Ridley Scott. Russell Crowe. Leo. Body of Lies.
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Cyndere’s Christmas Bonus
For a limited time: Pick up any three books by Jeffrey Overstreet for Christmas gifts, send him a photograph of the books in your hands, and he'll send you a signed Auralia's Colors/Cyndere's Midnight poster. You'll find Cyndere's Midnight, Auralia's Colors, and Through a Screen Darkly in bookstores and on booksites everywhere. Try Barnes and Noble and Third Place Books.
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Visit the Looking Closer home page to access Jeffrey Overstreet's archive of reviews, interviews, and more.•
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Jeffrey reviews movies for Christianity Today and writes a monthly column on film named after his book: Through a Screen Darkly.
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Jeffrey is a contributing editor for Response magazine, published at Seattle Pacific University.
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Have you read Jeffrey’s books?
Auralia's Colors
Auralia's Colors, Jeffrey Overstreet's first novel, available in bookstores everywhere. The reviews are in. Did you miss the release parties? Listen to one of them at THE KINDLINGS MUSE.The Auralia Thread is a 4-book series: Auralia's Colors, Cyndere's Midnight, Cal-raven's Ladder (2010), and an as-yet-untitled conclusion (2011?)
Order Auralia's Colors from: Barnes and Noble.com.
Visit Auralia here.
Through a Screen Darkly
Through a Screen Darkly, Jeffrey's travelogue of "dangerous moviegoing." It's a memoir, a guide to the best movies you've never seen, a resource for discussion groups and classes, and an archive of amusing anecdotes drawn from interviews with filmmakers, movie stars, and cantankerous cinephiles.
"Compelling. Two thumbs up!"
- *Starred Review* in Publisher's Weekly
"Inspirational. Sometimes all of us forget that love for movies, that internal spark inside us that movies lit, and [Overstreet's] book is going to remind many of us about it."- Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain
Order Through a Screen Darkly from: Barnes and Noble.com.
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Looks like a dumbed down version of “Syriana.”
Unrelated: Have you read David Denby’s review of “The Dark Knight?” He’s got some really sensitive and intelligent things to say, countering the fan-boy craze. I’m seeing the film tonight with some friends, but after reading Denby’s review, I’m not sure I want to.
Additionally his notes on “Wall-E” are interesting.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2008/07/21/080721crci_cinema_denby
I saw The Dark Knight last night, and I think it’s the most thought-provoking, impressive superhero movie for grownups I’ve ever seen. I’m still reeling from the experience. Not just a great superhero movie… but a great film by almost any standard.
I read the same review, and I also want to stand up for Dark Knight. It’s a fantastic movie, regardless of what Denby says. And if you’ll notice, Peter Travers, Roger Ebert, Owen Glieberman, all of whom are not afraid to be harsh on superhero films, and various other major “non-fanboy” critics, loved the movie as well. And David Denby reeaaally missed the mark on this one.
He compares it too much to Tim Burton’s originals, which, yes, were amazing, but Nolan has shown he’s much more interested in anchoring this story in reality (similarly to what Bryan Singer did for the X-men) than creating some random twisted Gotham-like world. NOBODY can do Burton except Burton – if Nolan had attempted you can be the result would have been disastrous. To blame his film for being more somber and realistic than the first films is to level a criticism against this movie that is warranted yet entirely irrelevant. Yes, it is different. So what?
And he’s wrong about the acting, too – Christian Bale may be slightly muted at Bruce Wayne, but he’s absolutely perfect. He’s wrong about the “narrative [being] shaped incoherently,” because I was able to follow absolutely everything easily while sitll remaining challenged and intrigued – it’s an epic crime saga, not some cheesy superhero flick.
He blames crucial scenes for being truncated *SPOILER ALERT* such as when the Joker and Two-Face are confronting each other for the first time face to face (no pun intended). But the way Nolan plays that scene is crucial to the end development of both of those characters and not incidental*SPOILER END*
His most ridiculous complaint I think is how he says the filming technique keeps him from properly seeing the Keysi Fighting Method. But since when is Batman about martial arts? To complain about such a superficial detail when the rest of the action is as exhilarating as all get out COMPLETELY misses the point.
And his entire article has an aura of condescension, I think. You can see from the very beginning that no matter how good this movie was going to be, he was going to review it badly. The way he boils down the movie’s central conflicts would be like saying No Country For Old Men was just random chase scenes and a psychopathic killer, or There Will Be Blood was just a too long Old West flick. More than half his review is spent in summary and a string of superlatives to describe Heath Ledger’s performance. (And admittedly superlatives really ARE the only thing truly worthy of that mind-blowing character he created.) The rest is just complaining. He doesn’t give any credit to Eckhart, Gyllenhall, Oldman, to the way the script is able to juggle five different main characters and still emerge with a streamlined and epic story. He doesn’t give credit to one of the most memorable bank robberies ever put on film, and he doesn’t give credit to Nolan for refusing to copy-cat Burton.
Sorry about getting off subject, I just couldn’t sit by and watch my favorite movie of the year get trounced.
Out of curiosity, what did you find were some of the strong points of his article?
I’ve sworn off all movies about the War on Terror or the Iraq War, even if they’re directed by Ridley Scott. No thanks.
This movie, on the other hand, is making my radar go nuts:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/watchmen/
Brandon, perhaps we will have to just disagree on this one.
I saw the midnight screening last night, so I’ll share my own thoughts. “The Dark Knight” felt flat, with elementary ruminations on fate and goodness (ignore anyone who says this film is profound). A couple fine performances and a engaging chase scene can’t save a hollow film. I won’t deny that the is is slick in its presentation. But a slick film is easy enough to come by; “Transformers” and “Superman Returns” come to mind.
I’m not sure why everyone gets orgasmic about Nolan. He’s been credited for rendering the series realistic for the first time. I don’t see that as much as an achievement. And when did the ability to cover up a shabby script with banal visuals become praise worthy? The script was uneven, too densely populated with awful dialogue dripping with pretension: Quote “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villian.” Nolan’s urge to turn the Batman films into something other than comic book films is interesting. But the effort fails, because his two films work neither as comic book films or traditional thrillers. And if he really wanted to succeed that making the films into something else, he needed to pitch that clunkily-forshadowing dialogue, like above, that typically permeates comic book films. Nolan has also lost the humor of comic book films. Burton’s films were flawed too, but they did retain a nice degree of humor; they were imaginative and inventive, vivacious and playful. The humor that arises in Nolan’s films is heavily scripted, clunky and flat. Perhaps even more importantly, Nolan lost the wit. There’s nothing especially clever about “The Dark Knight”; it’s just scene after scene of sick and flamboyant morbidity. That’s certainly not art, and I know some that would call it a new breed of pornography.
The praise for Heath Ledger is appropriate; it is a fine performance from a most promising young actor. There’s the tragedy. It is impossible to view the film without the knowledge of his death, yet I wish I could. I think there was more potential for the character than what Nolan and the script allowed, but the late actor’s performance is definitely a highlight.
Gary Oldman deserves all the praise I can muster. He performed with such sensitivity and subtlety. Unfortunately, no one told Oldman that his soft voice would soon be drowned out by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s stygian odes to flatulence.
Quite simply, I think overall, the film has been overpraised. [Overstreet, I'm flabbergasted!] The Dark Knight isn’t high art. It isn’t even pop art. There’s no or little meaning underneath the chrome and cement veil that Nolan has created.
I’m surprised that Denby, and his review, have been labeled as snobbish. Certainly there is an atmosphere of sophistication in the piece, but it is the bloody The New Yorker. Tthe reason I’m surprised at the response to his review is that Denby’s main complaint, seems to be a moral one. Quote: “‘The Dark Knight’ has been made in a time of terror, but it’s not fighting terror; it’s embracing and unleashing it–while making sure, with proper calculation, to set up the next installment of the corporate franchise.” This is a bold statement on American culture, and of how, perhaps in time, 9/11 will mean nothing to the average American.
If Denby’s review is chastised, then I, Plugged In Online, Christianity Today, and others must be criticized too for daring to weigh a film with moral compasses.
“The Dark Knight” is a glance through a microscope at sadism, but it is without proper respect for the specimen. The Joker may be bouncing about laughing about killing people, but we certainly can’t be. I heard a few too many giggles in the audience during the pencil incident. And America doesn’t need to be riveted by watching hospitals blow up. Again, the Joker was having a jolly-good time. But I don’t think that Heath Ledger, wherever he is, is laughing now. God rest his soul.
I couldn’t disagree more. I encourage you to read Steven Greydanus’s review at decentfilms.com, and the discussion unfolding at ArtsandFaith.com.
This is not a film that revels in evil or unleashes it. It mirrors back a vision of the chaos currently unleashed in our world, and confronts us with the messy questions about how to deal with it. It show pros and cons of different responses. It doesn’t give us any way out. And I was challenged and moved by it, provoked to think through complicated questions in ways that most movies either oversimplify or skip entirely.
But really, this isn’t the place for Dark Knight comments to proceed, as this post is about something else entirely. See the more recent post, with the Joker image.