The Dark Knight Rises: Tale of Two Gothams

The Dark Knight Rises

Directed By: Christopher Nolan

Written By: Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer (characters created by Bob Kane)

Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Joseph-Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman, Matthew Modine, Ben Mendelsohn, and Nestor Campbell.

Director of Photography: Wally Pfister, Editor: Lee Smith, Production Designer: Nathan Crowley and Kevin Kavanaugh, Original Music: Hans Zimmer

            The idea of “superhero movie fatigue” has been an issue raised by film critics again and again for the last few years. Another Spider-Man? An X-Men spinoff? More? Nevermind that we had three Maltese Falcon adaptations in less than ten years, but outside the point of all this yawning of superheroes, sometimes it’s forgotten why they exist in culture at all. Superheroes are myth stories. The Greeks had Achilles. Medieval times had Beowulf. And we have Superman. Sure, when you wait only three years between a film, perhaps not much changes in our perception and meaning of this myth. But the point is that a superhero can mean something different depending on time and circumstances. This is what Christopher Nolan believes. Unfortunately, I don’t know if he knows what his heroes want to stand for.

            It’s hard not to know that this weekend sees the release of The Dark Knight Rises, the third (and final) “chapter” in Nolan’s vision of the Batman myth. Such hype and speculation has fueled the world since the release of 2008’s The Dark Knight, a box office bonanza that attempted to not only take superheroes seriously, but to extract as much “super”-ness as possible. And with Inception out of the way, Nolan, writing the script with his brother Jonathan, has returned to make something of an epic in the Charles Dickens sense. The Dark Knight Rises is truly a big film—three hours long, with a good portion of the film shot on IMAX cameras, and featuring at least 10 plots that somehow mesh together at the end. It’s also a total mess of conflicting ideas and emotions and flat filmmaking, marred by it’s desire to simply do too much. But it kept me glued to my seat while watching it nonetheless.

Cars 2: From America With a Turbo V8 Engine

Cars 2

Directed By: John Lasseter

Written By: Ben Queen

Starring (The Voices of) Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, and John Turturo

Art Director: Jay Shuster, Original Music: Michael Giacchino

Rated: G, though some explosions may frighten the smallest of children.

            There is something unique about the Cars franchise that separates it from almost every other film in Pixar’s history. While Toy Story, Monster’s Inc., and A Bug’s Life among other present mini-universes within our own universe that we just don’t know about, Cars is a world onto its own. There are no humans turned around, unaware that their vehicle is a sentient being (that story is left to Michael Bay). Instead, the Cars live in their own alternate universe, where they eat oil and feel sick when breaking down. Would President Obama show up as a long slick limo?

            Cars and now its sequel, Cars 2, are also known in certain circles with distain as simply cash-cows for the Disney-Pixar brand. While Cars was the least profitable film for the animation giant at the box office, it has also made the most green in toys and merchandising. But such conversations are irrelevant, and make it too easy to attack the Pixar franchise for what is likely to be agreed upon its least successful film to date. John Lasseter, the Pixar founder and current CEO, shows a lot of admiration for the idea of Cars in his directorial style (he passed on directing Toy Story 3 to do this film, after all). And while never as transcendent as Pixar’s other films, Cars 2 zooms its way around a cleverly inspired plot to keep things moving too fast that you won’t mind.