Movie Monday - The Dark Knight, 2008, Part 1

We're finally reaching the end of our months-long recap of the Batman movies, from the serials of the 40's to 2008's "The Dark Knight." Like all my other recaps, this one is pure spoilers from start to finish, so if you're one of the three people on Earth who hasn't seen this movie, go watch it before you read this.

I have to say right up front that I was not looking forward to this movie before it came out. "Batman Begins" had been a very good film, but there had been something... forgettable about it. Maybe just the fact that it lacked a really powerful, memorable villain.

And I didn't have much hope that "The Dark Knight" would fix that. There was a ton of hype about Heath Ledger's Joker, but I wasn't buying into it. Number one, I'd never seen Ledger in anything before. All I knew about him was that he was the pretty boy star of that medieval movie where they sang Queen or something. I couldn't imagine that guy ever being riveting.

And number two, what I could see of his performance in the trailers kinda' sucked. He was just some dude in a grubby suit with greasy hair and smeared make-up--make-up!--with his face set in a Nixonian scowl and speaking in this buzzy voice like Jerry Lewis's Nutty Professor. The Batcycle looked cool, but from what I could see of the Joker in the trailers, I was going to hate it.

And then I saw it, and it was not at all what I expected. It was not a perfect film, by any means. It was simplistic and eminently parodiable. The symbolism and moral dilemmas were as subtly honed as sledgehammers, several scenes rang false for me, and Christian Bale's growly Bat-voice--so effective in the small doses of "Batman Begins" ("SWEAR TO ME!!!")--proved wholly inadequate for the long-winded speechifying that dominates the final fifteen minutes or so of this movie.

There's so much wrong with this movie. Where do I start?

"The Dark Knight" starts about a year after "Batman Begins." Batman is cracking down on the gangs, cutting off the supply of drugs to the streets. Unfortunately, he has also inspired some wack-job wanna-be vigilantes who dress up like him and attack criminals with shotguns (a detail inspired by, what else, Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns).

But there are other forces at work in Gotham. A mysterious mastermind known as the Joker has been robbing mob-owned banks, leaving a trail of bodies.

And there's a new district attorney in Gotham, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhardt), replacing the D.A. who got shot in "Batman Begins." Dent has gained a reputation as a brave and incorruptible defender of justice.


And just like the last time, Bruce's childhood friend, Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes (played this time by Maggie Gyllenhaal), is sleeping with her boss. Such a slut, that Rachel.

Speaking of which, Rachel is one of the things I have trouble buying in this movie. Gyllenhaal is no Katie Holmes, which is to say that her Rachel comes across as smarter, but also less pretty and fun (and let's face it, Holmes's Rachel was no barrel of laughs herself). Rachel spends much of her screen time looking tired and judgmental, with lank hair and deep lines cutting across her face.

Which isn't bad in and of itself, but both Bruce and Harvey are supposed to be head-over-heels in love with her, and the Joker calls her beautiful not once, but three times in his one scene with her. It's one of those things where we're supposed to believe the script and not our lying eyes, and it just doesn't work for me (except for one big scene, which I'll talk about later).

So as Batman is travelling to Hong Kong to grab a Chinese gangster with vital evidence for Dent's prosecution, the gangs are hiring the Joker to kill Batman once and for all. Only the Joker doesn't so much want to kill Batman as kill, say, everybody else, while causing as much chaos and terror as he can along the way.

And throughout the movie, almost every scene has some nagging detail that just doesn't make sense. How did the Joker know the other thug would be standing in exactly the right place to get hit by the bus? How did Lau manage to get all the money out of the mob banks without any of the mob bosses being alerted to it? Did Batman and Dent plan to let Gordon get shot, so they could fake his death and lure the Joker into the open, and if so, how did they make that happen? How did the Joker get all those explosives into the hospital without anybody getting wise, especially given that the other times we see his bomb set-ups, they involve dozens of barrels of fuel? How did Batman manage to loop the ropes on the floor ahead of time in just such a way that they'd catch the feet of every SWAT guy surrounding him? The entire movie is a festival of nonsense.

And yet, in the end, none of it matters.

Because the entire thing is done with such style and such grandiose ambition, that it goes beyond being a "really good comic book movie" and becomes a "really good movie," regardless of genre. And Ledger's performance really is as good as the hype made out. Credit a good deal of that to the writing and direction, also, because co-screenwriters Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan do some fascinating things with the character that I might talk about in more depth next week. And Bale is good, as are Michael Caine as Alfred and Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon. Aaron Eckhardt brings some real depth and intensity to his portrayal of Harvey Dent as well; too bad his villainous turn was so completely overshadowed by Ledger's.

And even though I bagged on Maggie Gyllenhaal, she has a brilliant moment in her final scene, when she realizes that Harvey is the one being saved and that she is going to die. We see that realization on her face, yet she still tries to comfort Harvey. In that moment, she really is beautiful, and we can finally understand why both men would be so deeply in love with her.

But still, after this...

I was a little disappointed to end up with this.

More random observations about the film next week.

Jackie Chan Hates Glass

Pawing through the $5 DVDs at Wal-Mart, I found a special collector's edition of "Police Story" starring Jackie Chan. I had seen it many times in its dubbed version as "Jackie Chan's Police Force," but the Chinese version on the new DVD is complete with scenes cut from the American release, as well as some behind the scenes features. If you're not familiar with it, you should hunt it down and watch it. This was one of the films that rejuvenated his career after his unfortunate first foray into American filmmaking, and one whose influence profoundly affected Chinese and American action movies in general.

The basic story is pretty simple. Jackie is a cop named Chan who captures a big drug boss during a raid gone wrong. He tries to convince the boss's secretary to testify against him, but when she learns he has deceived her, she leaves him with nothing but a taped testimony that ends up getting him laughed out of court. The kingpin goes free, but lures Chan into a trap and frames him for the murder of a fellow cop. Meanwhile, the secretary decides to turn on her boss for real, and Chan must save her life when the thugs try to keep her from escaping with evidence that can put their boss away for life.

By American standards, the writing and pacing are somewhat weak. But Jackie Chan himself is an amazing performer, and this movie is full to bursting with incredible stunts and action sequences, from the destruction of the shanty town to Jackie hanging from a double-decker bus by an umbrella to a brutal climactic fight in a huge department store.

If you've seen "Tango and Cash," you've seen one of this movie's signature stunts--the semi stopping short and flinging two thugs through its windshield (in "Police Story," it's a bus and it's three guys coming through the windshields). If you've seen "Rapid Fire" starring Brandon Lee, you've seen several of this movie's stunts "homaged." Likewise, a major sequence in "Bad Boys II" is lifted from this film.

One thing that stands out to me every time I watch this picture is how much glass gets broken in it. Jackie Chan must have had a rich uncle die or something and leave him a fortune in stunt glass, because if there's glass in this movie, someone's head is going through it. In the opening sequence, guys fly through winshields. When Jackie is attacked while driving the secretary to his apartment, both the car he's in and the car that attacks have windshields and windows broken. In a fight in an apartment, one guy is thrown through a window, another smashed through a glass table. In the final department store fight, people are constantly being thrown into showcases. At one point, a bad guy ducks two punches from Jackie that very precisely target two framed pictures on the wall, breaking their glass. In the final moments of the film, Jackie punches a henchman in the eyeglasses, breaking the lenses, knocks another guy through some glass shelves then throws the big boss through a display case. It should be titled "Jackie Chan Hates Glass," seriously.

Final trivial notes: even if you haven't seen this film, you may have seen its sequels without knowing it. "Police Story 3," co-starring Michelle Yeoh, was released in the U.S. as "Supercop," and Police Story 4 was released here as "Jackie Chan's First Strike."

Seriously, if you have five bucks to spare, go to Wal-Mart and grab this.

Black God's Kiss

I finally got around to finishing another book from the WorldCon stack. It was slow going, this one.

Black God's Kiss collects the Jirel of Joiry short stories written by C.L. Moore for Weird Tales in the 30's. Jirel was the first sword-and-sorcery heroine, so her stories have a special place in the hearts of fans of the genre.

That said, I had a hard time getting through the book. It isn't badly written, at least not according to the standards of the pulps Moore was writing for. The style is a little overblown at times, but there is a lot of imagination at work here, with moments that come alive quite vividly. And Jirel is an interesting character, as interesting as a character can be in stories that very deliberately avoid character exploration.

No, the thing that held me back was that Jirel is a swordswoman who rarely uses her sword, a fighter who rarely fights. Not that she's some Zen master just wishing for a little peace and quiet or anything. No, she's fiercely eager to run through whomever she can.

The problem is that every story pits her against magical powers she can't fight with a sword, in an alien landscape she can barely comprehend (and often can't even see-she wanders through darkness a lot of the time). The stories read more like Lovecraft's Dream tales than Howard's Conan stories. Jirel wanders through places she doesn't know with properties she doesn't understand and encounters creatures she's never seen before. It gets kind of tiring after a couple hundred pages. I picked up the book expecting action and never really got it.

That being said, I like the look of Paizo Publishing's Planet Stories line, and the concept of republishing stories from the heyday of the pulps. I'll probably end up picking some of their other titles.

Victory of Eagles

Book four of seven from Worldcon (listed in the order I read them) was Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik. If you're not familiar with the series, let me just say, "Napoleonic War with dragons."

I'm not sure how much to write about this one. It's book five in a series I love, but like all extended series entries, it's kind of a closed loop. Fans of the series already know what's what and have probably already read it. People who haven't read the series aren't likely to read this one first, and a lot of people have told me they don't like to start reading long series in the middle, not knowing how long it will go on or whether it will stay good. They would rather wait for the series to wrap up and read the entire thing.

But I don't want to say nothing, so first, a random observation: this is the first book of the ones I brought back that was not in first-person (the others aren't, either, but it's odd that I would read all three first-person books back-to-back).

As far as the book itself, it was both great and disappointing. Great in the sense that it deepens the characters and the story and is wholly absorbing. I flew through this book and didn't want to put it down. I was a bit disappointed with the climax, though. Not so much with the outcome, but the way in which it unfolded felt a bit rushed to me. I can understand Novik not wanting to end on a cliffhanger--she did it with the previous book, and may not have wanted to do the same twice in a row--but it seemed like everything wrapped up a little too neatly.

Two things that strike me about the series:

Number one, it reminds me a lot of the Harry Potter books in that both concern an outsider brought into an insular society who, over the course of several books, learns of fundamental racial injustice within the society and works subtly to correct it. And both have main characters who are believably flawed, yet are basically good-hearted. They win our sympathy early and hold onto it through many trials.

Number two, the books have the feel of something written in the 19th century, which lends greatly to the flavor of this 18th century story. The characters' dialogue and subtle nuances of spelling and grammar ride a delicate balance between the old-fashioned turns of phrase which lend atmosphere and modern readability. Novik and her editor have done a great job with this. And the plotting groans with outrageous potboiler twists which fit perfectly with the tradition in which she's writing.

Staked

So I mentioned that one of the novels I brought back from Worldcon was Staked by Jeremy Lewis. I read it immediately after finishing Soon I Will Be Invincible, and was struck by an odd similarity.

Not only are both books written in first person, but both books are written in first person viewpoints that alternate between a male and a female character. However, and here's the neat trick, I think Staked makes better use of the alternating viewpoints than the big-time mainstream novel.

Staked is basically a vampire noir mystery, featuring Eric, a vampire strip club owner with memory problems. He comes to in an alley, after having just killed another vampire during a "rage blackout." Almost immediately afterward, he is forced to kill a werewolf, setting in motion a chain of events that will change Eric's (un)life, as well as the lives of everyone around him.

I have to admit, the first chapter put me off a bit. There's a lot of ugliness in Eric's world, and Eric himself is a bit of an off-putting character. Vampires in this world are not glamorous, that's for sure. Add to that the necessity to infodump lots of world detail right up front to get us up to speed on Eric's character and surroundings, and I wasn't sure if I'd like Staked after the first chapter.

But Lewis pulls off some major scores after this. Riding a thin edge of comedy and disgust, he pulls you into Eric's world deftly, showing you the standard vampire hero surrounded by a cast of stock characters.

But when the viewpoint shifts to Tabitha, Eric's stripper girlfriend/ vampire groupie, you find out that she's a deeper character than Eric gave her credit for being. And as the novel unfolds through their shared viewpoints, you realize that the world Lewis has created is a more layered, more interesting place than either of his main characters realize. By splitting the viewpoint between two characters, Lewis is able to show us things about the characters and the world that no single viewpoint could have given us, and by the end, I was eager to read a second book in the series to learn more.

Fair warning: the book is full of strong language and graphic depictions of violence and sex and foul bodily functions. And the mystery isn't very strong. It's one of those "mysteries" where you really only have one viable suspect, so the big revelation of who's behind all the madness isn't much of a surprise. But the trip getting there is mighty fine.

Soon I Will Be Invincible

I had planned to scan something funny I brought back from Worldcon, but I haven't got my scanner set up yet, so I guess I'll do a book review first. Soon I Will Be Invincible came out in hardback last year, the debut novel from Austin Grossman. As you may tell from the title, it's a light-hearted look at superheroes, a mainstream novel that looks at some of the basic cliches of the genre and turns them on their heads, makes them fun again.

I was worried that this would turn out to be yet another parody by a writer who looks down on the genre, like Asimov's anti-Batman Batman story "Northwestward" in the anthology "Further Adventures of the Batman," or like Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude. As the authors take apart the silliest tropes of the genre, you get the sense that they're talking down to you: "You're stupid for liking this stuff, but I'll take your money anyway."

Grossman doesn't do that. He's smart enough to see how silly the genre can be, but he loves it anyway, and he lets that love shine through throughout the book. The book is written in first person, from the alternating viewpoints of two main characters, the megalovillain Doctor Impossible and the cyborg superhero Fatale. Evil genius Doctor Impossible escapes from prison and immediately launches into a new plot to take over the world; with his greatest nemesis, the superhero Corefire, missing, he actually has a shot at it this time. Meanwhile, Fatale is invited to join a superteam called the New Champions (their mission: to find Corefire and stop the doctor's villainous plot), which allows her to see the unglamorous details of the heroes' behind the scenes lives.

In some ways, it's what I wanted Hero Go Home to be, except that Hero Go Home will be explicitly series fiction, while Invincible is a literary one-off. Parts of it feel a little well-worn, but parts of it are brilliant. Grossman introduces the conceit early on that being an evil genius is actually a mental disorder, Malign Hypercognition Syndrome. So that whenever he does the obviously self-defeating things that villains do (parodied well but somewhat tediously in the Evil Overlords list), he's not being stupid or a victim of bad writing; he's merely exhibiting the symptoms of his disease, and often enough, he realizes it, which makes him even more human and sympathetic.

I wasn't as thrilled with the Fatale sections of the book. They're more drab, more downbeat, and occasionally drop into pure infodump. And though Grossman does a lot of things well in this book, sometimes the action scenes overwhelm him. A big scene in the middle where Doctor Impossible fights the New Champions single-handed suffers from some curious gaps and continuity errors; other scenes which could have been set-pieces are avoided completely and we see only their aftermath.

Overall, though, it's a funny and fast read. I recommend it for superhero fans.

Watchmen Pics

I'm slightly excited over this. The graphic novel was so uniquely superior that the movie is bound to disappoint, and yet the pics, at least, look good.

Speaking of "Watchmen," there was a review of "Double-Secret Weapon" in The Fix, which is apparently a short fiction review site. Short version: they weren't thrilled with it.

But it's interesting that he seems to dismiss it in the context of "'Watchmen' and 'The Incredibles' said it all already." Never mind the fact that both those examples are long-form stories with different purposes than my short story. Never mind the fact that both stories appeared in different media with different advantages and different limitations. Never mind the fact that "The Incredibles" was written by a staff of folks over the course of years, and that "Watchmen" was written by the ferociously talented Alan Moore. Never mind the fact that even by Alan Moore's standard's, "Watchmen" is an amazing achievement, but that didn't stop him from writing more stories in the genre. Never mind the fact that in many respects, "Watchmen" and "The Incredibles" are the same story, albeit with very different characters and themes.

Nope, the message is, "it's been done perfectly already, so don't even try."

Thanks, Mr. Cowboy, I'll take it under advisement. Meanwhile (big announcement), I hope you like my upcoming pale-shadow-of-"Watchmen"-and-"The-Incredibles" short story, "No Love For the Middleman," slated to appear on "Strange Horizons" sometime in June, I hope. This is the first story I've sold that wasn't a Digger story, although it happens in the same world and Digger does get a brief mention. So the Digger lucky streak continues.

More Heroes DVD Stuff, Six Degrees of Frazier's Brain, and a Tiny Touch of Reviewing Nostalgia

When I was reviewing movies for the Daily Oklahoman, waaaaay back in 1986-87, two of the movies I reviewed were "Teen Wolf" and "Burglar," both written by the team of Matthew Weisman and Joseph Loeb III. While watching "Teen Wolf," I figured that the writers must be comic book fans, both because they treated Michael J. Fox's lycanthropy more like a superpower than a curse and because they used the term "wolf out" to refer to his transformation (which was a shout-out to the old Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk TV series; the series's crew used the term "Hulk-out" when talking about Bixby's transformation scenes).

Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that Joseph Loeb III had changed his professional moniker to Jeph Loeb, comic-book writer extraordinaire who has also achieved great success in TV, as a producer/writer on Smallville, Lost, and Heroes.

Speaking of guys who change their professional monikers, Loeb and Weisman also received story credit on the sequel to "Teen Wolf," "Teen Wolf Too," but they did not write the screenplay. The screenplay is credited to R. Timothy Kring, known these days as Tim Kring, creator of Heroes.

I've now listened to all the commentary tracks (except one which was so inane that I couldn't finish it). One of the things I've been newly reminded of: Actors often don't read entire scripts. Depending on the actor's philosophy of acting and/or devotion to craft, they may only read the scenes in which they appear. This reminds me of a Shatner anecdote I'm going to try to find and post about later.

And here's my own little version of "Six Degrees of Separation," connecting me to Heroes. I went to high school with a guy named Steve Spencer, whose dad went to school with a guy named Hunt Lowry. Hunt Lowry produced (among other things) a movie called "Get Crazy," starring Malcolm McDowell and directed by Allan Arkush. McDowell played Linderman on Heroes, and Arkush is an exec producer and has directed five episodes.

So Steve Spencer to his dad to Hunt Lowry to Arkush/McDowell. That's four steps. Can I do better?

Hmmm. Another of my high school classmates was Suzy Amis, who starred in a movie called "Firestorm" with Howie Long. "Firestorm" was co-produced by Joseph Loeb III, aka Jeph Loeb, writer and co-executive producer on Heroes. That's two steps.

Can I do any more? Let's fish around on IMDB...

One of my classmates at USC was a guy named Ken Tsumura. His most recent credit was as an exec producer on "Curious George." The first time I saw Ken's name in credits was on The Simpsons as production manager. George Takei, who played Hiro's father on Heroes, has done voices on three episodes of The Simpsons. That's two again (I could cheat and say it's only one, because I met George Takei at my first sci-fi convention, but getting autographs doesn't count, I don't think).

You know, it's a fun game to play with Kevin Bacon, but it gets a little depressing when I start playing it with my own name.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I'd like to give a few of my thoughts. Nothing too in depth or spoilery, but a few impressions all the same.

As I said before, I bought the book at midnight Friday at the con. I drove straight home and decided to read the first chapter or two. I read a page and a half, then fell asleep. Saturday, I read a couple more pages, Sunday a few more, but I was having trouble concentrating on it, with the excitement of the con and all. Plus I think Rowling has trouble with beginnings (which may be purely a personal thing, because another blog review I read said the book started brilliantly, then fell apart). Monday, I had off from work. I got up early, decided to read a couple more chapters, then do some other things.

I read the entire book to the end that day, practically without stopping.

All of Rowling's usual weaknesses are on display here: the weak opening (as I said before), the flabby prose, the repetitive bickering between the three main friends, the idiot plot (in which the characters turn really stupid whenever the plot requires them to), the mysterious gaps of time in which nothing happens because each book is supposed to be roughly a year long so December will mysteriously turn into March with no progress made whatsoever.

This book still follows the rough timeline of the previous books, though it does not, as you would know from reading book six of the series, actually cover a year at Hogwarts. So Rowling gets to dispense with all the touchstones of school life throughout the year that had formed the spine of previous books. Some of those are really poignant in their absence, like Mrs. Weasley's Christmas sweaters, but most of them, we dont miss. Hell, I think even Rowling was getting tired of stuff like Quidditch and the Sorting Hat, because she'd been performing all sorts of plot acrobatics to avoid writing them for the last few books.

About fifty pages in, I wasn't enjoying the book much at all and feeling a little grumpy about it, because I'd really wanted it to be good. But there were enough cliffhangers to keep pushing me forward--Rowling's pre-publicity teases about major characters dying worked into this, because several times throughout the book, she has someone apparently die, and you think, "No, she didn't... she wouldn't..." then the character is miraculously alive, and something unexpected happens.

But as the book drives on, Rowling's considerable strengths push to the forefront. Her ability to make you connect with the characters and care about them, the way she weaves in small bits, practically forgotten, from earlier books and makes them suddenly vital clues to the greater mystery, her use of suspense and little cliffhangers to keep the plot pushing forward, her ability to make us sympathize even with the villains (some of them anyway).

By the middle of the book, I was literally caught completely in the spell. Clutching myself during the tense bits, laughing aloud or sighing with relief, reading some conversations out loud just to hear them and stretch out the experience, make it more vivid and real. I probably looked ridiculous, like a caricature of some Victorian housewife, reading a penny dreadful and swooning in its grip.

But it was that good, damn it. Some writers are very polished; Rowling is not. But she is powerful, and that's what she brings to bear here. I must admit, although I didn't cry (I'm not a girl, you know), I did get choked up a few times, when certain characters died or when Harry was faced with his heartbreaking choice toward the end (and I won't say anything else about what that choice is).

There are some things I want to say in more depth, but can't without spoilers, so I'm going to hold off for at least another week. But I will say, while it's not a perfect book by any means (and really, none of them have been), it's a very good and fitting end to the series.