Le chevalier noir Paperback – 1 Sept. 2012

One hell of a movie

Got this for the Joker Heath Ledger is a Ledgend

a new batman movie, which follows on from the end of 2005's batman begins. It should be pretty easy to get into this if you haven't seen batman begins, but you might get more out of this if you have.thanks to the advent of the batman, the forces of good in gotham city are starting to clean the place up. they have the mobs on the run, and a new hero in the shape of handsome and clean cut district attorney harvey dent. a man who has a novel way of dealing with hostile witnesses.the mobs, desperate to fight back, turn to a man they can't fully understand. a crazy devil may care criminal in a suit like a clown, who seemingly cares about nothing other than creating havoc. the joker. he's on the side of chaos, and is the complete opposite of everything that batman and the forces of good in gotham stand for. so how can they stop him without becoming bad themselves?first up, this is not really a batman film for children, as it's a grim and dark piece of work. but then the character can be portrayed in many ways, and the dark and grim version is but one of them. it's a version that will please die hard fans of the comics.the movie strives ever so hard to be as realistic as possible, showing how batman would function in a real world environment. in that respect, it's successful. it's refreshing to see a blockbuster that uses next to no cgi and does all it's stunts for real - with the occasional bit of miniature work. not that you'll probably notice.and it does have a moral dilemma at it's heart that offers no easy answers. the aforementioned how far do you go to stop evil without becoming evil in the process? like all good drama it makes the audience think about the topic without trying to provide them with any answers.the cast are superb, although it's a bit of a shame that michael caine's alfred is absent for so long towards the end. maggie gyllenhall is a stronger actress in the role of rachel dawes than katie holmes, who played the part in the first film and who couldnt reprise it due to scheduling commitments, but the character isn't quite as proactive here as she was in batman begins.there are six major action set pieces and all are quite gripping, and shot on imax film for maximum big screen effect. and the score of the film is superb, with a fair few pieces that you can't get off your mind right away.it's one of those movies that you do need to see more than once in order to take everything in, and it's probably a little too long for it's own good. and as you can see from the voting here it's a film that will divide opinion. it's a quality, grown up and intelligent blockbuster, and quite a cinematic experience.the dvd presents it on two discs.the first contains the movie, with direct scene access. and language tracks in english and italian. there are subtitles in english arabic greek hebrew icelandic and italian.on disc two the same language tracks and subitles can be found. and an amount of extras that are rather disappointing in their number initially as they don't appear like much.but once you get into them they do have their moments.the three trailers for the film that played in cinemas, and half a dozen tv adverts for it.galliers: production stills, poster art, concept art, and the joker cards. these four galleries allow you to flick through images showing all of the mentioned items. the joker cards are quite remarkable, with an incredible amount of different designs on display.gotham tonight: these are six all new short films shot in the style of a tv show, most featuring mike engel, a tv reporter who was seen in the film. they purport to be a gotham tv news show, and run for roughly eight to ten minutes each. and each focuses on a various aspect of life in the city, either profiling bruce wayne or harvey dent or jim gordon or reporting on the mobs and life on the street. they're all quite entertaining and worth a look.the dark knight imax sequences presents six action scenes from the film that were shot on IMAX film, and just shows them as individual scenes. there's nothing here that you won't see on disc one, but the picture is large and clear and they're all entertaining enough to make watching them again worthwhile.creation of a scene presents five different documentaries about the making of various aspects of the movie, from stunt work to action sequences to script writing. these are done with stills and production shots, and the cast and crew don't contribute other than in voiceover. they run anything from eight to sixteen minutes, and they're all absolutely fascinating and engrossing. anyone who watched the extras on batman begins will know what an articulate and thoughtful interviewee director christoper nolan is, and his comments here are equally good to listen to.you just wish there were more of them. or a commentary.and that's that for the extras.it's not as good a package as it possibly could be, but the quality of the film makes it well worth five stars as a whole

The Dark Knight was released on July 14, 2008, almost 6 months after Heath’s death. The film started filming on April 2, 2007 and finished filming on October 19, 2007. I personally found the plot weak and the casting (besides Heath, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman) not quite convincing. The love story between Rachel and the other guy (I forgot his name, since his character is so easy to forget) has neither magic nor depth. I think it could have been much more interesting to explore the relationships between the characters and to tell much more of the Joker’s story instead of so many explosions, fights and guns. Nevertheless, it’s a good movie for teenagers (although very violent) and for people who love comic-book heroes. The special effects are spectacular, and the Joker and the music (Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard) are definitely the best of the film. Heath’s portrayal of the Joker is so good that when he is not on screen the movie really goes down, and when he appears, one cannot take the eyes off of him. The Joker is so cool and brilliant that one really wants him to win the battle. Although not a fan of comic books, Heath said that “the character of the Joker was too good to turn down”. Heath wasn’t a fan of blockbuster movies neither, but the character was too attractive: “in this monster machine of a movie, popcorn movie … it was purely a character choice, I can honestly say that”. He thought that Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the Joker was perfect (“To touch what Jack Nicholson did in Tim Burton’s world would be a crime”), and he never compared himself to Nicholson because he really believed that the worlds of Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan are completely different, and therefore, uncomparable: “It was an opportunity for a new version of the Joker”. Although Heath knew immediately after being asked to play the Joker how he wanted to do it (“I knew 5 seconds later exactly how to play it”), he locked himself up in a hotel room in London for 6 weeks in order to prepare his character, looking for the Joker’s voice and looking for his laugh: “I locked myself away for 6 weeks in a room and I kind of came up with this creep”. He wrote a diary about the Joker he was going to portray with notes, drawings and photos of old Batman Comics, hyenas and A Clockwork Orange. His father shows the diary in the great German TV series-Documentary Too Young to Die: Heath Ledger (S1, Ep. 3, July 28, 2012). I bought the Documentary in English from the producers of the show and I can say that it is the best documentary about Heath that I’ve seen. Kim Ledger says, showing “the Joker” diary: “He galvanized the upcoming character in his own mind. That was typical of Heath … this was just on a whole new level”. The diary ends with the words “Bye, bye”, which are, after Heath’s death, very painful. There are many stupid speculations about how portraying the Joker led Heath to exhaustion and death, but the truth is that, although the character required a high level of energy, “it was incredibly enjoyable”. Heath said in many interviews that he had a lot of fun playing the Joker: “The Joker was … the most fun I ever had … probably ever will have playing a character”. He described the Joker as a “dark, very nasty … psychopath, sociopath, mass-murdering clown”. The Joker was not only evil but something else: “He’s not just gonna be scary … there are [a] few surprises, I think”. Sadly, Heath didn’t see any takes or parts of the film, because the producers were very secretive about it: “I think the movie is going to be awesome. I’m very excited for it. I haven’t seen anything. Nothing. They really don’t want anyone to see anything. It’s very secretive. But just from what I’ve seen first hand and just from what I’ve heard, I think it’s going to be good”. The movie is “In memory of our friends Heath Ledger and Conway Wickliffe”. Wickliffe (1966–2007) was killed on set while filming a test run / Antonia Tejeda Barros (Spain)