The Dark Knight

The other evening, we finally got round to seeing The Dark Knight. And damn, it’s good.

Personally, I far preferred it to Batman Begins. Maybe it was just me, but I found a lot of BB didn’t really gel together, and felt more like a sequence of setpieces than a complete film. (And yes, I know that hasn’t stopped one hell of a lot of directors. But there we go, it was how I felt about it) Whatever, my opinion was that Dark Knight was far better written, and it did hold together as a full film.

There are still some weak bits – some of the effects for Two-Face were (in my opinion) decidedly ropy and detracted from the film. Whereas you could believe in Heath Ledger’s Joker, Two-Face was more of a slap in the face of disbelief suspension every time you saw it, and that just never works satisfactorily. And I find the bass-amplified/rasped voice of Batman to be really really annoying after a while. Sure, I know, it’s supposedly ‘disguised’ so people don’t identify the man beneath the mask, but really, it’s just annoying.

And of course then there’s Heath Ledger’s role as the Joker. A lot of the hype is that he’ll get a posthumous Oscar for this film, and I have to say that I’m not convinced on that score. I do think he’s stunning, and I also think that you don’t see him as the Joker and think “Oh yeah, that’s the guy who was in Knight’s Tale” or whatever other film – which for me is the sign of a good actor. He’d also certainly put in enough creepy extra mannerisms, and had made a full-fledged character out of the Joker. But Oscar-worthy? I’m not convinced.

The actor I do think is stunning though, is Gary Oldman. Now there is someone who really doesn’t connect one role with others. In this, you don’t even think of Inspector Gordon as being Gary Oldman. On the other end of the scale there’s Michael Caine, who really can’t be anything else except Michael Caine in another outfit.

All told, I really enjoyed The Dark Knight. I’m also with Dragon on wondering who the bad guys will be in the next one. With the developments in The Dark Knight, the next film will certainly be an interesting ride…

Wanted

Last night, I went off to see “Wanted“, the new film with James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. I wasn’t expecting loads from it, but the trailers have all looked stunning, so it was definitely on the “want to see” list, if only for the effects, and the fact that I love the other stuff that director Timur Bekmambetov has done. (Night Watch, Day Watch)

And wow, is it worth seeing. Of course, it’s absolute rubbish – but it’s incredibly watchable and visually astounding rubbish. I can think of at least three parts where you do just sit there with your mouth open, wondering how the hell they did [x], or got the idea for it in the first place. It’s that stunning. It’s also surprisingly violent in places – something that seems to be happening less and less, unless you’re into Hostel, Saw and the like. (and I’m not – horror/blood porn does nothing for me at all) It makes sense for the most part, but you certain raise your eyebrows a bit because of some of the scenes.

Even the final scenes carry a surprise – and that’s all I’m going to say about it. It works really well, but there’s at least one serious surprise in there.

More surprisingly, Angelina Jolie is OK as well. She’s someone I’ve never really been a fan of, but in Wanted she carries off the role pretty well.

All told, just go and see it. Don’t expect high art, but do expect to suspend disbelief for two hours, sit down, and enjoy the ride.

Derren Brown – The Show

So a couple of people have asked how the Derren Brown show was, and I have to say, it was bloody good. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first one I saw, but it was still excellent.

He’s very good on stage, mixing up a whole heap of things including sarcasm, charm, showmanship, illusion, misdirection, and a bundle of others. And while some of the tricks are vaguely obvious and understandable, there are others that just leave me (and many others) still firmly convinced that there are stooges and colleagues in the audience. Logically, there’s no other explanation – but you never know.

All told, the show is well worth seeing – it’s a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours.

Highly recommended. Just expect a headache by the end of it as you try to work out what the hell’s going on, how tricks are done, and just which gestures are actually forces, and which are misdirectiion.

Cowboy Junkies – Royal Albert Hall, London

As regular readers know, I’ve been a fan of the Cowboy Junkies for a long, long time now – well, the best part of twenty years. The first thing I heard of theirs was the Trinity Sessions album (as it turned out, their second album, but the one that started spreading the word about just how good they were) and it’s still, twenty years on, always in my Top Three favourite albums. So when we saw that they were redoing the entire album live at the Royal Albert Hall, well, it was a no-brainer really.

The entire show – well, show’s not the right word, “performance” might be better – was awesome. Not just a copy of the album (although, well, I’d have been just as happy with that, to be honest) but instead it was the same songs, same order, but slightly different versions – helped along the way by the addition of Ryan Adams on guitar (and singing) and Thea Gilmore as a backing vocalist. They’re also releasing a “Trinity Sessions Revisited” album + DVD to mark the occasion/gigs/idea.

To me, seeing the performance of the full album – and to my mind, it’s still also their best album, as well as being on of my all-time favourites – was just fantastic. I’ve seen them do a fair number of the songs before, but to see the entire album was just something else.

Because the entire album only runs at about the hour, there was plenty of time for encores, and again they played a couple of old favourites as well as a couple of tracks from their latest album.

All told, it was just fantastic. I haven’t been all that great this year with gigs, but there was no way we were going to miss this one, and it was well worth it – worth paying for the tickets, the London Congestion charge, the parking, the 2.5 hour drive each way, worth all of it. Absolutely brilliant.

Long may the Cowboy Junkies continue to record, and long may they keep on coming back to the UK to play. I’ll be there.