The Dark Knight Rises - A Fan Perspective

First my thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims during the Aurora, Colorado Dark Knight Rises shooting. I write this review to hopefully honor them and inspire others to stand up against evil in all its forms. 

Let me start by saying, I am a Batman Fan. Well let me restate that, I have become a Batman fan.  I original grew up as a Spiderman fan (and still am to a certain degree) but as I have grown up I have appreciated the fact that Batman is just a Man who fights crime. Now, granted he is a Man who has ridiculous resources , being a billionaire and all, but nevertheless he was just a Man in a world where the next super villain can be created  after that chemical spill or radioactive accident. There is something to this. Why fight when you know the odds are against you ? Why try to win when it is so obvious that the deck is stack against you ?

That is the core of what Batman is all about and in some ways Dark Knight Rises reflects this. At the beginning of the movie Batman/Bruce Wayne is a recluse. He has retired as Batman and now the shell of Bruce Wayne has decided to live life as a shut-in.  But two separate individuals begin to awaken the hero within. The cat burglar, aka Catwoman, has decided to steal from him and that arouses the detective side of Batman. And a visit from a new character, Officer Blake, visits Bruce. This new character has pieced together the whole Bruce Wayne / Batman puzzle due to the simple fact that as a orphan himself he can see the mask that is Bruce Wayne. This character appeals to the heart that is Batman.  These two rouse Batman from his slumber to again become Gotham City's savior. Unbeknownst to Batman a new threat has emerged, Bane, who threatens to tear down the entire city.  Through the twist and turns I noticed a common theme popping up. This whole notion of heroism. Bruce Wayne has tremendous resources, gadgets, and training to beat back the evil that threatens his city but it really are the ordinary cops, personified by Officer Blake, who have none of the advantageous of Batman who created a lasting impression on me. These individuals stood up to evil when it was so clear that they should've stayed home and hide.

This really resonated with me after the terrible movie shooting incident in Aurora Colorado. This heinous crime committed by an unimaginable evil was truly tragic. But after hearing about what happened during the shooting, you hear story after story of specific heroism of ordinary people who put their lives at risk to save others. Unfortunately, Batman is a fictional character but when you hear the stories of people in the theatre, they are the true heros that we should write stories about.  At the end of the day, it is this theme of ordinary people taking a stand against evil that  the movie promotes.  From Office Blake standing against Bane's thugs to Commissioner Gordon jumping into the dangerous Gotham sewers these examples represent the ordinary individual putting their lives at risk to save others.

This final chapter in the Batman trilogy looks to tie up loose ends and put a whole coda on this notion of a man who dresses up as a bat to stop crime.  But ultimately it is the very nature of heroism especially in light of the recent tragedy that will last the longest in our collective memory.

Its a Mad Mad World

Mad is Back !

So Mad Man has returned to our TV airwaves after being gone for almost 2 years ! Well so far there have been two episodes and it truly has been great to have such a great series back. The primer aired last Sunday as a 2 hour TV event and to be honest it takes a while to get use to the deliberate pacing, the dialogue that is not spoken, and the sense that you really never know where this show is going.

Where is the drama ? Where are the loud arguments and explosions ?

I've come to realize that the real suspense of this show is how petty the lives of  SDCP really are when painted against the backdrop of the culture shift called the Sixtes. In the premier you have the Civil Rights Movement taking center stage within the first 5 minutes and the only thing that comes of that is how our hero's can make fun of an rival agency. You have some resolution closer toward the movement of history but you pretty much have to wait until the episode is over , nearly an hour and half later.  The suspense is driven by what huge historical changes will be ignored until they can't be ignored any longer.

Back in season 3 the Kennedy assassination came suddenly in the middle of an episode, totally unexpected. The force of this news pretty much erased all the other plots as this was too big a news for our narcissistic characters to ignore. I am not complaining about the lack of social awareness of our characters, I  find it pretty spot on really. Here we live in the post- 9/11 world and as we sit here obsessing over a TV show planing for our Easter weekends, will future generations make a television show (or whatever kind of show that have in 2062) about the early 2000s and how we weren't aware of the huge changes going on in society  like climate change, terrorism , and renewable energy ? 

Mad Men really is just a character study of individuals as they live their lives in the 1960s. Hell this show really could be about an ad agency in 2012 as long as the characters were compelling (well they are trying a realty show about a modern day ad agency , on the same network - AMC - no less). But making it in the sixties it does give it that outer world weirdness. Human stories 50 years ago, might as well have been about stories from another planet considering how different things were (technology, culture, music, etc). But human nature.. that rarely changes.