The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises was my most anticipated movie of the summer.  Second was The Avengers, but that came out on May 3, which is technically not summer yet but opened up the summer movie season.  Anyway, the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado tempered some of that.  No, I don't blame the killings on the movie or think the psychotic murderer was inspired by the movie or comic books.  He was a psychotic murderer.  That's what they do. 

I also don't bother with the gun debate because it's futile.  Once the Robert's Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment as an unfettered right to bear arms, rather than in relation to militias (early US didn't have a standing army), the gun control lobby was toast.  Even if there were background checks and an assault weapons ban, the psychotic murderer would've still gotten guns and killed people.  Why?  Again, because he was a psychotic murderer. That's what they do.

Back to the film, and tempered excitement.  It really had to do with sadness over the whole situation. It ways on your mind and you feel for the victims families.  There was 24 hour news on it and it was hard to avoid, although I tried. Fortunately, I had my soon-to-be 7 year old son who was anxious to see the movie. He had no idea what happened in Colorado and that's a good thing.

I took him to the first showing on Sunday and we both loved it. It is such an epic film in scope and theme. Some critics have described it as "The Godfather of superhero movies" and I agree.  I loved The Dark Knight, but the late Heath Ledger's immortal portrayal of the Joker pretty much overshadowed the film.  Here, Rises does not have that issue (I, of course, would have loved to see Ledger in this movie but fate denied us that), and the movie succeeds on the collective efforts of the actors and film makers.

I've given up on the Oscars long ago.  It's nothing but a racket run by certain influential people that deem what should win and what should not.  Rises should be nominated, but who knows?  The Dark Knight got shafted out of a nomination.  Plus, there is some serious bias by the curmudgeon members of the Acadamy who vote.  They simply refuse to vote for a movie based on a comic book.  That's a shame because they'll be ignoring the best movie of the year thus far.