So I watched Paranormal Activity last night and I couldn’t sleep. I doubt that I’ll ever sleep again. It is officially the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.
Watch it.
Watch it with the lights off.
Watch it with the sound turned up.
Watch it and don’t stop.
You won’t be able to stop watching it when you close your eyes.
It’s that scary.
Date: July 18, 2008
Prologue: How often can the dead speak to us? How often can they inspire us?
This past year, a jester sought to commune from beyond the grave, and in doing so he presented us with perhaps the most important question we have been asked in ages…
On January 22, 2008, rising star, Heath Ledger died of a sudden and tragic overdose to sleeping pills. After some research, it was discovered that Ledger became so addicted to the sleeping pills because he got so into his role of The Joker for the upcoming summer blockbuster, The Dark Knight.
This immediately picked the interest of a rabid fan base, who were at best, hesitant to see the same actor from 10 Things I Hate About You and Brokeback Mountain portray one of the most infamous villain in the entire DC Comic universe.
After several more months of some excellent viral marketing (including the amazing, whysoserious.com), the big day finally arrived, and everyone went to see it. The movie set the opening day record with over $67 million, shattering the previous record of $58.1 million.
Hype goes a long way to setting opening day records, but if the product lacks, it is hard to maintain serious drawing power (see: 3, Spider-Man). However, for all of the hype surrounding The Dark Knight, it did something almost unimaginable in the age of superficial blockbusters, it was better than it’s hype.
The film was universally praised by fans and critics alike. Ledger’s performance as The Joker was simply legendary. He performed a rare feat of having a villain completely steal the show, and joins the elite pantheon of Hannibal Lector and Darth Vader as the most engaging and multi-dimensional antagonists in film. Meanwhile Christian Bale was excellent once again in his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman, excellently contrasting the characters idealism with his borderline sociopathism. Perhaps the most underrated character in the film though is Aaron Eckhart, who is able to take the pretty-boy-do-gooder Harvey Dent, and believably turn him into a comic book super villain, while remaining true to his motives as a champion of justice.
The rare combination of hype and quality helped generate a box office mega-success. When it was all said and done, The Dark Knight became the fastest movie to reach the $500 million mark, cutting The Titanic’s run in half, and ended up finishing as the second-highest grossing film of all time, only losing only to to the afformentioned film about a boat and a love story. Upon its release to DVD, it sold 3 million units in one day, once more, shattering a record.
Not only did this movie prove that dark, twisted movies can sell, but it was perhaps the most successful use of viral marketing in history. As such, one can anticipate that more and more of both will be used in the future.
But the most enduring legacy of this film, is and always will be Ledger’s performance. It is heart-breaking that we were robbed of an amazing talent at such a young age, just as he was hitting his peak. Who knows what more the man could have done with a full career ahead of him?
The tragic thing is that we will never know. But do not grieve to badly, I don’t think that he would want you to take things so seriously.
Epilogue: The most interesting development in the coming months will be the consideration it gets during Oscar season. After winning several nominations and awards in other venues, it remains to be seen if a very un-Oscar movie receives a nomination. A growing vocal majority is repeatedly making claims that the movie deserves a nomination for Best Picture, and that Heath Ledger deserves the nod for Best Supporting Actor.
We will have to wait until January 20, to find out.
Until next time,
G
Achieved Year in Review Posts:
The Fall of the Prophet – January 6th
The Rise of the Ice Queen -January 7th
An Unlikely Fruition – January 7th
Attack of the Three-Headed Terror – January 9th
A Most Sincere Inquiry – January 10th
The Golden League – January 14th
The Fall from Grace – January 16th
The Eighth Layer of Injustice – January 16th
The Transmuter of Nations – January 22nd
So I’m a little embarrassed to write this right now. I was just researching for a post on Hilary Clinton when my MSN pops up. It was my friend Ryan saying “Happy Star Wars Day!”. It sneaks up on me every year, dang it all! I couldn’t believe that I almost forgot.
As such, I’d like to apologize to everyone out there, I am hastily preparing this blog post, about my favourite of nerdy loves. I know that I won’t encapsulate everything that I love about Star Wars, but I hope that it suffices.
1. ” Jedi Masters don’t go crazy — they just get eccentric.” – Simply put, Jedis are awesome. They can wield light sabres with the best of them, play mind tricks on lesser beings, and be all around ass kickers. Best of all, they expect nothing in return at all, just knowing that they are doing the right thing.
They are like kung-fu-fighting Buddhist Monks, Knights of the Round Table, and the entire cast of Heroes rolled into one futuristic ass-kicking package. What’s not to love about them really?
2. “These are not the droids you’re looking for” – While they are sometimes obnoxious, C3PO and R2D2 add a great deal to the films. They are the closest thing that the series has to narrators.
Along with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, they are the only two characters to be featured in all six movies. However, the other two changed drastically with one being covered in metal, and the other getting old and dying. The two droids do a great deal to provide a link between the two trilogies, especially with R2 having a memory of the whole ordeal.
3. “Don’t you call me a mindless philosopher you overweight glob of grease!” –
Is the fall and return of the Jedis an allegory for the fall of the church in our hectic modern life? Was the destruction of the Death Star (twice) meant to speak to the inevitable failures of the Soviet-American Arms Race? Is Palpatine’s Machiavellian scheme to seize power from the elected officials, eerie foreshadowing of Bush’s PATRIOT Act? Is the initially-incestuous relationship between Luke and Leia meant to echo Greek and Roman Mythology?
How the hell should I know? I’m not George Lucas! But all those sound totally plausible to me, especially if there is a solid argument behind any of them. My point, is that more than many other films, this has an amazing potential to be dug deep into, and create some pretty interesting connections with deep topics.
4. “Boba sure fooled the rest of us” — Boba Fett is EASILY the biggest bad ass to ever be portrayed on film. Don’t believe me? Well here is a thousand words to persuade you…
…thought so.
P.S. Eleventy Nerd Points for whoever knows where that quote is from (without Googling it)
5. “Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not such things.” — Well I sure do! And this series is able to deliver it in spades.
From the first shot of A New Hope when the droids are running away to the final scene in Revenge of the Sith, there is a definite feeling of adventure. While some of them (i.e. Phantom Menace) are not so good, there is always a feeling of adventure and excitement, that is hard not to get caught up in.
Whenever a light sabre begins to buzz, my heart starts to race as I know that something awesome is going to happen. Sure I’ve seen the battles before, but the sheer childish joy and reminiscence is hard not to get caught up in.
6. “Do or do not, there is no try” – So I mostly just wanted to use that, my favourite of Star Wars quotes to say something important about these movies. They are FULL of deep and very meaningful quotes that provide a tremendous amount of insight.
There are such amazing gems as “If money is all you love, then that’s what you’ll receive.”, and “All who gain power are afraid to lose it”. Impressive ones eh? There are a bunch more here, and many other places on the information hyperspace highway.
7. “If I told you half the things I’ve heard about this Jabba the Hutt, you’d probably short circuit.” — The opening scene in Return of the Jedi in Jabba’s palace is the greatest scene in the history of cinema. Really where else will you find psychic powers, the Leia bikini, an obnoxious laughing bat, a robot waiter, bantha battles, the Leia bikini, flame throwers, the Leia bikini, sand monsters, girl power, and the Leia bikini?
I may have forgotten to mention something…
How could I dare top that?
Until next time,
G
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