#Budrickton
The Dark Knight Rises – It Rises, It Rises, It’s Risen, It’s Here
[Caff note: spoilers abound in the post-article comments area. You were warned. As well, Omega-Level sends out love, thoughts and best-wishes to everyone grappling with the DKR midnight shooting tragedy in Colorado]
How is anything supposed to follow The Dark Knight? Nolan’s trilogy ender will reap enormous numbers of attendees and box office dollars solely based on people wanting another TDK. Another round of dark, violent and unpredictable chaos in Gotham. Another villain as jarringly memorable as Ledger’s Joker. And another story that transcends comic roots and becomes lovingly embraced by the mainstream as a ‘crime saga’.
This might hurt your appreciation of Rises as it nearly did mine. In so many ways, this film feels like a direct sequel to Batman Begins. It notably takes the few elements it needs from the trilogy’s second chapter – Harvey Dent’s ‘legacy’, Rachel’s death and Bruce’s need to pass the mantle on – and forgets about the others, rejoining the stream Begins established seven years ago.
It’s awesome that the film feels like a much more appropriate bookend to Nolan’s trilogy in that regard. My fear was that the runaway success and rampant permeation of the Joker and TDK into popular culture would mean that everything about Rises would follow from, and be influenced by TDK, and only TDK. Not so. Not so at all. I’m definitely still a little dizzy off the high of the midnight venture to see this, and I’m sure I missed many more vital connections to TDK, so take his all as a sleep-deprived first gut reaction.
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The Amazing Spider-Man – Is So Amazing the Tobey Aftertaste Is Almost Gone
[As always, spoiler-free and barebones on plot description. If you want the third act twists spelled out for you, please visit Roger Ebert’s site.]
But seriously: this film is worth admission alone because this time, they hired a fucking casting director. Gone is the triumvirate of shit that Tobey, Kirsten and Franco brought to the table.
Director Marc Webb gone and killed it. You will fall in love with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in this film. They’re just glowing with chemistry and love and presence. Garfield takes a half hour or so to get there, but Stone is just a magnet for attention in every scene, and never in a presumptuous or overbearing way. They work, and they work very well as the leads in this re-take on Spider-Man’s origin.
PROMETHEUS: Big Things Have Vacant Beginnings [PLUS YOUR REACTION]
It’s a bit of a stretch, asking anyone to come out of Prometheus this weekend without an overwhelming sensation of feeling hollow. It’s a rather empty, desolate film in all the ways that matter: setting, visuals, character – even plot. There just isn’t a lot there.
Compounding the problem is that the marketing machine behind the film has inadvertently already given you 90% of it. Walking out of the theatre tonight or tomorrow will feel like you’ve just seen an extended trailer, albeit a two hour one.
[E3 2012 – FarCry 3] Tigers and Titties
This ain’t safe for work. When the first big reveal trailer for this game today was dubbed ‘Step into Insanity’, Ubisoft wasn’t kidding. This shit occasionally gets wild. Hit the jump for the gameplay footage from today. Naw, I don’t know what’s happening in most of this vid either, but it’s gorgeous.
[E3 2012 – Halo 4] Campaign and Multiplayer
MS opened up their media briefing and all of E3 with this vid, the first look at the Halo 4 campaign. Feels like more than just a little nod to Metroid Prime, aesthetically.
Hit the jump for the vid, and links to more vids, including B-Roll campaign footage and some multiplayer from the new Spartan Ops mode.
[E3 2012 – Rayman Legends] Wii-U Brilliance
How gorgeous is this shit? Just watch the vid. No word if this is exclusive to the Wii-U yet, but damn if the touch mechanic doesn’t look fun to play with.
Hit the jump for the vid!
[E3 2012 – Watch Dogs] Ubisoft…brings it?
Big-hitters Microsoft and EA really threatened to sabotage expectations for the rest of the show with their media briefings today. Brown-grey shooters nearly impossible to discriminate from one another, QTE gameplay that privileges the spectacle of a cutscene over freedom of gameplay, and gimmick bullshit that flexes a tech muscle over a truly practical one; it was all over the place.
Enter Ubisoft, with a history of terrible press events. Who expected them to steal all the thunder, with not only a stable of solid and exciting games but a new IP to boot!
Click more for a quick summary and a vid of the whole damned, gorgeous thing.
THIS WEEK on Game of Thrones: “Blackwater”
Yup.
Budrickton, Slacker in the North, First of His Name.
(some more specific thoughts from this otherwise straightforward-but-incredible spectacle to be rolled into a season-end post this week! Finalé’s tonight at 9pm on HBO, and it’s clockin’ in at 64 minutes! Adjust thy PVRs, and enjoy!)
THIS WEEK on Game of Thrones: “The Prince of Winterfell”, and preparing for Blackwater
Take a look at those two faces. Those are probably the two smartest, and most well-connected men in King’s Landing, and even they’re confused and unprepared. They don’t really have a handle on what’s coming next week. The capital isn’t prepared for Stannis’ impending invasion fleet. But, as with most story threads laid out in this week’s otherwise hollow episode, the hint of hope is teased for much more to come in the final two episodes of the season.
STAR WARS is 35 Years Old. Today.
May 25, 1977. I suspect few of us were even born yet. Even if, like me, your first exposure was the Special Editions in ’97, or an overused VHS copy from the ’80s, it was likely a definitive and defining element of most of our childhoods.
