The Dark Knight

Superhero movies have always had their niche with movie goers. They are fun, flashy popcorn movies to gaga over usually whenever summer time comes around. Back in 2002, is when Sam Raimi's excellent "Spider-Man" was released and it made the biggest opening weekend ever of $114 million dollars. - That's a lot of money to rake in in just three days. It opened the doors for superhero movies to be taken seriously in this day and age and Hollywood execs were not oblivious to this. - In fact, this is when emails, cells phone and blackberry's the world over began lighting up like mad because everyone knew that the "superhero genre" was something that people wanted to see!! Every wants to see their favorite superhero's brought to life. But not just brought to life for the heck of seeing them on the silver screen, but to see it done properly.

Summer 2005, Christopher Nolan revamped the Batman film series wonderfully after Schmacher made a complete debauchery of Batman to the mass audiences in the last decade making people forget the true mythology of who and what the Batman is. - Now, it must be mentioned that Tim Burton's original 1989 version of Batman is still to this day an excellent movie. Nolan's set's up Batman from scratch and we get to see our masked avenger back in the dark night doing what he does best. (spoiler) The ending of "Batman Begins" superbly sets up the sequel with the find of the joker playing card - totally getting us wet for the next chapter. However, beyond my knowledge and even my expectations come summer 2008 when "The Dark Knight" was unveiled to public, I was not at all expecting to be as astonished as I was.

I proudly saw the 12:01am IMAX presentation of "The Dark Knight" and from the first frame where the mirrored building is being zoomed in on from a great distance quickly getting tighter and tighter on the full IMAX screen, I was hooked. You're literally being pulled into this world and scenario where an incredibly orchestrated bank heist is about to happen. Not just any bank heist, these fellows dressed in clown masks are stealing from Gotham City's mob. - Pretty balsy . Planning. planning. planning. Everything was planned by the most vicious villain ever to grace our minds - The Joker.

He's one man to not to be reckoned with, not to be underestimated and never, never ever to be judged - or he will show you a magic trick you will never forget!

The Joker gives our tortured soul Batman a.k.a. The Dark Knight choices. Choices that he must make. Choices he must live with whether he wants to or not. The pain is so intense you can understand how and why an entire city was brought to its knees by one man's power.

There is so much story and characterization to this movie that it simply cannot be wrapped up in a synopsis review. Nor will I try, for that will be doing this a great injustice. I have far too much respect for this movie. This movie is the next step in the evolution of cinema. Some, if not the darkest and most brilliant storytelling I've ever seen done through the medium of film takes place here. Christopher Nolan truly has taken film making to the "next level"; even other than his incredibly original "Memento". - Which blew me away too I might add.

Nolan pulled out all the stops with this one. Down to the sonar detection Batman utilizes via Lucius Fox's (Morgan Freeman) spectacular technology all the way to the insanity and disturbing ways The Joker retells how he got his scars and of course our white knight Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart). The pacing is superb. There are scenes when a character on screen realizes something just at the same time the audience does. Always keeping us going and keeping right there with the characters. Truly feeling what is happening in every moment. Even fear.

There is no doubt that Heath Ledger stole the show of his mesmerizing performance of The Joker, for which he was honored with a posthumous academy award for best supporting actor. Absolutely amazing. Anyone that believes this movie is less than a landmark in the history of cinema, well....they don't know shit. Plain and simple.

I can understand however if some people "just didn't understand it". This is a very complex story and takes your mind to outlandish places. But its perfection is almost haunting in its own degree. "Some men just want to watch the world burn" says Alfred, Bruce Wayne's butler. Summing up The Joker's intentions in a figurative nutshell. - Stunning writing.

This is the first film ever to use IMAX technology. According to the Christopher Nolan, IMAX cameras are very heavy machines to use and very noisy therefore making it very difficult to use when filming. But Mr. Nolan is a professional and understands this equipment very well so he knew what needed to be done in order to get it the way he needed. - Absolute perfection. IMAX never looked better than it did when I witnessed the masterpiece titled "The Dark Knight".

I've thought about this alot....could this be the greatest movie ever made? Possibly.....

Cine-a-Meter rating: 5/5

Directed by Christoper Nolan, written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan (brothers) and story by David S. Goyer.

Starring Christian Bale as The Dark Knight/Bruce Wayne, Heath Ledger as the The Joker, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon and Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face/Harvey Dent.

Rest In Peace, Heath. I am sorry I ever doubted you.

Jennifer's Body

Last night was opening night for wide release of Megan Fox's first lead staring role "Jennifer's Body". The original poster for this was released early last year, which is quite the early buzz for movie which isn't a blockbuster epic.

Although this is not getting pretty reviews with critics, it really doesn't matter. "Jennifer's Body" is written by Diablo Cody who wrote the academy award winning screenplay for Juno. - which was great. I personally enjoyed this movie very much. This was a throwback to old school horror flicks from the 80's with better dialog thanks to Diablo. Movies of that genre are meant to be campy. Its just the way it is and people who watch them, understand that. This is a fun movie when it comes to being a high school movie about Jennifer Check, whose your regular man-eater (pun intended) who always gets asked out on dates and sex and barely ever declines. Her and her friend Needy (Amanda Seyfriend - who shines in her role and gets the opportunity to provide V.O.) gets caught up with an indie rock band (played by front man Adam Brody) who refer to Satan to get better opportunity to have their band grow forth. - In order to do this, they must sacrifice a virgin teenage girl i.e. Jennifer. - As we know early on, Jennifer is not a virgin which throws a wrench in their sacrifice. (Good lord, with a woman like that, it'd be a crying shame for her to be!) sorry Christian folk....

From there, the spell goes awry, and she becomes a literal man-eater on the hunt for what she needs to live. Lots of funny dialog is spewed left and right and gives the characters much more like-ability than if they were just drone high school teens reiterating how to "stop a demon" in their school. There are several kills and they are all fucked up! All these things mixed in made for quite an entertaining experience as well as seeing Megan Fox become a demon and kick some ass. Its unusual or rare might be the better world to see a female doing all the macabre actions in a horror/comedy flick. Its refreshing to see a take on the other side of the spectrum for once. Moderately directed by Karen Kusama but convincingly scary and darkly funny, this was a fun trip.

Megan Fox puts through her first ever lead performance and to settle and all the mutter - she can act. Finally with the proper medium and writing and of course directing, she can spread her wings and we get to see and hear her in a full light. As oppose to her lame character in Mikaela in Michael Bay's dump truck blockbuster movies Transformers 1 & 2. She never got a chance to "act" in those because Michael Bay doesn't allow females in his movies to properly "act". They're always either watching for a control room screaming in anguish for their loved ones in danger, closing their eyes in fear (The Rock, Armageddon,) or most recently just running around behind Shia holding his hand while shit is blowing up left and right around them - just for the heck of it. But that is Michael Bay crashing - lets save that for another time!

All in all, "Jennifer's Body" could've been more fun, and I would've liked to have gotten more into the demonic themes of the storyline more, but when its comes down to it, this is a movie about high school and the friends/relationships you have while you're there - along with some crazy ass horror spectacle for good measure.

I must drop, that one of my favorite scenes in any movie is in this one where Jennifer is talking on the phone and she is looking in the mirror and lights the tip of her tongue on fire with a lighter and watches as it heals back up immediately. - Hot.

Directed by Karyn Kusama of "Girlfight" and "Aeon Flux" previously (one good, one stinker) written by Diablo Cody of "Juno" screen writing fame, produced by Jason Reitman director of "Juno" and upcoming "Up In The Air" (which looks great I might add).

Starring the gorgeous beyond all belief Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody and J.K. Simmons who I almost didn't recognize at first when he comes on screen. (You'll understand when you see this).

Cine-a-meter rating: 3.5/5

First posting....

So here we finally are at my first ever online blog! Over and over friends have been saying that I should start my own blog and get my ideas "out there" to expand my horizons and simply exercise my knowledge of film, movies, series and over all news surrounding the movie industry....

As the saying goes, "all good things come to those who wait". In this case I am not sure if I am referring to myself or them....either way - I wanted to get started focusing on my first movie to blog on.

The first movie that has the honor of being blogged by myself is:"An American Werewolf In London". Any cinephile or even if you are just a fan of movies should definitely be familiar with this satirical horror classic. Our poor fool David is the victim of a werewolf attack which "scars" him leaving him bedridden until the real torment begins. He is visited by his subconscious hallucinations which make for wonderful characterization.

The infamous "transformation scene" to this day is one of my absolute favorite scenes in a horror film. They don't bother cutting away for the intense and excruciating pain of our character's body morphing before our very eyes into....well, a werewolf.

This was made in 1981 mind you, long before the letters CGI were ever used to describe what we now all know automatically to stand for computer generated images. So you can only imagine the painstaking efforts the SFX and make up team had to endure to get it that good!!

There is a very symbolic dream sequence in the movie that still freaks me out!

For everyone whose seen this already, you know what I am talking about I am sure. For those of you who have not.....you are in for an effing ride!

Directed by John Landis, released in 1981 and starring David Naughton, Griffin Dunne and Jenny Agutter

Cine-a-meter rating: 5/5