ACERBIC TREATS
08.29.08 THE DARK KNIGHT, MY IPHONE & MORE!
Hello all, and welcome back to the column that
may take a break, but always comes back for
more! I apologize for my absence over the past
weeks. It has been a strange few weeks in the
Gonzo house with his dealer going M.I.A., and
seriously work piling up, and a few deaths
around him. Not been fun. But I decided to get
off of my lazy ass, ass and finally do some
writing. I have watched a TON of movies
recently, finished one of the greatest TV shows
of all time, and have finally made an effort to
play through some of my old games. So let’s get
started!
THE DARK KNIGHT
Spoilers ahead!!! What is
the easiest way to say best comic book movie
ever? Is it by saying best comic book ever? If
so, then this movie is the best comic book movie
ever. This may be the best 2 comic book movies
ever. Even a month after seeing it, I have no
ill effects from claiming that I have watched a
masterpiece. After the lights rose in the lovely
Cinerama Dome in Hollywood
, and I sat in my seat
relatively stunned and shocked at what I had
just witnessed. I saw the Joker become the
coolest most vicious (for a Hollywood movie
anyway) villain ever to grace the screen of a
comic book adaptation. I witnessed Two-Face look
as disgusting as he would if he was burned in
real life. I witnessed the rise of Commissioner
Gordon. I witnessed the Batman take a backseat
to a much more interesting character. I
witnessed genius from all parties.
From the moment Heath Ledger appears as Joker,
there is a buzz on the screen, more so because
he died than from what the character actually
does. The transition comes from the first
meeting he has with the CO-OP (as
The Wire
would call it) as Heath grabs the audience in
his gloved hand, and we are off for a ride,
knowing full well that he has taken complete
control of the movie. The “magic trick” alone
set the crowd a-flutter and there was no turning
back. His performance deserves an Oscar. This is
the best performance from any comic book movie
ever and really one of the most impressive
performances in recent memory. After watching
Heath have his way in this movie, it really begs
to question all the chatter about how he, “could
never live up to Jack’s performance as the
Joker”. Not only has he lived up to it, he’s
blown it out of the water. Jack’s Joker is
kiddie, wet your pants, you’re up past your bed
time, campy, Batman from the 60s Joker, while
Heath is “Killing Joke” or “Arkham Asylum”
Joker. He is the man that tests Batman, and is
the violent, serial killer that constantly
causes Batman nothing but absolute headaches and
torture. From his ticks to his twitches, to the
masterful touch of having him tell a different
story each time he talks about his scars, Heath
snatches the attention of anyone and everyone in
the vicinity and takes them on a wild ride. You
are almost sad afterwards when you realize that
he is missing for a good middle chunk of the
movie. The rest of the cast is their usual self:
awesome, and believable. And kudos for replacing
Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Great call
on that. Katie is a terrible actress and gets
way to much work. She’s been downhill since the
first 4 seasons on Dawson’s Creek. And there is
nothing wrong with me watching that show, and
owning the DVDs, no matter what your hetero
gland says.
This leads me to the script, penned by the
director Chris Nolan and his brother Jonathan
Nolan, they take many of the great conflicts of
the best graphic novels and do their best to
bring it to Hollywood. Granted they couldn’t
have it as dark or morbid as “The Dark Knight
Returns” or “Arkham”, but they take it pretty
damn close. Joker verbalizes the relationship
between himself and Batman in the interrogation
room as one in the same. How one cannot live
without the other. A popular device in the
comics and the novels, it isn’t as impactful
here as in the comics because of the bluntness
in the way it was stated. It is a really good
thing that they included it because the reason
Batman is so obsessed with his villains and
Gotham is that he tends to see a little of
himself in all of his villains (get into talking
about the Riddler). He sees his weaknesses in
the Joker, his double life in Two-Face, his
freak nature in the Penguin, his better half in
Catwoman, and his intelligence in the Riddler.
Two-Face, as if you didn’t know, is in this
movie as well and damn if he doesn’t seem to
have his own chunk of the script to himself. I
didn’t expect that they would have what was
basically 2 movies rolled into one by having the
rise and fall of Two-Face within the movie
itself. Well done on that end by breaking
conventions and what the movie going audience
expects to see. The script itself is well
written, but no matter how good a script is, if
the actors cannot pull it off, it has no hope.
Hope springs eternal in this film.
Is this the best comic book movie ever? Yes.
Easily. This isn’t just a good comic movie, this
is great cinema. Nolan has proved he is a genius
and Batman does not let this mantle waiver in
the slightest. I bow before “The Dark Knight” as
a humbled moviegoer, and I worship at it’s alter
as the greatest comic book movie ever. That is
until “Watchmen” comes out.
GRADE: A
THE IPHONE
For those of you who are misinformed the messiah
did arrive in a blustery day in July.
Unfortunately for the religious people involved,
Jesus did not look like the 6 foot tall white
guy with long hair and a beard. In fact he
didn’t look like a 6 foot tall middle eastern
guy with long hair and a beard (not Osama). He
in fact looks like a 4 inch cube with a touch
screen and awesome multimedia capabilities. And
a beard. That’s right, the IPHONE arrived on the
scene (and it only really makes an impact if you
type everything in caps) and I actually lined up
for one. One of those lonely, depressed, loser
people who had nothing better to do than take a
vacation day and line up for a phone, I managed
to secure one thanks to Del Taco, “Blade Runner”
and “Spaced”.
As soon as I secured the phone in my possession
I tried my hardest not to sacrifice a goat for
it. Seeing as there were monumental issues as to
getting it to work (I wasn’t able to actually
use the phone until 10 hours later, thanks Apple
and AT&T!), I withheld my pious convictions and
simply married the goat.
Once my phone started working I was in love. I
tried not to get too hyped for it as I knew that
would lead to a road of disappointment but I
couldn’t help myself. I looked past the glaring
errors and omissions and had a blast toughing it
and fiddling with it and had a grand old time.
Then the luster wore off and this is what I am
left with.
First off, good: The application store is
seriously genius and transformed what would have
been a mediocre phone into something AWESOME.
The applications are constantly updated and the
fact that I can watch pitch by pitch in real
time baseball games is truly sweet. The You Tube
connectivity is amazing as well. Really awesome
stuff there. The GPS is very helpful and does
what it should for the most part. There should
be some giant announcements about the phone
coming on 09/09/08, so I expect it to be even
better. I have high hopes anyway. You can zoom
in on your pictures after you take them too
which is neat. IPod options are great. Internet
connectivity is great.
My gripes: No cut and paste. No texting or
receiving pictures in a way that doesn’t drive
you insane. No zoom on the camera. No flash on
the camera. Worthless camera. Obnoxiously slow
at times, especially when typing. Applications
crash pretty regularly. The phone tends to
restart itself whenever it damn well pleases.
Nothing seems to ever work when you really need
it (GPS is a great example). 3G eats more
battery than a super charged vibrator. It
doesn’t make me dinner. Sound pops in and out.
Ringtones are annoying as hell to create, but
pretty cool at the same time.
So if you’re gonna get this, and I am sure
you’ve been waiting 3 months since it came out
to read my review before purchasing it, read the
below battle between my old phone and my IPhone
and see the victor:
OLD PHONE: Could receive pictures of assorted
male body parts and chicks with wieners from my
friend to his glee of grossing me out. Could
text pictures to people if I saw fit.
IPHONE: Cannot text pictures
or receive my friend’s “chicks with dix pix”
without logging into an AT&T website to review
them, much to my friends chagrin. LAME.
Point: OLD PHONE
OLD PHONE: Couldn’t answer calls on my phone,
causing me to punch it, shattering the screen.
IPHONE: Can actually answer
calls on my phone for once! Yeah!
Point: IPHONE
OLD PHONE: Had to play solitaire endlessly while
on the can as a way to amuse myself.
IPHONE: Can play “Monkey Ball”
(not as gross as it sounds), Poker and Solitaire
(and funny that they all sound like euphemisms
for playing with your junk, or balling someone)
while on the can and even surf the internet too!
Point: IPHONE
OLD PHONE: Slow connectivity made watching
pornography impossible.
IPHONE: Faster connectivity
allows better porn viewing, but unless you’re
connected to WI-FI, the quality is so poor, you
might as well watched scrambled porn on the TV
or just put a bunch of porn on the phone via the
IPOD.
Point: Tie
OLD PHONE: Won’t make me dinner
IPHONE: Still won’t make me
dinner, but looks better while not cooking for
me, much like a trophy wife or a younger
girlfriend.
Point: IPHONE
So as you can see, the IPHONE clearly beats my
old phone 3-1in the best of 7 championship. Is
the IPHONE worth buying? In a way yes it is.
It’s a great device, but has MAJOR flaws that
updates will hopefully take care of in the
future. If they fix pix texting and the camera
this thing is gold. If not, a smart phone like a
Blackberry may be for you. All in all though it
is a solid phone that is contingent on what they
do with it. It can either be a masterpiece or a
bust.
GRADE: B
FUTURE POSSIBILITY: A
Well I had figured I would write more than I
actually did but ranting about a phone and the
Dark Knight took up much more room than I
thought it would. I will blow through all the
movies that I saw over the summer and review the
GREATEST SHOW OF ALL TIME in my next column.
Until then, good day and sorry for the delay in
writing.
