Do not go gentle into that good night (part 1)

I really love Christopher Nolan films, the guy is a goddam artist. He has made some of the most imaginative and unbelievably amazing films from the last decade. He is by far my favorite director working today and I really admire the ambition and passion that he pours into every single one of his projects.


So naturally I´m exited for his new movie, Dunkirk. I just saw the new trailer and it looks awesome. So in the spirit of this I have decided to go back and rewatch most of his movies in preparation for the new one coming up next summer. I will talk in detail about my thoughts of each movie because I figured that after the last post there had to be done a much more happy one. I would also like to say that I am aware that the trailer dropped a couple months ago, but I didn´t know up until this day.

And on that note:
MASSIVE DISCLAIMER

You will notice that I am not including neither "Following" nor "Insomnia" in here. Well, that´s because I have yet to see them. I have watched parts of both movies on TV but never in their entirety, so it just feels wrong to talk about them when in reality I am in no position to do so because I have never really seen them. Now I am aware that some of you may not agree with everything that I have to say and to those who might get mad at me by this post here´s something for you:

There you go

So, with all that said let us begin because I´m dying to talk about this. It is 2:00 am and I just spent eight hours in a row watching movies, this should go well.

Memento

Year: 2000

Directer: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan

Starring: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano

When I was little, this was the movie that they aired on TV over and over and over again, along side Armageddon. But where as Armageddon is a space action adventure thriller, this was (in comparison at my young age at least) a much slower and boring film. My oldest memories with this movie harken back to when I was five years old and they announced this during a Simpsons commercial break. I remember being intrigued, but nothing more than that. If anything I am amazed I even payed attention to the commercial because this is certainly not a movie that would attract the attention of a little kid. Years passed and as I grew older I started to see this movie being referenced by various film lovers. I remember that the first time I heard the concept of it being a movie that was told backwards my first though was "That is awesome, I need to watch that right now".

So I eventually bought it and saw it, and honestly speaking , I was blown away by the sheer story. The way Nolan chose to reveal every single detail of the plot was masterful. The directing is one of this film strongest aspects. I heard that when it came out critics thought the gimmick of going backwards was pretentious and unnecessarily, but honestly I think that is not at all the case. The movie has been gaining a  very well deserved cult following and has been considered by many to be one of the best movies of all time.

I am getting ahead of myself so let´s start with the story (and don´t worry, I won't get into spoilers). Leonard is an insurance company investor, and his job is to be sure that the patients that he treats are not fooling the company to get money out of them. One night, two robbers break into his house and rape and murder his wife. As he runs to her aid he manages to wound one of the intruders but the second one sneaks by him and hits him hard on his head. He watches his wife die as he falls unconscious and by the time he wakes up he finds out he has shot term memory loss (yeah, just like Dory) and can´t remember anything that happened more than a few seconds ago. So the only way he can gather information is by taking pictures and tattooing himself so that when his memory goes away he would know what´s happening. He swears to find and kill the man go murdered his wife, so the rest of the movie is a crime solving mystery with a ticking clock ending his memory every once in a few minutes. From there we´ve got ourselves a great and suspenseful thriller.

So what are the strengths of the movie? Well, like I said the direction is top notch, with gorgeous shots and great camera movement but also with a great sense of rustiness to it. "Rustiness?", yes, and by that I mean that everything that is happening on screen feels real. It doesn´t appear shinny and new, where everything is clean and beautiful, no no no, this is a real world with real deep characters. The settings look scruffy and old, giving everything a much bigger sense of realism; and the people have various layers and motivations for their actions. There isn´t your typical protagonist or villain or anything that even comes close to resemble that, the characters in this movie are real people who you feel for and are able to get behind of. Not only that, but they are also really interesting, with rich backstories and great personalities that create room for some excellent dialogues. There is a scene in a cafe in which two characters talk about how memory is something overrated and let me tell you it is fucking brilliant.

I also like the tone that they were going for. It would have been easy for this movie to be really sad and really freaking intense and, well, it does have a lot of moments like that. But there are also slow moments, scenes for character development, for quippy dialogue exchanges between characters and for some cheerful jokes. It is this constant balance of suspense and fun that really elevates this movie above many other crime thrillers. Also the music is pretty nice, it is not outstanding by any means but it works and accommodates the scenes very well (specially the final scene). And lastly, Guy Pearce is fucking great, he delivers one of the best performances I´ve seen from him. He is such a damaged man but is also able to see the happy side of life; he is really goofy sometimes but is a very intelligent and illustrated person. It is this performance what carries the entire narrative from beginning to end, and it is good that it does because for how much time we spend with our main character it would have been horrible if he was annoying or overly dramatic.

Such a great actor, you can really feel the pain just in his look.

But the movie is far from being perfect. I mentioned earlier how much I liked the tone and the cinematography, but one thing that doesn´t complement both of these is the color palette. Why is everything so goddam colorless?! Okay, the black and white segments get a free pass because those are suppose to be that way to add to the effect of the scene, but when even in daylight scenes everything looks so dull, it just makes for an uninteresting shot, even if it is being filmed from a great angle. And yes, I know I just said that I liked the way everything looks dirty because it adds to the realism of the setting... but that does´t mean that there can´t be any interesting scenery or something to look at other than just a fucking boring city. For example, Breaking Bad is a series that takes place in city in the middle of the dessert, you can't get a more boring location than that, but the creators of the show found a way to get the sky in the shots or to make the color vibrant which made for some really pretty shots. The amazing cinematography is already here in Memento is just that, man, those colors really don´t make the photography justice.  This might seem like a nitpick, and honestly, it is. I have the feeling that this wasn´t a mistake, but rather an attempt at making the viewer feel as desolated as our protagonist, and it worked. But that didn´t mean that they had to make every shot look boring, they could have achieved the same effect with any other technique. Still, as complains go, it is far from taking away from the movie. Other small things that detract from the movie would be the performances of the side characters who at times feel very stiff; or the ending, which even though I really like, feels a little bit rushed.   

But as one of his first movies, Christopher Nolan really made a solid hit with this one. It is a great movie that took a lot of risks but the pay off was worth it. Some of the scenes still send shiver down my spine despite me having seen them multiple times previously and it works on so many different levels. Some of the decisions made by the director did´t work for me in particular, but hey, the stuff that works, really fucking works. It is a classic that will surely be remembered as one of the best movies in film history and a personal favorite. If you have never seen it you should really give yourself the time to watch it, it is very, very good. I don´t like giving numerical scores, so I´m giving this movie a "Wacth-it-with-your-friends-during-a-rainy-day" / 10. 

Batman Begins

Year: 2005

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer

Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson and Katie Holmes

When this movie was first announced, no one knew what to expect. This was a more realistic take on the cape crusader made by a director that at the time was still very small and this was coming off from the Burton/Shcumacher batman saga, which had left a lot of people disappointed in the years prior to the release of this movie, which meant that Batman Begins had to be really good. And it sure did. Not only was the movie acclaimed by critics, it was a game changer for superhero flicks as it touch on  very mature content that up until that time people never thought they would see in a super hero film, not even in the old Burton batman movies.  The first time I saw it I really liked it, I thought it was a lot of fun and , come on, it is motherfucking Batman, and a pretty badass one. I think that the choice made by Nolan to portray this character the way he did was not only making justice to the character, but also to the general audience who had no idea that batman stories were dark and mature. One could almost say that it was not only the movie we needed but the one we deserved. 

Do I even need to tell you the premise? It is Batman: he was a small kid raised by his rich family until one day a thief killed both to his parents right in front of him. That´s when Batman, AKA Bruce Wayne, started to get this feeling of boiling rage at the thought of crime, so in a chain of events he decided to take off into far away countries and disappears for a year. He does this with the hope that he can get to understand the criminal world better and get some satisfaction out of that, but when the League of Shadows reclutes and trains him, he becomes a fierce warrior who desires to clean the world from evil. He leaves the LoS and returns home to fight crime as a night Vigilante known as Batman and from there on we have a pretty kick ass movie.

Okay so, in my personal opinion, this is THE definitive representation of Batman as a character; from the gadgets, to the personality, to the costume and even to the voice (yeah, yeah... I know it gets made fun of a lot but it is actually an intense and fitting voice for Batman), this is and will always be my Batman. This is an element that the movie did exceptionally well: selling the idea that this story could actually happen. The montage in which Bruce Wayne prepares everything for his first night out as a vigilante is so well made and so well edited that it makes me want to stand up and yell "Yes! Batman! Woooho!" every time I see it. This gets only complemented in a great way by Christian Bale´s performance. Some people would say that his portray of the character was bland and uninteresting, but honestly, I think this calmer and younger Bruce is much more compelling. He is inexperienced and he is still becoming the Batman. We have always seen Bruce as a hard face and stoic figure, but this is showing us a much more human side of him than any precious incarnation.

The main characters are great as well, especially Alfred, played by non other than Michael Caine. His relationship with his master (Bruce) is so real and so sweet, you feel true friendship between this two and it makes for some really emocional moments, especially when Alfred tries to teach Bruce about what wearing the cape might mean for his legacy. Even the side characters I really enjoy, especially Rachel and Jim Gordon. The villains are really cool as well. Scarecrow and Ras Al Guhl (played by Liam Neeson) are two of the main antagonists, and they are both also great at their roles in the movie. They serve the purpose of antagonizing Batman and for that they work in in the movie. I don´t think they are particularly interesting but they are not meant to be, the center of this movie is Bruce and his growth into Batman, not some random bad guy. 

Fucking badass.

One again, the stellar photography from Nolan really sells the idea that this events that you are watching happening are really occurring. It is similar to Memento but without the problem of having uninteresting shots; here every single frame just pops out of the screen and grabs you by the neck to submerge you in the story. One last thing that this movie did perfectly was telling a complete story that worked on its own while also creating this world in which more events can take place in the future, which is something that I think superhero movies nowadays are forgetting more and more.

I do have some grapes with this movie though, particularly with the second act. The first act is a great introduction and the third one is a great action packed sequence. But in the middle there is just this huge mess of scenes that don´t really flow as well as they could. And I get it, they are telling the story of how Gotham is rotten and it really needs a vigilante, and it is creating suspense and building up the love relationship of Batman and all of that, but it is very clunky put together. I feel like the scenes individually work but fail to tell a defined narrative as a whole. To give you and idea, the bad guy disappears for half of the movie and appears only at the end. I´m sorry, but you can´t do that Nolan, you can´t just forget one character and ignore him completely for half of a movie and then bring him back when the plot requires him because by that point I stopped caring for him. I mean it is accompanied by a nice twist but lets be hnest, there ain´t nobody who was surprised by the revelation. 

Another important thing is that, for a movie about a vigilante that fights crime with his fists and martial experience, the fight scenes are poorly shot and bad choreographed. There are one or two good fight scenes but for the most part it is not something very good, at least not very memorable. For example, the first time that Batman takes out a bunch of armed guys, we don´t even see it, the camera does´t pan out for us to see it, we just hear a lot of screams and see some fists fly around and are suppose to assume that a fight is happening. Oh and, one last thing really quick but what about the evolution of Bruce as a character from when he was a kid until he became an adult. We never see it, like, at all. A flashback or an anecdote or something for us as an audience to see how much he resented the death of his parents at a young age would have made us connect a lot more with the character. 

But still, even with these problems I still enjoy the movie as a very well made action adventure super hero flick. I pop it in every once in a while and still have a blast. Over all it is a very kick ass movie with even more kick ass performances and great and interesting characters. I would say that Batman Begins is a "Movie-To-Watch-When-You-Just-Want-To-See-Batman-Being-Batman" / 10.

The Dark Knight

Year: 2008

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writer:  Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman , Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart

Words cannot describe how much I loved this movie when I first saw it. In fact, this was the first movie from Nolan that I ever saw. And holy freaking god is this an amazing film. Not only is it a great super hero movie, but it works just as well as an action crime drama on its own.  Critics loved it at the time and it raised the bar for what the super hero genre could achieve. In fact, that very same year Iron Man hit the theaters, and with this two movies started a renaissance for the super hero movies that to this day still rules the box office.

Is it a perfect movie? I wouldn´t go as far as to make that statement, but I mean really, there is no movie completely perfect. Over the years people have started to notice the faults of the movie as a whole but that does´t make it in any way worse. If anything it is a testament of how profound the themes of this movie are in order for people to keep analyzing it even after almost ten years of its release. You may have noticed how I said that Batman Begins did an excellent job in creating a world for future movies to explore. Well, this, movie takes advantage of that, starting right in the middle of the action. The characters have already been developed, making more time for new characters and more fleshed out villains.

The story centers around (you guessed it) Batman, who has now been taking care of Gotham for around a year or two. He is doing a very good job as criminals fear him and peace slowly starts to take over the city. But everything changes when the Joker, a crazy anarchist agent of chaos, enters the scene and plans to kill Batman and have the city for himself. But as if that was´t enough the city starts turning on Batman, demanding his retirement

I´m just going to say it: this is, by far, my favorite super hero movie. There is no doubt that this is one of the best interpretations of the character of all time. The dark tone is present for the entirety of the film, making it have a much grittier look in comparison to the first installment in the series. This is achieved by stellar cinematography that uses long wide shots, making everything feel much more gigantic and our hero much more vulnerable than before. The music by Hans Zimmer is excellent, superb, one of the best he has ever composed and instantly iconic, which was al ready good in the first movie but here, with the higher budget you can definitely see how music accompanies a lot more of the intense moments. Another thing I really, really enjoy is the focus Nolan decided to give this film. The first one was a straight up action origin story, but here it is a crime thriller, with Batman chasing after the joker in a cat and mouse game to see who can outsmart the other one first; and that is really great because the moving force of the plot are the characters and their interactions rather than events out of the protagonist´s control.

It is nice to see Batman, the greatest detective, finally do some actual detective work, which is something that I feel previous incarnations of the character completely glossed over. Christian Bale returns to reprise his role and he is freaking phenomenal and I really like how the script gave him better dialogues than in the first film, exploring him much more in depth about what being the Batman can cause to a person. After all, Bruce is just human. Everyone else in the cast is also incredibly talented. I really like the new Rachel, I think she is a stronger character than before and that was a welcomed change. So, great characters, great direction, good tone and excellent storytelling are present in this movie, but lets get to what everyone praises about this movie: the Joker.

Oh my spaghetti monster, the Joker is such a badass and awesome villain. He represents everything that Batman doesn´t represent but at the same time there is only a thin layer that divides the to entities, as the Joker makes it clear in what is the movie´s best scene: the interrogation room. Here we see how much of a monster the Joker really is: he is insane and even though he does make true points about society it is the cynical and inhuman way in which he sees life that makes the character so believable. Heath Ledger was excellent, may he rest in peace, this is the performance of a lifetime. In my opinion, the Joker is the perfect villain: he is intimidating, he is unpredictable, he is the perfect contrast to our hero, he is smart and worst of all, he is unstoppable.

The Joker is almost an emotionless entity: you can't reason with him, you can´t convince him other wise, he has no compassion for anyone. This is truly a character that only wants to see the world burn. He doesn´t have a personal agenda, he doesn´t gain anything out of the suffering of others, he does it because he enjoys it. He is a completely corrupted soul and the idea that he presents that everyone is just one bad day away from becoming him is brilliant and it really presents itself for great moral dilemmas.  And the most scary thing is that he might just be right. Without spoiling anything (although if you haven´t seen this movie I don´t know what have you´ve doing with your life) we do see a character exemplify what the Joker says about anyone going crazy and falling into madness... and it sticks with you.

But, like I said, this is not a perfect movie, so let us see what went wrong as well. Now I´m not going to focus that much into narrative details and "how is it possible that a character did this and that" because frankly there is no point in that, we would be here for hours and the suspension of disbelief is something that I´ve learned to apply more and more to super hero flicks. I do, however, have a problem with the movie´s structure. Instead of feeling like a three act film this one almost seems to have five. To give you an idea of what I´m talking about, the first time I saw it I was halfway through the movie when I thought the movie was ending, but to my surprise there was still an hour left to go. Much like in Batman Begins I get the feeling that Nolan had great ideas for individual scenes but wasn´t sure how to make them flow and pase them correctly, specially for the amount of stuff that he cramps into one film.

Also, some storylines go absolutely nowhere. The lawyer who knows Batman´s secret identity? Disappears. Scarecrow? Appears in one of the first scenes and then just vanishes. Those guys who dress as batman? They are out of place to begin with and Nolan probably realized it as well because they are gone after only a few scenes. I think all of this problems come form a lack of focus, which is not necessarily bad when you have as great of a vision of what you want to accomplish with your film as Christopher Nolan does; but I will agree with the general consensus that this film is a bit of a mess. I mean, there is a terrifying scene with the Joker savagely killing a Batman impostor in video followed by a party in which we have to develop the character of Harvey Dent and his relationship with Rachel and she still being in love with Bruce and I don´t know it all seems very abrupt. I get why they wanted to flesh out their characters, but if the director wanted to built drama on that Nolan shouldn´t have shown us a super intense scene prior to it. It is as if you went into DisneyWorld and instead of starting with small attractions and then ending it all with an amazing roller coster, you instead decided you jump right into the middle of a fucking water sliding roller coster going through a ring of fire and into a pit filled with sharks only to then go to the Winnie Pooh´s bumper cars. You get what I´m saying? Like, the direction is still great and passing on individual scenes is phenomenal, it is just that I get the feeling that Nolan was trying to cover so many story arcs for his own good.

On a side note, I also find the moral dilemma of Batman a little distracting. I really like this idea that he won´t go as far as to kill criminals because mercy is "what separates us from them". But my god does he like to live in the gray areas of this rule. He doesn´t use guns, except that both the Tumbler and the Batpod have fucking guns and missiles and explosives and tons of stuff that shoots fire power. What?! And he doesn´t kill, never... except when he does. Some villains he lets die, others he saves and others he straight up murders. I guess you could say that this is meant to be that way in order to show the conflict boiling inside the character, but yeah , Ockham´s razor, I would much rather attribute it to lazy writing in this particular aspect of the character.

But, but... it is still The Dark Knight. In my opinion this is as good as a Batman film can get. It still gives me chills, it is still just as epic as when it came out, the performances are near perfection and the story is superb, even with all of its flaws. I love seeing this character, I love to see him grow, I like the tone, the filming techiniches; I love that final showdown between Batman and two face, Gordon´s speech of "the hero we deserve but not the one we need right now" gives me goosebumps every single time. I just really love this movie. I don´t care if it´s  clumsy passed, I don´t care if Batman breaks his moral dilemma from time to time, I don´t care that some story lines go nowhere. I watch this movie for what I enjoy from it, not for what I don´t enjoy. And pros outnumber the cons by far. I love this movie, I have watched it a million times before and will continue watching it a million times in the future. I acknowledge that it does have a lot of flaws, but, who cares. It is still a milestone of cinema that I really really like and I can´t help but feel an uprising feel of excitement every single time the Batsignal shows up in the sky. And as long a a movie can continue to make me feel that, I will  know that I  just watched a great film. The Dark Knight gets a Bat-Masterpiece / 10.

The Dark Knight Rises

Year: 2012

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writer: Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan

Starring: Christopher Nolan, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine,Anne Hathaway

This movie had a lot of things going on against it. It had the hype made by the previous film; it had to tell a complete ending for the dark knight saga; it had to introduce new characters to the series; it had to leave a good taste in people´s mouth in order for general audiences to want to go to see the new DC cinematic extended universe that would start next year; and it also had to, you know, be good. So, yeah, things were looking bad for the final installment in the Nolan Batman Trilogy. 

But surprisingly, I really enjoyed it. Sure, it has a lot of problems; sure some moments are straight up dumb and the plot is even more weirdly put together and even less straightforward than in the last two films.  It wasn´t received as well and, yeahhh... I would be lying if I said that some of the decisions made by Nolan were kind of strange. I wouldn´t go as far as saying that it is a bad movie, but it is certainly my least favorite movie from this director so far. I mean, there is a battle between an army of police men against an army of mercenaries in the climax?! In a Batman movie? Where did that come from?

But there I go, once again, getting completely ahead of myself. Let´s look at the story. Due to the events of the last movie, Bruce Wayne has decided to hang up the cape and over the course of eight years it is the police who has wiped out all organized crime of the city and the Batman has turned into only a legend. But when a mercenary who goes by the name of Bane comes to Gotham and tries to finish what Rahs Ahl Guhl Started in the first movie and destroy the city, our hero must rise once again and find the inner strength inside him to combat his past, his foe, his inner demons and bring balance to the force, I mean, bring peace to Gotham.

I wanna get right out of the way first the problems because they do bring the movie down from greatness and into "yeah, it was alright"  category. I think I still like it a lot more than most people do, but even I can agree that this is a far cry from what we could have gotten as a conclusion to the Batman universe that Nolan created. But over time, I have learned to appreciate it for what it is and I really like it; I just want that to be clear before you see me tear this movie apart.  Because holy crap did this movie do some stuff increadibly wrong.

The passing is horrible, like really, really awful. When you are making a third installment in a trilogy you have the advantage that our characters are already well established, the only thing that you need to explain in the first act is the conflict of the story and what has happened with our protagonists since we last saw them. We already understand the environment, we already understand character motivations and we already have a general idea of where the story is leading up to. This is something that Nolan understood perfectly in The Dark Knight, as the first time we see our hero is doing what he should be doing, kicking criminal asses. The story was able to introduce the Joker and explain why he wanted to kill the Batman and zip, zap and zup we already have a moving plot after only the first 15 minutes. This worked so well in that movie because few time had passed since the first movie and the second one.

However, in the Dark Knight Rises we skip for nothing less than 8 freaking years. So now we have to spend almost a fucking hour explaining how much our characters have changed, what has happened in their lives, introduce new characters that have taken importance during those eight years, explain the condition of the setting, give new motivations to half of our protagonists and on top of that we still have to explain the driving force of the plot of this movie as and individual contained story and as the conclusion to the saga.

Because of this, we are left with a suuuuuper long introductory first act in which so much exposition is happening with so many characters, and everything feels like it´s leading up to something, and it is: the first confrontation between Batman and Bane. But right after that everything slows down and everything stays frozen until the very last half hour. So, the story structure goes like this:

1) Incredibly long first act with a shit ton of stuff going on with everything and everyone
2) A slow ass second act in which tension is drained completely out of some of the story arcs
3) Huge, giant, titanic climax filled with suspense in the last half hour of the movie.

Yeah, you can see the problems with that.

But that´s only the passing, how about the narrative. Well, that is all over the place as well. You see, I get the feeling that Nolan wanted to create this really artsy ending to the Dark Knight Saga and make it more of an "overcoming your inner weaknesses" type of story than a traditional Batman narrative, which is totally fine (hell, some of those aspects of the movie are what I enjoy the most). But the problem is that he is also trying to include all this traditional super hero stuff: there is a love interest, there are big explosions, there are chases and great hand to hand combat (which has been significantly improved since the first movie I might add). But this two tones don´t gel together at all. I mean, don´t get me wrong, I love the action adventure aspect as much as I do with the artsy stuff, I just don´t feel like the tone changes were handled well at all.

This is the movie with less Batman on screen time, and for good reason. We get to spend a lot more time with Bruce Wayne without the cowl. In fact, the entirety of the second act has no Batman at all. But the thing is that, as soon as that part of the movie is over we go right back into Gotham for some heart pounding action and suspense. In fact, I can pin point the exact moment in which the movie´s tone changes dramatically: Bruce Wayne gets out of the pit (maybe spoilers, but really that´s no brainer) and goes back to Gotham... and looks normal, clean, as if nothing happened to him. He´s even smiling and throwing quippy dialogue with Catwoman, almost as if the movie is saying "yeah, all that emotionally deep aspect of the movie... yeah forget about that, let´s see some action!"

I also find the characters less developed than in the first two movies. I mean, with the Joker it is very clear that Nolan wanted to surround his past in secrecy, but here the main two antagonists heavily rely on their backstories to make their motivations believable but we still leave it surrounded in mystery with only some vague explanations. Maybe I´m looking too deep into this but let´s just say that the movie drops some heavy information on you and expects you to believe it with no more than a few lines of explanation. And for the third fucking time in a row, Scarecrow is underused in the story, but it is particularly insulting in here. He is in just one fucking scene, almost to remind us how awesome and badass of a villain he is and how he could have been even more awesome with more screen time, only to disappear and never be talked about again. That´s another problem Nolan has in this movies. Because he is trying to tell this gigantic story, he looses track of some of the arcs very easily. I mean, I don´t want to give anything away but the way in which he concludes the story of Bane is probably one of the biggest middle fingers to an audience a comic book movie has ever given.

And yes, you all saw it coming, let´s look at the story. It is filled with plot holes, plot conveniences and inconsistencies. How did Batman get back to the city even though the entire world is unable to do so? The entire police is trapped in tunnels for six months and comes out in pristine conditions ready to fight the next morning? Why didn´t Bane just fucking blew up the city when he had the chance? It´s not like he is sending a message to the rest of the world, the fucking city is isolated. And yeah, I could go on for hours listing the things that don´t make sense. But reality is that, they don´t bother me, I am watching a movie about a billionaire who goes vigilante over night in a bat costume, I know I´m in for some weird shit. But that didn´t stop the first two movies from telling a great story.

Here, my biggest complain is that I really don´t find this story super interesting. I roll my eyes every single time I see the army of cops running towards the army of mercenaries (yeah, two armies, like actual side to side armies) and I don´t understand why Nolan tried to tell this huge epic that involved an entire terrorist attack in an entire city when  I think that a more condensed and personal character driven story would have been much better. I just don't care for the bomb, and the kids and the millions of innocent civilians because, well, I don't know them, I don´t give a shit for them. I am invested in the main characters because I developed a bond with them for almost three movies by this point, and I can relate to all of them in very different levels, not to some random civilians who I, for the most part, never even get to see.

So yeah, I really don´t like a lot of this movie, but I cannot bring myself to say that I hate it, or even to say that it is not a good film. There is just so much good stuff in here that it is impossible for me not to appreciate. I love seeing this characters interact, they are great, Nolan really nailed making them likable. I love the adventure, the fact that Bruce needs to rise up once again despite all odds being against him. I love Catwoman, she was a really cool character with some fun scenes and dialogue; I love the lines, the quotes, the "then you´ll have my permission to die..." and the "there is no autopilot..." always give me goosebumps, they are just so great.

I love the music and the cinematography; I really freaking love the last ten minutes where everything comes together and you just want to get up with both arms raised and yell "Yes!! Batman!!". I love the entire second act where Bruce is trapped in the pit and how he comes out, I thought Alfred was going to come and rescue him  for sure but fuck that, we get something even better: Bruce rises, he overcomes his final inner demons, he is just a man, alone and scared but still finds enough strength inside him to get out and fight for his city with everything he has one more time. That is Batman! That is why Batman is one of the greatest characters of all time. He is no superhuman, he is not perfect, he is not a legend.. he is just a man. Which is why when he makes the jump and risks everything he has and surrenders himself to his fear, accepting he has to live with it but at the same time never giving up his fight against evil, it is in that moment that he truly becomes the Batman.

This scene alone is a freaking masterpiece.

I don´t care if the movie has problems, I don't care if it´s clumsy, the stuff that works really works. As a whole, there are a lot of good individual scenes in this movie that it is impossible for me to not recommend it. Those it come all together in a great ending for the saga? I don´t think so but it is certainly a satisfying conclusion and I admire what Nolan tried to accomplish with this installment. If anything, it has my favorite scene in the entire saga, where Catwoman tells Batman that he can just run away with her, that he doesn´t have to give the city anything more, that he already has given everything he has and Batman just responds "No, not everything, not yet..." and walks away ready to fight and die if he needs to for his city. It is a great line in  great scene in a good movie. A movie with a lot of problems, but one that I´m glad I saw. What else can I say it, I love it, it is a personal favorite. The more and more I watch it the more I like it. Just like with the Dark Knight, I´ve seen it a million times and I´ll see a million times more, and I´m giving Christopher Nolan´s Batman The Dark Knight Rises a "There is no way this won´t give you goosebumps" / 10.




So, as I spent 1,976,487 days writing this post, my partial exams began, so I´m going to have to split this topic into two posts. I mean, priorities. Next week we´ll look at the remaining three Nolan films we are missing... and boy am  I not looking forward to writing that because I do have a lot more to say about those movies than I had with all of these ones combined. But anyways, thanks for reading and all comments and replies are very well appreciated. If there are grammatical errors in here that you find it is because, well, I´m human, give me a break. See you next week :)

War of the Words

You know what sucks? Human interaction. And I don't mean that in an antisocial kind of way. Because for goodness sake, I do love talking to people and expressing myself with someone else about my thoughts, especially if it is in a way that enriches both of our minds. I´m talking about real serious human interactions, like when you have to act formal for an interview, or talking with a friend about a problem that you have or expressing real feelings to another person. Why does it seem like every single thing that comes out of our mouth needs to be meticulously planned in order to convey exactly what we want to say? It´s as if in our current world, it is completely necessary to have an eloquent way of talking in order for everyone to take you seriously.

Why is that? I mean, I could have something really important, deep and meaningful to say, but that won't matter shit if I don't express it with the correct words arranged in the right order. And every time we open our mouths to talk, we make ourselves vulnerable; we allow for other people to start judging us and to keep doing it once we stopped talking and we just sit there waiting to see if they show their approval or despise. Why is it that we can't just talk with no fear and with no risk of our image being scorched forever in the fire of a bad usage of words ?

Our current society

I think I know why, it's because we are susceptible to first impressions, we don´t like to give extra thought to what we are hearing. We want to feel safe in the second we give anyone some of our precious time and allow them to speak, so we immediately start hoping for this person to be extremely illustrated in the art of speaking to feel as if this person might have something to say, and that's wrong. I´ve always thought that it doesn't matter who says what or how he says it; all that is really important is why he says it and how he backs it up. I could say that I believe that chairs will become the next superior species of the planet during the next 100 years, and I could say it with a million of grammatical errors, but all that matters is what evidence I have to back up my point and why I believe the way I do.

Of course, that is the last thing people would bother to notice, if they even do it at all. We are superficial, and we will always pay attention to the less meaningful stuff as long as it looks pretty and flashy. And this isn't something rare, it happens more often than you might think. In an ideal world, we would just express ourselves and people will listen to arguments and facts instead of how smooth a voice might be or how rapidly a tongue can say fancy words. And it just sucks that instead of that, we have to carry with a checklist of requirements every time we open our mouths to talk.

More importantly, sometimes people might actually pay attention to you but won´t be actually listening. Like, if I come over to a girl and make a compliment that I think she looks lovely today, she might think I'm just a guy trying to hit on her; or if I say that I liked a movie that critics hated, people will assume I'm just trying to be a different for the sake of being different. So now, we find the problem that we also have to look out for what other people might interpret out of what one is trying to say.

Yeah, that example, the one with the girl thinking I was hitting on her, it happened. And people still ask me why the fuck do I choose to eat on a corner.

The sad thing is that I can't really blame anyone for this (not that looking for someone to blame would make a difference). Because, when you really come to think about it, to the eyes of the girl, maybe a dozen other guys have told her a similar compliment but with actual dirty intentions, or someone making a comment against a popular belief might actually be just and attention seeker. It would be naive of me to expect from everyone to believe what they hear from other people all the time when in reality there is people willing to take advantage of it. Again, I can't pretend like we live in an ideal world.

But that doesn't mean that we should not pay attention to this, nor that we should just accept it as a reality and never try to do anything about it. People can and should be doing something to correct this. Why? Because when you think about, what are we as a society if not a bunch of mouths? I mean, you will never be able to tap into my head and see things from my perspective, the same way I wouldn´t be able to tap into yours.

The only way in which we can progress and share information and knowledge is by communicating, that is all we have outside our minds: words coming out of mouths of other people. We were born too late to explore this world and to soon to explore the cosmos. Words and thoughts are what drive our current society, they are what we can explore. A critical way of thinking is our New World map to be filled, and it starts from small acts amongst ourselves.

And before you even dare to fucking say it: I'm not a special snowflake, it is not like I'm above all of this. I am simply stating the facts and I´m just as rotten as everyone else in this sense. The person with the real power here, is you. Yes you. You modest and humble reader who made it this far into the post, don´t you realize that by judging someone by the way they speak instead of actually listening to what they have to add to the conversation, you are promoting more idiotic but pretty content in people's minds to exist; don't you realize that by either not trusting in someone else's comment or by taking advantage of the trust of others you are preventing our generation from filling our New World Map. Like I said change starts from small acts. But I mean, what gives, I´m sure people are not even reading this and are more than likely being bothered by the million grammatical mistakes in the post, just fucking kill me already.

It is funny, when I started writing this I was planning on talking more about how awkward it is to express feelings and to open yourself to other people and it turned into this weird rant about human words and conversations, but that doesn't make any of my points less valid. I guess it only comes to show how tired my mind is at this particular moment. By the way, in case you were wondering, yes, all of what I say can also be applied to how we sometimes give more credit to people with pretty faces than to those who actually have a valid point, but I'm honestly exhausted right now and that is a topic that deserves a whole much more in depth analysis than this, so I´ll save it for another time.

All I'm saying is that maybe we should try giving some thought to what other people say and actually trust on their comments, therefore this people will also feel more confident to open their mouth and we would have much richer conversations about much deeper subjects about life, about love about what makes us human, about the best type of bread for sandwich (which if you think it´s white bread just fucking leave please and never come back). I don't even know what I'm saying anymore, and I'm ending the post right here

Hi there my little friend!

You wake up and go to school. You arrive just in time to the first class and pretend to pay attention as you struggle not to fall asleep. All things considered, it is a good day. You are tired, yes, but that doesn´t take you away from the fact that it is Friday; you are with your friends, and the classes don´t seem that bad, specially considering that there are no quizzes scheduled for today. Like I said, it is a good day. Nothing special about this, although let´s be real, there ain´t nothing you look forward to more than  the weekend.

As the day goes on, all you can think about is which movie you and your friends are going to watch today at the theater, but right in the back of your head there is something that makes you feel uncomfortable. You look over your shoulder, and there he is. With his some what recently applied braces, his large gray hoodie and emo hair, he eats in the last table from the last row in school cafeteria. At a simple sight, you may think he is just a creepy loner, and by the way he sadly and carelessly eats his sandwich, in the empty landscape that surrounds him, you might feel pity for this person. He probably is alone because his friends don´t have free lunch time at the same hour as he does or maybe he just does´t want to sit next to other people because he feels awkward meeting new people. Whatever is the case, the point is that he is alone, and the picture of him just sitting there causes sadness to every poor soul that happens to grasp a glance of his loneliness, which is why he prefers to sit way in the back.

Well, I am that guy, and believe me when I tell you that the time alone is not nearly as bad nor as horrible as you might think. And no, I´m not a pertinacious creeper, I am just a normal guy, enjoying his sandwich. It is incredible, though, how much that free time allows for the mind and imagination to roam freely out of the shackles that the reality of our society bounds it to. Which is why I have decided to share some of those thoughts with you, my loyal companions of this empty table; Let us have great conversations about movies, politics, video games, life, society, relationships, the universe, and many many other stuff that I will come up with in the future days of sitting in this cafeteria. 

I hope that we get along very well. And if you ever disagree with something that I have to say, just remember that that sensation that someone is watching and that smell of bacon sandwich might not only be product of your imagination

The Guy Who Eats Alone In The Corner