Today will be the first day of Hanukkah this year, and I was planning this post about it, about the way that our society – in a painfully awkward attempt to be inclusive – turns this minor Jewish holiday into what people assume is the biggest occasion of all. To gentiles everywhere Judaism consists of two things: the bar mitzvah, and Hanukkah. And Seinfeld.
So that’s the gist of the post, and it was going to be delightful, but then something happened yesterday that derailed everything. Something that might seem very small, but the implications are, well, they’re just… I can’t think about it.
Also an important world event, but with substantially less Batman in it.
What? Hm? Oh, Kim-Jong Il died? Well, okay, I suppose that’s a big deal, too. No, I’m talking about the release of the first full trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, the third Batman film by Christopher Nolan.
The thing is, I love Nolan’s Batman films. I love them. I luuuuuuuurrrrv them. The kids on the playground could taunt me for sitting in a tree with them, spelling out romantic exchanges. They could do that and I wouldn’t care, because our love is pure. But there have been a lot of signs that this one is going to be, well, bad. I’ve actually written here about it a couple times before, but that was largely when my entire reading audience consisted solely of blood relatives and former roommates, so I understand if you don’t recall. Here’s one, if you’re interested, in which I write a scene for the third film on the idea that Nolan just intentionally tank it. But I didn’t expect him to take me up on this idea.
Because, the trailer is out and it looks, well, it just looks pretty stupid. There are some elements that look interesting, but… well…
I mean, it's not like people watch football thinking, 'What this needs is muscular men in silly outfits running around hitting--' oh, wait...
Okay, for starters – the film appears to center around a football game. A football game? Really, Nolan? Sitting around with your writing-team reviewing the previous two films, the idea that floated to the surface was that what was missing were the Pittsburgh Steelers running around?
Also, there’s a giant explosion that vaporizes an entire football field, but the guy running down the field doesn’t sense it at all. Why? Well, because the blast leaving a football-field sized crater is, gosh, over 8 inches away from him! This kind of Hollywood Physics never bodes well.
Third, it appears that Batman will have a big hovercraft. Look, when Nolan made Batman Begins, he said he wanted to get rid of the silly toys and gadgets. The studio forced him to include the Batmobile, because it’d be a toy to sell, so under duress he included his big armored tank thing, which was – granted – pretty cool. But to go form that being too outlandish to a hovercraft? Uh oh. Plus, here is my list of great films which feature hovercrafts: .
Finally, they’re also clearly wanting to cash in on the Occupy movement, which I suppose could be interesting, but also stinks a bit of opportunism and pandering. “Hey, you know what people are in to right now? Economic disparity. Let’s do that!”
The trailer for The Dark Knight made me feel like a little kid. Like “Ahhh! Ahhhhhh! I have to see this right now! Now! Now now now now now now!” This one makes me feel like when you’re dating the wrong person, and constantly trying to rationalize that, no, no, it’s cool. Things seem bad an unpleasant, but there’s, uh, good things. Sure.
Sigh.
So, who knows. I’ll hold out hope. Maybe my little, paltry one-day’s worth of hope will miraculously last eight days, and then I’ll celebrate the time my hope carried me through.
Anyway, if you’re celebrating Hanukkah in the midst of the gloomy winter, happy Festival of Light. Enjoy. Because Summer’s looking dark.
The Byronic Man 
December 20, 2011 at 9:48 am
You are obviously not from an SEC town. Those folks will go and see ANYTHING that has to do with football. Little orphan Annie could sing “Tomorrow” backwards in Aramaic and as long as she did it on a football field, the fans would go wild.
December 20, 2011 at 11:12 am
Hey, isn’t that what Madonna is doing for this year’s Super Bowl Halftime show?
December 20, 2011 at 10:12 am
I tend to avoid anything based on a comic book. Just because. Just sayin.’
December 20, 2011 at 11:13 am
I’m definitely neither here nor there on comic book movies; I enjoy them, but don’t go out of my way for them. But these just struck exactly the right chord with me. It was like I finally got what everyone was so gaga about.
December 20, 2011 at 10:25 am
I want two things for Christmas: that guy’s face mask and for Anne Hathaway to stop making moves. Grrr, she gets on my nerves.
December 20, 2011 at 11:15 am
Isn’t Anne Hathaway the one from those Princess Diary movies? I’m actually not that familiar with her, but she does seem like an odd choice for Catwoman. I can’t promise anything there, since she appears to have a very, very good agent. I’ll see what I can do on the face mask, though.
December 20, 2011 at 1:44 pm
I’m going to see it just for Anne Hathaway!
December 20, 2011 at 8:12 pm
I know very little about her. Enlighten me. Is it inspired casting to make her Catwoman? Or bizarre? Maybe a little of both?
I won’t hold you to your answer. If you say it’s great casting and she’s bad I promise not to angrily post a “JULES AT GO GUILTY PLEASURES KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT CASTING MOVIES! SHE’D BE TERRIBLE AT IT!” post.
December 21, 2011 at 10:52 am
OMG I’m practically best friends with Anne Hathaway (disclaimer: not true). She’s from near my hometown and she’s been in a gajillion movies and she’s amazing. Apparently Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale both didn’t want her as Catwoman, so they made her audition, and she blew them away. She’s going to be amazing, and if she’s not? Put up that post. Any publicity is good publicity! 😉
December 21, 2011 at 11:47 am
Oh, well if she’s from near where you live, then there we go! I can see how her sweetness could contrast nicely with a crazy darkness – if she can pull that part off.
December 20, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I admit that for most of my adult life, I thought Hanukkah WAS as big as Christmas. I have only been enlightened in recent years.
I am sorry about your Batman movie. If you’re going to committ to 2 hours watching a grown man in tights fight crime it needs to have a good plot and engaging characters!
December 20, 2011 at 8:09 pm
I do, anyway. I saw a movie earlier today and the previews were for explosions and people were saying, “That looks AMAZING!” And I really couldn’t figure out what they were referring to. Why did Explosion Movie A look amazing, and Explosion Movie B didn’t?
December 21, 2011 at 10:02 am
Dislike. I loved the trailer. It did lack a bit of the wow factor, but held up for me in the end. I can’t wait for the movie.
Plus Christopher Nolan is a genius and no one can contest that.
December 21, 2011 at 11:46 am
Really? Well, that’s good you liked it. I still hold out hope, and – as I say – there are elements to the preview that validate hope. I definitely have faith in Nolan’s ability to construct consistently amazing films. There is a contingent who argue that Nolan is all style, no substance, but I think it’s a little early in his career to draw any conclusions.
December 21, 2011 at 4:26 pm
I doubt I’ll see the Batman film… haven’t seen any of the most recent ones, but then again, I don’t like more than the usual armored sportscar and spectacularly made-up characters with outlandish evening wear. Maybe you could write a Batman screenplay in which a giant menorah, outsized due to the Christian world’s feelings of guilt for taking over everything for five weeks and then closing everything but Chinese restaurants on Christmas Day, topples over in a windstorm and sets an entire block aflame. (The Chinese restaurant, of course, would be spared.)