Monthly Archives: August 2012
I meant to write an article discussing Christopher Nolan‘s latest (and final?) Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises (henceforth, TDKR). I started off writing that article but ended up writing a screed about going to the movies. Words not wasted, perhaps, but now I return to the original intent: trying to say a few words about the movie itself.
The bottom line is that I give it an Eh! on my scale of Wow!, Ah!, Eh!, Meh!, Nah! & Ugh! It’s above the no-go line, so I say it’s worth seeing if it’s in your interest zone. If you’ve seen the other two, you certainly want to see this one. That said, it’s my least favorite in Nolan’s Batman trilogy as well as my least favorite Nolan film. And to be honest, were it not for superhero movie fatigue setting in, I might well have given this a higher rating. I’ve just gotten tired of the genre.
Warning: In this article I’m not going to make any attempt to avoid spoilers, so if you (a) haven’t seen the movie and (2) don’t like spoilers, then you shouldn’t continue reading.
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1 Comment | tags: Bane, Batman, Christopher Nolan, Knightfall, superheroes, The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Rises | posted in Movies
Yesterday I threw down the gauntlet regarding Christopher Nolan’s new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. In fact, that article was a first entry into a discussion about how we’ve constantly upped the ante regarding violence in movies and television and modern life in general.
That larger discussion will evolve over time as I find things to say about it. In this article I want to talk specifically about the Batman movie… or rather about the “going to the Batman movie” theater experience.
When it comes to going to the movie theater to see a movie, each time I do that lately I seem to find one less reason to do that ever again. Let me count the ways:
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10 Comments | tags: AMC, movie theaters, popcorn | posted in Life, Movies, Rant
The other evening, I finally went to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. The punch line (and never was the term “punch” more appropriate) is that I have to give it a definite thumbs down. It is, without question, my least favorite Christopher Nolan movie, and that’s saying something, because (unlike some), I quite like Nolan’s work.
I’m a life-long comics fan and a life-long fan of the Batman. I’ve known the worlds of DC and Marvel for over 40 years. For me, Superman has a slight edge, but the Batman has always been a close second. Those two comprise a full quarter to one-third of my comics and gnovels (graphic novels) collection. Frank Miller‘s The Dark Knight Returns is one of two seminal works I hold in the highest esteem. (The other, of course, is Alan Moore‘s Watchmen.)
And, as I mentioned, I’m a fan of Nolan’s work, and I liked both his first two Batman movies. I fully expected to like his latest.
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Leave a comment | tags: Alan Moore, Batman, Christopher Nolan, superheroes, The Dark Knight Rises, violence, violence in movies | posted in Movies, Rant, The Interweb, TV
Saturn V
Kudos and congratulations to Curiosity! The Mars Space Laboratory — the “rover” — is safely down on Mars. Other blogs have covered it in great detail, so I won’t go into it. The Bad Astronomer is a great place to start with anything space-related; here’s a good one, and here’s another. Maki, over at sci-ənce, has a really cute comic. And you can always count on Randall Monroe, over at xkcd, for a good take on it. (And speaking of xkcd and Mars, I’ve always loved this one.)
But I do just want to say, “Wow! This is really cool!”
And isn’t Curiosity an apt name for a mission designed to slake ours.
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Leave a comment | tags: Curiousity, Mars, MSL, NASA, Project Gemini, Project Mercury, Redstone rocket, Saturn V rocket, Titan rocket | posted in Life, Science
In fact I’m actually going to write a rant about two bits from the Lord of the Rings movies, but they’re directly related to the Han Shot First controversy. In both cases, Hollywood seems to be demonstrating a classic far left bias I can only think of as Limp Dick Syndrome.
In the Star Wars case, the bias is so strong it involves revisionism of previously published material!
But let’s first discuss those two bits from Peter Jackson’s film version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It’s kind of more of the same sort of LDS problem (and I don’t mean Latter Day Somebodies, and I didn’t misspell LSD).
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7 Comments | tags: Boromir, Ents, Faramir, Han Shot First, Lord of the Rings, Torchwood | posted in Movies, Rant
Funny how people use “quantum leap” to mean a large jump. In reality, a quantum leap — a real one, not a Scott Bakula one — is a tiny thing. A very tiny thing. Think decimal point, 33 bagels and a number. Tiny. Tiny beyond belief (or unbelief, for that matter).
And yet…
It does mean jumping to a new level very different from the old.
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4 Comments | tags: diet mountain dew, grammar, odometer, quantum leap | posted in Brain Bubble
So I was watching the Olympics, which is what everyone is doing these days, and we’ll get to that in a moment.
What I was watching is that one gymnastics event… you know the one, where the gymnast hangs from a pair of parallel bars and does her amazing acrobatics while suspended above several horizontal sheets of glass, each separated by about six inches.
Wait… What?!?
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1 Comment | tags: crowds, dreams, greed, gymnastics, money, Olympics, people, spectacle | posted in Life
The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, naturally re-activated the “discussion” of guns and gun control in the blogsphere. As with reproductive rights and gay rights, it’s not really a discussion so much as two sides throwing comments (or worse) at each other.
At least they aren’t throwing bullets (yet?). I guess that’s something.
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5 Comments | tags: aurora colorado, colorado, current-events, gun control, gun debate, guns, Roger Ebert | posted in Life, Philosophy
So this morning I get up and check my work email. There’s a meeting invite from my boss, posted early this morning, for a 9:30 meeting titled “Re Org Update” and to be held in a conference room (rather than in my boss’s office).
None of that sounded good. Unexpected meeting being held immediately. Odd location. No details. I did a [Reply with Comments] to say, “Oh, oh… this doesn’t sound good,” hoping for a calming reply.
No calming reply.
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14 Comments | tags: fired, layed off, let go, unemployed, work | posted in Life
Logos con carne 