QuestionAbel Parenting

I don’t know if its at all obvious, but I’m voting for Barack Obama.  I was one of those people way back when he became a senator who hoped he would run for President one day.  My hope was he might wait a little longer, but here he is.  The Candidate.  The Great Awesome Hope.

And that’s pretty much that.  I’ve only been alive for a quarter century, but I’ve yet to hear a politician in my time who inspires me to work at it so hard.  This is an eloquent man.  He is a man who listens to people and genuinely cares.  He make me confident in hope for the future.  So I’m voting for him.

In the weeks to come, as my posts increase once again with Summer Camp ending, I will probably be posting at least once a week about Barack.  Be ready.

Wow.  One word can be used to sum up “The Dark Knight.”  It was an excellent movie.  I ventured in with very high hopes and they were not only rewarded, but built upon.  It was far more than I expected, and I expected a lot.  It was tense when time called for it, people got emotional, it had excellent gallows humor, and the acting was superb.

And of course, Ladies and Gentlemen, we must mention Heath Ledger.  If this is the last time we see him on film it will be perfect.  The man was amazing.  The Joker was crazy.  Insane.  Better than the comic book Joker in my opinion.  He was a random act of chaos with no cares at all.  We received no back story and never found anymore information about him.  He lied endlessly.  He killed mercilessly.  He was a villain to be frightened of.

I was.

He has this magic trick with a pencil, you see.  The movie starts with a Joker scene but the pencil trick is the moment we really meet him.

Aaron Eckhart was perfect in his role all the way through.  Ditto Gary Oldman and Christian Bale and Michael Caine.  One of my friends says that his only wish would be more Bruce/Alfred moments which means it probably had just enough.  We wanted more.

This is a long movie, but worth the time.  It grabs you and does not let go.  Explosions and effects are par for the course, but what keeps you watching is the tension.  The Dark Knight is more urban thriller at times than comic book movie.  In fact, it seemed to ignore the fact its source material was a graphic novel.  There were no attempts at four-color integration, no cheesy art-house panels, and no quirky camp additions.  It was a brilliant damn film.

If you haven’t seen it, I think you would like it.  If you don’t like movies than you certainly won’t love it.  But it’s worth the time which is an amazing thing to say.

One great strength of this tale is the narrative which starts in the middle of action.  There is no exposition, no time to figure out what is going on.  It just happens.  The storytelling is excellent in The Dark Knight which is it’s main strength.  You don’t notice it, but there it is.