12
Feb
WHY ANGELINA JOLIE WILL WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR CHANGELING: Because she gave a good performance. Because she gave a good performance outside of her comfort zone, playing in a period piece that didn’t lend itself to her natural strengths. Because she’s one of the few relatively bankable actresses in Hollywood and people want to reward that sort of consistency. Because she’s just kind of cool.
WHY ANGELINA JOLIE WILL NOT WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR CHANGELING: Because she gave a good performance, but it was in a pretty mediocre movie. Because she scored a statue pretty early on in her career (for Girl, Interrupted) and while she’s great and all, she’s not “already needs two Academy Awards great” or “Meryl Streep great.” Because there is a chunk of Hollywood society that Does Not Approve of what she did to end up with Brad Pitt, and they unfortunately do vote for awards.
WHY MELISSA LEO WILL WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR FROZEN RIVER: Because it was a tough, gritty, inspired performance, the kind that comes along once in most actors’ careers, and deserving of recognition. Because sometimes people decide they want the underdog to win. Because the screener campaign for the movie has been dedicated and has won over a lot of new fans.
WHY MELISSA RIVER WILL NOT WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR FROZEN RIVER: Because it was a tough, gritty, inspired performance that nobody saw before three weeks ago. Because nobody knows who she is. Because screener campaign or no, not enough people have seen the movie to give her the win. Because it was a once-in-an-actor’s-career performance, except that she’s not up against “most actors.”
WHY ANNE HATHAWAY WILL WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR RACHEL GETTING MARRIED: Because she is a pretty, relatively young ingenue, and Oscar loves to give awards to pretty young ingenues. Because she is a pretty young ingenue, but also a pretty young ingenue with obvious acting talent. Because she took a complex role in a multilayered movie and made it the most compelling thing on screen. Because she’s a natural comedienne who worked in dramatic territory and did so with verve and poise.
WHY ANNE HATHAWAY WILL NOT WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR RACHEL GETTING MARRIED: Because Oscar loves pretty young ingenues, but a lot of voters hate pretty young ingenues, for all the reasons you might expect, and sometimes they don’t split off their votes. Because Jonathan Demme’s shakycam in the movie turned off a lot of viewers who might otherwise have voted for her. Because everybody remembers what happened with Mira Sorvino and doesn’t want to repeat that (and it already seems to be repeating itself with Halle Berry).
WHY MERYL STREEP WILL WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR DOUBT: Because she is Meryl fucking Streep, the best goddamned actress of her generation and still the best actress working in Hollywood today. Because she took on a movie with some of the top rising talents in Hollywood and made everybody remember what real brilliance looks like. Because she looked like the Terminator in a wimple, until she didn’t. Because even though this is her fifteenth nomination – let me repeat that, her fifteenth – she’s only won the statue twice, and not since 1983.
WHY MERYL STREEP WILL NOT WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR DOUBT: Because she has fifteen nominations and is a living legend already. Because Doubt, fine performances aside, is a boring movie and nobody will be renting it in two years’ time, much less ten. Because there are actresses in the category even more overdue for a win than she is.
WHY KATE WINSLET WILL WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR THE READER: Because this is her fifth nomination and she hasn’t won a statue yet despite being probably the go-to actress under 35 for goddamned great work. Because she gave not one but two award-worthy performances this year (in this and Revolutionary Road) and the two together will form a juggernaut of support for her. Because The Reader has a lot of Kate Winslet having sex in it.
WHY KATE WINSLET WILL NOT WIN BEST ACTRESS FOR THE READER: Because The Reader is okay, but it’s not even close to her best work. Because people are used to not voting for Kate Winslet. Because the idea of Kate Winslet winning an Academy Award for a movie about the Holocaust after appearing in Extras as herself doing a movie about the Holocaust especially to win an Oscar is the sort of thing that makes voters go “eeep.”
11
Feb
Hey, are any of you people the people who buy the comic books with the variant covers that cost like thirty dollars because the comic store has to order twenty of the standard cover to get one copy of the fancy cover?
And do you pay for those special comic books in retard dollars?
Hey, what else can you buy with retard dollars? “Gourmet-quality” dog food? A block of wood to make your music sound better? The chance to tell the whole world that you play World of Warcraft? I need to get my learn on!
11
Feb
WHY ROBERT DOWNEY JR. WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR TROPIC THUNDER: Because he was a dude disguised as a dude playing another dude, and dude, he was brilliant at it. Because he was the funniest thing in a pretty funny movie (Tom Cruise’s shtick was overrated bombast). Because he hasn’t even gotten a nomination since Chaplin. Because he’s the only person other than Sean Penn who can realistically claim that he’s the best actor of his generation. Because he never actually claims that. Because he does whatever an iron can.
WHY ROBERT DOWNEY JR. WILL NOT WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR TROPIC THUNDER: Because it’s still a role in a comedy and Oscar don’t like the comedies, no sir. Because people are still leery of him no matter how clean he’s supposed to be now. Because genuine talent intimidates people, and especially intimidates Oscar voters. Because he probably doesn’t give a shit, deep down, if he wins or not. Because his name is not Heath Ledger.
WHY PHILLIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR DOUBT: Because he had to convince an audience that his character was a closeted gay man without ever actually admitting it or even hinting at it and he pulled it off with flying colours. Because he went toe-to-toe with Meryl Streep and just wrecked house. Because he has three names and that always sounds classy. Because although he’s incredibly talented, he has the good sense to appear schlubby so not to intimidate people so much.
WHY PHILLIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN WILL NOT WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR DOUBT: Because he won a Best Actor trophy recently enough (in 2006 for Capote) that it’s a bit too soon to give it to him again. Because Doubt is an Actor’s Movie and sometimes the Academy gets suspicious of giving acting awards to that sort of thing because it seems like a bit of a gimme. Because his name is not Heath Ledger.
WHY MICHAEL SHANNON WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR REVOLUTIONARY ROAD: Because he plays a kinda crazy guy and kinda crazy roles always clean up at the Oscars. Because he dominates the movie for his brief time in it. Because he’s a relative unknown and giving him a statue would be a hell of a thing.
WHY MICHAEL SHANNON WILL NOT WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR REVOLUTIONARY ROAD: Because nobody knows who the hell he is. Because he only shows up onscreen for two scenes, maybe eight minutes’ worth of screen-time tops, and not everybody can be Judi Dench and score a statue for that small a role. Because Revolutionary Road wasn’t really that popular. Because his name is not Heath Ledger.
WHY JOSH BROLIN WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR MILK: Because he also plays a kinda crazy guy, but his kinda crazy guy is less showy and more workmanlike than Shannons’ obviously kinda crazy guy. Because he’s been on a roll the last few years with his work in No Country For Old Men, American Gangster, In The Valley of Elah and W. and now there’s this too. Because he got unfairly overlooked in the nominations department for No Country while everybody jerked off to Javier Bardem.
WHY JOSH BROLIN WILL NOT WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR MILK: Because “possibly closeted villain” is kind of a cliche, even if it was probably true in real life. Because Milk is Sean Penn’s baby first and foremost. Because James Franco and Emile Hirsch were both strongly competing for a supporting actor nod as well. Because his name is not Heath Ledger.
WHY HEATH LEDGER WILL WIN BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR FOR THE DARK KNIGHT: Because duh.
10
Feb
9
Feb
My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.
9
Feb
Okay, I just want to go on record as saying that 33, as numbers go, is a sucky one. It is evenly divisible by 11, which earns it a little cred, but that does not counter the fact that “early thirties” is gradually starting to become inapplicable to describe me and that kind of sucks. However, so far friends have gotten me an Animal Man trade, the latest Scott Pilgrim and the offer of future-bread, which is like freshly baked bread which only exists in potentia, and that’s good!
Anyways, since it is my birthday, I will not-so-casually mention the wishlist, with potential presents for the man running this pointedly ad-free website ranging from “fuck you” to “I secretly collect locks of your hair” in cost.
9
Feb
So I started doing these things almost two years ago now, and I’ve gotten self-righteous emails about them at times. I’d figure I’ve gotten maybe two for every post (not sequentially, just overall). There’s the “who do you think you are” variety, of course, and the “why don’t you use all this talent to make something yourself” sort (because I talk so much about the writing I do that’s not for this or other sites, you see).
But one letter I got stuck with me, and that was a mail complaining that everything I was writing was setup. There wasn’t any payoff. Now, there are reasons for that, of course. These are essentially pitches to readers; a series of tests to see if what I like to write about is what people want to read. And, on the off chance I ever get to use them (writing Legion, or far more likely adapting what I’ve presented here for my own use in other formats and settings), I don’t want to give away the endings.
But let’s be realistic: the odds of me getting to write the book are dramatically low, even should I get the level of success necessary for DC to take a shot with me, because the Legion is a core property. (How many years did it take for DC to let Gail Simone write Wonder Woman?)
So I figured that for this – the last one of these, and this time I mean it – I’d change things up a little and give you more than just a teaser. Something fleshier. This was one of the first ideas I had when I started doing this thing two years ago – I referenced it in both reasons 6 and 29 of the original thirty – and it’s still, out of all of them, probably my favorite. So call this my 33rd birthday present from me to you. (I would’ve gotten you a card, but I’m cheap.)
I was not a big fan of the Mark Waid reboot of the Legion when it first hit stands four years ago, and even now – having developed a better appreciation for the ideas and capabilities behind the reboot – I think he botched some things. I’ve discussed these elements before and don’t feel the need to drag Waid through the shit all over again.
One thing I particularly disliked at first was his reimagining of Triplicate Girl. Removing the “triplicate culture” that previous versions of the Legion had had and replacing it with a hive mind sort of gestalt being? It was weird, and at the time I felt it was pointlessly showy. I missed the idea of “tri-jitsu.” Worst, it was kind of creepy.
But then I started thinking about it some more, and I realized – it was kind of creepy! And this wasn’t bad – it was great! Because in issue #3, Triplicate Girl’s origin story? Is told entirely by Triplicate Girl herself. This immediately offers the possibility of an unreliable narrator. Unreliable narrators are one of my favorite storytelling devices because they really let you fuck with a reader’s head in a way that the reader will not only not get irritated by, but will instead thank for you doing so (when it’s done properly).
In issue #3, Triplicate Girl explains that she has no memory of what happened before the great disaster on Carggg that left only her; that she has no memory of how she came to be or how she got her power to self-replicate or how it works; that when she split her three-selves off to join the Legion from the rest of herself, that those three grew isolated from the rest of her self-society.
Bullshit.
All of it.
This is what really happened:
The entity now calling itself “Luornu Durgo” was created in a laboratory on Carggg, a small self-reliant, self-sustaining planet outside of the usual galactic traffic, one of the long-lost remnants of the colonization protocols initiated by President Thomas Lorenzo in the late 21st century when Earth’s ecosystem was on the brink of total failure. They were looking to create a next-generation antibiotic – a living compound, something that would kill virii by absorbing their genetic material. A “virus-eater.” But what they got instead was something that reflexively absorbed genetic material.
The real Luornu Durgo was a lab technician who wasn’t careful putting the failed experiment into the matter disposal unit. The compund killed her quickly, in a matter of seconds. When it did so, however, it imprinted upon her genetic template, merging itself with her, gaining sentience at the same time, marrying intelligence to a natural drive to consume. The new entity quickly realized that if anybody realized what it – she? – had done it would be destroyed, and pretended to be Luornu for a period of weeks.
During that period it started absorbing other citizens of Carggg, always careful to do so in a manner that would not raise suspicion. Each time, it gained the ability to generate a new body – and more interestingly, every time it did so it created more personality within itself, gradually becoming the hive mind it would later in fact claim to be. It/she felt guilty about killing people, but the urge to absorb was of it/herself; there was nothing to be done.
Of course, eventually the Cargggites realized what was happening, almost too late to even do anything. By that point Luornu (for so they now thought of herselves) was almost a fifth of Carggg’s population and growing rapidly. What happened next was a short and brutal war, which ended when the last bastion of Cargggites launched bradyonic bombs in a last-ditch, suicidal effort to destroy her before she captured the planet’s only remaining spaceport. The bombs wiped out all life on Carggg…
…except for Luornu. A few of her bodies were in an underground bunker at the time, and that was how she learned that the bradyonic energy – also used in teleporter technology – had not destroyed her bodies but instead, in a sense, hyperlinked them. She could now transfer her accumulated bodymass between bodies at any range, any distance. But she couldn’t teleport off the planet or anywhere else she wasn’t already, so she was trapped – and always feeling the hunger. She rebuilt the planet more out of boredom than anything else, taught herself whatever books could teach her. She continued to feel conflicted and guilty for obeying her natural urges, and tried to use the isolation to teach herself restraint.
When the United Planets exploration crew finally arrived planetside, it took all her control to keep from immediately consuming them. She spun her story of destruction and mystery, and then separated three bodies from her packself to go with them.
The restraint didn’t last, of course. She spun more bodies off herself the moment she landed on Earth and went hunting, never letting her primary three consume anyone even as they joined the Legion. This time she had the benefit of experience; she consumed the valueless, the ones nobody would miss, the underclass and criminals which avoided the Public Service. There were hundreds of millions on them in every system in the UP, plus the entire population of Rimbor and countless fringeworlds. When the Public Service was destroyed in the wake of the Dominator War, it got even easier.
All the time she kept rationalizing. Nobody would miss these people. They were leeches, parasites, better off gone. If the Legion knew, they’d destroy her, so she couldn’t tell anybody. Saturn Girl’s telepathy didn’t pick up any of this – for much the same reason that somebody drinking water from a lake doesn’t taste the whole lake.
Nobody should have noticed; nobody should have cared. But even criminals sometimes have an influential friend, and two of them were old gang buddies of Jo Nah. When one of them disappeared and the other called for help before disappearing herself, Ultra Boy took an interest, and started investigating. Not well, because he wasn’t a natural detective by any means – but he didn’t give up. It took him a long time to piece together the chain of disappearances, longer still to see the spikes wherever the Legion had had a mission.
By that point, she was one billion strong and counting. And hating herself, none moreso than her selves in the Legion – one of whom was now in a serious relationship with Element Lad. (It helped that, even though she believed she would never consume a Legionnaire, that the auras generated by the flight rings prevented her from doing so.) That self, more than any of the others, was purely restrained, never absorbing anyone. Even the other two-thirds of Triplicate Girl did so occasionally. But that one, the one dating Jan – no. Could never do it.
And that’s where the story really starts – when Ultra Boy confronts her before the Legion, demanding an explanation he doesn’t entirely want. That’s when it’s revealed that Triplicate Girl is really the Infinite Girl, as she sprouts bodies into the room faster than anybody can imagine, flooding the Legion with duplicates of herself. They may not be superpowered, but what does that matter? They can carry weapons, and they can kill any organic lifeform not wearing a flight ring – and increase their numbers at the same time. And the Legion doesn’t want to kill them – not even those with more violent tendencies (like Timber Wolf or Shadow Lass) want to carve up someone they thought of as a friend.
The Legion is swiftly divided between those taken prisoner and those managing to escape, to help in the frontlines of an instantaneous war as Luornu attacks the United Planets on a dozen different worlds simultaneously, her fight-or-flight instinct kicking in on a genocidal level. The prisoners have to escape so Brainy can come up with a plan. Element Lad has to convince the sole remaining Luornu to help, and she has to find it within herself to do it.
And in the end, they find a way to beat her – and, yes, destroy her – within a matter of hours. But it costs them one of their own; there’s no way around it. Who do you think goes? The last sane Luornu-self, desperate for redemption? Element Lad, determined not to let his lady die entirely? Ultra Boy, convinced he has to finish what he started? Maybe it’s someone else. But not everybody gets out of this one alive.
—
And that’s that. Thanks for reading it, but now I’m done.
8
Feb
So I am totally in love with this “25 things” meme because it made the pages of USA Today and I love the McPaper, so I wanted to do it. I asked MGK but he was all “Flapjacks that is sooooooo 2004” and he said don’t do it but I’m gonna do it because it’s awesome and lists are awesome and awesomeness is awesome.
1.) I frequently masturbate to “sad clown” pornography.
2.) If I could go back in time, I would go back to 1912 and punch Kaiser Wilhelm in the face, just to ruin stuff for all the people who would be going back in time to punch Hitler but because I punched the Kaiser there would only be a confused art student wondering why all these people were punching him.
3.) I don’t think cows explode often enough.
4.) I am standing behind you… RIGHT NOW!
5.) Okay no I’m not but I bet you looked.
6.) I can wiggle my fingers. But differently than how you do it.
7.) If I could go back in time twice, I would fight Jesus. Not to be mean. I just figure Jesus would probably like to box, but nobody would box him because, you know, Jesus.
8.) MGK said I have to use capital letters on his blog now because people complained SO HERE ARE SOME CAPITAL LETTERS WHOOOOOOOOOO.
9.) If I were a lucha libre wrestler my masked name would be “El Legarto Diablo,” AKA “the Devil’s Lizard.”
10.) Because that’s a penis joke.
11.) Somebody emailed MGK this video and he didn’t want to post it but I think it is the best video ever so here.
12.) My favorite food is corn. Theoretically you can stab a man to death with corn.
13.) When I go to the movies I always sit at the very back so I can pretend that I am just watching a big TV and that a bunch of strangers showed up in my house to have a very, very quiet and respectful party.
14.) I am not allowed to go back to the circus.
15.) Ever since I saw that video MGK keeps looking at me suspiciously.
16.) I would be an awesome con man because I would use suspension of disbelief. I would be all “I can sell you the secret of eternal youth” and they would say “but that’s ridiculous, that doesn’t exist, you’re lying” and then I would go “that you would say that makes it obvious that I am telling the truth because who would say such a stupid lie” and then they would say “good point” and I would get all their money.
17.) But I’d probably spend all the money on generation-one Transformers. But only Shockwave. I want a collection of five billion Shockwaves. And maybe one Megatron so they can say “you can’t be in our Shockwave club, Megatron, because we are ray guns and you are a crappy pistol.” Then Megatron would cry sad tears.
18.) If I were a porn star, according to the time-honored formula of “pet name plus street you grew up on is your porn name,” my porn name would be Calvin Coolidge. REALLY!
19.) Actually, wait, can robots cry tears?
20.) When I go down on a girl, I make my tongue do the Konami Code, although this gets tricky when you get to figuring out what “select” and “start” represent.
21.) If I was going to kill a celebrity and eat their flesh, I would cannibalize Trey Parker and/or Matt Stone. Partially for the irony value, but mostly because I didn’t like BASEketball.
22.) I can read a book so fast that I literally rip the pages out of the book because I am turning the pages so fast.
23.) Actually that’s not true and I just like to rip up books sometimes.
24.) I can make anybody eat a Scotch Bonnet pepper just by holding them down and forcing it into their mouth then forcing them to chew.
25.) If I were going to be an animal, I would be an ibyx. Look it up.
7
Feb
7
Feb
…this guy’s balls (both metaphorically and artistically speaking)
5
Feb
By popular (okay, one repetitive) request:
First off, understand that Roy. G. Bivolo (yes, that is apparently his real name, which is one step above Kite-Man’s real name being Charles Brown) is an embittered super-criminal who turned to a life of super-crime because he could have been a truly great artist if only he had not been born colourblind! Of course, the fact that you can create perfectly brilliant works of art in monochromatic tone (Escher did it all the time) never seemed to pierce Roy’s psyche. So probably he was lying about being a potential artistic child prodigy.
But it would make sense that he was lying, because Roy didn’t build his super-powered light generators himself – his father made them for him, shortly before dying of natural causes. How lame is that? At least Weather Wizard killed his brother to get that weather-wand. How does Roy have any self-respect at the super-villain club nights? Really, it’s supervillainy, not soap box derby racing.
“Yeah, I fell into a vat of super-chemicals and they turned me into a massively strong giant. How’d you come up with that light thing you do?”
“…my dad made it for me…”
On top of that, the powers themselves? Well, he’s got a sort of made-in-Chinatown version of the Green Lantern ring since he can create solid-light objects, although he never uses it for anything other than to create rainbows to travel upon. But even less impressive than that is his power to use colors to influence emotions. For example, he can use red light to make you angry! I imagine this is particularly useful when he is fighting Hawkman.
Hawkman: I am going to stop you, Rainbow Raider!
Rainbow Raider: A HA! Red light in your FACE!
Hawkman: I WILL KILL YOU AND WEAR YOUR BALLS AS A HAT! MACE MACE MACE!
Rainbow Raider: Oh, fu- (rest of sentence ended by mace smashed violently into mouth)
Finally, it is worth noting that among a criminal history that included such noteworthy moments as teaming up with Dr. Double-X (“less randy than Dr. Triple-X, more daring than Dr. Single-X”), one of the Raider’s most infamous criminal moments was attempting to drain all the colour out of Central City. Which left all the other criminals scratching their heads, because… why?
“Now they won’t be able to use… traffic lights! The city’s traffic will come to a standstill without giving me the riches I demand!”
Oh, Roy. Roy, Roy, Roy.
There’s a reason Geoff Johns used this guy as a stupid whipping-boy.
Top comment: This character makes much more sense if you assume he’s trying to get revenge on the world not over his colorblindness, but over his father cursing him with a really stupid name. I mean, come on… Roy G. Bivolo? It’s like his father wanted him to have the crap beaten out of him in school. — Skemono
4
Feb
Hey all. Remember me? Will Entrekin. One of the guest contributors over on the side, there? Been a while since I posted, but some recent discussion of The Dark Knight and the mention of Ledger’s Joker Halloween costume, plus some comments discussion here regarding genre (not to mention: the upcoming Oscars), got me thinking. So I thought I’d crosspost the following here and on my blog. But I also wanted to say hi first, so there wouldn’t be any confusion. That out of the way:
Not long ago, I went to a Philly bar called Eulogy with my best friend. This bar is a Belgian sort of pub one feature of which is a private room with a table like a coffin, and this best friend is a guy earning his master’s in literature but who also moonlights as a keyboardist in one band and a lead guitarist in another, which I hope will intimate the overall atmosphere. If only because my buddy and I have the conversation where we discuss Derrida but totally admit to neither ever reading or understanding the guy.
Over the course of (several) fine Belgian beers (Rochefort 10 ftw!), we started talking about Heath Ledger and The Dark Knight. Now, what you have to know, straight off, is that while we’re good buddies, he and I rarely agree on anything related to either music or movies. We both like music in general and good music in particular, but we have very different definitions as to what that exactly means.
So, Heath Ledger. The Dark Knight.
I didn’t love the movie. I’ve read many people claim that the reason it’s so great is because Christopher Nolan, moreso than directing a good superhero movie, managed to make a good movie, overall, but I’m not sure. See, I think that what really happened is that Nolan managed to make a good crime movie out of superhero material, because I can’t agree it was overall a good movie; it’s at least twenty minutes to half an hour too long, the final twenty minutes to half an hour of which seem composed of a philosophical treatise on the nature of good and evil telegraphed through dialog to the audience because Nolan suddenly got scared his audience hadn’t picked up what he was saying. Still, I will admit I originally thought it was badly structured, but I’ve since realized it’s not, that the plot turns when it’s supposed to for the most part (given 3-act structure and 140 minutes, the first plot point should come about 35 minutes in, with another midpoint beat and then a second plot point, each coming 35 minutes after the previous).
Also: when did Two-Face debut? In the comics, I mean. He’s been around at least long enough that Tommy Lee Jones played him nearly a decade ago, but yet he lasts, like, fifteen minutes in this flick? Wtf? I suppose it’s possible Nolan was lolzing us and will bring Two-Face back for The Dark Knight Returns or The Dark Knight Again or The Dark Knight Lightens Up a Bit, Because, Seriously, Why So Serious?, but either way, I think Nolan blows his villain load by using two who merely serve as thematic foils to Batman/Bruce Wayne, rather than any story use.
Because I think that’s the problem I have with the Joker (and with Ledger’s portrayal of him). While he claims to both want chaos and have no plan (and I realize that his claim of the latter probably serves the former), I think that the two villains clash in a way that the Scarecrow and Liam Neeson didn’t in Batman Begins. The first movie was about Batman and how he foiled the plans of Neeson, whose subsidiary was the Scarecrow; this movie is not just about Batman anymore. It’s about Gotham City and heroes and good and evil (as Nolan seems to want so dearly for us to see). It’s almost like Nolan had the exact opposite problem as the brothers Wachowski: while the second two Matrix movies probably should have been combined into a single flick, Nolan probably should have taken his time with this story and let the second installment become two.
(which, too, would have solved the problem Warner Bros. now faces, because, sorry to be callous about it, but who’s going to play the Joker now?)
Can the Joker desire chaos but have no plan? I’m not sure it works both ways, but given a little more fleshing out, Nolan might have proven it can and does. As it stands, though, the problem with the Joker is that he’s merely the foil or the anti-self or the whatever-opposite of Batman. He’s reactionary, really, and I’m trying to come up with great characters who have been solely reactionary but not really succeeding. He wants chaos, but only seems to want chaos because other people have plans he doesn’t like.
(of course, the major argument there is there’s no such thing as order, anyway, given that the natural tendency of all things is toward disorder/entropy. Had the Joker taken any science courses, he might realize that life exists despite chaos, in which case he might file for unemployment by reason of redundance)
Given all that, Ledger arguably did the best job he could with a somewhat otherwise limited role; I’m not sure he’s the only reason The Dark Knight wasn’t a typical superhero movie, but he might have been. That and his premature death are, I think, a large part of the reason his performance has gotten the acclaim it has. Which might seem cynical or even callous, I fear, but the thing is, I keep thinking of his performance in Brokeback Mountain. Now, I didn’t like Brokeback; in fact, I shut it off after fifteen or twenty minutes, because I was bored out of my skull. And I think that The Dark Knight, despite its flaws, is a movie far superior to Brokeback if only because the latter commits the cardinal sin of movies, which is that it’s not at all entertaining, but still, I watch Ledger as Joker and I just don’t think his performance there is nearly as good as he was in Brokeback Mountain. In Brokeback, he wanted something (namely: Gyllenhaal) but yet restrained himself, and in that restraint is all the subtlety and craft that I thought the Joker lacked. The Joker seemed wall-to-wall Id. Creepy thrift-store drugged-out rockstar more likely to front an emo band, sure, and entertaining to at least the degree you expect him to be onstage lamenting about how nothing actually has meaning, but just being crazy-villain guy seems to require little effort. I mean, in some ways, it strikes me that his role was of the just-add-alcohol variety; skip all the inhibitions and the performance executes itself.
Do I think he’ll win (not that you asked)? I don’t know if it’s important, at this point, if only because I think there’s too great a disconnect between good movies and critically acclaimed, award-winning movies. And why do I think that?
Because the one thing my buddy and I could agree on, over those fine Belgian beers, was that Ironman might well have been the best movie all year, and Robert Downey, Jr. has always knocked every performance he’s ever given straight out of the park. I mean, the fact that he doesn’t have an Oscar yet is nearly as big a travesty as that Zodiac went completely ignored last year, and if he got one this year for being “the dude playin’ the dude disguised as another dude,” I wouldn’t argue. I’d say he could then dedicate it to Ledger, but didn’t Daniel Day-Lewis already do that last year?
All that said, I might also just be bitter. I still wish Nolan had cast Christian Bale as the Joker, too, because I think that would have been awesome.
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