The Darkest Knight
So The Dark Knight certainly lives up to its promise of being dark. Disturbingly so. The film is an outstanding collaboration on pretty much all fronts, cast and crew, but it’s already destined to be remembered as Heath Ledger’s swan song, and rightly so: Ledger is not only the best villain a superhero film has ever had, but his performance excels simply because he could because he’s not a super-villain at all. Ledger’s Joker is psychotic, but in an eerily believable way. Unlike the over-the-top efforts of the camp 60s tv show and films, or Jack Nickolson’s caricature under Tim Burton, Ledger plays a Joker that really could have emerged from the nastiest corners of contemporary society. It’s a performance to be seen and experienced – if not necessarily enjoyed – and at this stage of the year Ledger’s posthumous Academy Award looks a certainty.
Credit has to go to Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman who all give strong performances but are accommodating enough to play second fiddle to Ledger’s deranged centrepiece. Gary Oldman steps up in his role as Lt Gordon, and newcomer Aaron Eckhart seems to play Harvey Dent a little too smugly until the latter section of the film where his inevitable downfall really hits home in contrast to the earlier scenes. While not really a weak link, Maggie Gyllenhaal really has the misfortune of being the least impressive in the cast, although she has the difficult task of stepping into the only role where the actor has changed (previously Katie Holmes).
Visually, the film is once again spectacular, both inside Gotham and in the scenes set elsewhere, especially an unexpected visit to the soaring heights of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers. For comic book fans, there are plenty of knowing nods along the way, but these are subtle enough not to intrude on the film for everyone else. That said, certain character arcs are a lot more tragic when you can see them coming, especially the emergence of Two-Face. There are plenty of doors left open at the end of the film for a third in the Batman series, although the tone left hanging suggests the next film would be even bleaker and its hard to imagine anything much darker than The Dark Knight being palatable at the multiplex.
Jib Jab Do Obama/McCain!
I find it amazing that it’s been four years since the first Jib Jab effort! This one’s a little less pointed, but just as much fun as the original but as it’s a little more participatory as you can stick your own face on one of the little characters!
I find it amazing that it’s been four years since the Fallout 3 … won’t be coming to Australia. It’s banned.
Continuing their tradition of banning videogames, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) have decided that Fallout 3 isn’t going to get a classification in Australia (and thus can’t be sold legally). However, the OFLC reasoning seems inconsistent even with their own past censorship efforts, and has reignited the debate over Australia’s lack of an R18+ gaming classification. As Asher Moses reports:
The Classification Board effectively banned the role playing shooter game by refusing to issue it an age rating, citing the simulated drug use in the game. In Fallout 3, players can use drugs to augment their characters’ abilities such as stamina, health and intelligence. The ban stems from the lack of an R18+ classification for games in Australia, which means any titles that do not meet the MA15+ standard – such as those with excessive violence, drug use or sexual content – are simply banned from sale.
Gamers were outraged by the board’s decision because other games featuring a similar or higher level of drug use have passed through the censors unscathed. Game review site Gameplayer.com.au, which has begun a petition to “Save Fallout 3”, has compiled a list of 12 games with stronger drug use. They include Battlefield Bad Company, BioShock, Haze and Grand Theft Auto IV.
As the uneven hand of the OFLC becomes more obvious, surely the time is at hand to admit the practice of banning games which have less offensive content than many films needs to be curtailed and Australia finally needs an R18+ category for videogames.
Update (14 August 2008): After unspecified edits and changes were made to the game, the ban was lifted in August 2008, with the game gaining an MA15+ rating.
Dr Horrible’s International Debut Debacle
30 … 20 … 10 … nothing. That’s the experience fans outside of the US had earlier today when Joss Whedon’s web-based musical webisode experiment Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog went live using Hulu, a video-streaming service geo-locked to stream to US IP addresses only:
Now, it’s not unusual for content to be limited to US internet addresses, especially television, but Dr Horrible is a different kettle of fish. Joss Whedon has done an amazing job of courting the fans and getting them on side to view promote (and eventually buy) Dr Horrible’s adventures, so it came as something of a shock to most international fans (with whom Whedon usually has a pretty good rapport) when discovered they weren’t able to get the free stream of Dr Horrible’s first act (or even buy the episodes on iTunes).
On Whedonesque – the main Joss Whedon appreciation blog (to which Joss posts from time to time) – the thread initially celebrating Dr Horrible’s release was inundated with international fans lamenting the fact that they couldn’t view the new web-based show. Dr Horrible’s Facebook page and MySpace page similarly received a vitriolic helping of international fan dismay!
Now, if Dr Horrible was an NBC or Viacom property, that would be the end of the story. However, given Joss Whedon’s track record, it seems reasonable that the geo-blocking was unintentional or accidental. And now we can see that’s exactly right … on various forums Whedon’s team have posted that they’re trying to get a globally-viewable version up. It seems that this may very well be the case that the tools for online distribution simply aren’t quite up to the demands being put on them by content creators. Ironically, this experience might actually lead to more fans working out how to circumvent Hulu’s geo-restrictions as Whedon has sided with the fans once more and in the short term the official Dr Horrible Twitter feed has linked to instructions on how to circumvent Hulu! Indeed, for long-time Whedon fans this might be reminiscent of a moment in 1999 when Whedon encouraged Canadian viewers to “bootleg that puppy” after Fox postponed the season three finale due in the wake of the Columbine shootings.
For Dr Horrible, it has been a rough start, but Whedon’s track record and the excitement from US fans who’ve already enjoyed Dr Horrible leave the rest of us waiting eagerly, knowing that Whedon and his team are doing all they can and will surely learn a lot from this experience. (And thus, I should add, we can reasonably expect that acts two and three of Dr Horrible will, indeed, get a simultaneous global release!).
Update: Drs Horrible (aka Mutant Enemy) have risen to the challenge, and the first act of Dr Horrible is now viewable by everyone! Go watch Act One (’tis funny!).
Update 2: It seems that Dr Horrible’s first day had one more obstacle: popularity. Dr Horrible’s servers were completely overloaded and the site diappeared for a while, but now they’ve moved onto “monster servers” so all should be good … or is that evil?
Links for July 15th 2008
Interesting links for July 9th 2008 through July 15th 2008:
- End of an Era: lonelygirl15 to Conclude Aug. 1 [NewTeeVee] – “lonelygirl15, the pioneering online video series, will conclude on Aug. 1 to make way for a new show from its creators and their new company, EQAL. This announcement was buried in the second paragraph of an official blog post…”
- ‘World’s oldest blogger’ dies at 108 [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – World’s Oldest Blogger Dies: “Born in Broken Hill in 1899, Olive Riley… Since early last year, she had written about 70 entries on her life experiences and posted them online, receiving feedback from all over the world.”
- Lively – Google’s answer to Second Life has arrived. However, it’s far more embedded (and embeddable) in existing web 2.0 scaffolding – following a YouTube logic – with a much thinner client. Only for Windows at this stage, though.
- Getty Images + Flickr Make a Deal [Photojojo Blog] – Getty Images and Flickr strike a deal which will allow Getty to scour Flickr and, with easy-to-use tools, contact photo owners and offer licensing deals to push their work as stock photos. Apparently launching later this year.
Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
So who the hell is Dr Horrible, and why should you care? Well, he looks to be quite an amusing character and the centre of a story written by someone who writes quite good stories: Joss Whedon. More to the point, for a limited time, Dr Horrible’s story will be online … for free. Oh, and it’s a musical. From the guy who wrote the musical episode of Buffy. And quite a few other bits of Buffy, too.
Dr Horrible is as much an experiment in models of distribution and commerce. From Tuesday July 15th (US time … so some time Wednesday for most in Australia) an episode of Dr Horrible will appear every two days (with three in total), until they all disappear on July 20th. Joss Whedon (and, indeed, quite a few other Whedon’s, it seems) are hoping that they can galvanise their fanbase (as they did so impressively for Serenity) and once everyone has seen it for free, perhaps sell a few full copies later down the track. Apparently Joss thought up the concept during the WGA writer’s strike when other distribution methods were sorely needed. As Joss describes his thoughts in Dr Horrible’s master plan:
1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?
Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system. Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few. The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first. […]
3) Joss, you are so kind, and generous, and your forehead is like, huge, like SCARY, like I think I can see Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint hanging off it… what can WE do to help this musical extravanganza?
What you always do, peeps! What you’re already doing. Spread the word. Rock some banners, widgets, diggs… let people know who wouldn’t ordinarily know. It wouldn’t hurt if this really was an event. Good for the business, good for the community – communitIES: Hollywood, internet, artists around the world, comic-book fans, musical fans (and even the rather vocal community of people who hate both but will still dig on this). Proving we can turn Dr Horrible into a viable economic proposition as well as an awesome goof will only inspire more people to lay themselves out in the same way. It’s time for the dissemination of the artistic process. Create more for less. You are the ones that can make that happen. Wow. I had no idea how important you guys were. I’m a little afraid of you.
So, once more, the success or failure of a Whedon idea is in the hands of fans. If you want to spread the Horrible word, the website has lots of spiffy banners you can use to link to Dr Horrible’s show. It should be an interesting experiment. I’ll certainly be watching! (Early reviews seem very promising!)
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