Every five years since I was 11 I’ve watched The Dark Knight thinking “maybe this time I’ll find out it wasn’t actually as good as I remember it being”. So far it’s only gotten better each time.
Hmm. Can’t upvote+disagree for shortform entries. I like hearing about others’ preferences and experiences in cultural and artistic realms, so thanks for that. I’m not sure I exactly disagree—the movie was very good, but not in my top-10 - I need to re-watch it, but previous re-watches have been within epsilon of my expectations—still good, but no better nor worse than before.
Can you identify the element(s) that you expect to age badly, or you think you overvalued before, and which surprised you by still being great? Or just the consistency of vision and feel through all the details?
Also, if you are even a little bit of a Batman or superhero connoisseur, I highly recommend Birdman (2014).
Can you identify the element(s) that you expect to age badly, or you think you overvalued before, and which surprised you by still being great?
One of the very suprising ones is this sense of something cousined to “realism”. Specifically how much the city of Gotham could be seamlessly replaced with “Juarez” or “Sinaloa” and become an uncomfortably on-point tragedy about the never-ending war between honest men and organized bandits in those regions. The level of corruption and government ineffectiveness, the open coordination and power sharing between the criminals carving up the city, and the ubiquitous terrorism, are unrealistic for modern America and yet as a premise they are pretty much unassailable, because cities as bad as TDK::Gotham or worse exist around the world today.
Another is, I’m not ashamed to say it, the depth of the social commentary. You are setting yourself up to be the cringiest of cringe by saying that the Joker says something deep in a movie, at this point, but I honestly find the following quote between Harvey and him in the middle of the movie a little gut wrenching:
Joker: Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hm?
You know what—You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan”. Even if the plan is horrifying.
If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blowing up, nobody panics. Because it’s all a part of the plan. But if I say that one, little old mayor will die, well then everybody loses their minds.
Also it’s just a really well done movie! It says a particular thing it wants to say, very well, and doesn’t really trip and fall over itself at any point in its runtime.
Every five years since I was 11 I’ve watched The Dark Knight thinking “maybe this time I’ll find out it wasn’t actually as good as I remember it being”. So far it’s only gotten better each time.
Hmm. Can’t upvote+disagree for shortform entries. I like hearing about others’ preferences and experiences in cultural and artistic realms, so thanks for that. I’m not sure I exactly disagree—the movie was very good, but not in my top-10 - I need to re-watch it, but previous re-watches have been within epsilon of my expectations—still good, but no better nor worse than before.
Can you identify the element(s) that you expect to age badly, or you think you overvalued before, and which surprised you by still being great? Or just the consistency of vision and feel through all the details?
Also, if you are even a little bit of a Batman or superhero connoisseur, I highly recommend Birdman (2014).
One of the very suprising ones is this sense of something cousined to “realism”. Specifically how much the city of Gotham could be seamlessly replaced with “Juarez” or “Sinaloa” and become an uncomfortably on-point tragedy about the never-ending war between honest men and organized bandits in those regions. The level of corruption and government ineffectiveness, the open coordination and power sharing between the criminals carving up the city, and the ubiquitous terrorism, are unrealistic for modern America and yet as a premise they are pretty much unassailable, because cities as bad as TDK::Gotham or worse exist around the world today.
Another is, I’m not ashamed to say it, the depth of the social commentary. You are setting yourself up to be the cringiest of cringe by saying that the Joker says something deep in a movie, at this point, but I honestly find the following quote between Harvey and him in the middle of the movie a little gut wrenching:
Also it’s just a really well done movie! It says a particular thing it wants to say, very well, and doesn’t really trip and fall over itself at any point in its runtime.