Batmanorama

Dark Knight  Dir. Christopher Nolan

Dark Knight picks up where Batman Begins left off, with new villain "The Joker" (Heath Ledger) and new district attorney/soon to be villain/boyfriend of Rachel Dawes (Maggie (not Katie Holmes) Gyllenhall),  Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).  Anyway.  Batman (Christian Bale) is trying to fight the mob with the help of Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman), Dent,  and his work buddy/costume designer/weapons supplier, Lucius Fox.  Oh and his butler/jokester Alfred (Michael Caine).  At first Batman is more concerned with the mob then The Joker, but eventually The Joker gets Batmans attention.

I think this movie actually lives up to the ridiculous amount of hype.   Partially because Heath Ledger lives up to his ridiculous amount of hype.  Ledger is scary, funny and totally unrecognizable as the Joker.  (I loved his "magic trick").  He pretty much has an Oscar nomination locked up and I won't argue.  All the other main characters are perfect as well.  At two and half hours it never slows down, the score and cinematography really adding to the intensity.  Seeing the film on the IMAX screen was incredible, especially in overhead shots of Gotham and Hong Kong, and action sequences such as when Batman causes Jokers semi to flip over.  

My only complaint is the ending, and only because Heath Ledger died.  Basically the movie feels like what it probably is; the second part of a trilogy.  I'd feel a lot better with how this one ended if I knew we'd be getting more of Ledger's Joker.

9/10

Batman Begins  Dir. Christopher Nolan

Batman Begins is basically about how Batman begins to be Batman.

When I first saw "Begins" in the theatre, there wasn't all the hype that "Dark Knight" was getting and my only expectations were it should be cool because the guy that did  Memento was the director.   And it was cool.  Super cool.  

I was never really a fan of other comic book or superhero movies.  I hated Spiderman.  But Batman Begins actually makes the story of Batman believable.  The story takes it's time to show Bruce Wayne transform himself ("Batman" doesn't show up until like an hour into the movie).   All the main characters are great, and the script is awesome.  It proves a movie can be about a superhero and not be totally retarded.

9/10

The Sopranos:  Season 6 Part 2 (Final Season)

HBO series starring James Gandolfini as a Mafia boss and family man in New Jersey.

As I was watching the last few episodes, it seemed like they were kind of struggling to wrap everything up.  It's what I'm afraid is going to happen when "Lost" is finally over.  There are just too many key characters and subplots to just lead up to one nice neat climactic finish. However, once we  get around to the last scene.... I don't want to give it away.  I will just say after watching it twice, and then reading different theories on the internet, I am very satisfied with how it ended.

Season: 9/10

Series:  10/10

Foot Fist Way  Dir. Jody Hill

A smalltime Tae Kwon Do instructor, Fred Simmons (Danny  R. McBride) brings his friend and a couple students to meet Chuck "The Truck" Wallace (co-writer Ben Best) a smalltime action star (and Fred's hero).  He convinces Wallace to come to his students belt-qualifying testing, only  at this time "The Truck"  is no longer Simmons hero, but his enemy.

Fred Simmons is pretty much the same character that Will Ferrell plays all the time, so either 

a.) you like Will Ferrell movies and you will like this one.

b.) you don't like Will Ferrell movies and you won't like this one or...

c.) you like Will Ferrell movies so you don't like this one because it's some other guy.

I'm going with A.  It's stupid, it's kind of a rip-off, but it made me laugh.

8/10

The Day of the Locust   Nathanael West 

Takes place in Hollywood during the 30's and tells the tale of Tod Hackett, a set painter, who pines away for a wannabe actress, Faye Greener.  Not that she'd go  for him anyway, (just friends) but he is in competition with a cowboy, and his Mexican buddy, a producer, a dwarf, and a guy named Homer Simpson.

I read this because it was mentioned in Y: The Last Man.  I think Yorrick said it was his favorite book.  I wasn't really into it.  It kind of reminded me of "The Great Gatsby"  (There is even an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote on the back) but not as good.

6/10

movies:  61/150

books:  13/15