Haha yes. The content and the visual just screamed ending material. But then the movie clicked into high gear and I kinda forgot about it until the end.

The Dark Knight Rises - ****1/2 out of *****

This was a great film from start to finish and the length was in fact not a detriment for that reason, as Nolan does understand pacing. For me, this easily tops The Avengers as a film despite the fact that its plot was almost as generic. This is one of the films of 2012 that I would recommend that everyone here see if possible.

My more detailed thoughts on the film can be found in JB's review thread. All said, this was a great way for Nolan to bow out of the franchise for one of the most well-known (and better known now thanks to Nolan's films) heroes in popular culture.

Letter From An Unknown Woman

I'm beginning to dislike Max Ophuls. I've only seen two of his films now, and they are both about women being foolish. Now, obviously both this film as well as The Earrings of Madame de... end in tragedy. Some would argue that Ophuls is trying to discourage romantic idealism because of this. I would disagree; his purpose is slightly ambiguous at times, but I think ultimately he depicts his protagonists in a "Romeo and Juliet" ish light, i.e. the whole world is out to get the innocent lover(s).

I think this movie works better than The Earrings of Madame de... purely because of Joan Fontaine's character. She is retarded, but Fontaine manages to pull of the transformation from squirrelly girl to accomplished lady better than anyone else could have. This makes her believable.

The other reason Letter From An Unknown Woman works better is its style. There are plenty of the Ophuls signature long track shots, but they are more subdued. They work in a way to bring out the beauty of the environment. But overall, the best shots in the movie are taken from a stationary camera. Some are wonderfully atmospheric; for instance, the second train station scene.

Like The Earrings of Madame de..., this film relies on its soundtrack quite heavily. The main theme borrows directly from the song the pianist plays through most of the movie (I think its a Rachmaninoff prelude). Occasionally it takes over the scene when Ophuls is trying to make a point. It has been written elsewhere that the tone and style of this film are greatly influenced by music and are musical in their composition; I'm sure this is true, but I'm not going to delve into it.

If anyone knows of an Ophuls movie that is not about women being stupid, let me know. My patience is running thin. I really want to give these movies lower scores, but they're just too well made.

3/4

Finally watched Metropolis (the 2010 restoration, I believe) and liked it a lot. I can see why people were having trouble making sense of it; some crucial scenes were omitted, including those explaining Rotwang's entire motivation. (Besides being an evil mad scientist, I mean. He had his reasons.) And why he just happened to have a spare robot around the house. With the restoration, it's got a pretty strong plot, and visually it's very striking.

One thing that kept worrying me was the food supply. I assume it must be shipped in from the (unseen) countryside, but what sort of dole do the proles get, and why don't they worry about losing it?

My hunch about Alfred Abel was right; he's much better cast here than in Phantom. I got Georgy and Freder confused several times, which was a serious problem when Freder seemed to be in two places at once. There were also a few seconds when I got Maria and Robot Maria confused, but since Robot Maria acted more and more like a cackling madwoman as the film went on, it wasn't hard to figure out who she was. I liked Brigitte Helm in her double role; not bad considering it was her first film. (She had a pretty good career until she married a Jew in Nazi Germany.)

I love the symphonic film score, which is performed by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. I believe it's Gottfried Huppertz's score. One of the best silent films, and though you can pick at it, its strengths are incredible and overwhelm its flaws. 9 of 10.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

I will agree with most sentiments on this one...a very good movie. Still, I felt that the movie did run a bit long, well-paced or not. Also some nitpicks involving the plot timeline. Otherwise I'd agree with a 3.5 / 4.0.

The Dark Knight Rises

I summed up my thoughts on another forum, so I'll just paste them here:


The Dark Knight Rises is extraordinarily well-made. The script is exceptional, and for a movie of its length it certainly moves. Its politics are ugly; if there's one word I'd use to describe this film, it's "fascist."

But if The dark Knight Rises is a fascist film, it's a damn thrilling fascist film. It's probably the best film that will come from a major studio this year.

I wonder if you'll tell me what part of the movie is extremely right-wing, characterized by extreme nationalism, irredentism, and glorification of the national leader. Because I didn't see a whole lot of that in The Dark Knight Rises. "Fascism" is one of those words that, if you're thinking of using it, you really really shouldn't.

Oh, it's most definitely an extremely right-wing film. But I would rather not post anything that spoils the film. I will, however, note that I am not the only person to make this observation.

Dark Knight Rises (2012)

See other thread

9/10

Not sure about extreme right-wing.

There is a very strong pro-west, anti-communist theme though!

The Dark Knight Rises, or as I'm going to refer to it from here on out, The Batman Movie With Shitty Dialogue. This movie was just plain bad. There's a million things wrong with the movie, so I guess I'll just start listing them in a spoiler box-thingy:



There's a bunch more, but I figure that's enough to get people angry at me, and I don't care too much for plausibility or picking apart plot holes, except in very ridiculous cases. There's a lot of ideas in the film, and there are a few images towards the end where Batman is hope personified, but the writing in the film was an enormous let down. There's just no subtlety to it, it's overstuffed to the point of combustion, and it's full of hokey, cliche one-liners that a truly "inventive" film wouldn't waste time on. The result is a pretty bad film.

5/10 for me.

The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009)

Sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, this theatrical cut of the Swedish miniseries suffers quite a bit from being condensed. (I believe this version is about an hour shorter than the televised version of the story.) And while episodes from the book are displayed on screen, a lot of tone has shifted. For instance, in the book, Salander has an ongoing hate and distrust of Blomkvist throughout. That is really toned down here to be almost non-existent. Also, the dynamics of the Swedish police, which are a large part of the book (if not the largest), are jettisoned in the movie version. The Bublanski character especially gets short-changed.

A lot of things happen in the movie and we never really find out why. Characters just go from encounter to encounter. Granted, the source material was never that strong to begin with, but this was still a bit of a disappointment. 2.5 / 4.0

The People Vs. George Lucas (2010)

This documentary focuses on the fanboy backlash to George Lucas, mainly focusing on the original trilogy re-releases and the pre-quel trilogies. Mostly it serves as a forum to a) give fanboys an avenue to vent, b) showcase some of the great lengths fans have gone to honor their favorite movie franchise and c) outline the many ways that George Lucas has given the middle finger to his fan collective.

The filmakers give a spirited prosecution of Lucas and a token defense at parts. Not too many familiar names make it on screen for interviews. Gary Kurtz, Neil Gaiman and Francis Ford Coppola are the biggest names to appear.

I guess that I had a problem with what the film was trying to get at, apart from being a 90 minute whine-fest. There were a few insightful observations and some laughs, but mostly this was like eating frosting without the cake. My favorite observations were probably from one fan who noted that the best way to display how much of a fan you are was to display how much you hated Star Wars (or what Star Wars had become). The other one was from Coppola who spoke about how, after Lucas became wildly successful with Star Wars, he was no longer a director but a producer of things. Coppola was saddened by the George Lucas projects the world was robbed of because of his success. Interesting sentiment, but if Red Tails is any indication (a project not directed by Lucas but one that he was extremely close to), we aren't missing much. 2.5/4.0

Your thoughts pretty much line up exactly with my own. There are individual elements that I can appreciate, but similar to Prometheus, there are too many faults in the script and in the execution, all of which prevent me from fully embracing it.

I could make a long list of elements that I felt didn't work, but for now I'll just single out one:

Yes, that's another one I didn't mention.

-Jeremy

The Dark Knight Rises

I've always been a fan of Christopher Nolan. I loved The Dark Knight when it came out, and I still watch it whenever I find it playing on TV. I think Inception was the Five Guys of summer action movies; after experiencing it, you don't understand why everything else isn't on the same level. I loved The Prestige and Memento. I liked Batman Begins, but not as much as any of Nolan's other works.

The thing is, I've learned a lot about film in the past few years. The more time I spend watching films off the top 1000 and reading essays, the more critical I am. I pick out technical errors and deconstruct plots in a way I never have. My perception of films has shifted. I'm sure I will learn much more as time goes on.

So when I was watching The Dark Knight Rises, I picked up on plot holes and consistency mistakes right away. In the space of 2 minutes, it goes from day to night and later does the opposite. I could go on.

While doing research for my review, I came across Red Letter Media's review (http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-b ... ght-rises/). They pick out a lot of the same problems I did, but they have a good point. In a movie that is so well crafted otherwise, these things are almost forgivable. Going back to Nolan's other films, I'm sure that the same thing could be said about them. I can understand now why people never shared my love of Nolan films, but at the same time I do not understand the vitriol towards him. To me, it seems like it stems from resenting undeserved praise. His films aren't perfect and they deserve more critical analysis, but they are still great films compared to the other crap that plays along side them in the multiplexes. Regardless of your opinion of Nolan, his films get people excited about movies in a way that few other films do. Christopher Nolan is the Batman of cinema*.

All that said, it is time to look at his latest film objectively. I generally liked the story. It's strongest elements were its character arcs: Bruce Wayne's and Blake's, specifically. Michael Caine as Alfred stole the scene every time he was on screen. I would love to see him get a supporting actor nomination.

Yet while some characters are handled extremely well, some are clunky. Selena Kyle's motivation change at the end is abrupt. . To be honest, I think The Dark Knight Rises could have gone on for another half an hour and no one would have noticed. I think it would fix a lot of issues. It feels like a lot of the plot holes were explained in deleted scenes.

I have to say, I don't like Anne Hathaway. Her face is weird and her lips are always too red. She didn't annoy me here. But I have to wonder if there wasn't someone who could have done this better. She just physically doesn't feel like Catwoman. She is not a femme fatale. I would have liked to see someone like Scarlett Johansson instead.

Overall, it was a good movie. Not as good as The Dark Knight. More interesting than Batman Begins, but not as streamlined.

3/4

*I realize that this is a conclusion similar to the Cracked article found here: http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-things-we ... ns-batman/ I agree with a lot of what he says, but I'm over the blind praise.