It's been a while since the last update. I've been struggling with a feature script that started off with much gusto, but has since run into a brick wall. At 48 pages now, and with a major plot point event coming up, well frankly I'm stuck. So, here I am back again in the world of the living.
The Net's all abuzz with news of the very first review of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, written by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine. I, of course, also hurriedly went over to read it, excited to know if this will be the ultimate REAL superhero movie that won't dumb us down any further than The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man have.
Well, disappointingly it's a non-review, really. It's more like a fanboy's frothing ranting than anything else. Travers starts off telling us:
"There's something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension."
But that's about all he tells us. What is it about the gruelling battle between good and evil that's "raw and elemental"? How does Nolan cut through "to a deeper dimension"?
But all Travers tells us are praises laced with superlatives, like how Ledger as the Joker is "mad-crazy-blazing brilliant," and Bale as Batman is "electrifying as a fallibly human crusader."
Ya, sure, thanks a lot. Now I get a better picture.
And we wonder why some lament the loss of film criticism and the depletion of a good pool of critics who will not bend over backwards to fart out fanboy gas. But come to think of it, well it is Rolling Stone magazine after all, that last bastion of great film criticism.
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