Category — Film

Finally had a chance to see Dark Knight this past weekend and it is an epic film. Soaring themes of what is good and evil, what good has to do to overcome evil, the notion of personal sacrifice all had a role in this film.

I have been a Batman fan for over 30 years now. I have the comics which collected back in the late 70’s through the 80’s. I have read the Golden Age Batman through his reinvention in the 60’s and onward to the present day. The nuances of the character are well known to me. For once, a film has come to realise the Batman I have read about.

This is a very dark film bu then again so too are the comic editions. People have died in the pages of the various Batman titles and so too does many of the characters in this film. Yet, while Batman moves sometimes into those dark areas as well, he seems to be able to pull back from the edge, knowing who he is and what he is trying to represent for the citizens of Gotham.

This Batman is more than a fighter, though. We see the detective side of him as he tries to piece together the various threads of the Joker’s plan. We see his resourcefulness especially on his side trip to the Far East.

This is a superlative film, head & shoulders above all others to date. It is intense, of that there is no doubt. Performances are trult stellar but as you may know, one stands above all others. Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker will make any one forget that over the top performance by Jack Nicholson 20 years ago. That was a performance where you barely saw the Joker but rather just another wild rendition of a Jack Nicholson character that seems interchangeable these days. But here, Ledger’s Joker is the character we all have come to know for those who read the comics. Terrifying, utterly insane to us but perfectly sane to his own sense of logic. On screen, you see the Joker and not Heath Ledger. It is a shame that he will be unable to repeat that role.

There are many good things about this film I like. The Far East trip took on a James Bond flair even to the sweeping shot of a yacht owned by a billionaire. The Gotham city shots were of a real city and not an architectural fantasy. The effects were real for the most part and seem grounded in reality.

Not too many films I see this days warranted a second viewing while still in theatres but this one does. For now, I have seen the Batman film I have been waiting for all my life.

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When I think about my favorite movies, I realised that there are no easy top ten list for me to pick from. My film watching habits over the years has transverse every genre, over many countries and different film eras. It is rare for me to view a film repeatedly. Actually, my problem is that i do not watch enough films anymore considering the demands on my time these days. Still, I think it is worth a shot to try to pin down the films that I felt most entertained, most moved and most deeply affected.

• Citizen Kane - a classic of traditional American film making showing the rise and fall of a William Randolph Hearst type character shot, for its time, in a radical way of film making and cinematography that stands up today
• Excalibur - John Boorman beautiful looking retelling of the King Arthur legend where Camelot dazzles and man’s honor soars, falls and soars once more.
• Charge of the Light Brigade - The first eighty percent of the film is standard 1930’s Hollywood fare of stories of the British Empire but whenever the DVD version comes out, I will replay that glorious charge lead by Errol Flynn over and over again.
• Last of the Mohicans - the version starring Daniel Day Lewis, this adventure story set in a lush wilderness barely touched by man has strong performance by Wes Studi, Lewis and Madeleine Stowe.
• Lord of the Rings trilogy - adventure, magic, an altogether different world, I looked forward to December each year for three years in seeing the new released part. Decembers are not the same anymore. It is a triumph of film making where the personal stories are never overcome by the special effects.
• Farewell to my Concubine - an epic tragedy set during the turmoil within China in the mid 20th century, it is a masterpiece by Kaige Chen with the luminous Gong Li in the starring role.
• Ran - from a director noted for several masterpieces (Seven Samurai, Rashmon, Dreams), Akira Kurosawa retelling of Shakespeare King Lear set in medieval Japan is his greatest film. Battle scenes set against the human drama contained within a family, it should be a must see by anyone who appreciates film.
• Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - western panoramas, humorous dialogue and strong performances by Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee van Cleef set against the familiar soaring Enrico Morricone’s score, this film defined the western for good against Hollywood’s sanitized version at that time. It must always be seen in the original widescreen for nothing else would do.
• Metropolis -Lang’s futuristic vision still haunts us with its depiction of a society tearing itself apart over class.
• Lawrence of Arabia - brilliant cinematography, a reluctant hero and a nearly true story that needs to be seen in its restored glory. David Lean’s finest
• Zulu - starring Michael Caine and Stanley Baker, this last stand film is a thriller set at the original location of the historical battle of 120 British soldiers holding off three thousand Zulu warriors.
• Raging Bull- in a long line of performances that have diminished in quality lately, this is Robert de Niro’s finest and deserving of an Academy Award of the boxer who can not control his demons
• Tora,Tora,Tora - shot in a documentary style, this is a superior film to the recent Pearl Harbor film. Using real planes and ships and shot on location, you feel that you are seeing a real-life enactment of that day in December

Undoubtly there are other films of a more personal nature and more obscure that I should put on this list but these films should be recognized by most people. Naturally, they lean to the epic and spectacle genre of film but I do a softness for the grandiose visions.

As can be seen from the list, there has not been much in the past few years that really have captured my imagination. Like I said, I have not been able to view many films in the past few years and what I have seen tend to be more escapist fare to pass away the time. I miss the days especially back in the early nineties when I lived in Toronto and I watch films all of the time whether in the theatre or on video. It is was a golden age for me in many respects when it came to film. I do wish I could watch as many films now as I did then but family and work life takes precedence now.

Even though I do have a DVD player, it is virtually unused. Cable television is what I use the television for these days. I even gave up my Netflix membership this past year because I was not watching any films. I would rent them and then they would be sitting there for weeks unwatched and sometimes returned unwatched.

Then again, life changes. Back then, I did not have the Internet or photography to distract me. Now, my free time is seemingly consumed by them. But I do not regret it and if perchance, a film comes on one of the cable television stations that I always desired to see but never took the opportunity to do so, then I may just be able to update my list.

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The othe night on one of the many cable channel I have that seemingly are dedicated to showing films way past their time, I caught a few minutes of Bachelor Party, the one starring Tom Hanks. Okay, it was more like the better part of the film rather than a few minutes but that was because I wanted to see a few scenes with Wendie Jo Sperber in it.

She was one of those actress who was always recognizable but few ever placed the face. She was a staple of many of eighties and early nineties comedies on television and film playing the brassy but cute friend of whatever actress had the leading role. She got her break playing on Bosom Buddies and appeared in films like “1941″, “Bachelor Party” and “Back to the Future”. In the mid nineties, she appeared rarely as she fought her cancer and devoted time to raise her daughter Pearl who was born in 1990 but has appeared frequently in guest roles recently on television.

I always had a soft spot for her when I saw her on film or television in the eighties. She was no shrinking violet; no she was always loud and opinionated but I guess that to an introvert boy like myself back then she was a revelation. I thought that she was the girl that you wanted to be at parties with by mixing things up and keep things lively. I thought she was a pretty girl; full figured on a petite frame, yes, but with a fair face framed by soft dark curls, she was prettier than most girls I dated at that time. Still, with that brassy personality and a heart as big as herself, my attention was always drawn to her whenever she showed up on screen. So while other guys in the eighties were taken by a Bo Derek or a Tawny Kitaen, for me Wendie was one of the few actress/model types that I fantasied about along with Pia Zadora, Kate Bush, and Pat Benatar.

Life moves on though. When she passed away back in 2005, a true under appreciated talent was gone for good. She was one of a kind and she will be missed.

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Notes:

July 18th ,baby!

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I think it is a bit surprising that the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament are all number one seeds. First time ever. If you had picked them for your bracket that would have been very conservative but given past tournament years not something that would have been expected. Perhaps a 2nd or 4th seed would be up there. Needless to say my brackets look threadbare now…. Three more weeks until the Pennsylvania primary. Obama has been slowly but surely moving up in the polls there.  Two polls released today showed significant jump in support just from a few weeks ago. A victory may still be out of reach but keeping it close will definitely still help him sustain momentum into the following campaigns in North Carolina and Indiana….. Been raining pretty steady for the past several days. That is encouraging in helping alleviating the drought conditions that persisted from last year. Still not out of the woods yet as most of the state is considered to be in a dry condition but that is an improvement from the extreme drought from last August…. Tax return is coming soon and I have yet to do the taxes but then again I already calculated that I will be paying  in this year so rush yet to do them…. I think this summer movie season is the year of the comic book hero: Ironman, Batman, Hellboy and the Incredible Hulk will all take bows. I hope to make it out for some of them at least Ironman and Batman (The Dark Knight)…. If the weather holds this weekend, maybe I will get out and get some new photographs. The itch to be creative is getting to be intense.

Caught Juno the other night with the wife. Really great comedy with plenty of wit and heart. Ellen Page is a great find but there is a great supporting cast as well including Allison Janney, Michael Cera and Jason Bateman. the storyline is pretty basic and nothing you may not seen before but the delivery of the film is quite refreshing in its own right.

It is much in the spirit of the previous year’s film “Little Miss Sunshine”. It does say much of my film viewing habits of late that they are the only films I have seen in the past two years that have been nominated for Academy Awards. Just four more to go.