The Dark Knight Rises

I saw The Dark Knight Rises while staying home with a sick child.  Consequently, I saw it in two sessions while my little one slept.  I spent the film’s entire 2.5-hour running time with my finger on the volume control.

The problem, at least with the film’s BluRay release, lies in the sound mixing.  The gunfire and explosions are so loud in comparison with the dialogue that I felt it was giving me a choice between waking my son during the action sequences or understanding the dialogue during the rest.  If you live in an apartment or share space with people who don’t wish their living room to sound like Armageddon, be warned.

On to the movie.  The Dark Knight Rises asks the filmic question: what if the Occupy people get their wish?  Its answer: French Revolution 2.  Despotism.  Kangaroo Courts.  Chaos.  Only the rich, working anonymously and unfettered from the rule of law, can protect the cringing middle class from the depredations of the fickle mob.

I’m not even a hippie, and I could see that message as if it were carefully painted in Sterno on an icy bridge in the middle of the night and set afire because some rich guy thought it would look cool.

Ok, but is the film any good?  Well, it does move along at a speedy clip, the freakishly beautiful Anne Hathaway actually made me forget about Michelle Pfeiffer for a good two hours, the rest of the cast turns in respectable performances in none-too-demanding roles, and lots of stuff blows up real good.  In other words, you get what you paid for.

Just keep your finger on that volume button.

Get Smart

GET SMART is a formulaic comedy based on a television series I can barely remember. It also happens to be laugh-out-loud funny.

It's not even that GET SMART is particularly well written. It's just particularly well delivered. Steve Carell is perfect as Smart, the bumbling yet oddly capable analyst who finally gets to be a field agent. He plays the character as a man in tight control of his emotions, but who's always just one cone of silence away from gut-bursting joy. Anne Hathaway is, well, Anne Hathaway, upon whom I now formally bestow the title of Can Do No Wrong. She's tough and vulnerable and funny and dazzling and just a pleasure to watch. Dwayne Johnson is one of those guys who's good in whatever he's in, and his sense of comic timing gets better with each outing. Terry "President Camacho" Crews dials it down (for him) and finds just the right volume, and his partner David Koechner has the "laughable jerk" thing down to a science. And then there's Alan Arkin, the Chief, whose deadpan delivery anchors the production and allows it to soar.

The villains are duly villainous without ever being truly threatening, the third act shift into action territory works quite well, and the whole thing kept DB and me amused throughout. GET SMART is slick Hollywood comedy done right. Color me pleasantly surprised.