Blog from the Future Past

This election has the cosmic oddity of a minority major party candidate: it almost forces the wimpy Democrats to select a white male as Obama's running mate. Note I said, 'almost forces'. The only courageous and right thing to do would have been to select Hillary Clinton, a strategy sure to send McCain off packing his high-button shoes come November.

Delaware Senator Joe Biden demonstrates to freshman colleagues how big his mouth is likely to become once he torques up his lips to full flap.

For whatever reason--and I'm not sure we've heard the real reason--Hilly was ruled out. Senator Clinton is the only female running mate certain to put fat asses in the seats and load up the coffers with larder. The value of her experience would be hard to challenge, a big plus for the inexperience Barack-man. But, alas, goaded on by the media, the Nation seems to have fallen over to a 'single minority' mindset. In other words, "Folks may vote for for black man, but there's no way they're going to vote for a woman, too."

Too bad... Hillary would have raised the Democratic stock enough to put them over the top. Another female, asian, hispanic, or other minority (women are not a minority, but let's not pick nits) would no doubt drag the ticket down.

So the Poor Democrats... poor, Poor Democrats... go for the safe bet: The White Man. The VP candidate might have been John Edwards, if he could have kept his pants zipped. It might have been former General Wesley Clark, adding the aura of a seasoned military man. (Clark looked to be in the running, but fell out of favor fast. One has to wonder if there isn't an unwrapped package hidden somewhere in his closet.) Kerry wears the black brand of a Big East liberal on his expansive forehead and is already a loser. Gore? A wonky flake and a loser, too.

Obama looks around the Democratic room, past Howard Dean, the ailing Ted Kennedy, calls up Carville, Mondale, any 2-bit Democrat celebrity with 2-cents in their pocket, until he settles on the biggest windbag in the Senate: Joe Biden--a man who simply glows whenever he gets a chance to hear himself talk, which you can bet goes on 24/7.

People will stay away from the Democratic ticket in droves. What should have been a walk-in-the park has turned into a horse race, with Obama stretching out his long neck.

In The Dark Knight, the City of Broad Shoulders ably stands-in for mythical Gotham. No art deco sound stage or CGI hovering gargoyles here; director Christopher Nolan sinks into the grime and filth of the Chi-town back-alleys, taking the Batman saga a giant leap off a tall building further down toward darkness and insanity. Gotham has grown tired of Batman's game. Their attention span exceeded, Gothamites are impatient to discover the B-guy's identity, while the media plays guessing games about his agenda. Egged on by a consortium of thugs, criminals he's laid waste now call our man-in-tights sadistic and criminal. The police and the mayor are getting edgy and express alarm and outrage at the Batman's pounding brand of vigilante violence. Then Heath Ledger slithers in from stage left as the Joker and everything plummets magnificently into a deeper hell.

While filming "The Dark Knight", Maggie Gyllenhaal's face constantly reminded Heath Ledger of her brother Jake and the fabulous times they shared in that pup-tent up on Brokeback Mountain.

I thought some of the raves about Heath Ledger's chops in this film had to be due to a sympathetic post-suicide afterglow, but it was a role more lived than acted. Ledger's immersion into that twisted scowl was complete, and despite the comic book theme, totally believable. The Joker's scarred face filled the screen for a fat chunk of the movie; captivating, mesmerizing, convincingly evil, surely born under the blade that carved that never-ending clownish grin into his face.

"Why so serious?" he asks, a cue to the audience that someone is about to die.

[This is film villainy destined for legend. In death, Heath Ledger ascends to become the James Dean of his generation.... so much talent wasted, a life sadly unfulfilled.]

Not for love of money, but as a monument to his madness, the Joker hires himself out to the Gotham City bad guy consortium to finally rinse that Batman out of their filthy hair.

Nolan, an 'actor's director', drew the best from his star-studded cast. Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Rachel Dawes), Michael Caine (Alfred), Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) and Gary Oldham (Chief Gordon) all delivered prime tenderloin in surprisingly meaty roles for an action flick. Perhaps the only semi-clinker was turned in by Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, who played the character a shade too 'comic book', at times mismatching the overall somber mood.

I mentioned this was an action film? See it in IMAX... get there now, and by any means possible. The Dark Knight is the first full-length feature with sequences filmed with IMAX camera equipment. Some of the scenes of Batman gliding through skyscraper canyons over Chicago and Hong Kong were simply magnificent, as were the fight scenes. Special kudos to Nolan and his crew for the motorcycle chase sequences. Unlike the fake CGI crap in the latest Indiana Jones movie, the murder and mayhem all blend together seamlessly.

This one gets a 5.0. There's nothing to dislike and a lot to love, especially the screenplay, written by Nolan and his brother and long-term collaborator, Jonathan. One of the things I loved about the dialogue: all the characters referred to the caped crusader as, THE Batman, rather than the more familial, respectfully simple, 'Batman'. That slight deviation from prior films accents a further separation of our anti-hero from the society he tries so hard to save.

Brilliant.

Rating: 5.0 out of 5
Fat Laughing Buddhas