When at all possible, we’re obviously all for calm, cool and collected assessment on films (or otherwise), after all, adults involved in a tripping over themselves stampede is rather painful to watch, no?
We watched closely as Jeffrey Wells – another relatively strong proponent of sang-froid – give a bit of a wrist slap to Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers for his seemingly overheated review of Christoper Nolan’s “Dark Knight,” but the collective buzz is growing so hysterical, it’s hard to keep one’s composure.
Wells gives another light smackdown to KTLA’s morning news hack Sam Rubin who sounds like random IMDB message board geeks in claiming Ledger has a lock on the Oscar (scan those boards, those retards have been claiming that since the first image showed up online!). “Heath Ledger’s Joker is a blockbuster performance, and he will absolutely be nominated for an Oscar. And at this point in the year, Ledger is also a hands-down favorite to win it posthumously.”
At this point in the year? Well, yeah, at this point in the year “Wall-E” would win if the Oscars are tomorrow, but they’re not. And it will be forgotten come Oscar time, calm down (though it’s amusing to note, Wells seems like he’s been barred from ‘Dark Knight’ screenings from some former past blog transgression).
One extremely positive review that’s hard to dismiss and hard to not be excited by is the AP’s take by David Germain. His grown-up review (no AICN EXCLAMATIONS!!), says the buzz has been justified and Ledger’s performance is “brilliant.”
“Ledger’s Joker is an all-out terror, definitely funny but with a lunatic moral mission to drag all of Gotham, the city Batman thanklessly protects, down to his own dim assessment of humanity.”
Germain notes that “Dark Knight’ even riffs off the sappy, romantic line from “Jerry Macguire” – “you complete me.”
This echoes something Ledger himself told FHM in a 2007 interview that just ran this week.
“They can’t really live without each other. It’s that kind of relationship. You know? Like they have no real purpose in life without each other. So they don’t really want each other dead,” Ledger told the lad mag.
Sounds like a twisted and fucked up love story. According to the AP the film apparently runs just over 2 1/2 hours and they’re calling it a “true crime epic.” And evidently it’s darkly comical too. “Thursday night had the audience cackling along with Ledger’s Joker, a depraved creature utterly without conscience whom the late actor played with gleeful anarchy.”
Ok, what can we say? We’re sold. Oh and “The Dark Knight” is being dedicated to Heath Ledger (and a special effects guy who died on the set). No, really?? We love how people reported that as shocking news like it wasn’t the most obvious fucking thing on planet earth. Actually, the film was going to be dedicated to the memory of George Carlin instead and just for kicks.