Twitchy Says...

Film Critic, Indie Filmmaker, General Film/Art/Life Discussion

Movie of the Week for 7/25/08-7/31/08

Published by Benjamin 'Twitchy' Strack under on Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Greetings all!

So this week, in fact, I have seen very few movies, as I've picked up the 'Sword of Truth' series of books which has absorbed my time and my life.

In television, the highly anticipated season finale of Dr. Who is this Friday on Sci-Fi, and any who love the series should definitely check it out. Its the 2nd half of a 2 part episode, so be sure to watch the first somewhere. http://watchdoctorwho.com is a site with occasional problems, but overall seems to work the best. It also displays shows ahead of time, so I can personally tell you that this season finale is outstanding.

Also, Sam Raimi has signed on as the director for a mini-series/ possible TV series of the Sword of Truth series, currently slated to air sometime this November/December.

In movies, many trailers have come forth in the past two weeks that I feel are of particular interest. The first being for the new Terminator movie staring Christian Bale, not starring Arnold. (YAY! Maybe he can focus on taking care of his state now.) Another is for Watchmen, based on a critically acclaimed graphic novel by the same name. Those I know who have read Watchmen seem extremely exited. Finally, the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine aired at the Comic-con recently, and has been met with great excitement. Personally, I don't know how I feel about it, with X-Men Origins: Magneto already slated into pre-production, and following the atrocious failure of X-Men III. Also, with the huge line-up of movies in preparation for the Avengers film slated to premier summer of '11, I simply wonder how many super-heroes the audiences will be able to stand in the coming years. Speaking of the Avengers, John Sena? Captain America? Really? I guess they could do worse.

One extra movie I did catch this week and thoroughly did not enjoy was Babel. I'm ok with long, slow movies that easily get you personally involved, such as Contact, but this was a long, slow movie that I just couldn't seem to care about. It never really maintained my interest and left me wishing I had gone to bed earlier. Which leads me to my pick of the week:

*drumroll please*

The first Movie of the Week is...

of course, The Dark Knight. Many have said this is one of the greatest movies ever. I firmly disagree. With a run-on storyline and A.D.D. (or is everything now supposed to be declared A.D.H.D? I don't remember) scene lengths, you walk out of the theatre with a re-aligned attention span of an 8 year-old. Christian Bale's performance was a let-down compared to Batman Begins, and would have been greatly saved had he stopped gasping for breathe so often and not constantly spoken through his teeth. So you may ask then, why is the the pick of the week? Perfect performances by Aaron Eckhartand of course, Heath Ledger. Its in true Batman fashion of old that the saving grace for this movie was, in fact, the villains. Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent left you understanding what could make a person be pushed to such lengths as to turn into the villain. And Ledger came through in the greatest performance of his career, making your blood crawl as the Joker. I'm a firm believer that he should be awarded and Oscar Posthumously, just as he certainly should have won it were he still alive.

Thats all for this week, stay tuned for the next installment of 'Movie of the Week'