comment #1

BNick says ...

Even the initial doubters must admit that the Ledger Joker is looking promising.

My only concern now, based on the trailer, is that the Joker will be too much of a focus in the film, with not enough attention paid to Bale's Wayne/Batman and his own sociopathic demons.

comment #2

actionman says ...

My father took me to see Burton's Batman at a sneak preview when I was 9 years old...one of the defining movie experiences of my life and something I'll never forget. I don't care what anyone says about that film, I love it for many, many reasons.

That said, Ledger looks incredible in The Dark Knight trailer. Menacing, off-kilter, drunk with evil...just what the joker is supposed to be.

This film is going to be huuuuuge.

comment #3

christian says ...

I like the way Ledger looks, I'm just interested in how realistic the vibe of the trailer is. Starbucks in Gotham?

comment #4

p.Vice says ...

Looking at this trailer it's easy to tell this will be as big a piece of shit as the last one. Nolan is the most dangerous hack to hit Hollywood since Ridley Scott. He has no visual imagination whatsoever. Notice how in nearly every shot in the trailer the action or actors are centered in the middle of the frame; he doesn't know how to use Scope or provide any kind of visual dynamic to accompany his material. It's like he's panning and scanning his own movie while shooting. Boring!!!!

Not to mention, of course, that he no sense of humor and this movie apparently serves only to undo Burton's fantasy take on the story. Count me out.

comment #5

Fred Mounts says ...

p.Vice, do you like anything? Just about every comment you make on this site is bitching about what you don't like. Can't you spend your day doing something else, maybe something that brings joy into the world?

comment #6

BNick says ...

christian,

I agree that the movie has a very realistic feel judging from the trailer and the leaked prologue. Even Batman Begins was other-worldly in a way this one doesn't seem to be. But both are a far cry from the Gothic Burton world from Batman and especially Batman Returns.

p.Vice, don't count out the sense of humor factor. I think they're showing the Joker as a ferocious psychopath intentionally to draw the distinction with Nicholson. But I'm sure his sadistic sense of humor will be on display in this film.

comment #7

MadCrazyMovieHouse says ...

Meh. I like Batman and Batman Begins, but the rest of them are pretty shitty... here's hoping this one isn't.

comment #8

OddDuck says ...

I have a feeling p.Vice probably describes his mother's apple pie in similar fashion.

comment #9

The Pope says ...

pVice,
Are you seriously attempting to suggest that Ridley Scott has no visual imagination? You seem to utterly misunderstand what visual imagination entails. It is not just framing. It is what you put in the frame and where you put it and how you light it what lens you put on the camera and at what height you position the camera and should you pan or track or zoom.
Are you saying that the visual complexity of films like Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down (to name but four) are the products of a hack?
Ridley Scott may have his flaws, but ask ANYONE in the movie industry and, whether they like his movies or not, they ALL agree that he has an eye like few others.
I think in that one entry you revealed that when it comes to cinema, you have an utterly moronic, myopic grasp of it.

comment #10

jesse says ...

Nolan is really one of the best we've got in terms of studio system filmmakers. Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige... the guy knows what he's doing. And he does have a sense of humor! There's some great bits of dry humor in Batman Begins (and The Prestige and Memento, for that matter); it's just not played up

For the record, I loved Burton's Batman Returns -- a very different take from Nolan's, but a terrific one nonetheless. It gets the dark humor and twisted freakshow aspects of Batman/Gotham in a way that none of the other entries in the earlier series did, including the original I rewatched the '89 version a few weeks ago and it's as uneven as ever. Don't get me wrong; I've seen it probably six or seven times, which is a lot for a movie I don't love. But Nicholson's Joker is about 75% Jack, 25% Joker; Robert Wuhl is irritating as all hell; Kim Basinger is a blank; and Keaton has more interesting scenes to play in the second one. It's a fun film, but I remember reading somewhere that Burton said it was the only one of his movies he felt a little cool towards, and I feel similarly (or at least I did at the time of reading that interview; now you can add Planet of the Apes to that list).

Burton's movies actually got me into the Batman animated series and the comic books, so now I'm a pretty big fan of the character and consequently could not be more excited for Dark Knight.

comment #11

DavidF says ...

Returns is an underrated movie, but it's not an easy watch.
I'm sure others have said this as well but it's a rather personal, Burtonesque movie that happens to make use of Batman.

There are things that date or grate about the 1989 flick but it's still a landmark.

p.Vice's criticisms are largely amusing and, having only 1/2 payed attention, I noticed lots of stuff on the side of the frames. It's worth bearing in mind that at least some of this film is in Imax, which has a different aspect ratio, but it still seems narrowminded to reduce a filmmaker's visual aesthetic to much stuff they put off-centre...

comment #12

Sean says ...

From my Batman Begins review:

[The movie's] limitations are noticeable in part because the filmmakers' approach is so resolutely un-fantastic. The Batman stories have never traded on paranormal abilities a la Superman or Spider-Man, but at the same time you're confronted with a protagonist who dresses up in a bat costume to singlehandedly fight crime. There's an elevated weirdness to the character, and maybe Tim Burton embraced it too much, but Nolan and company bend over backward to make Bruce's conversion to Batman a totally rational one. Bruce is taught the tactical importance of theatricality and the advantage imparted by inducing fear — it's so reasonably presented that it seems a cinch that, had he suffered the same upbringing, Jack Ryan would have taken up the cowl too. Which is why the movie has been so critically embraced, of course — it's square masquerading as angular. (The tactical importance of theatricality!) Aficionados will point out that the stricter realism is in keeping with the putative source, the "Batman: Year One" miniseries by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, but those same complainants know just how lunatic Miller's conception of the character can be. It seems unlikely that Nolan will demonstrate that range.

http://flakmag.com/film/batmanbegins.html

I've struggled with Nolan as well, but I was wowed enough by The Prestige to re-evaluate some of my lukewarm responses, specifically regarding how much of his work is personal vs. mechanical.
I've always thought Ridley Scott is a director with a strong eye and no sense of humor, which has limited his appeal to me, but even when I was most conflicted about Nolan, I never had the resistance to him that I seem to have with Scott.

For the record, Batman Returns is easily my favorite Batman film.

comment #13

squealy says ...

"pVice,
Are you seriously attempting to suggest that Ridley Scott has no visual imagination? "

He's talking about Christopher Nolan.

comment #14

D.Z. says ...

BNick: "Even the initial doubters must admit that the Ledger Joker is looking promising."

Only if they don't turn him into Tyler Durden...

MadCrazy: "Meh. I like Batman and Batman Begins, but the rest of them are pretty shitty... here's hoping this one isn't."

I'm going to disagree with you on Returns...

comment #15

Dan Revill says ...

The filmmakers have stated that it is not Joker Begins, but The Dark Knight. Obviously when your villain is The Joker, he's going to command more screentime than a regular villain - but I have faith that this will be more about Batman than the teaser shows us. The thing that makes this particular hero/villain dynamic so interesting is that they are more similar than different - one just happens to want justice while the other wants nothing but chaos.
This will be good. Ledger sounds and looks great, and it's good to see the rest of the cast (w/ the exception of Holmes - welcome Gyllenhaal!) back in action.

comment #16

Mark says ...

Small complaint: I wish Ledger had gone with more of a cropped cut. Looks a little too much like Batman vs. The Crow.

comment #17

Redmond says ...

The Bat-bike. That is my only qualm.
Other than that, I was already excited for this movie right after seeing The Prestige. You can tell Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale and Michael Caine have an incredible rapport that won't manifest itself in any trailer but will undoubtedly be felt in the film.

Also, Nicholson's Joker was 18 years ago?! Damn. Definitely a stunning realization. I saw Burton's Batman when I was nine. Has not aged well, but definitely one of my favorites just for the memories.

comment #18

actionman says ...

p.Vice's stunning lack of filmic understanding is shocking and groteseque...it doesn't even warrant me typing anything more regarding his idiotic viewpoints. The moment that someone makes the claim that Ridley Scott has no visual imagination is the moment I truly realize that they don't know what the fuck it is they're talking about.

comment #19

MarkVH says ...

"The moment that someone makes the claim that Ridley Scott has no visual imagination is the moment I truly realize that they don't know what the fuck it is they're talking about."

Too right. In fact, I'd say that's about all he's got.

comment #20

MAGGA says ...

I just saw Batman Returns on TV a few days ago and it was so much worse than I remembered it. Truly stupid humour, all the sets looked like TV sets, the lighting was atrocious, the framings of shots was very dissapointing and The Penguin was just a dull, loud villain with no good story. Why two villains? Had they gone with Batman vs Catwoman and played up the sexual undercurrents of the superheroes and the more romantic aspects of theeir relationship in civilian life, THAT would have been a story with potential pace and symmetry. I hope Nolan does that at some point

comment #21

BurmaShave says ...

MAGGA I'll actually agree with most of what you said, but despite the flaws of the character and the arc, DeVito's performance is that film is perhaps his best and certainly his most depraved and one I'll always treasure. Plus Walken's Max "Muhammad" Schreck almost saves the film.

comment #22

p.Vice says ...

p.Vice to the lot -- These comments are laughable. Everyone turns up their nose but not one of you offered any evidence contrary to what I said.

I pity he who considers Nolan anything other than a pitiful visual filmmaker because he obviously don't have an understanding of film's visual language. Curse me you want but that doesn't change the truth about what I've said. Just look at the trailer. It's right there in front of you if you care to really look at it.

And you know what -- if you don't want to listen to me, listen to Matt Seitz and see if you want to call him an idiot too:

"Nolan compounds the film's aura of valedictorian drudgery by failing (or perhaps refusing) to think in pictures. Even bad comic book movies have the decency to offer one strikingly composed, metaphorically loaded composition after another, and the best of these linger in the mind; think of that E.T.-inspired shot from Burton's original of the Batwing silhouetted against a full moon, or the high-angled long shot in the opening of Joel Schumacher's perversely entertaining Batman Forever that showed Two-Face's yin-yang parachute gliding to earth. Visually, Batman Begins is a glossy snooze. Wally Pfister's nighttime photography is intriguingly lit, striking a balance between comic book noir affectation and real-world urban texture, but the compositions are distressingly plain; they lack graphic pizzazz and dreamlike pungency.

Except for a wide shot of the adult Wayne rising in defiance amid a storm of bats, and a few frustratingly brief shots from the points-of-view of Gotham citizens on hallucinogens, Nolan resists visual invention at nearly every turn. He treats the camera not as a poetic instrument, but as a recording device, shooting nearly every conversation in tv-friendly over-the-shoulder close-ups with perspective-flattening lenses, and obliterating the spatial dynamics of the fight scenes by putting the camera so close to his combatants you can hardly tell who's thwacking whom. (Memento was a very clever movie, but its cleverness was encoded in its narrative structure, not in its Cinema Scope compositions; ditto the director's follow-up, Insomnia. If abuse of 'Scope were a crime, Nolan would be wearing leg irons.)"

comment #23

Mark says ...

there appears to be some confusion between creating something appealing to the eye, and visual imagination. it's almost as if those defending Ridley think that he designed the alien head, or did the makeup and set design in Bladerunner?

I'm a fan of his, don't get me wrong, but I hardly ever consider his work to surpass the scripts he chooses. Please explain the surprising and imaginary directorial choices in, e.g., American Ganster.

comment #24

christian says ...

"Except for a wide shot of the adult Wayne rising in defiance amid a storm of bats"

Which was the one moment in the film where I thought "WOW. The Batman."

comment #25

Mark says ...

"I pity he who considers Nolan anything other than a pitiful visual filmmaker because he obviously don't have an understanding of film's visual language."

I never understood this type of joyless thinking; it's like a wine snob who can't enjoy a $25 bottle of wine. True better wines exist, but your the one who deserves pity for the inability to appreciate something obviously others have had fun with.

comment #26

Mark says ...

my point, btw, is not that no one needs snobs; it's that snobs should lack pity for everything, including those he/she looks down upon.

comment #27

The Pope says ...

Mark,
You say that Ridley Scott never surpasses the scripts he chooses. Read the screenplays to Alien and Blade Runner and Black Hawk Down and see how much or indeed how little is described and then see what Ridley comes up with. The fact that he is renowned for storyboarding pretty much all of his films (his sketches even have their own name; Ridleygrams) shows that he has a visual imagination. Even though no one is dumb enough to think that a director conjures up every aspect of a film, it is their choice and taste and IMAGINATION that attract, seeks out and recognizes talent when it is there. To wit: it was Ridley's idea to get Geiger on board for Alien. If he didn't like the ideas, he would have junked them.
Finally, I agree with you on American Gangster. It is flat (and that is why I did not mention it in my first post).

comment #28

Mr B says ...

Mark, it is difficult with any movie to divide out who is ultimately responsible for what. Film being one of the most collaborative mediums, requiring so many people and so much hard work at every level. The set designers, the DP, the costume designers,etc. all have so much influence on what is seen. I personally am I huge Ridley Scott fan, and I give him a good bit of the credit, because his body of work has consistently been fantastic. There are some stinkers in there to be sure, but he also has a handful of great to classic films. To put it another way, if we took all of his films out of the world, cinema would be faced with a devastating loss.

p.Vice, you have already decided your position, so there is no point in proving anything to you. And how can you prove subjectiveness? I won't name call, I just strongly disagree with you. I will say that if Nolan is a hack, I wish all the other hacks would take notes.

comment #29

christian says ...

"To wit: it was Ridley's idea to get Geiger on board for Alien."

Certainly Ridley knew it had to be Giger, but it was Dan O'Bannon who inroduced his art to Scott.

But just going through the ALIEN supplements on the quadrilogy, Scott carried that film.

comment #30

Mark says ...

Ok, i'll give Ridley both Alien and Blade Runner. But then a funny thing happened not too long after; he turned 50. And like most directors, e.g., Coppola, Stone, Friedkin, etc., he was no longer capable of just taking a crew out into the forrest and returning with a shattering and cohesive film.

He has to depend on his scripts now, and to that end--and 2nd chopper crash and subsequent rescue attempt aside--i never thought Black Hawk Down the movie reached the heights of the source material.

comment #31

Abbey Normal says ...

I can't recall a summer tentpole movie I've been more excited to see, ever.

comment #32

giantman says ...

There was actually a lot of pre-viz work done on Alien, some by Ron Cobb and Moebious for example. As any director does, Ridley ultimately decided what to keep, what to throw away and what to expand upon.

As someone said above, this is a silly debate. Ridley's films have a distinct visual style, each unique to the story being told, but each also belonging to the cannon of a film maker. To say otherwise is to honestly show how little one understands of the process by which film is made and created. You certainly don't have to like it, or appreciate it, but neither of those choices change the fact that it remains.

Personally I like Nolan's choices in Begins because it roots the character in the real world. (As much as such a character can be.) The fantastical viewpoint of Burton's Batman and the silliness of the ones that followed, turned me off as I watched them become a joke. Those choices made Begins the best Batman movie ever in my book and one of the best Superhero movies to date.

comment #33

giantman says ...

I apologize, I went and spelled one of my favorite artists name wrong, it is Moebius and not Moebious. Good giref.

Y'know, someone should really make a movie based on something of his.

comment #34

p.Vice says ...

p.Vice to MrB - I agree %100 that you can't argue subjectivity, so if Nolan's blocky, static visual language appeals to some people, that's their choice. There are tons of people out there who prefer television to cinema or pan & scan to letterbox. But you can't compare Nolan to great visualists like Burton or Spielberg (to use Seitz's examples), and I guess it disappoints me that so many insist on appreciating him when there's far better filmmakers out there to get excited about.

I guess I'm just getting excoriated for insisting on a higher standard. Not much of a surprise, all things considered.

comment #35

NV says ...

p.vice -

Ok, I usually don't get involved in trying to change someone's opinion of a filmmaker, but Nolan is far from a hack. Granted he is not primarily a visual filmmaker, but he is one of the best visual storytellers. He puts so much of the narrative in every frame. The fact that he could make Batman Begins something that I would enjoy - and I usually hate popcorn movies - is a huge achievement in my book. Coupled with his fantastic Insomnia - another movie I thought I would hate because I adore the original - and The Prestige, and he's a filmmaker I would go see any day, regardless of the content, because I know its going to be entertaining.

As far as Nolan making interesting visuals, you weren't turned on at all with the photography in The Prestige? I thought it was magnificent. The lighbulbs in the ground, the discharge of electricity during the magic acts, etc were quite beautiful.

Now, in the Dark Knight trailer, watch the use of lines. Almost every shot has some degree of symmetry using lines. Even the shot of the Joker, in jail, when the camera tracks up, you can see different lines - blured bars in the foreground and then much smaller lines in the grate behind his legs. That's pretty to me and shows a skill beyond the norm. And the shot of Bale from behind, driving the bike, with his cape fluttering behind at high speed. Again, rather majestic and heroic. Great visuals for me. No, its not Kubrick or Kar-Wai, but he is far from illiterate.

comment #36

Sean says ...

This is strange; I would neither hold up Nolan as a great visual filmmaker nor a terrible one; he seems slightly above adequate, but consistently so, which, unfortunately, puts him at the top of the pile as far as hacks go [I call him a hack because every movie he makes seems picked to further his career to get him to a place where he can make another movie; 'The Prestige' was the first one he made that seemed like a movie he was genuinely interested in (especially if you hear him talk down his nose about comic books and noir movies {though, granted, he's British, so he may seem more condescending than he means to}), and was the best movie he's made yet, a fun popcorn movie].

My problem with his movies has always been the editing. He rushes through scenes too quickly, but then includes multiple repetitive scenes, which makes all of his movies have the same feel, a fast train going nowhere fast. 'Insomnia' especially is cut as if he took every establishing shot out and then edited them together into a montage which plays under the credits.

To me, his movies -- other than 'The Prestige' -- feel so inhuman and artificial that I never care. And they're not funny. The backlash against 'Dark Knight' is because it takes itself so seriously that it doesn't acknowledge that there's something ridiculous about a man dressed as a bat.

"Why So Serious?" indeed.

-another Sean

comment #37

jeffmcm says ...

P. Vice, go after Kevin Smith or Darren Bousman or hell, Ron Howard if you want to point out Hollywood directors with no visual sense. Nolan isn't in the same league as Tim Burton or Spielberg, but that's very rarified company. Nolan's movies are, if not spectacular, still handsome and involving and he compensates in other areas, like command of narrative and facility with actors.

comment #38

Sean says ...

Oh, and knocking Ridley Scott's visuals is as strange to me as knocking Billy Wilder's dialogue.

comment #39

Hopscotch says ...

Batman of 1989 is one of the most over-rate fanboy movies of all-time.

it's not bad, but there's a prince music-video in the middle of it for god's sake. The climactic fight with the kung fu henchman, really silly.

Can't wait for this one.

comment #40

Mark says ...

How did Ron Howard just get lumped with Kevin Smith into the same sentence?

comment #41

Hopscotch says ...

no shit?

comment #42

p.Vice says ...

jeffmcm -- Your examples send shudders down my spine. :)

The only problem I see with that comparison is that Nolan's material is vastly different than those two... he's working in the comic book / fantasy adventure genre, and that type of film relies much more on the filmmaker to provide a more aggressive, inventive aesthetic that matches the material in order to come across than, say, a low-budget comedy. If he were making different movies his weaknesses might not be as much of a liability. Likewise, if Kevin Smith were directing The Dark Knight... no, let's not even go there.

Your comment about compensating in other areas is interesting... I don't entirely disagree (I'd say Insomnia and The Prestige are not dismissable in that regard even though aesthetically they're perfunctory at best), but over the years I've found those areas less and less satisfying. I look to appreciate movies as first and foremost a visual experience, which maybe explains why talking about the filmmakers I can't stand ruffles so many feathers. Narrative facility and command with actors is great, but you can get that as easily from television like The Sopranos as you can from Nolan's films.

And NV -- I'm not disparaging Wally Pfister's cinematography. I'm saying Nolan puts it to poor use by the way he chooses to employ it. The shot with the bike is a great example -- ground level, following from behind, bike squarely in center of frame, nothing else going on... rather straightforward when compared to, say, the Batwing soaring up against the moon. You can't even appreciate the bike (or its rider) from that angle; you can't see it.

comment #43

jeffmcm says ...

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. After the Schumacher Batman movies, I know that I'm happy to see a more back-to-basics, visually restrained movie with an emphasis on story and character after the meaningless neon fluff. I also agree that movies are 'first and foremost a visual experience' but that can mean a broad range of flavors.

comment #44

OddDuck says ...

jeffmcm, damn straight! couldn't agree with you more.

p.Vice, besides Spielberg and Burton just who in the world of commercial mainstream filmmaking do you actually like? Your standards seem impossibly high to meet.

comment #45

Geoff says ...

Wow, I cannot believe the bashing that Nolan is getting - the guy is NOT Kevin Smith, for christ sakes, he knows how to frame an image.

You watch Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins - his signature is that he is expert at portraying a POV that is slightly ascue, whether it be sleep-deprived, too focused on memories, or all-out fear of a big, black bat. It's not as showy as a Tim Burton, but it is very effective.

And besides, there are some very iconic images in Batman Begins - I appreciate that he actually stops things a minute just to drink it all in, unlike the Spiderman movies where Spidey has to be constantly jumping/moving and fast! Watch the shot where the first bat-signal appears.

comment #46

jesse says ...

Yeah, p.Vice, I do appreciate movies on a visual level and love that shot of the Batwing against the moon... but how is it really saying much more or showing us much more than the "straight ahead," supposedly unimaginative framing of Batman on the bat-cycle in the Dark Knight trailer? I mean, it's the batplane against the moon... well done, but why is that so amazing? Because it's not in the exact center of the frame?

I remember something on The Prestige DVD about how so many of the city scenes were shot from ground-level to get that kind of bustling, audience-level look at the surroundings... sure, maybe it's DVD making-of BS, but watching the movie again I noticed it and thought it was a shrewd choice on Nolan's part. A subtle thing, but not indicator of a slapdash visualist.

God knows I love Spielberg and consider him one of the most innately talented filmmakers alive slash ever, but not everyone has to be as visually showy as that. There are still images in Nolan's film that stay with me, even if they're not as immediately jaw-dropping as a Spielberg crane shot or a Cuaron long take or Burton's art direction; isn't that what counts?

comment #47

square says ...

I think we are all being terribly hard on p.Vice. He obviously knows what he's talking about. p.Vice even used the term 'scope' so he must be industry; therefore he knows what he's talking about. Either that or he paid attention in some film appreciation lecture given by some equally gifted and insightful armchair director.

It's obvious to one-and-all that Nolan was trying to save a few bucks by framing for pan and scan. After all, there's never any excuse for framing centre, is there? I just wish hacks like da Vinci had known that before putting brush to canvas with such blunders as 'The Adoration of the Magi'. Or the equally forgettable 'The Last Supper'. But all is not lost, p.Vice has inspired me! I'm going to do a nifty bit of photoshop and punch in on the last supper; maintaining the 1.85:1 that da Vinci failed to make the most of, and weight Christ over to the right. Now we have a striking composition!

Thanks p.Vice - we'd be lost without you.

P.S. p.Vice - before you say it, yes - I am fully aware that 'The Last Supper' is actually a dry-wall mural and not on canvas.

comment #48

Lisha says ...

Meh. I like Batman and Batman Begins, but the rest of them are pretty shitty... here's hoping this one isn't.Last week I get more secret infornation about them at "RichLoving.com" But I can not sure it is ture.