That's where I left my Blog...

Huh, so... miss me? I decided that I really had neglected my blog for faaaar toooo looooonnngggg and that I should attempt to get back into the habit. Not entirely sure why I let it slip this time, but it's not the first time I've done that and I'm pretty sure it won't be the last, either.

So there's a whole bunch of things that have happened to me over the last few months that I should probably talk about, but I'll start with what I did yesterday, which was go to London and see Gaslight Anthem for the third time. For this, I went with my friend Coates from my uni days.

They are still awesome. They're a great band with good energy and they really bring the room alive when they start playing. For some reason they always seem to pick one good support act (Twin Atlantic, Chuck Raegan and David Hause) and one terrible support act (The Sharks twice now and Blood Red Shoes). It was a good gig and we stayed on the sidelines for this one, normally we try to get further up to the front. Oddly, they didn't play a cover this time, which Coates complained about their lack of playing Baba O'Rielly. Even so, was good times.

Also visited Ed's Diner in Leicester Square, which provided some inspiration and an awesome burger. It seems like a good business model, but we'll see how it works out when we get round to working on opening... The Movies...

So. A film I really should have reviewed already.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

The Dark Knight Rises. I mean, what a film. As Batman movies go, this is definately in an uneasy position to start with. It has to follow The Dark Knight, a movie that pretty much everyone in the world declared the best thing to ever happen period. It then has to deal with the death of Heath Ledger, the man who made that previous film as amazing as it was. It then had all the negative press around the hideous mess in Aurora. So how did it do, with all that weight around its neck?

Pretty good.

I'm not gonna say that this one was better than the last two of the Nolan Batman films, it's probably the weakest of the three, but if you took it out of that context, you'd hold this film up as a work of high art compared to the Burton/Schumacher Batman films of yesterdecade. The beginning of the plot has a few questions that I wondered about. Basically, he has to learn how to be Batman again, after a long hiatus. Then he goes out and does Batman things. Then he does the fight with Bane, Bane does the thing he is most famous for (a large cracking noise), and then leaves Batman in a pit. Batman then has to remember to be Batman again. Didn't we... didn't we do that already? Pretty sure that we could have cut out half an hour of the movie around there somewhere. Not that there was that much Batman in the movie in the first place...

But that being said, all the other performances were pretty spot on. Marion Cotillard was as enchanting as ever, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is well and truly no longer the kid from Third Rock From The Sun anymore, he's a movie star now. Gary Oldman is still my hero, he's probably the most active actor in this entire film, to be honest. JGL was more of a main protagonist than Batman himself at times, but I don't think this makes the movie weaker, I think it shows that Bruce Wayne knows that his time has come. Michael Caine is as touching as ever, despite the small role he was given. Wasn't entirely sure about Anne Hathaway's Catwoman, but she does look good in that suit, so we'll let her off. And that just leaves Tom Hardy. Nobody thought they could do a badguy as good as Heath Ledger's Joker. All those people? They be wrong.

'Nobody cared who I was before I put on the mask'.

Bane carries every scene that he's in with an unbelievable power, authority and grace, despite his massively lumpen muscled frame. It's hard to believe that this is still Tom Hardy who was so slim and refined in Inception, so freakish is Star Trek Nemesis. This guy is one of the absolute stars of our age and we're lucky to have him on our screens. I don't want to be a downer on Christian Bale, but we always know that, just like Batman himself, Bale isn't normally all that interesting compared to his enemies.

So all in all this is a worth film to finish the franchise on, despite everyone's claims that they can make a fourth one, no they shouldn't and they really won't. Batman has a future, maybe, but it'll be rebooted and made more Justice League friendly, so we'll see how the new Superman film pans out. As it stands, this is a fitting way to see out Batman. For now. The Dark Knight began, fell, rose and then flew. It doesn't get much better than these three films in a franchise. Beware the Dark.

Next up:
BRAVE