American Hustle

The 86th Academy Awards are in just a few days, and the movie American Hustle has been nominated for 10 awards including Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Production Design.  Not only is the story captivating, but the acting is phenomenal.  When watching the film, you truly believe you're in the disco era.  The costuming, hair, and makeup was spot on, and accompanied by a "groovy" 70s soundtrack. The movie is built around reinvention -- a concept of the American Dream. During the 2 hours and 20 minutes the audience follows a scam-artist (played by Christian Bale) as he ambitiously pushes boundaries.  American Hustle perfectly balances comedy, tragedy, and romance.

American Hustle will be most closely competing with Gravity this year at the Oscar's...both films were nominated for 10 awards, and 12 Years a Slave follows closely behind with 9 nominations.  All 3 films are nominated for Best Directing and Best Picture.  While I can't speak for Gravity and 12 Years a Slave (I still have yet to see them), I am very optimistic that American Hustle will walk away from the Oscar's with a few awards.  I guess we just have to wait until March 2nd to find out!

Hero or Villain?

The Batman movie franchise has had a long tenure and been interpreted by many actors, directors and writers. While the characters and stories follow the general plot lines of original DC comics, their portrayals have varied from each iteration to the next. The Christopher Nolan era of Batman could be argued as one of the most masterfully depicted stories of Bruce Wayne.

Over the span of 3 films he incorporates numerous villains and delves more deeply into the darker side of Bruce Wayne's psyche. The character development seen in the films strikes me as odd, however. The villains of this trilogy seem to be more dynamic characters.While watching, I find myself enjoying the "bad guys" more often than the hero. They have more personality and pizzazz which in turn causes me to almost root for them. One of my favorite of the villains is The Joker, portrayed by Heath Ledger. Yes, he's maniacal. Yes, he's murderous. But most of all he's exciting, unpredictable and so irresistibly captivating to watch. There are so many wrinkles that begin to unfold from the moment the movie begins and for the span of the film he steals the show.
 

Our hero however seems to take the back seat to these master villains. Bruce Wayne as portrayed by Christian Bale is more and more as the trilogy progresses a self-righteous, self-loathing billionaire with a perceived obligation to his city. He seems to be the only character that tries to escape their true self. He does this by becoming Batman. At first a noble pursuit, Batman soon becomes an escape for Bruce. He uses it to avoid the constant pressure of being a celebrity, the pain of lost loved ones and a possible means to a final end, his death. Throughout the series this character is pretty static, filled mostly with anger and grief with occasional hopeful moments which are usually snuffed out. While he's not as exciting to watch as say The Joker or Bane, his role is the backbone on which the story is built. His unwavering and steadfast behavior is what allows him to survive again and again no matter what he faces. While he may not be as likable, he is still the hero.


Next time you find yourself watching The Dark Knight trilogy, ask yourself, "Who's better?" The Hero? Or the Villain?

Commissioner James Gordon series on Fox?

Between the three most recent Batman movies with Christian Bale and now this new Batman movie with Ben Affleck, there's been a lot of talk about Batman and it's clearly become a popular topic. But recently I came across an article talking about a new TV series about Commissioner James Gordon called Gotham. The series will be about James Gordon in the early days before he met Batman. It's very much playing with the Smallville idea they did with Superman but just applying it to Batman.... except Commissioner Gordon, not Batman. Fox finally landed the show from Warner Brothers for next fall after a bidding war and the DC vs Marvel battle continues. Bruno Heller, creator of the Mentalist, was also picked up as the dominant writer for the show, telling the origins of Gotham City and how it got to where it is. They are talks of playing around with a lot of old villains from the comic books and I can only imagine how they will play with Wayne Industries.

I think this is an incredible idea. In fact I think it's a better idea than the new Batman movie they're making. After the trilogy of amazing Batman movies Christopher Nolan did, I think it's still too soon to make anything that will even compete with those. The James Gordon spin off is a great way to leave that legacy untouched but also develop it more. James Gordon was a major player in the trilogy but not big enough where he could go untouched. It's also a nice bit of fresh air in the midst of the dozens of cookie cut out detective shows.  It combines the whole super villain aspect which is just so interesting to me. Plus there is such a huge amount of villains and characters to pull from all of the different Batman and DC universes so this show in my mind has a lot of potential. Next Fall with fox gives me hope for good TV again.

Affleck Catches Flak for Being the Next Guy to Don the Cowl

Last week it was released that Ben Affleck signed a deal with Warner Bros. Studios and is going to be replacing Christian Bale as The Caped Crusader. The information was released that he would first star along side Henry Cavill in what Zack Snyder has only referred to as "Superman vs. Batman". Since this information has been released, Affleck has been catching a lot of heat from fans of the Dark Knight Trilogy, who believe that Affleck is the wrong person to be portraying one of the most famous pop culture icons of all time. Social Media sites such as Twitter and Facebook has been blowing up over this controversy. Personally as an outside observer who does not like to voice my opinion online... I'm going to take my first shot here and jump on team Affleck.

  

Despite having a rocky period of unease in the early 2000's with films such as Daredevil. Affleck has had an incredibly successful career. With his newer groundbreaking films such as Argo, and The Town, and some of his older classics like Goodwill Hunting, and Dazed and Confused, Affleck has continually showed success not only as an actor but as a director and producer. The Town is one of my favorite action/crime film of all time. The gritty dark style and compelling performances by Jeremy Renner and Affleck really make you have a invested interest in the characters and what happens to them.

Along with my current enjoyment in watching most Affleck films, I recently saw an article on the website buzzfeed that really caught my attention. The portrayal of the Joker by the late Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight was in my opinion is some of the best character acting I have ever seen in my life. However, before his role as the Joker, Ledger was mostly known for playing the romantic male lead in films such as 10 Things I Hate About You, and A Knight's Tale. When it was announced that Ledger was going to play the Joker, many people believed that he was poorly cast. In fact there was many angry tweets saying that there was no way a "gay cowboy", could play the joker. For those of you who like surfing the web you should check out this buzzfeed article.

At the end of the day there is no denying that Christian Bale really did put a face on the image of Batman, like no one has before. Regardless, his performance is going to be a tough one to follow up, and while I am not one hundred percent sure that Affleck is going to nail the performance of Bruce Wayne, all I am saying is that he is a very accomplished person in the film industry and people should give him the benefit of the doubt.

Nolan In The Deep

As I lie in my bedroom, my eyes slowly, slowly closing, checking Facebook right before I pass out into my first full night of sleep in God knows how long... I SEE THIS:

Christopher Nolan Taking Over Justice League, Bringing Bale Back As Batman

And then I explode and die at the same time.

The idea of Christopher Nolan running the entire DC Universe is an exciting one for me, considering that Joss Whedon (another critically acclaimed writer/director) has more or less taken charge of the Marvel Universe, and these two opposing viewpoints bring a very interesting contrast in tone to the table.

The movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have very much adopted the tone of comic books, with larger-than-life characters, bright colors and snappy repartee. Conversely, Nolan's Batman universe is filled with steely grays and muted blues, telling the story of the Caped Crusader in a gritty, down-to-earth way. He has furthered this vision by producing DC's new Superman movie, Man of Steel, with one of the main questions during production being "how would the world react if Superman existed?"

Over the course of the past year, there have been abundant rumors regarding a possible DC Justice League movie to combat Marvel's immense success with the Avengers, which has scared me as a massive fan of the direction of Christopher Nolan and Zak Snyder's DC superhero movies. But more importantly, I think that DC would lose their biggest weapon: their unique voice and tone. The Dark Knight trilogy was an entirely different entity than the Marvel movies, and as Green Lantern demonstrated, DC can't beat Marvel at their own game.

If the DC universe (including the Justice League) can be united under Christopher Nolan's vision, they have a chance of continuing to combat Marvel's movie dominance. Otherwise, they will be poorly imitating, in typical Hollywood fashion, and they will lose.

Also, as a continuity junkie, the prospect of Christian Bale returning as Batman in the Justice League, alongside Henry Cavill as Superman, makes me happy all over.

So, I watched The Fighter

Just watched The Fighter and it was fantastic. Christian Bale was amazing as usual and Mark Wahlberg did a great job too. The movie had a lot more depth to it than a typical boxing movie. It was mostly about family and his brothers crack addiction. It had a great story and it was well done overall so I definitely recommend watching it.