The Dark Knight (Review By Roger Ebert)

In the world of film reviews, Roger Ebert is the G.O.A.T. Nowhere else can you get an objective, analytical and thoughtfully considerate critique of a film. Tonight, The Dark Knight opens in theaters, block-booked and destined to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. It stars Christian Bale, the late Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Here is Roger Ebert's critique, pulled from his column on the Chicago Sun-Times website:


The Dark Knight (PG-13)

Ebert:

Heath Ledger stars as The Joker in a scene with Christian Bale, who plays Batman in "The Dark Knight."

The Dark Knight

// / July 16, 2008

Cast & Credits Bruce Wayne: Christian Bale The Joker: Heath Ledger Harvey Dent: Aaron Eckhart Alfred: Michael Caine Rachel: Maggie Gyllenhaal Gordon: Gary Oldman Lucius Fox: Morgan Freeman Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan. Running time: 152 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for for intense sequences of violence and some menace). Opening today at local theaters. Printer-friendly » E-mail this to a friend »

By Roger Ebert

“Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. This film, and to a lesser degree “Iron Man,” redefine the possibilities of the “comic-book movie.”

“The Dark Knight” is not a simplistic tale of good and evil. Batman is good, yes, The Joker is evil, yes. But Batman poses a more complex puzzle than usual: The citizens of Gotham City are in an uproar, calling him a vigilante and blaming him for the deaths of policemen and others. And the Joker is more than a villain. He’s a Mephistopheles whose actions are fiendishly designed to pose moral dilemmas for his enemies.

The key performance in the movie is by the late Heath Ledger, as the Joker. Will he become the first posthumous Oscar winner since Peter Finch? His Joker draws power from the actual inspiration of the character in the silent classic “The Man Who Laughs” (1928). His clown's makeup more sloppy than before, his cackle betraying deep wounds, he seeks revenge, he claims, for the horrible punishment his father exacted on him when he was a child. In one diabolical scheme near the end of the film, he invites two ferry-loads of passengers to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves. Throughout the film, he devises ingenious situations that force Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to make impossible ethical decisions. By the end, the whole moral foundation of the Batman legend is threatened.

Because these actors and others are so powerful, and because the movie does not allow its spectacular special effects to upstage the humans, we’re surprised how deeply the drama affects us. Eckhart does an especially good job as Harvey Dent, whose character is transformed by a horrible fate into a bitter monster. It is customary in a comic book movie to maintain a certain knowing distance from the action, to view everything through a sophisticated screen. “The Dark Knight” slips around those defenses and engages us.

Yes, the special effects are extraordinary. They focus on the expected explosions and catastrophes, and have some superb, elaborate chase scenes. The movie was shot on location in Chicago, but it avoids such familiar landmarks as Marina City, the Wrigley Building or the skyline. Chicagoans will recognize many places, notably La Salle Street and Lower Wacker Drive, but director Nolan is not making a travelogue. He presents the city as a wilderness of skyscrapers, and a key sequence is set in the still-uncompleted Trump Tower. Through these heights, the Batman moves at the end of strong wires, or sometimes actually flies, using his cape as a parasail.

The plot involves nothing more or less than the Joker’s attempts to humiliate the forces for good and expose Batman’ secret identity, showing him to be a poser and a fraud. He includes Gordon and Dent on his target list, and contrives cruel tricks to play with the fact that Bruce Wayne once loved, and Harvey Dent now loves, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The tricks are more cruel than he realizes, because the Joker doesn’t know Batman’s identity. Heath Ledger has a good deal of dialogue in the movie, and a lot of it isn’t the usual jabs and jests we’re familiar with: It’s psychologically more complex, outlining the dilemmas he has constructed, and explaining his reasons for them. The screenplay by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (who first worked together on “Memento”) has more depth and poetry than we might have expected.

Two of the supporting characters are crucial to the action, and are played effortlessly by the great actors Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Freeman, as the scientific genius Lucius Fox, is in charge of Bruce Wayne’s underground headquarters, and makes an ethical objection to a method of eavesdropping on all of the citizens of Gotham City. His stand has current political implictions. Caine is the faithful butler Alfred, who understands Wayne better than anybody, and makes a decision about a crucial letter.

Nolan also directed the previous, and excellent, “Batman Begins” (2005), which went into greater detail than ever before about Bruce Wayne’s origins and the reasons for his compulsions. Now it is the Joker’s turn, although his past is handled entirely with dialogue, not flashbacks. There are no references to Batman’s childhood, but we certainly remember it, and we realize that this conflict is between two adults who were twisted by childhood cruelty — one compensating by trying to do good, the other by trying to do evil. Perhaps they instinctively understand that themselves.

Something fundamental seems to be happening in the upper realms of the comic-book movie. “Spider-Man II” (2004) may have defined the high point of the traditional film based on comic-book heroes. A movie like the new “Hellboy II” allows its director free rein for his fantastical visions. But now “Iron Man” and even more so “The Dark Knight” move the genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most fruitful one for exploration.

In his two Batman movies, Nolan has freed the character to be a canvas for a broader scope of human emotion. For Bruce Wayne is a deeply troubled man, let there be no doubt, and if ever in exile from his heroic role, it would not surprise me what he finds himself capable of doing.

Well It's 50 Cups Of Coffee & You Know It's On

Summer time is in full swing now. The 4th of July is in a couple of days. Since it is the 10th anniversary of the Beastie Boy's next-level album, Hello Nasty on July 14th - I've ripped and uploaded the album in MP3 form. It's the Japanese import that I ordered on CDNow before Amazon.com upstarted and bought them out. The major distinction between the U.S. and Japanese version is that on the latter, The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin') is the original, "Can't Won't Don't Stop" that couldn't make it past sample clearances. Also there is a bonus track of MixMasterMike with the B-Boys live performing "Slow And Low," the song that they found at Def Jam records, written by Run-D.M.C. , released on their first and last album on Def Jam.
This is a dope album to play for the summer time indeed.

Description:
Hello Nasty, the Beastie Boys' fifth album, is a head-spinning listen loaded with analog synthesizers, old drum machines, call-and-response vocals, freestyle rhyming, futuristic sound effects, and virtuoso turntable scratching. The Beasties have long been notorious for their dense, multi-layered explosions, but Hello Nasty is their first record to build on the multi-ethnic junk culture breakthrough of Check Your Head, instead of merely replicating it. Moving from electro-funk breakdowns to Latin-soul jams to spacey pop, Hello Nasty covers as much ground as Check Your Head or Ill Communication, but the flow is natural, like Paul's Boutique, even if the finish is retro-stylized. Hiring DJ MixMaster Mike (one of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz) turned out to be a masterstroke; he and the Beasties created a sound that strongly recalls the spare electronic funk of the early '80s, but spiked with the samples and post-modern absurdist wit that have become their trademarks. On the surface, the sonic collages of Hello Nasty don't appear as dense as Paul's Boutique, nor is there a single as grabbing as "Sabotage," but given time, little details emerge, and each song forms its own identity. A few stray from the course, and the ending is a little anticlimactic, but that doesn't erase the riches of Hello Nasty -- the old-school kick of "Super Disco Breakin'" and "The Move"; Adam Yauch's crooning on "I Don't Know"; Lee "Scratch" Perry's cameo; and the recurring video game samples, to name just a few. The sonic adventures alone make the album noteworthy, but what makes it remarkable is how it looks to the future by looking to the past. There's no question that Hello Nasty is saturated in old-school sounds and styles, but by reviving the future-shock rock of the early '80s, the Beasties have shrewdly set themselves up for the new millennium. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG

Super Disco Breakin' [2:07] The Move [3:35] Remote Control [2:58] Song for the Man [3:13] Just a Test [2:12] Body Movin' [3:03] Intergalactic [3:51] Sneakin' Out the Hospital [2:45] Putting Shame in Your Game [3:37] Flowin' Prose [2:39] And Me [2:52] Three MC's and One DJ [2:50 Can't Won't Don't Stop [3:01] Song for Junior [3:49] I Don't Know [3:00] Negotiation Limerick File [2:46] Electrify [2:22] Picture This [2:25] Unite [3:31] Dedication [2:32] Dr. Lee, PhD. [4:50] Slow And Low [BONUS]


http://rapidshare.com/files/117835316/beastieBoysHelloNasty.rar.html