Mini Reveiw of TDKR

Well, I at last saw the final part of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and since it was a pretty big movie of last year, I decided to do a spoiler-free post with some of my thoughts. Also, I might sound a bit harsh but I do want to assure everyone, I did like the movie! It was a fun ride and a decent conclusion to the trilogy. It just wasn’t my favorite of the trilogy nor my favorite superhero film.

I’m going to spit it out right off the bat and say that while I enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises, I did like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight better. There was a different feeling to TDKR that was missing from the first two that I missed, I think it was just simply the dark atmosphere of Gotham. In TDKR the street’s seemed brighter and the city looked more modern and too different. To me, it had a different atmosphere and I missed the darkness, the grimness of the old Gotham.

I don’t want give anything away because I know some people who want to see it, haven’t seen it and there are some pretty big twists. These were great but I won’t talk about them now.

Bane?  He would have been scarier if his voice hadn’t been so muffled. There were points that I felt like giggling at him even though he was saying serious stuff because it just sounded funny. He’s a good villian but I disagree with people who say he’s better or even equal to The Joker. Then again, it would be rather unfair to compare those two. Seriously, even Tom Hiddelston has said that Heather Ledger set an incredibly high bar. My overall thoughts? To me, he didn’t live up to the everyone’s proclamations that he was ‘an amazing villain’. He certainly didn’t win his way on to my favorite’s list.

Catwoman? An interesting character, but she didn’t make it to my favorite ‘strong women’ list beside people like Black Widow or Sarah Conner. And she wore silly highheels which always throws me because you simply can’t do strong action moves in highheels. Seriously. Unrealistic. Her relationship with Batman/Wayne was interesting to watch but I’m not sure about them being *SPOILER* a couple. I’m just not sure what I think about that. *END OF SPOILER*

John Blake? I will get a lot of hate for this, but I would have liked this character more if Jospeh Gordan-Levitt hadn’t played him. For some rather unknown reason, I don’t really like that actor very much (reasons are actually not altogether unknown; I think because he reminds me of someone I’d like to forget that I don’t like him.) The character was great, he was practically the only police detective with any sense through out the whole film.

The soundtrack was amazing as usual; the music for all three movies are some of my favorite ever.

As always, I loved seeing the return of Alfred and Lucius Fox, they’re great, classic characters. It was also good to see Gordan, but I felt really bad for him throughout most of the movie.

Ultimately, as I said before, The Dark Knight Rises was a good movie, it finished everything off well; it even left it open for a possible but unlikely fourth movie. However, for me, it simply didn’t surpass the awesomeness of The Dark Knight and it’s amazing character clash between Batman and Ledger’s ‘legendary’ Joker. It will have to be an amazing character combination to beat those two.

~Jamie

Awkward but Awesome

Awkward: When you buy a new shirt and it’s even shorter then you thought it would be…

Awesome: when a black tank top underneath it solves everything and you’re glad you got it in the end, because, hey, it would practically have been a sin to leave that sparkly Batman shirt on shelf…

Awkward: When it’s Christmas time and you can’t think of a single thing to put on your Want list…

Awesome: having just about anything you could want already and feeling content about it.

Awkward: Having your first male dance partner of your entire life and being a little clumsy about it all, because, that can be just tad awkward…

Awesome: said male dance partner being really sweet and at least you’ve been a pro at line dancing for seven years previously so it ended up being totally fine at the end.

Awkward: Looking like a dork after church because you’re holding your Sherlock Holmes book under your arm and looking out of place…

Awesome: forgetting about looking like a dork because you get too caught up in discussing the stories with your best friend and deciding how many chapters to read in the coming week.

Awkward: Loosing a ring you got for your birthday.

Awesome: there is nothing awesome about this predicament..

Awkward: Doing a post just like this an entire year and two days ago and not doing another one in between those time frames…

Awesome: there is just two days difference between this post and the last post: That is super awesome, I think.

Awkward: Realizing your room is covered in Marvel Superhero posters and right up next to them is a poster of a DC villain…

Awesome: said DC villain is The Joker and he totally belongs on up on the wall because he is just as awesome as the Avengers, in his own menacing way.

Awkward: Buying new jackets complicate matters because how are you suppose to choose between your Darth Vader sweater, your trench coat, your frilly knitted wrap and your brown leather jacket?

Awesome: Now having jackets that all match at least one thing in you wardrobe.

Awkward: Why do awkward things always happen…

Awesome: …at least they make for great text posts.

~Jamie

I Wanna….

Slide all the way down a huge pile of money like The Joker.

Stop some criminals with a bag of flour like Agent Coulson.

Have a day of hysterics and have it turn out alright like Lucy Ricardo.

Travel the Bifrost with Thor and Loki to visit Asgard.

Drive a galloping four horse chariot like Ben-Hur.

Experience Inception and meet all my internet friends there.

Use an Iron Man suit with Tony Stark.

Run singing across the mountains like Maria.

Climb the sky scrapers like Spider-Man.

Own a vehicle that is actually a Transformer.

…and…

Solve a murder case with Sherlock Holmes and Poirot: all three of us together–oh and Dylan can come with us too. So, all four of us. Yes.

… Okay, I’m done now.

~Jamie

Back from the Abyss

one of my birthday presents: a Captain America ‘hero and hearts’ wallet!

Well, I kinda took a two week break there, didn’t I? It was an unannounced break which I didn’t mean to take but it was actually nice to have a short break. And I’ve had a good couple weeks.

I had a wonderful birthday; I got my 38 special revolver (YES, EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD CAN OPEN CARRY WEAPONS IN ARIZONA! ), books (my own copy of Dracula, YAY), some action figures, a Hawkeye slap bracelet and other random stuffs. Mom and I watched The Help that morning together, I got a call from two family friends wishing me happy birthday; I spent the afternoon on my laptop creating a visual world for a fantasy story which has been, without my consent, building up in my head. We had Panda Express for dinner and watched The Mysterious Affair at Styles e later I got Mom and Dad to watch Monsters Inc with me. THREE MOVIES IN ONE DAY! UNHEARD OF! It was a great day of relaxation and unwinding.

my favorite book, right here people.

I also got to go on a spending spree with my birthday money; I RARELY get to go to the mall, but Mom took me to a double decked one at the other side of town last Saturday and I got to go into any shop that interested me. It was my first time visiting Forever Twenty One, people. Yep. I went nuts at the Disney store; they had a corner full of Avenger and Spider-Man stuff. There were so many stuffed animals there, too; I could have died. I ended up buying a Donald Duck shirt for myself and an Avengers shirt for Kayla. I bought a very cute hat at a shop called Icing (I tried to take some selfie shots of myself wearing it but they came out miserably so you’ll have to wait to see what it looks like.)

Internet shopping is always fun too: I ordered a Joker shirt, a laptop skin decal and keyboard stickers off of Amazon as well. The stickers are the only ones to have gotten here; they ARE SO CUTE. It makes my keyboard look so colorful and cheerful. I took pictures, but they’re not coming up right on here. Wahhh.

It’s late right now. So randomness will start flying all over. Prepare to duck.

It’s the end of July and August has just started… meaning for me, summer is beginning to end. I remembered I’d written a short summer bucket list a while ago; let’s see what I’ve completed.

*Lite ten fireworks off on Fourth of July

*Finish the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes with Dylan

Complete and post the Avengers 40 Question Challenge with James (waiting on Kayla to work with the graphic)

Ride my bike more (ouch, haven’t done this very much)

*Dress in identical clothes with Kayla for the day

*Come up with a fresh novel idea for this year’s NaNoWriMo

*See The Amazing Spider Man with Kayla in theaters

Read Lord of the Rings (I did get the books for my birthday!)

and

*Think of some special way to celebrate my eighteenth birthday.

So, I actually did pretty good! Speaking of summer beginning to close, don’t you find it hilarious when you see different people complain about the recent season their in and long for another one? I always get a kick out of visiting different blogs and seeing, “Oh it’s so hot I want it to be winter soon with snow here I’ll post ten Christmas pictures now” and we get to the Christmas season and I’ll read, “I’m getting tired of this sludge I want to walk through grass feeling the summer breeze now I’ll post eight pictures of prairie grass and the beach”. It’s kinda on my not-really-but-sort-of list of pet peeves.

I don’t know why I just talked about that…. lol.

 Okay, so I mentioned up there that a fantasy story has been building in my head without my consent? Well, there’s nothing I can really do about but work with it. The picture above best describes my thoughts right now; fairies and books. And yes, this is the fresh idea I’m going to use for this years NaNoWriMo!

I’ll try to summarize my idea of the story and I apologize ahead of time for it not being the most thought through. Basically the short of it is (you’ll probably recognize where some of the inspiration came from, lol) two young people, boy and girl, get sucked into separate fictional world inside a novel and find that they’ve unsuspectingly been given the chance to experience the book’s adventure first hand inside a fantasy world with fantasy creatures. The problem is that being in different world is breaking down their bodies and they quickly decide that they’re not going to dilly-dally with the story, or the characters, or the plot but only find a way to get back to their world where they can exist without having their bodies slowly destroyed by the world’s atmosphere. However, the girl is kidnapped along with several other of their novel’s characters, and the boy of course can’t go home without her, so he joins their novel’s characters to rescue the girl and make sure the book has a happy ending before they return to reality. And yes, as they discovered, their own presence can completely alter how the book will end.

I’ve been using butterflies as part of my inspiration for the fairies

And yes, somehow, I will get fairies to have something to do with the story.

This is all still up in the air and I’m still `having plot inspirations. But Scrivener has been an absolute life saver for the novel planning; I’ve been saving all my inspiration pictures in there and writing down my plot ideas and so forth.

I’m glad I have new story idea growing, actually. The other story idea I have is so much more complicated that I don’t think would have worked for NaNoWriMo. This new one  here is taking leaps and bounds in all sorts of directions and I’ve not felt such creative for a fictional work for quite some time. So, this is really quite exciting for me!

Just had to share about it.

Soooo, Kayla and I watched Batman Begins again and I thought I’d give some thoughts on the main characters. Oh, and if you haven’t seen Batman Begins or The Dark Knight, I highly suggest you check them out, especially if you’re an action/superhero fan. It’s not Marvel but they’re still pretty good movies.

I really do like Batman Begins quite a bit. I don’t care so much for the beginning half but all the scenes that take place in Gotham are great. I do think it’s an underrated film which I think is kinda sad. I actually think I would enjoy it more than The Dark Knight except that The Joker took the cake in that one. If it wasn’t for the Joker, I probably would like Batman Begins way more than The Dark Knight. As of now, I like The Dark Knight just a little more for The Joker’s sake but Batman Begins is just under it.

*there may be spoilers lurking below*

Bruce Wayne: I like his character development throughout Batman Begins (he wasn’t anything special in The Dark Knight because his character development basically didn’t continue in that one and I didn’t enjoy him that much.) Bruce’s whole story of being orphaned, wanting revenge, living with criminal, learning different fighting forms and then ultimately creating his alter ego Batman is pretty cool to me. Trying to live two lives makes for an interesting aspect in a film. The fact that he battles with obvious human feelings like a fear of bats makes him more human and real. Overall, I like Bruce and Batman makes for a pretty interesting ‘superhero’.

Rachel Dawes: I personally preferred Katie Holmes’ acting for her over the actress in The Dark Knight (the other actress had cute features but I didn’t care for Rachel’s character progression in The Dark Knight either. She was basically brought down to marriage bait for the plot and she took her pretty time picking between Bruce and Harvey (and kissing both.)) In Batman Begins, we see her history with Bruce is, how she’s a smart District Attorney and one known to have strong principles that can’t be bought off. While Rachel didn’t stand out in any special way apart from other female characters in movies, I did like her and appreciate her strong stand in her principles. (Oh, I like how she has and uses a taser. lol)

Alfred: I LOVED THIS CHARACTER SO MUCH! Oh my goodness, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s butler, is such a refreshing, wholesome character. Noble, dignified, witty, loyal, and tender yet firm. He’s one of the delightful characters that just make you smile. He’s easily one of my most favorite characters from the Batman movies. I couldn’t say more because it would turn into “alksjdkaljdklsjaksdjfkaslj” really quickly….

Ra’s al Ghul: Okay, so, I’m all oooh, Liam Neeson, cool, okay. However, as we got to know the character a bit, he really started to annoy me. He asked Bruce to do things that weren’t right and that wasn’t great considering he seemed to be a good guy. And while I think he was supposed to be a mysterious character, he ended up being too mysterious for me. And than SPOILERS he turned out to be the bad, bad guy in the end. Wahhh. END OF SPOILERS. So, he was an okay character. Liam Neeson was good though.

 Gordan: He was one of the uncorrupted, dependable police men in Gotham and I liked him. I connected well with him good which helped with certain events that happened in The Dark Knight. I liked how he just rolled with the flow when Batman kept showing up. He just quickly learned to adapt to him and that was nice to see. It took me a while to realize the reason Batman/Bruce went to Gordan was because he was an officer who comforted him after his parents had been murdered. Anybody else say, “Awwwww, no wonder”? So, in that way they have a connection. I also loved seeing him interact with the Tumbler.

Dr Crane/ Scarecrow: Okay, I had a bad case of, “He’s familiar, have I seen him somewhere else???” During the movie and it wasn’t till afterwards that Kayla solved the problem by saying, “That was Fischer from Inception!!!” Anyway, Dr. Crane was a great characters. He was with the good guys a lot and functioned easily around them even though he was one of the corrupted people. His mask for Scarecrow coupled with his fear gas was a great aspect in the film for me because it seemed quite original. (speaking of which, the special effects for all the fear gas scenes were very cool and a little scary!) I thought Crane was a decent bad guy and  his character worked well with the film’s whole plot.

All in all, I enjoyed the cast of characters a lot, more so especially in Batman Begins than in The Dark Knight. But, yes, I would recommend both for a mature audience.

I’m not going to talk about The Dark Knight, at least not in this post. I have a post about villains in the works where I’ll exploit The Joker a bit, but that’s it on Batman for now.

So… I’ve been eighteen for almost two weeks. People keep asking me, “How does it feel to be eighteen” and I think they half expect me to go with the old joke of, “not much different from seventeen”. *sarcastic lololololol* And while it doesn’t feel obviously different,  it’s still a great feeling to hit a big age. It just feels bigger than other birthdays. Dylan turned eighteen early in the year, so I got some understanding; he and his mom dropped by the other day for something really fast and somehow the age came up. He simply stated, “Isn’t it great to be eighteen?!” And I nodded and said, “Yep!” So how does it feel to be eighteen? The answer is, “It feels good.”

Anyway. I guess I had to quickly rant about that. lol. So. End of that story.

And now I’m posting this just to see if anyone will actually do it! LOL, I mean, why not?

I have some posts I need to finish; I have another “Being Me” edition on the trials of having naturally curly hair, my plans for later this year and then that villains post. So, you can watch for those in the near future.

I’ll let you know next time I plan to have another two week break, by the way.

~Jamie