Commentaries - July 2008

Fourth time is the charm – 07/20/08

Today I saw The Dark Knight in theatres for the fourth and last time. My final impression? No matter how many times I watch it, I still enjoy the movie as if I were seeing it for the first time. It’s also really interesting to see the different reactions to the film of the people I see it with – I saw it with my girlfriend on Thursday (she loved it); with my mom on Friday (she admired the flick); with a group of friends yesterday (they all loved the movie except for one close friend) and today with my dad and grandparents… the three of them absolutely loved the movie. What does this mean? It means that The Dark Knight is a comic book movie unlike others, a film that can be enjoyed by audiences of all types. One only has to look at the Internet Movie Database’s “top 250” list – The Dark Knight is currently occupying the first spot. That’s right folks… to the members of the IMDb (about 40 000 of them, to be exact), The Dark Knight is better than films like The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption or Star Wars. Now that is saying something.

And what about the money? We all know that the Nolans (Christopher the writer-director, and Jonathan, his brother, the co-writer) are excellent filmmakers, but that doesn’t mean they didn't decide to make the movie because of the same reasons anybody decides to try and make a film: money. Well… everybody knew The Dark Knight was going to make tons of cash, but no one could have known it was going to be such a winner. The movie has broken like a thousand records: record opening in 4,366 theatres, an opening-day midnight record of $18.5 million, topping the $16.9 million midnight take of Star Wars Episode III, both the opening day and the Friday records, as The Dark Knight hauled in $67.8 million, and Spider-Man 3’s opening record… yes, the wires are reporting that The Dark Knight made $155.3 million this weekend, based on the Warner studio’s estimates.* This makes Batman’s latest adventure not only the most successful film starring the caped crusader; not only the most – financially – successful movie of 2008 (beating the likes of Iron Man or Indiana Jones 4), but, quite possibly, one of the most successful summer movies in history.

But you know what is the best part of this story? It’s the fact that a quality picture is making all this money and breaking all these records. I sure wasn’t glad about the fact that Spider-man 3 (which, compared to The Dark Knight, is, quite literally, a piece of dung) had all those box office records, so now that this movie is beating the crap out of Spidey’s records, I’m happy because a really good movie (no, scratch that; a masterful picture) is setting box office records and making lots and lots of money. This is one rare case in which a summer movie has been both critically well-received, and making tonnes of money. I couldn’t be happier. By the way, if you want to read my The Dark Knight review, you can either check the spoiler-free review here, or the spoiler-rich one here, if you’ve already seen Nolan’s masterpiece.

Now, changing subjects, what can you expect from GG’s Movie Reviews this coming week? I’m going on a trip from the 25^th (Friday) to the 29^th (Monday). The thing is, there are two films I want to see that are being released on the 24^th here in Peru: Wall-E and Wanted. What will I do? I’m going to watch both movies on Thursday, and I’m going to publish reviews for both of them at night. This is a first for me (I have watched more than two movies in a single day, but not in theatres) but I think it will turn out all right. My expectations? They are high for Wall-E, as reviews for the movie have been extremely positive for the most part, and there are also pretty high (but not as high) for Wanted, as it has been considered this year’s best pure-action flick. (As if there were many competitors…) I love Pixar films, and I have a weak spot for actioners, so this should be a good week. As I said, you can expect these reviews to be published on Thursday night, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to post others during the rest of the week. (To be more precise, I’d want to re-watch and review the older Batman movies – the Tim Burton ones and Batman Forever; Batman and Robin I’ve already trashed.) Hope you’ll miss my reviews/commentaries next weekend…

Sebastián “GG” Zavala

Note: If everything goes as planned, I should also be able to publish a Stranger in Peril update this week before going on the trip.

*Source: http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/the-dark-knight-rewrites-the-record-book.php

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The “Knight of the Night”? – 07/14/08

This week is the week of The Dark Knight, (or, as the title has been translated in Latin America and Spain, El Caballero de la Noche – The Knight of the Night), there’s no arguing about that. Every self-respected moviegoer should at least know that the film is being released this Friday – and in Peru on Thursday, hehe. Movies like Mamma Mia (which actually looks pretty good) and Space Chimps (which actually looks really bad) are also being released, but most audiences are going to watch the latest Batman flick. I don’t know if it’s going to break any weekend grossing records – I know it’s hyped and all, but it’s not your typical summer blockbuster either; it’s darker and more serious than traditional summer fare -, but it will definitely make tons of cash. My review? I’m watching the film on Thursday afternoon, so I expect it will be ready by Thursday night.

Concerning last week, I saw two movies in theatres – Hancock on Friday night, and August Rush on Sunday. Curiously enough, they both ended up surpassing my expectations, not because they were particularly good, but because they were more decent than what most critics have been saying about them. Granted, August Rush is a deeply flawed motion picture, but it nevertheless entertained me with all its cheesiness and weird plotting. And Hancock, while a little too “safe”, wasn’t precisely bad. But yeah, the subject matter had more potential than what was given to the audience – if you wanna know more about studio interference in Will Smith’s latest blockbuster, there’s a nice little article by Rob Hunter in “Film School Rejects”, one of my favorite websites. That should give you an idea of what Hancock could have been.

And talking about that particular website, if you visit both FSR AND GG’s Movie Reviews, you may have noticed that lately I’ve been posting some commentaries in the former website. I usually write under “Sebastian Z”, and post commentaries under articles that are particularly interesting to me. What attracted me to “Film School Rejects”? The fact that it’s got tons of information regarding the movie business, that the staff are excellent writers without being overly serious, and that you can find really varied stuff in their articles; everything from film reviews to movie business news to, well, hot chicks. If I were to have a “recommended website of the week” kind of thing here in GG’s, “FSR” would be this week’s site.

Back to The Dark Knight, apart from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Christopher Nolan’s potential masterpiece has been my most anticipated film of all summer. I loved Batman Begins, and the fact that Christopher Nolan has not only made the strongest Batman flick in movie history, but also a masterpiece like Memento and a really good movie like The Prestige, makes it really probable that The Dark Knight won’t manage to disappoint anyone who appreciates good filmmaking. Many people were disappointed by Indy 4 (I wasn’t), but I just don’t see anyone disliking the caped crusader's latest adventure. I’m eagerly waiting for Thursday night and, in true nerdy fashion, I must also confess something: I’m watching the movie four times this week. In a row. And I don’t feel ashamed about it. 

Sebastián “GG” Zavala

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