at 7 and 10 p.m. EST.
$47 Million Outlander Sent to DVD-ville By Weinstein Co?
Posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 by Hunter Stephenson
UPDATE 2: TWC is getting back to us. Now they say tomorrow.
UPDATE: A reader from Outlander.solsector.net says, “There’s been no confirmation about the DVD date and nearest myself and one of the producers can tell there really isn’t a date set for the DVD much less a theatrical release. Plus, The Weinstein Company is contractually obligated to give outlander at least a limited theatrical release.” We’ll be contacting TWC tomorrow.
Recipe: Go into the closet and dust off Castle Grayskull. Place an E.T. figurine with its arms raised on one of the turrets. Pour a goblet filled with red wine all over it. Now set it on fire. Pretend it’s worth $47 million. Send a recording of this to The Weinstein Co. in New York and entitle it “Angry Outlander Fan.” Kill yourself.
It’s a sad day when a movie featuring Vikings battling a giant, monstrous alien with the help of a spaceman doesn’t see a theatrical release. Do you know what P.T. Barnum could have done with this premise? Slashfilm planned on seeing Outlander on the big screen. Sober. We liked the trailers. We were stoked on what little buzz there was, including a super passionate plea to Ye Gods over at AICN. It wasn’t a friggin’ remake or a Vin Diesel movie or AVP-R, just an ever-rare shot at original genre fare. And based partially on their dedicated work, writer-director Howard McCain and fellow screenwriter Dirk Blackman were recently hired to rewrite Lionsgate’s $100 mill Conan reboot.
If Outlander sucked, we were confident the post-screening laughs and riffage would have made it worthwhile, even more so than Death Race (pretty funny remake, that one). But the fact remains: we could say we were effing there. It would have been a lifetime bond or a primo /Filmcast. Alas, Dread Central has discovered a DVD listing on Amazon via Movies Unlimited for November 18th. Conclusion: it’s been dumped.
There’s no word from TWC on the matter, but the film’s been without a release date for eons. I really hope the studio’s justification isn’t, “Well, Viking movies don’t play” complete with a box office scientist pointing smugly to Pathfinder and The 13th Warrior. Is this the point we’ve reached for genre movies? “Pirates don’t play,” “Vikings don’t play,” cannibals and on down the line?” Knowing TWC, there won’t be any justification. If they treated kids like movies, their basement would have been on the nightly news some time ago.
via Dark Horizons
Lionsgate Gunning For a PG-13 Punisher: War Zone?
Posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 by Hunter Stephenson
Slowly but surely, Punisher: War Zone is being lowered into a grave of WTF by Lionsgate. First, Lexi Alexander, director of the gorey Marvel actioner, was seemingly kicked off the project. We still don’t know what happened exactly. Her candid, rah-rah website was suddenly wiped clean of all prior updates on the film, save for a cryptic “see, hear, speak no evil” monkey post, which was later replaced by a detached entry about a friend’s Bugatti. Today, Latino Review hears that Lionsgate might edit the film for a PG-13 rating. The site speculates that The Dark Knight’s money volcano was an influence. Strange since Lionsgate is moving forward with an R-rated Conan reboot, also being compared (of course) to TDK. But if true, this is beyond absurd. We’re almost intrigued to see them brick, given that Alexander enticed fans with boasts of hardcore bloodshed and Castle-worthy violence for months—later confirmed by this entertaining, head smashing red band clip.
If Lionsgate is reading this, all it takes is a short statement to the fans clarifying your flick’s status. I was just interviewed by a mag about the detrimental impact a studio’s silence in 2008 can have on a movie generally perceived as troubled. War Zone is becoming a prototypical botched case. Current online perception is that there are two bad-buzz nails already in this film’s coffin, and buzz wasn’t too hot to start with. All it takes is one more, like star Ray Stevenson issuing a quiet diss, and this December outing will meet a worse fate than the prior Thomas Jane Punisher. That would make Frank Castle, a character that is, uhhh, not a “college educated Ferrari engine,” 3-for-3 for movie wipeouts.
For weeks, many of the IMAX screenings of The Dark Knight have been sold out. Ticket-buyers have left those screenings ranting and raving about the IMAX difference. So yesterday, 20th Century Fox and Paramount announced that they will also be releasing Night at the Museum 2 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on the big big BIG screen, and it makes me angry because Hollywood doesn’t even understand why people loved the IMAX version of The Dark Knight in the first place. It was because Christopher Nolan shot 20-plus minutes of the film using the large format IMAX cameras. The difference in those four sequences (combined with some establishing shots) made for an unforgettable experience.
I remember when I first began encouraging people to wait to see the film in IMAX, there was a backlash on the site, because people just didn’t get it - much like Hollywood. They had gone to the movie theater and had seen other big Hollywood films on the IMAX screen, and it wasn’t worth the $5+ ticket increase. Not only that, but only a portion of the IMAX screen was being used. When I was at Dreamworks Aniamtion a couple weeks ago, I asked Jeffrey Katzenberg if they had plans to create a movie which would take advantage of the whole IMAX screen. He responded unenthusiastically, claiming the current way they do IMAX is still a “quality experience” for the audience, and that it would depend “on how their footprint expands over time”.
And that is the issue. Right now, IMAX is only thought of as a supplemental. It’s some extra cash to add on to the box office total. But imagine if the movie studios asked themselves “how can we enhance the experience to justify the ticket price increase?” Maybe people would flock to an IMAX release of a film, like they did with The Dark Knight.
One only has to look at the numbers. Yeah, The Dark Knight in IMAX accounts for only about 2% of the theaters, and only about 1% of the screens, but brought in 12.3% of the box office last weekend. Tickets are still being scalped on craigslist, even four weeks in. I’ve tried to get updated box office numbers, but latest I could find are from last week [thanks to Alex at FirstShowing]. In the first 19 days of release, The Dark Knight IMAX Experience grossed over $32 million. I’m guesstimating that the Dark Knight’s IMAX total is probably around $40 million. That’s more money then they made in the 4,025 theaters that shows the film this past weekend. That’s a lot of cash for just 124 of the estimated 10,000 or so screens showing the film. And who knows what the end total of the IMAX release could possibly be. $50 or more million seems possible. That’s more money than Rambo or Speed Racer was able to make in their respective domestic runs.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that every blockbuster film should feature segments shot in IMAX. I’m just saying, if Hollywood wants to take advantage of a virtually unexploited revenue stream, they need to put some focus on providing a value added IMAX experience. You want to get people back to the theaters in this on demand home theater based world? You need to give them a reason. 3D is one of those reasons, and IMAX could easily be the other.
I remember Pixar use to release two versions of their movies on DVD, one that was widescreen, and one that was specially rendered for a full frame television. Of course, things have now changed with the widespread adoption of HDTVs. But back then, most families preferred showing a full frame version of a movie on their 4:3 tv. And we all know that the full frame presentation usually cuts off the sides of the original theatrical presentation. Pixar didn’t want audiences to miss part of the presentation, so they spent the time and money to re-render films like A Bug’s Life for the 4:3 presentation. This way, viewers watching the full frame version wouldn’t miss a thing, and in some cases would even be seeing more than those who watched the original widescreen presentation.
My point is that an alternative cinematic presentation can be done. A Dreamworks animated film could be re-rendered for an IMAX presentation (but how much would that process cost?). Katzenberg said it himself that the best 3D experience is when the screen takes up your peripheral vision. If he’s so gung ho about 3D, then he should eliminate the widescreen in his IMAX presentations.
Hunter Stephenson’s Movie Review: Pineapple Express
Posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 by Hunter Stephenson
Seth Rogen just got a free pass. I mean, a 9.5, CHUD? Really? FirstShowing declares Pineapple Express “breaks new ground” and implies it’s the “best stoner comedy ever made.” I’m not really sure what movies one must zoom past to make the best stoner comedy of all time. Is The Big Lebowski king? Garnering this superlative is sort of like being the world champion at MAPPY in The King of Kong. More accurately, Rogen’s film might be the best stoner comedy by default, because it will make you wish you stayed home, packed a huge bowl and watched Caddyshack, or Fletch, one of the hazy ’80s 10.0 action-comedies this aspires to be. The first scenes with Rogen in PE are a pale, if loving, homage to that Chevy Chase classic’s aliases like Dr. Rosenpenis, likewise with the adrenalized, instrumental theme music.
Pineapple Express stumbles as an original comedy, a stoner movie and a buddy action film. It lacks the liquid-bowel laughs of last summer’s Superbad, which was also written by Rogen and Evan Goldberg. And remember the awesome fan-made Superbad: The Action Movie trailer we posted? That two-minute clip exuded the superior goofball tension and ratatat gunfire I expected when Seth Rogen expressed surprise at getting the greenlight for this “risky” blend of inhales and mayhem.
So, where the hell is this film’s totes awesome “exploding toilet”-like action sequence set to MIA’s “Paper Planes”? Where is “Paper Planes”? That song’s inclusion in the trailers undoubtedly netted this movie an extra $5-10 million, but it’s MIA. It would have loaned the by-numbers fisticuffs and explosion at the climax a passable sense of peril. Never before has a chubby guy doing generic action moves been this overblown. An argument against this review and in defense of the movie will be: “Well, it’s not supposed to be as funny as Superbad” and “it’s not supposed to be as action-y as Lethal Weapon.” And therefore the movie is not supposed to be really funny or really thrilling, correct? And the justification is, “it’s a stoner movie, OMG, it’s not supposed to be that good in general”? Okay.
Pineapple Express is essentially a party sub in which all of the dead and bloody stuff is unevenly packed into the last third; followed by endless amounts of lazy meta-improv between James Franco, Rogen and Danny McBride (who almost saves the movie) sitting on their self-gratified asses telling us how amazing the movie we just watched was. In the Judd Apatow-produced and much funnier, Step Brothers, Will Ferrell & Co. go out with a bang with a rock opera, some unclassic Billy Joel, and the affable phrase “Fucking Catalina Wine-Mixer!” If PE is the new gold standard for American comedy as proclaimed by every glossy magazine this month, I’m going to go take a shit and read my collection of National Lampoon magazines for the next year like the black dude in Summer School.
CHUD says that James Franco deserves an Oscar nomination for his “breakout role” Saul Silver. Why? For stealing Brad Pitt’s resin-torched laugh in True Romance and pronouncing the word “man” like it’s made out of taffy (or “God’s Vagina,” one of the only good lines here)? The chemistry and the bromance Franco and Rogen shared 10 years ago on Freaks and Geeks felt genuine and was far more impressive. Their aimless stoners were similarly brought together by the randomness of life i.e. high school. And Franco gives great performances in that series—he’s consistently hilarious and inventive throughout. When his Freak apologized to Rogen’s Freak after making a joke at the expense of the latter’s tuba-playing girlfriend having a baby cock, viewers cried (many were high)! It was brilliant. When Rogen and Franco have their falling out in Pineapple Express, followed by a stilted apology, it doesn’t mean anything, even for a “lowbrow action comedy” in the spirit of Lethal Weapon or 48 Hours. Clearly, the filmmakers want and need us to be invested, but it plays like two kids with lobotomies walking in opposite directions after an argument. You could debate that these characters are supposed to be exactly that (and you’d feel tainted), and you could debate that this describes many American moviegoers when they exit the theater (and you’d be right, or Hollywood Elsewhere).
In contrast, we believe that Harold and Kumar depend on each other because they’re both insecure about their futures, girls, unpredictable off-road trips, white people and NPH’s ecstasy habit. And they both really enjoy good weed. Cheech and Chong are bonded by alliteration, road trips, stupidity, poverty, broads, and the carefree fuck-the-man fumes (nice dreams?) of the ’60s and ’70s. And they both really enjoy good weed and blow. In Smiley Face, Anna Faris is the modern, funny but troubled girl (and all guys have dated one) who goes it solo, smokes herself out and simultaneously symbolizes the answer and problem to everything today (which is why “that girl” tends to ultimately disappear or become a doctor or lawyer). Stoner comedies tend to reflect and subvert the day’s culture. Rather than subverting our culture, Pineapple Express blows it back at us, to the point where a promising indie director named David Gordon Green is being cheerleaded by critics for making a just-average crowdpleaser and “adequately handling action.”
In place of the timeless comedic duo we expected from the “New Kings of Funny,” we’re offered a wannabe M. Fletch Fletcher and a talented actor who’s impersonating an actor playing a stoner and seems secretly bored. And why Rogen and Franco’s characters aren’t shot in the head by the film’s goons, nicely played by Kevin Corrigan (a great stoner in Freaks and Geeks) and Craig Robinson (The Office), before this overhyped comedy goes soggy Black Rain is a valid question not worth wasting good weed on.
6/10 (Adam Sandler’s Bulletproof x High Times porn = Overhyped, Subpar Apatow Flick)
P.S. Nikki Finke just referred to Slashfilm as “pothead fanboys.”
Stephen Tobolowsky Re-Enacts/Reviews “The Matrix Reloaded”
Posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 by David Chen
For those of you that missed the live show and didn’t hear the recently-released podcast episode with Stephen Tobolowsky (possibly our best show yet, according to film critic Peter Sciretta!), we thought we’d release this edited, 5-minute snippet for the benefit of those that don’t have time to listen to the whole /Filmcast:
In preparation for reviewing The Mummy, Stephen subjected himself to some unfortunate action movies, including The Matrix Reloaded. In our “What We’ve Been Watching” segment, Stephen laid waste to the Matrix sequel and its ilk, and does a spot-on re-enactment of virtually every single scene in the movie. This is a must-listen for anyone that has ever felt violated by The Matrix Reloaded.
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You can hear this entire episode of the /Filmcast by clicking here.
Discuss: Is The Matrix Reloaded really “Negative Entertainment”?
In Defense of “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”
Posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 by David Chen
In all the years that I’ve attempted to write or talk about film in a serious manner, at no point did I ever conceive that I’d one day be writing a post with a title beginning, “In Defense of The Mummy…” Yet here we are today: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor sits at 10% on Rottentomatoes and the reviews are absolutely brutal. Here’s but a sampling of some of the vitriol being spewed about this movie:
Masswyrm from Aintitcool writes:
[T]his looks distinctly like what it is. Shit. Unmitigated, inexcusable shit. I can’t remember the last time I looked around and saw so many critics positively mortified to be watching what they were watching. We were embarrassed to be in that theater. It is a humbling, humiliating experience that will take anyone who bitched about nuked fridges and swinging monkeys and show them just how much Spielberg and Lucas actually got right.
Stephen Holden from the New York Times writes:
In the movie’s futile drive to conjure visceral excitement, the action sequences are edited into an incoherent jumble that makes you feel trapped on a rickety airplane sitting in a pool of yak vomit.
Friend of /Film, Eric D. Snider writes the following about The Mummy:
At first I thought the film seemed like an Indiana Jones rip-off, but now I’m not sure it’s even that good. It’s more like an imitation of a rip-off, like Cohen and Co. once heard someone describe an Indiana Jones rip-off and they just copied down whatever they could remember, and then added some yeti.
Ouch. This hatred is so palpable, it reminds me of the good old days when all the poisonous screeds were reserved for Sex and the City.
Read More »
Wall Street Journal Declares The Dark Knight a Pro-George W. Bush Film. Agree?
Posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 by Hunter Stephenson
Today, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece that is on crack. The writer’s main point is that Batman, The Dark Knight himself, is George W. Bush and only by placing America’s current president in a mask and an ab-defining bodysuit can liberals and conservatives alike respect his neverending fight against the evils of our day. The intro actually compares the film’s bat symbol to a “W.” Is the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper this desperate for hits?
“There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.”
In keeping with the WSJ’s batshit allegory, wouldn’t Osama bin Laden be locked up in Arkham (Guantanamo Bay?) by now? Yes, the film’s sonar scenes draw obvious comparisons to The Patriot Act—but also, Britain’s widespread Bluetooth spying that was just uncovered this week. Also, any significant other who ventures to the dark side and uses Web Watcher. Moreover, Batman’s obsession with throwing criminals behind bars (not killing them and their cousins), and the moral dissonance that results, is one of the character’s signature traits; see Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, which was released during the Reagan years, and confronted them accordingly. And I’m sorry, did Batman decide mid-film to forget about the Joker’s bombs and hop over to Metropolis and spend trillions of Gotham’s citizens’ money fighting criminal sects to no avail? The writer makes no point of examining any of this. Of course not. He’s too busy zig-zagging across Hollywood blockbusters using his dooshy moral compass…
“Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense — values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right — only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like “300,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Narnia,” “Spiderman 3″ and now “The Dark Knight”?”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead and take Spider-Man 3. Big loss there. And why is it that this writer wishes to propose to the world that George W. Bush is a martyr—here we go—but can’t come out and say it without cloaking his limp, frightening declaration in a comic book adaptation that is the biggest film of the year, and one of the most popular ever?
“When heroes arise who take on those difficult duties themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon says [spoiler deleted, where Gordon says the title of the movie].”
If given the choice for a presidential candidate, Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne would probably vote for Bloomberg. And if George W. Bush is like any character in The Dark Knight, he’s that jarringly stupid, inept cop who spouts bad one-liners when shit hits the fan over and over. What was up with that guy? There is a big difference between a dumb cop in a movie or IRL and Dirty Harry. To crib from the mighty W: Is the Wall Street Journal drunk?
Discuss: Is Batman actually George W. Bush? Who knew? Is the WSJ correct?
