That's right, sold out on a Tuesday night. When I go because the ticket prices are reduced by AMC in a valiant effort to get asses in seats. I don't think I have ever, and I mean ever, seen a movie on a weeknight and had strangers in seats adjacent to mine. If someone sat next to me, they came with me. This thing is going so gangbusters that even on the non-IMAX (though still relatively large screen; the AMC I go to has four or five screen sizes, theaters of various seating capacities, etc.) was probably 80% full. Even the undesirable seats down front at the sides were peppered with people.
No spoilers are about to ensue. So if you're one of the few Americans who hasn't already seen this film only five days after it opened, you're safe in reading my ramblings.
The notion that Heath would get a posthumous Oscar not for his performance as The Joker, but really for his pitch-perfect Jim Morrison impersonation.
Personally, I didn't think he was that big a deal. I liked Brokeback Mountain well enough, and it was a significant movie for being the first major Hollywood film to portray a homosexual love story without making gays an object of ridicule. And I'll give Heath Ledger this: for an apparently heterosexual man in real life, he sure was able to kiss a guy like he meant it. Presence and charisma are intangible, so it's easy to think Johnny Depp has an easy job when he makes playing mythic pirates or singing serial killers look easy. But to kiss a dude like not kissing him would be worse than being drawn and quartered, that's a thing I know I couldn't do.
So anyway, to the Dark Knight. I was stoked about this film before I'd heard that Heath Ledger was The Joker. I'd seen the previews, but being impressed with his ability to portray a gay cowboy didn't mean I said, hot damn, that Joker there is Heath Ledger! I think I'd seen the preview four or five times before I realized he was even in the movie. I guess that means I spend too much time on those before-and-after doctored photos when I'm reading People magazine.
So what makes it a great movie? Heath Ledger contributes plenty. He's as creepy as they come. Don't think of the Jack Nicholson Joker. Think Hannibal Lechter.
And that is in part why I think, even though it's way too early to call (we have half a year of movies left to come) that this might actually be the Oscar Best Picture and Best Actor awards. It might not turn out that way, but they'd be legit. Not incontestable, but far from indefensible.
The superhero genre has certain protocols, at least on the big screen. I won't go into specifics here because I promised no spoilers, but when you know a given character can't die, it becomes impossible to get too worked up about whatever danger they're in. That's what ruined the Matrix sequels: when anything is possible and everything is illusion, nothing is suspenseful or surprising.
In The Dark Knight, all bets are off, and any character is potentially mortal. DC has over 600 Batman comics' worth of material to adapt for screen, so you'd think at least Batman would be immortal. But then again, the Jack Nicholson Joker bit the dust and it didn't stop them from making this (even better) Batman movie.
Pardon my hatchet-job Photoshop work here. This is not my best work. At all.
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