Bobblehead of the Week

Shatner as Denny Crane. One of my first and still one of the best. Denny Crane. Denny Crane. Photo courtesy of Sanderson studios.

Tesco Beggar

Richard and I exited Tesco at 8.04pm tonight.

Beggar: Hey mates. Have you got 48 wankin' pence?

Damian: Yes, yes I have thank you.

Smile. Walk away.

48?

wankin'?

A Dark Knight

I feel so passionate about this subject that it will go down in history as my first ever blog - in fact this blog may have been created just so I can rant about this particular topic. The world has Christopher Nolan to thank for unleashing my blog on the unsuspecting public. Christopher Nolan did a bad job.

Dateline: Saturday 26 July 2008 - 8.30pm Clapham PictureHouse

Potential Problems:

• I am out in an untested situation with people I normally only associate with during the hours of 8 and 4 - but this should be foolproof - it is Batman after all.
• No air conditioning in the screen on one of the hottest nights of the year - bad Clapham PictureHouse. Points for the A4 sign at the door telling us we can have a refund if we leave within 30 mins. Points off for the staff member not telling us about the sign. Does anybody read signs? Points added for reclining chairs.

And now to business.....

Even Katie Holmes couldn't destroy Batman Begins. Poor plotting, criminal underuse of excellent actors and Christian Bale's ridiculous 'bat' voice have easily brought down the The Dark Knight.
Let me break it down for you.

Michael Caine is excellent. Morgan Freeman is playing Morgan Freeman, but he is so good at it. Gary Oldman is a scene stealing SOB and so subtle - and therefore very unGary Oldman - I was even upset when he died (spoiler). Heath Ledger is a dead actor, and not really caring about speaking ill of the dead, this performance is all hype - not mediocre by any means, but with half an acting diploma under my belt I have to say that I could have pulled it off with some lint and knives.

There are too many characters and the ones I cared about were barely seen. Maggie Gyllenhall is a step up from Katie Holmes, but she is just to strange to look at to believe that two reasonably attractive men would be sparring for her attentions - quite frankly when she died I was overjoyed - why even bother re-actressing the Rachel Dawes character for the sake of half a film, it could have moved along easily without her - or instead of confusing us with the actress change the 3 or 4 scenes she appears in could have been filmed from behind with a Katie Holmes stand in. Aaron Eckhart - so brilliant in Thank You for Smoking - is adequate here as the good side of Harvey Dent but can't seem to pull off the all important character twist when he suffers some minor burning - courtesy of the Terminator make up department. Don't get me started on Christian Bale - he should stick to beating up the family. The voice he uses should be made illegal and I found myself thinking back fondly of George Clooney - someone please call John Barrowman and sign him up to don the modified bat suit - he could do it with a Scottish lilt.

And it's a mess. Too many ideas and it really is punitive dialogue stringing together some reasonably effective action sequences.

And it doesn't know when to call it quits. At 90 minutes I was rueing the fact that I hadn't taken the Clapham PictureHouse's 'air conditioning' out clause - me thinks there were higher powers at play there. It just doesn't wrap up and in the end must resort to using a ridiculous Morgan Freeman objecting phone tap device to even find the fucking Joker - and by then I didn't care what phone he was using - let alone what building he was using it in.

Flatmate Richard said there was applause at the conclusion of his performance - what a bunch of idiots and thank god I don't go to films in Battersea. The Clapham crowd were a lot more stand offish and perhaps a little delerious by 3 hours with no air.

To sum up the film. Bad bad overlong overwrought over hyped pap that relies on the over hyped death of a leading actor to help it make history - movie producers should be learning from this and taking out hits on stars with features about to release - imagine what Herbie: Fully Loaded would have done if Lindsay Lohan had been taken out after it wrapped - a huge blow to all lesbians I'm sure but Disney may have gotten a sequel out of it and Maggie Gyllenhall could have replaced Lindsay in the second outing. Bad bad Christopher Nolan - you badly needed a good Verna Fields (my first Jaws reference). Not a 'smarty cunt' on salary anywhere at Warner Bros allowing this shit to become as large as it did.

To sum up the evening. The Clapham PictureHouse needs to fix it's air conditioning. Domino's needs to take me off the 'no go zone' - although we did have a rebelious immigrant who brought the pizzas right to the front door. Good good immigrant. The pavlova (another good immigrant) was excellent. The evening was pretty well lit considering it was a Dark Knight.