Monday 9 July 2012

TV

Dexter
5x10 In the Beginning
5x11 Hop a Freighter
5x12 The Big One [season finale]
Episode 10 ended with too much exciting unresolvededness to stop, and then 11 felt more like the first half of a finale than its own episode (honestly, that ending… it felt like they made a double-length episode with various possible break points halfway through and just went with the place nearest the middle).
Anyway, the season as a whole I enjoyed. Like I said some time before, it's probably not the very best Dexter's had to offer, but it's not below its usual standard either. Though I agree with critics that Lumen's exit wasn't wholly plausible and could perhaps have been handled better.
I've not heard fab things about season six... but then, same for this one, so we'll see.

Episodes
2x09 Episode 9 [season finale]
Good ending. Hope we get a third series.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Batman (1989)
[4th or so watch]

I realised yesterday that I haven't watched a Batman film since the Adam West one three years ago, and I haven't watched one of the modern (i.e. Tim Burton and later) ones since I saw The Dark Knight in cinemas! With my curiosity piqued, I worked out that I probably haven't watched the others (i.e. Batman, Returns, Forever, and Robin, Begins) since 2006. That's like forever.

So, with the final part of Nolan's Bat trilogy less than two weeks away, I thought, "what better time to re-watch them all?" So I intend to.

Main thought after this one is how weird it is watching it in the wake of Nolan's films. This used to be the dark and serious take on superheroes, treating them in a more grown-up fashion. Now, it looks positively comic book-y. Sure, it's a bit grown-up -- there's elements of psychology and adult relationships, not just Boy's Own Adventure -- but the level of heightened reality and camp... nothing like comic book adaptations now.

Also, you forget just how true it was that the earlier Batman films focussed more on the villains than the hero. Batman's in the first scene, but that's it for a while, and it takes Bruce Wayne ages to appear. The story follows Jack Napier/the Joker and a pair of journalists, primarily Vicki Vale, though (again) I think it's easy to forget how prominent her partner (Alexander Knox, played by Robert Wuhl) is. The film puts a little more emphasis on Wayne/Batman later on, but for a hefty chunk it's not really about him at all. You can really see why Nolan & co thought that was a seam waiting to be tapped when it came to Begins.

(Incidentally, I first saw Batman when I was a kid, so I have no idea how many times I've actually seen it. Same goes for Returns (same situation) and Forever (which I saw in the cinema, but don't really know how many times I may've watched it on TV, etc). All of these numbers are, therefore, a guesstimate.)