Dr. Crane, I can’t take it anymore. It’s all too much. The walls are closing in. Blah, blah, blah.
I have so much crap to talk about that, after being epically nagged to make a new post, I decided to make a series of posts instead of one very long one. One for every day, chronicling the stuff I’ve been watching and reading lately. This also gives me something to do when I’m bored out of my mind at work. I think I’ll call it EPIC REVIEWS OF CRAP I ENJOY. By me. And it will be awesome because I am awesome.
I shall begin with movies. Specifically, alphabetically, Batman Begins.
I have an admission to make: I never saw Batman Begins. In fact, the thought never occurred to me to go see it. Why not? I really don’t know. I’ve seen all the others. The ones with Jim Carrey and AH-nold Schwarzenegger and George Clooney’s nipples. How in the hell did I manage to go three years without seeing the first really EPIC Batman movie? Because epic it was.
Christian Bale was—huh, how do I put this. On the one hand, I think he’s my favorite Batman. There isn’t anyone else who could have pulled it off better. And yet, throughout the movie, Nat and I could be heard saying things like, “I think he’d be better for this if he were like, five years older.” It’s sort of hard to explain. Older!Christian Bale would have been perfect. He’s one of those guys who gets hotter with age. Not like that’s a problem. Eventually we settled down when we accepted that this was, after all, Batman Begins. If he sticks with the series, I will be heard at the end of every movie saying, “Well, he just keeps getting better looking!”—and it will be true.
Katie Holmes. Katie-freaking-Holmes. What better reason could I have for disliking Rachel Dawes? Seriously, where did she even come from? Is she in the comics at all? I don’t recognize the name. I guess they needed something to ward off the gay before they even get to Robin. At some point in the past, a group of men looked at each other from across the boardroom table. The silence was thick. Finally, some new guy quietly asks, “So he’s a playboy billionaire who adopts a prepubescent boy from the circus? Isn’t that kind of…queer?” The other men at the table look nervous. New Guy hastily adds, “Maybe we should, uh, give him a girlfriend or something. You know. Just in case.” New Guy is then given a raise, a corner office, and a prepubescent circus boy of his very own. Hence: Rachel Dawes.
For the record, it’s not just the fact that she’s a cult member (Scientologist, whatever) that makes my stomach churn. Although it definitely weighs in. A lot. She also bores me. I don’t think she’s much of an actress. Technically, I know Holmes is only about five years Christian Bale’s junior, she just looks too damn young for her character to have been Bruce Wayne’s childhood friend. This isn’t a huge deal, yeah, and it still managed to annoy me throughout the whole movie.
On that note, I am completely stoked about Maggie Gyllenhaal taking over where Katie Holmes failed miserably.
Aside from being super-hot, she also looks age-appropriate. I would completely believe that Rachel Dawes (circa The Dark Knight) is a DA. Katie Holmes always looked like an intern. I am so excited. GAH. I was looking forward to seeing The Dark Knight long before I found out about Gyllenhaal joining the cast. Mostly because I was really hyped up about seeing Heath Ledger as the Joker. In fact, that hasn’t changed. It’s just gotten worse since I saw Batman Begins, and then about an hour ago, Nat and I watched an internet-leaked scene of the Joker robbing a bank and, and, and, oh hell.
(Am I the only one amused that Heath Ledger was gay with Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain and plays the Joker [ie, gay clown] with Maggie Gyllenhaal just a few years later? And then he died. I am sad. No, really. THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER JOKER FOR ME.)
As a parting note, I’m also kind of excited that the Scarecrow has a cameo in The Dark Knight. I can’t help it. Cillian Murphy pulls off scary-pretty-crazy very well.
So yeah, BATMAN BEGINS was awesome. Except Katie Holmes. With luck, I’ll have forgotten she was even present after The Dark Knight comes out.