"Der erfolgreichste Kinostart aller Zeiten!" - So verkündet die Werbung. Wird sicher stimmen - aber warum ist das so? Nicht weil Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman und Michael Caine mitspielen, nicht weil es um Batman und den Joker geht. Nicht einmal weil Heath Ledger dabei ist.

Schon vor seinem Start wurde der Film zum Mythos stilisiert - Heath Ledgers letzte Rolle, der Joker, ein psychopathischer Bösewicht, der Ledger gerüchteweise auch nach Drehschluss noch so sehr verfolgte, dass er Beruhigungsmittel nehmen musste, um schlafen zu können. An denen er dann unglücklicherweise starb. Das ist natürlich eine tolle Werbung für einen Film. Und gibt dem Joker eine Tiefe, die ihm das Drehbuch vielleicht nicht allein verliehen hätte. Ein Filmbösewicht, der ganz buchstäblich Menschen tötet. Plötzlich wird viel mehr über den Joker als über Batman geredet und geschrieben. Der Joker als Zivilisationskritik.
Stellt sich allerdings die Frage: empfindet das Publikum das auch so? Erkennen die Millionen, die sich diesen Film anschauen, die tiefen philosophischen Fragen, die in der Figur des Jokers gestellt werden?

"... "The Dark Knight" sind auch eine Leistungsschau dessen, was die Popkultur nach nunmehr knapp 60 Jahren zu formulieren imstande ist. Und wie sie die Menschen mit den tiefen und unhintergehbaren Fragen ihrer selbst konfrontiert, wie das früher nur Immanuel Kant oder Friedrich Nietzsche für eine elitäre Schicht getan haben. Anders als der gut gelaunte Philosophiekitsch in den Bestsellerlisten, hat sich die amerikanische Kulturindustrie entschlossen, ernst zu machen mit ihrer Kritik an den herrschenden Verhältnissen.

Aus der "Welt am Sonntag" vom 17.08.2008 - Artikel hier online lesen

Lassen wir uns in einem Batman-Film mit "tiefen und unhintergehbaren Fragen" konfrontieren? Oder nehmen wir das Böse in Gestalt des Jokers einfach so hin, wie die Tüte Popcorn, die dazu gehört? Immerhin siegt am Ende das Gute, Batman triumphiert und die Welt ist wieder sicher(er). Da kann man doch getrost heim gehen und das ganze als kurzweilige Unterhaltung verbuchen. Und nur ganz wenige (eben "eine elitäre Schicht") werden sich ein paar Gedanken machen. Die schreiben dann vielleicht eine Kritik wie die in der WamS und loben einen Film, für den sie sich sonst eher geschämt hätten. "Popcorn-Kino? Niemals! Eine philosophische Vorlesung war das! Mit Feuerwerk..."

Mel Gibson er en utrolig begavet skuespiller, med mange fantastiske filmer under beltet. Men måtte jeg valgt en film blant de mange, måtte det uten en hver tvil være Braveheart. Som Skottlands folkehelt, danner og leder Mel Gibson en hær, som har som mål å frigi Skottland fra Englands onde konge. Mel Gibson spiller William Wallace, en anonym mann fra landsbygden i Skottland. Og etter å ha mistet hele sin familie og sin elskede, leder han som sagt et korstog mot den engelske kongen. William og hans menn kjemper for sine liv, for at sitt land skal kunne oppleve frihet og trygghet. Men filmen skal vise seg å ha en heller tragisk slutt.

Denne filmen kan jeg se gang etter gang, og gåsehuden kommer hver gang. En utrolig film, fra en utrolig skuespiller.

Films were invented to provide an opportunity for its viewers to learn many lessons. When it comes to cancer-themed pictures, such art shows an all-too-true paradox that an unexamined life is not a life worth living.

Before you start succumbing to a generous introduction about a very obvious subject, may I present my list of favourite “cancer-themed” films which I handpicked from a vast and beautiful selection.

Now a Warning: Please read the plot summary before you recommend any of these films to cancer patients. Some of these films may induce patients to chase aspirin with a bottle of vodka.

10. Akira Kurosawa's “Ikiru”. Takashi Shimura, Shinichi Himori

Kenji Watenabe is a long-time bureaucratic chief of the city hall who spends his whole life doing nothing. One day, he learns from his doctor that he is dying from cancer. This creates a lot of mixed thoughts in Kenji's mind. He is unable to tell this to his family, so he decides to meet with a novelist to tell his story. Telling his story to the novelist aggravates his feelings of living a worthless existence. He surprises everybody by his drastic change of behaviour as he fights for the construction of a playground and park in one of Japan's poorest areas.

09. Arthur Hiller's “Love Story” Ryan O' Neal, Ali MacGraw

This cult tearjerker is about the relationship between star crossed lovers Oliver Barrett IV and Jennifer Cavelleri. Oliver, a hockey jock of Harvard law school and the only son is threatened to disinherit the family's will upon his marriage to Jennifer---a Radcliffe student without much of a social life. Oliver loves Jennifer so much that the wedding takes place without his father's blessing.

Things turned rock-bottom when Jennifer discovers that she can't be pregnant due to a “terminal illness”. In desperate attempt to get help, Oliver swallows his pride and tries to borrow money from a father who despises him. Bear in mind that a sad climax, matched with an infectious theme song and that stellar performance by Ryan O’Neil, made this movie unforgettable.

08. Irwin Winkler's “Life as a House” Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Tomas, Hayden Christensen

This is a story of an unhappy architect George Monroe, whose wife divorces him and marries another man. His son hates him and just wants to be alone. He also ends up unemployed after working for 20 years in a company. Devastated, he collapses and is sent to the hospital only to find out that he will soon die from an illness. The plot thickens when he decides to at least correct some mistakes by trying to convince his angst-ridden son to live with him in a shack near the construction site of his dream home. George's mission: to try rebuilding his dream house and his family while he still have the energy.

07. Rudolph Mate's “No Sad Songs For Me” Margaret Sullavan, Wendell Corey, Viveca Linfors

One day, Mary Scott meets with a doctor because she seems to be expecting a pregnancy; little does she know that the doctor’s news will be about her imminent death.

Mary, a middle-class wife who's devoted to both her daughter and engineer husband Corey, manages to keep her condition a secret for the sake of the family's peace. Unfortunately, her efforts weaken when her husband hires a Swedish draftsman that attracted her husband’s love and sexual fantasies.

This film shows us the gut-wrenching experience of having to deal with a painful ordeal: a philandering husband in a time when love and passion is supposed to be more meaningful.

06. Buzz Kulik's “Brian's Song” James Caan, Billy Dee Williams

Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers are football players belonging on the same team but are both competing for the “running back” spot. The two have huge differences which are gradually set aside when Gale obtains injuries from a game. Brian soon learns to dedicate his time to help Gale to his recovery. Fortunes change when Brian face the harsh reality of cancer.

It was touching when tough-guy Gale cries in front of his football team after declaring that Brian Piccolo has cancer and he loves him so much. This film also centers on loss of oneupmanship which, in sports, is the assumption of superiority upon gaining status symbols and privilege during a rivalry.

05. Bruce Joel Rubin's “My Life” Michael Keaton, Nicole Kidman

Bob Jones is a successful businessman with a loving wife and a first child on the way.

His life is literally picture perfect until comes a dreaded cancer that leaves him heartbroken that the prognosis won’t give him the chance to see and know his child. Until, a holistic healer gives Bob an advice, “You must let go of your anger to die happily”.

With the use of a video camera, Bob decides to search for his inner peace by documenting his last few days as his legacy to his child. He uses the medium to cover every aspect of his life: from his childhood baggage to the painful end.

Better to watch this movie in private if you don’t want people to see you cry.

04. Carl Franklin's “One True Thing” Renee Zellweger, Meryl Streep, William Hurt

A film about a complex family crisis that will help you re-evaluate the most important things in your life. Ellen Gulden feels guilt when her father reprimands her for still thinking of her career and not coming home to aid her cancer-stricken mother. The intense strain of guilt eventually convinces Ellen to quit her job to return home. Ellen then realizes that putting her life on hold is a responsibility she have to take after knowing that his father values his work at Harvard more than her mother.

This film mirrors life's cruel realities under a family's roof and shows you the importance of the so-called “invisible work”. It provides a poignant explanation as to why some family members are not as dedicated as others.

03. Randa Haines' “The Doctor” William Hurt, Christine Lahti

Dr. Jack MacKee is the most arrogant heart surgeon around. His heath care motto is “Get in, fix it, and get out”. Ironically for him, he receives bad news that he’ll soon succumb from terminal cancer.

The former surgeon slowly sees the other side of the system he believes in. As a patient, he sees a mechanized system where his comfort is the least concern of medical attendants. This film is a must-see for any practicing medic.

02. Mike Nichols' “Wit” Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd

“Wit” is a realistic view on mortality. It follows the struggle of an English professor, named Vivian Bearing, who's facing an excruciating battle with ovarian cancer. She uses humour as a way to react on the cycle her cancer takes. It also helps her cloak her indifference to the painful treatments she undergoes. The film also features a character that shapes Vivian's story. I’m referring to Dr. Kelekian. He’s the head doctor whose interests seem to revolve only on Vivian’s test results.

01. Ridley Scott's “Alien” Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skeritt

How can a science fiction movie, set in outer space, become a part of this list?

Well, there is nothing more accurate in representing the dreadful metastasis than that of a hideous monster coming out from people's chest when it's thought to be dead.

Hahahaha!!!! Ooops...Sorry...

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Bear in mind that movies with a cancer-related plot is a great way of sharing communal experiences to people.

please click photos for image credits

McManus brødrene tar ved et uhell livet av de to mafia medlemmene, og tar dette som et tegn fra Gud, om å drepe alle byens mafia medlemmer. Så med korstet rundt halsen og latinske bønneord, drar McManus brødrene rundt i Bostons mørke gater, for å ta mafiaen en etter en. Willem Dafoe er etterforskeren som skal ta McManus brødrene, men jo nærmere han kommer brødrene, jo større blir tvilen. Dafoe begynner å se på brødrene som helter, fremfor kriminelle. Dafoe begynner å tvile på sin egen rolle som etterforsker, og hvorvidt han egentlig vil ta dem. Vi ser også Dafoe i rollen som en "Dragqueen", en rolle han spiller helt utmerket.

Filmen er en film blant de skjeldne, fri for spektakulære spesial effekter og "glorifiseringen" dagens filmer ofte har. Man kan ikke unngå å like denne filmen, og man vil sitte klistret til tv-skjermen fra begynnelse til slutt.

Och på tal om detta; en av myterna hade att göra med att en krypskytt en gång skulle ha skjutit sin motståndare i ögat, och på vägen dit penetrerat motståndarens kikarsikte med kulan. Adam nämnde att han hade sett detta i en film, jag blev en aning konfunderad... Såg man detta i Enemy At The Gates? Eller är det jag som har problem uppe på mössparkeringen?

Dom e varma och obehagliga...vill bara att nån ska sitta på dom ungefär...haha helt sjukt.

Kollar på the hot chick...haha den e skoj!

Nej jag ska sova snart....ögonen håller på att falla i hop...zzzzzzzzzz

THX 1138
There was a time when George Lucas really knew his craft. This film is a lesson in how to create art under heavy restrictions. He used random locations for sets — one is a lecture hall/studio where I taught an aesthetics class at my old university — and somehow made it all work. I'm looking forward to Walter Murch's commentary.

Into Great Silence
I haven't seen this. Apparently it's a film with no dialogue. That's the only reason I bought it.

Blade Runner Collector's Edition
My all-time favorite movie, finally finished to Ridley Scott's original intentions. Or is it?

Badlands
Days of Heaven
My all-time favorite director, Terrence Malick. This rounds out my collection, which I guess isn't saying much.

Howl's Moving Castle
Spirited Away
Two more favorites.

Titus
I really loved this movie. The critics didn't.

Hero
Maybe it's unfair to compare, but I thought this was a better film than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It's a shame that Quentin Tarantino's name is all over it, because he really didn't have that much to do with it.

The 4th Dimension
This little independent film was just a hunch. I saw it in Rasputin Records and the box sold me. I watched it my first night back and liked it. The influences and themes are great: Kafka, Spider, Einstein, Lynch, insanity, physics, sleep paralysis.

Exile and Creativity: Signposts, Travelers, Outsiders, Backward Glances (Susan R. Suleiman, ed.)
This was the first book I bought. It's a series of essays on expatriation and creativity.

The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic Visions of America (Hannah Patterson, ed.)
It's impossible for me to walk into City Lights bookstore in San Francisco without buying something. This was the first of two books I decided to get that day. The essays look really interesting, with a couple dedicated to sound.

Seoul Searching: Culture and Identity in Contemporary Korean Cinema (Frances Gateward, ed.)
Despite the embarrassingly lame title, this also looks interesting. I'm not sure how good the quality of the writing and research is, but this falls into one of those things buried in my long to-do list: learn more about Korean cinema.

Haunted Weather: Music, Silence and Memory (David Toop)
I'm about 50 pages into this. David Toop is one of my favorite writers. I like the way his mind works and his research and knowledge is extraordinary. Nearly every paragraph introduces some new obscure cultural artifact that he's dug up in his travels and research. I like how he's not trying to be definitive or comprehensive in his topics, but sees and hears things through his own very personal perspective. This book is really inspiring a new desire to make music right now.

As superhero movies go, The Dark Knight is certainly the best of the bunch -- although why Christian Bale's perfectly normal voice had to descend to a guttural rasp every time he put on his bat helmet escapes me, and one must also assign a few demerit points to the filmmakers for portraying the Russian national ballet as a group of blond and unfeasibly pneumatic ski bunnies. But it's entertaining and occasionally thoughtful, which is more than one can normally ask of the genre.

The late Heath Ledger, as widely proclaimed, is indeed the best actor in the film. His portrayal of the Joker is far less cartoonish than Jack Nicholson's own go at it, and Ledger takes the character seriously, giving him a consistency, a style, and a realism wholly absent before. But there are limits to what even Ledger can do: at root the Joker is just a monomaniacal killer, without complex layers of personality or indeed even a personal history (or at least without an immutable one -- in the film, the Joker enjoys telling his victims an ever-changing set of stories to explain his mouth-extending facial scars, and perhaps also, though only by implication, his murderous behaviour). He is evil through and through; despite all of the stylistic and physiological versimilitude that Ledger bricks onto his character, the Joker remains nothing more than a comic book villain.

Writer/director Chris Nolan nonetheless is able to use the Joker in an intriguing way, depicting him as bent on unmasking civilized morality as a hypocritical lie, his technique being to create enough fear to cause law-abiding citizens to turn on each other. After severely disfiguring district attorney Harvey Dent, the Joker (amusingly disguised as a red-headed nurse with clown makeup) visits him in his hospital bed to goad him into madness. In the process, he sums up his philosophy: "Those others," he says, referring to Batman, the mayor, and Commissioner Gordon, "are planners... I am chaos." There is some irony in this claim, for the Joker is not actually all that effective at causing city-wide chaos: apart from a few desperation-sparked incidents of citizen violence, Gotham suffers no riots, no insurgency, no breakdown of order; the Joker does provoke a mass evacuation, but civil authority does not collapse because of it.

Nolan's vision of the Joker's self-appointed role may be based on one of the oldest forms of clowning: that of the court jester, whose status as the most despised and most harmless of the members of the court occasionally enabled him to utter truths to the sovereign which would get anyone else imprisoned for treason. "Jesters do oft prove prophets", says Regan in Shakespeare's King Lear.

The Joker, of course, is not a tolerated member of a court, but rather a criminal mastermind who seizes the chance to speak his own "truth" by disrupting normal society. In this sense he is reminiscent of an extreme version of the Situationist International. Guy Debord and his small band of followers believed that modern society was controlled by the "Spectacle", loosely defined as the dominance of objects (especially consumer products) over normal social life, and as the passivity of citizens in consuming such products. "Situations", by contrast, were events (either non-violent or violent, often planned but sometimes not) which aimed at disrupting the narrative of Spectacle and at breaking down the false consciousness of the public; such events included the 1968 occupation of the Sorbonne and the ensuing general strike, and (retrospectively) the Watts riots of 1965. Here's part of Debord's defense of the violence in Los Angeles, which the Situationists distributed in the United States as an unsigned tract five months after the riots:

Looting is a natural response to the unnatural and inhuman society of commodity abundance. It instantly undermines the commodity as such, and it also exposes what the commodity ultimately implies: the army, the police and the other specialized detachments of the state's monopoly of armed violence.

The Watts riots, by the way, were an instance of chaos at a scale that the Joker would have envied. Wrote Debord:

An incident between traffic police and pedestrians developed into two days of spontaneous riots. Despite increasing reinforcements, the forces of order were unable to regain control of the streets. By the third day the blacks had armed themselves by looting accessible gun stores, enabling them to fire even on police helicopters. It took thousands of police and soldiers, including an entire infantry division supported by tanks, to confine the riot to the Watts area, and several more days of street fighting to finally bring it under control. Stores were massively plundered and many were burned. Official sources listed 32 dead (including 27 blacks), more than 800 wounded and 3000 arrests.

Yet any similarities between the Joker and the Situationists are methodological only; in aims, they could not be farther apart. Debord concluded his pamphlet by calling for the end of a society dehumanized by commerce: "A revolt against the spectacle - even if limited to a single district such as Watts - calls everything into question because it is a human protest against a dehumanized life, a protest of real individuals against their separation from a community that would fulfill their true human and social nature and transcend the spectacle." Idealistic, perhaps dangerously so, but well-intended. By contrast, the Joker simply enjoys blowing things up, killing people, and provoking the state (and even more so, Batman). He's a psychopath with a keen sense of theatre, not a revolutionary.

Soul singer Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar, has died at his home in Tennessee, police say.

Link and story when they become available.

Update, 08/10/08, 1:05 PM: Per gossip site TMZ:

Musician Isaac Hayes -- who wrote the theme song for "Shaft" -- died early this morning in a Memphis hospital.

According to WMC, a Shelby County sheriff's deputy responded to call from Hayes' wife after she found him on the floor near a treadmill inside their home.

Hayes was taken to Baptist East Hospital in Memphis, and was pronounced dead at 2:08 AM.

Update, 08/10/08, 1:30 PM: CNN has corrected its original report (without admitting its error regarding where Hayes died) and added details here.

Despite two more wide releases having entered theaters on Wednesday, The Dark Knight topped the box office for a fourth straight weekend, adding an estimated $26 million for a massive domestic total of $441.5 million. If the estimate holds, then the Christopher Nolan-directed film has surpassed Shrek 2 ($441.226 million) to climb to the third spot on the all-time domestic blockbuster list, trailing just Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope ($460.998 million) and Titanic ($600.788 million). Warner Bros. Pictures said it expects "Dark Knight" to end up with about $520 million domestically. The movie cost $185 million to make.

(Emphasis added.)

I hope Christian Bale got a really. good. fucking. contract. for the new Terminator trilogy.

Having finally seen TDK myself, I can now say I thought it was superb. The death of one character was jarring, the death/birth of another character heartbreaking, and Ledger's Joker absolutely deserves an Oscar -- not just a nomination, but the fucking statue.

Nåväl, över till tv-fronten. För tillfället är det Martha Stewart Show på, men det tänker jag inte fetstila för den har jag bara på som sällskap och ingenting jag direkt tycker om. Jag blir bara trött på alla dessa hemmafru-shower där kvinnor lär sig att laga mat, och berättar vilken sorts klänning som är mest moderiktig till brudtärnorna etc. etc. Huh.

Gick emot min bojkott idag och såg på Ultimate Force. Hate it from the guts. Eller nåväl, det var väl hyffsat den här gången men allting känns så tomt när det inte längre är det forna teamet. Så de återstående avsnitten blir endast för extremt långtråkiga dagar då jag inte har något att göra.

(Via TalkLeft)