Brian Thompson's "The Blog"

I liked this blog. The yes/no part was really funny.

A very entertaining job of nostalgic waxing!

The real tragedy is that Nilla Wafer cakesters and Oreo cakesters are identical. The only difference is in the color. Do they take us for fools??

Everytime this thread gets bumped I keep thinking it's The Brian Thompson. Anyone else having that issue?

Respectfully, it's a shame that you allow your political zealotry to choke out your humanity.

Looks like you and the Bush administration have something in common.

Nothing about dying turns a bad person good.

Letting your political beliefs define you to the point that you can't empathize with a cancer victim is just sad, that's all.

Some questions I asked myself while watching The Dark Knight:

If Superman growled all the time, would anyone ever suspect he was really Clark Kent?

Maybe.

Hong Kong?

Why?

I could find a couple of different ways to rationalize it... But I shouldn't have to. I'd call it an entertaining tangent, but a tangent nonetheless.

Couldn't Gordon have just told his family he was going to be fake killed?


I believe he withholds that information for their own safety. That only sort of makes sense.

Didn't he come back to life the next day?

Yes?

How big of a dick is he?

Depends on whether you buy that he was protecting his family.

If Batman's going to tell the world he's Batman, shouldn't he, I don't know, do it at the beginning of the press conference?

No. Would you? He clearly didn't really want to let the cat out of the bag, anyway.

Why does the Joker always do exactly what he says he's going to do?

I found that pretty interesting, actually. Not to mention, none of his elaborate "games" would have worked, otherwise. He's man of his word. It's an enormous contradiction, but that too I found compelling and appropriate.

If an anarchist says he's going to try to assassinate the mayor or blow up a hospital, shouldn't he do something else?

See above.

Something anarchistic?

See above.

So Batman interrogates via punching?

Yes.

A loved one's death turns you either into a coin-flipping murderer or a rubber-suited fist pumper?

That's really simplistic and you know it. Both instances had two entire films devoted to their respective transformations. Dent was walking a very fine line to begin with. I thought they handled that well.

Have any of these writers ever experienced death?

Probably.

Is this movie made for the emotionally retarded?

No, but maybe made BY the emotionally retarded. Or, let's say, the emotionally disinterested. The same could be said about Hitchcock or Kubrick. Pick your poison, you know?

Shouldn't Morgan Freeman, after saying he doesn't want to use Batman's spy machine, not use the spy machine?

But Batman promised cross-his-heart to dismantle it! Like Dent, he walks a moral razor-edge. The difference is that Batman never quite tumbles into the abyss. Fox trusts him.

Is there any problem Batman can't solve with a punch?

Yeah, lots. You're being difficult on purpose again, here.

Will I ever understand why bloodthirsty psychopaths prefer to safely restrain their victims and wait for their loved ones to arrive before satisfying said blood thirst?

Joker is trying to spiritually destroy his enemies. Some of his murders have no practical purpose beyond that in which case, yes, he ought to make his enemies suffer by experiencing first-hand the deaths of their loved ones.

When Batman is shot, does he ever not get back up?

No.

So, you're just going to push Harvey out a window, huh?

Yes.

Instead of delivering this "dark knight" speech, why doesn't Gordon just wipe his ass with the very idea of subtext and slap it on the camera lens?

I've thought a lot about this. This aspect of Nolan's writing is very specific to his Batman films and I think you could argue it's appropriate to the genre. In comic books, the sub-textual becomes the super-textual. It's operatic. We're operating on the level of almost pure iconography.

Wait, I've been here how long?

2hrs and 32 glorious minutes. Not perfect minutes, but what is perfect? And no, it's not a masterpiece, but that word has little to no genuine meaning. Such designations will always been artificially motivated, to a certain extent.

Yeah, lots. You're being difficult on purpose again, here.

Such as?


There are problems he CAN'T solve, for one thing. Dent ultimately falls from grace, and Dawes is murdered.

But the primary dilemma of the entire picture is Dent's fall which he solves by taking the attorney's sins upon himself. The highly mutable "symbol" he created in the first film shifts to incorporate something much darker. Batman becomes whatever the city needs--a hero when it needs a hero, a villain when it needs a villain.

I'm not going through your responses again, it's obviously not going to get me (or anyone else) anywhere. Your post is another typical "angry nerd" rant that can't see beyond particulars of logic (the prototypical fall back for people who don't understand film very well) to create a proper critique. If you want to read a book or two, grow up a little, and talk to me about the film's problems of pacing and structure, then maybe I'll risk utterly wasting my time again.

I am so pleased this went up on my birthday, Brian. You better be there Saturday.

I began Reading Children of the Matrix a few days ago, which claims modern humans come from a long line of hybridization between the original people of Earth and an alien reptilian race (or at least, that’s what the intro and first chapter said). If that is the case, and if you take the book seriously, what’s the point of protecting “human dignity” through government regulation that prohibits human-animal hybridization when we’re all man-beasties already?

Ha! Sillyness...

Great blog!!

And also, a hell of a lot more messed up kids come from “traditional” family units than from gay couples, broken homes, or single parent upbringing.