I know a lot of people believe that the death of Ledger was the main contributing factor of Dark Knight's success, but I'm not that morbid-minded. I looked forward to seeing his remarkable effort long before he passed. Also, this is the closest live action telling of the iconic character in my view. I love Jack Nicholson and his Joker, but that version was akin to a theme park caricature rather than a true embodiment. I admire both films for different reasons. No one can beat the visual style of Burton’s Batman…ever.
There are just SOOOOO many ways to interpret a character like the Joker. And I really think TDK managed to make him the more dark sociopathic variety you'd see in more recent comics. For me, my top three Jokers have to be Caesar Romero, Mark Hamil and Heath Ledger. Jack being honorable mention. Honestly, the fact that he's dead had nothing to do with why I liked his Joker... he just played it his own way (or at least Nolan's way) and it was different than what the common movie goer and casual Batfan would come to expect. That said, there was NO call for Tommy Lee Jones's Twoface to be a surrogate Joker in Batman Forever. They basically made him an over the top cartoony Joker-esque partner for the Riddler, instead of making him the dark, angry figure he really is. At least Dark Knight managed to do him justice for the small amount of time he was on the screen.
But on the subject of Batman movies, the most underrated ones were made as big screen versions of TV shows... Batman 1966 (Howlingly funny, almost too good to be camp... "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!") and Batman Mask of the Phantasm (which I never saw...
and I REALLY wanted to when it was on the big screen), one of the few times a cartoon that had been on the air had a theatrically released movie.
Really... Japan kicks our butts at that. I'd see even a third rate Saturday Morning cartoon I sort of like on the big screen if I had the chance.
On another note, I found Nolan’s Inception to be extremely overrated and it’s my least favorite of his otherwise fantastic filmography to date. It was enjoyable, but not noteworthy.
Didn't see that, but it seems he must've borrowed HEAVILY from the Japanese film Paprika, which I finally got the chance to see. One of the wildest films ever, crazy mind screwing stuff. Plus, well... there's a rumor going around that he might have also stole (or at least unwittingly paralleled) an old Scrooge McDuck comic, in which the Beagles steal a machine of Gyro's (also intended for Psychiatric use) to go into Scrooge's dreams and get Scrooge to tell him the combination of his vault safe. There was some stupid link on Yahoo or something, and one thing lead to another, I read the whole thing online. Great read, by the way.
But did Inception even do all that well? I hardly noticed anything really successful this year, as Hollywood fumbled yet again, putting everything out in May and June, leaving July a barren month.