Film Review: The Dark Night

I think I was one of only about six people in the world who wasn't enamoured of Batman Begins, Christian Bale's first outing as Gotham City's famous anti-hero.
Sure, I liked that Bale and director Christopher Nolan were taking the character in a darker direction, scrapping away any camp and kitsch from Batman's previous cinematic outings. Plus the vehicles were really, really cool. But parts of the film dragged and I just couldn't warm to it.

It's a pleasure then, to be able to report that the follow up is everything we've been led to expect. A masterpiece of the superhero genre, mixing mythology, philosophy and explosions in nearly equal measure.
Most of the pre-release hype has understandably focused on Heath Ledger and the plaudits are fully deserved, he is absolutely mesmerising as The Joker but he's not the only one. The whole of the stellar cast are acting their socks off and Bale shines in the less showy central role.* The balance between nobility and savagery is expertly portrayed. When he drops Eric Robert's Mob Boss from several floors up and his ankles crumple with a sickening crack we're reminded that this is no true-Blue Superman-style hero figure.

I don't want to give too much away, suffice to say the plot is engaging and exciting and The Joker is just one of two gruesome super-villains that make an appearance. The action is suitably explosive and the score ramps up the tension to almost unbearable levels.

If I had to find fault with the film at all, I'm still slightly dubious about Lucious Fox and his drawers full of gadgets pushing Batman slightly too close to James Bond territory for my liking but that really is quibbling for quibbling's sake. Go and see it, go on, now!

*and how often to you get to describe a role involving a man in tights and a cape as, 'less showy'?

Golden Gordon

I'm not much of a cook but over the past few weeks I have made a concerted effort to try a few recipes from Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food cookbook. The results have been consistently rewarding and you could say the same about tuning in week after week for Ramsay's show The F Word.
His detractors would have you believe he's just a shouty, sweary Scot who has to have his own way in the kitchen but he's so much more than that. He and his producers have been very canny in creating a show that makes cooking look accessible and fun.

Along with his other show Kitchen Nightmares, The F-Word is the must see cooking show and repeats the Top Gear trick of making a great show that covers it's subject but still attracts viewers that don't normally give a flying fig about pots and pans.

The highlights this week were provided by the cooking and eating of one of Janet Street Porter's veal calves David and Elton. There was something deliciously callous about Gordon still referring to, 'David,' by name as he turned slowly on a spit. Then Janet's local vicar gave a short reading in which he referred to the calf's lives as, 'brief but gay,' and gave a little knowing smile. Because they were named after David Furnish and Elton John. Who are gay. As in homosexual. Do you see what he did there? DO YOU SEE? Ah! Vicars.

Sadly there's only one week left before the current series draws to a close, leaving a gaping hole in the Tuesday night schedules. Which is a pity but what can you say? Except, arreviderchi Gordon, hurry back!

Trexx and Flipside

Trexx and Flipside is the new would-be-hit sitcom on BBC3. It's about two young wannabe rappers and their attempts to hit the big time with the help of an incompetent manager, The Mighty Boosh's Rich Fulcher, and his long suffering PA who somehow holds everything together. The BBC are really pushing this, convinced it will appeal to a youth market they're desperate to attract. They're even encouraging fans to add Trexx and Flipside as 'friends' on social networking sites like Bebo and Facebook.
Which is fine, except for one thing. The show isn't funny. At all. With its plot centred around struggling musicians and the action broken up by comedy raps the show seems to want to be a hip-hop Flight of The Conchords but it just doesn't have any of that show's wit and comic sophistication. In fact, strip out some of the language and mature themes, stick it on Cbeebies and it could be crap Nineties kid-com 'No Sweat' for a whole generation.
In fact, the show is so feeble it's a struggle to think how it ever got past the drawing board stage. Even after a pilot was commissioned, isn't there somebody checking the scripts, watching the finished results, making sure it's worth screening? It's hard not to suspect that someone at the BBC gave this show the green light because they thought that a show, any show, about hip hop and urban youth would appeal to 'The Kids'.
What I don't get is, when I was a kid, I loved Blackadder and Never Mind The Buzzcocks when it was still Mark Lamarr asking questions about hoary old Rock stars. I liked 'em because they were funny. Is this such an unusual experience? Was every other kid/teen in the nineties crying out for a sitcom about some lads trying to make it in a britpop band?
In any case, isn't one of the few shows that has caught the youth imagination, so far as I can tell, Little Britain? If so, is it because the youth of today can really relate to shrieking transvestites or balding disabled men and their care workers? Does that really say something to them about their lives? Or do they just find it funny?*
And yes I know, I know. I'm not saying anything profound or original here but that's precisely my point. If even I, a stupid call centre lackey, can spot the obvious flaw in current BBC policy then why can't the commissioning editors on the big salaries do it?

*This is something of a grey area I'll admit. Who really knows why people like Little Britain?

Stephen King's The Mist

In watching this movie adaptation of a Stephen King Novella I couldn't help but compare it to The Happening. In that movie M Night Shyamalan, armed with some bizarre casting and some of the worst movie dialogue ever, attempted to convince that watching people run away from wind is a gripping cinematic experience. Was director Frank Darabont now out to kid us that a bit of mist could be terrifying?
Luckily Darabont filled his mist with all sort of CGI nasties and while they look a bit shiny and silly at times the movie at least delivers both shocks and gore. Not only that but the central characters actually give the viewer something to care about, which is more than can be said for Mark Warlberg's science teacher and his girlfriend agonising over dessert with another man while people continue to die all around.
It's not a brilliant film and it works best when it concentrates on the thrills and avoids vague nods towards science fiction or social commentary. The whole thing ends with a twist that any intelligent person should spot a mile off. I never saw it coming.