It’s been several days at this point, but I still feel compelled to say that I personally sure as hell didn’t see the death of Michael Clarke Duncan coming. I’m sorry it happened for purely selfish reasons. He was one of those actors who made me think, “Well, okay, no matter what happens, no matter how vindictively awful this movie (or show) might be, I can at least hedge my bets on Michael Clarke Duncan being fantastic.”
At some point in one of these columns I expressed some optimism about a good summer at the movies. It’s a pleasant surprise that feeling that way has actually seemed to pay off. I tend to be a little erratic in how often I actually go to the movies, but one collection of circumstances or another kept me going again and again through a time of the year in which I pray repeatedly for the cool embrace of nuclear winter.
I have no idea when this column is going to join the rest of the inebriated chimps, but even if it’s a week or two down the line from today (July 22nd), it would be impossible to not at least mention the Aurora movie theater tragedy.
The Dark Knight Rises is a huge hit, both with fans and critics, with a whopping $289 million in ten days of release and garnering a respectable 87% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But the film does have its detractors, among them, Matthew Guerruckey, Drunk Monkeys’ Editor-in-Chief. Here Guerruckey debates Drunk Monkeys Film Editor Ryan Roach, who considers the film one of the best he’s seen so far in 2012. Be aware: this discussion contains detailed plot spoilers.
Fair warning: this will have extensive spoilers up to and including the very end of the film. This is not a review so much as it is a discussion on the nature of the film.
Before I begin talking about Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, I have to address the tragedy that happened in Colorado. I went to see the film here in New York at a midnight showing, came home at 3:30 AM, posted on Facebook that the film was great, and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning I signed on, ready to see what people were saying about the film. I immediately saw the breaking news about the shootings in Aurora, Colorado at The Dark Knight Rise’s premiere. As I write this the death count is at 12 with many, many more injured.
I feel like I’ve written myself into a corner with these introductions. Writing this column has been a great deal of fun, and I hope people have been digging it, but I’m not entirely sure why I’m so obsessed with developing an idea that I can use to get us into the actual reviews.
For some wretched reason every time I’ve ever seen Ernest Borgnine in a movie, I’ve always thought of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. Specifically I think of his line “I could have been a contender.”
There’s nothing quite like spending fourteen bucks on a movie (more, if you got snacks or saw it in IMAX 3D), getting to the end credits and wishing there was some way, any possible way to get that money back. Or at least get something else as an apologetic bonus for having your expectations so cruelly and completely dashed.
Is it weird that I’m actually a little more excited about the upcoming animated version of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns than I am about the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises?
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve actually become a little keyed up about the summer movie season. I’ll admit that, but it’s certainly what I would call a cautious optimism. It’s nice to be excited about the new few months of movies for a change. It’s not that I’m completely against a long season of what is supposed to be one glorious, artery-clogging blockbuster after another. I just have a habit of getting bored easily, and very few things keep my disinterest higher than sequels to movies I barely cared about the first time, remakes of things that didn’t need the treatment, comedies that don’t strike me as particularly funny and epics that just don’t appeal to my tastes.