Dark Knight

Dark Knight

Not much to say tonight, especially since I can't seem to talk without inserting a size 14 boat in my gob.

Instead, I'll post this:



It's been a long time since I've looked forward to a movie like this.

Maybe since 1989, and the first Tim Burton Batman. (Though I'll grant you that episode I wait was close...)

Part of the reason?

The Joker's maybe my favorite comic character. Ever.

Yet...nobody's ever gotten him right. Not exactly. Not how I've seen him in my head.

Alan Moore got close, in The Killing Joke. Really close.

Frank Miller hit the utter, creeping madness in his takes.

Grant Morrison, Jeph Loeb...even Jim Starlin have have versions that hit somewhere in the margins of what I imagine.

What do I imagine the Joker to be?

I don't know if words suffice...but simply, the scariest, most dangerous sumbitch to come down the pike in clownpaint since Pennywise. The absolute pit of humanity. A monster.

Who somehow manages to have a touch of both humor and empathetic sadness.

But who is simply the most dangerous human being imaginable....

Will the late Heath Ledger be that embodiment?

He's got me excited.

There's a shot in that trailer, right about a minute in. Just after the Joker's voice says "Evening, Commissioner..."

Take a look at the Joker's face.

The light contempt and malevolent boredom in that look....that's the Joker. The ultimate sociopath. Whomever he addresses is a plaything. They do not matter. They are here for his amusement.

Plus, I like the fact that this flick seems to be aiming at the similarities between the Batman and the Joker, both freaks....which was the strength of Alan Moore's takes on the two, and was maybe the defining moment for the two in The Dark Knight Returns....

Yeah. This flick's got me excited.