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The Writer's Guild of America has announced their nominations for "outstanding achievement in TV, radio, news, promotional writing, and graphic animation," and guess which movie got a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay? Why, it would be the same one which received an ASC nomination earlier today and a Producer's Guild of America nomination a few days ago. Depending on how you look at it, these noms could be a harbinger of things to come when the Oscars roll around. Or they could just be acknowledgments that The Dark Knight made boatloads of money (in fact it was last year's highest-grossing film).
Let's talk turkey here. The Oscar nominations will be announced in about two weeks. Do we think The Dark Knight deserves a Best Picture nomination? Absolutely. Do we think it deserves to win Best Picture? Nope. Sure, it's thrilling to watch, well-crafted and certainly well-acted. But more than anything else it's a thrill-ride, an in-the-moment experience that (for us) has pretty limited emotional resonance. Nothing wrong with that (the upcoming IMAX re-release is proof enough that it's worth seeing again), but hardly deserving of the top prize. (TDK fans: please do not send us hate mail).
At any rate, we'll know soon enough; the Oscars broadcast is Sunday, February 22.
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But it's a crappy movie.
You know what? I didn't think it was all that great either but I was afraid to say so, sort of like criticizing Obama (well, I like him, but I think others were afraid to criticize him). I saw the movie and thought it was ... eh, OK. Too much ponderous "what is my place in this world" stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love an analysis of a characters actions, etc. But this think was like a trip to the psych's couch... with explosions. I think a better meshing of this type of thing was Iron Man. But I did like the scene of Heath Ledger walking away from the hospital in the nurses uniform just before the explosion. For some reason, than has become an iconic movie scene for me, like Cagney smashing the grapefruit in the woman's face or the tiny image of the guy riding across the desert in Lawrence of Arabia. It was hilarous and strange and amazing to me.
The dialog in the batman flicks is just dreadful. I mean, it's better than most superhero/action fare, but that's not saying much.
The whole "you give hope to the hopeless" crapola, how many takes did Bale and Eckhart go through just laughing at that shit?
The Joker worked because it didn't matter what he said, he was a force, a physicality and presence that managed to transcend some of the more tin-eared writing. Also, he's insane, so him babbling about chaos and rules and order only has to sound as if he believes it, not something we have to believe in.
Technical achievements and Ledger's turn made it work for me.
The best film of 2008, for my money?
"Let the Right One In".
http://www.lettherightoneinmovie.com/
It's only temporary, folks. Come April or May there will be a whole new crop of movies for lonely, overgrown geeks to salivate over.
Rob- What would be your other nominees/winner of the best picture?
Well, I'd wager that my list will have zero in common with the actual list ... but mine would be WENDY & LUCY, HUNGER, THE VISITOR, WALL-E, MILK. Out of those five I guess I'd vote for either WENDY & LUCY or HUNGER. See my previous post.
I WOULD SUGGEST seeing the new Biggie movie Notorious as well
TEK: Do you actually get paid to promote that movie, are or you a mere intern doing this for class credit?
Nah, I'll pass. Didn't listen to him then and not intersted in him now. Maybe he has a compelling story (poor guy from the hood discovers he can rap and makes money doing it) but nothing I know of it is interesting to me.