the dark knight rises

 Long time no rambling, I know —-

Been a long half a year… I’ve since then gotten married… and find myself on one of my first times of being home alone while the wife is off at a county fair.

Being a die-hard Batman fan, she was nice enough to watch the new Batman movie with me on our honeymoon. She hated THE DARK KNIGHT, it was too dark and evil for her. While I, an artsy person with a taste for the melancholy finds it amazing that Heath Ledger and Nolan and co. could bright to the screen such a dark menacing character, and have such an emotional impact on person, good ol’ back-country, farm-girl, down-to-earth better half of mine would ask, "Why do such a thing?"

I’m one of those people who realize the art of drama is just simply evoking an emotional response out of people, regardless if it’s good, bad, positive or negative.

Needless to say, when I was the one clinching my wife’s hand like a 3 yr old watching Jaws, she too, was disgusted. As Bane said, he was a necessary evil… and evil he was. As I sat there in a theater I’d never been before, in a big city I’ve rarely visited (this was my honeymoon), and my mind looking for the gunman, all the while wondering when it happened in Colorado… I started wondering if Nolan had made something that I wouldn’t like.

Me, the die-hard Batman fan, who’d been on the The Dark Knight Trilogy band-wagon since I was a young 14 year old in 2004 browsing sites just waiting, and drooling over Batman Begins. Here I was as a 22 year clinching my wife’s hand, cowering as some man in a make-make shift gas mask was breaking Batman’s back.

We rode back to our Bed and Breakfast that night in silence and tension. I had reluctantly said to myself that it was an unenjoyable experience. The wife and I had a much enjoyable experience later on that night.

The night passed.

The next morning I woke up.

Hah. That was an EPIC movie. While my wife, who still loathed The Dark Knight, had found a new movie to loathe again… I chalked it up to being tense because of the tragic massacre in Colorado… Bane had had that same effect over me as the Joker. He was a villain you loved to hate.

As I enjoyed the first month of our wedded bliss, I knew that, me, the Batman fanatic with every form of media of him on my shelf, would be enjoying a Blu Ray of The Dark Knight Rises as soon as possible. (Well – not every form of his media, Batman Returns and Batman and Robin are not Batman movies, they’re Tim Burton and Joel Shumacher movies – and I hate them.)

As I said, the wife’s away, so I called up one of my chums and meet him at a town halfway between my old home-town, and the city I’m in now to watch The Dark Knight Rises again. This time I knew Bane wasn’t going to blow up Gotham, and Batman would save the day, knowing this my emotions could rest while my Batman-loving-mind could soak up every reference to comic book and previous Batman movies, as well as analyze the amazing talents of Bale and Hardy.

I will miss Chris Nolan’s Batman movies, and hope that with the bar raised this high, the next round of Batman movies will be sought to top Nolan’s movies, and not just sought to be made for money.