Sleeping Beauty: More Like Magic Mike Than You Might Think

As someone who writes on gender and the body, I practically *had* to see Julia Leigh's Sleeping Beauty, being, as it is, about a woman who agrees to be heavily sedated in a room alone with paying customers. What I expected was an extended version of the bizarro masked ball/orgy in Eyes Wide Shut. What I got was a pretty clear-eyed examination of how bodies, beautiful or no, get consensually commodified.

The film follows Lucy (Emily Browning, who you might remember from Sucker Punch, aka, the movie I kinda liked that the rest of universe hated), a university student putting herself through school with the help of several odd jobs and without the help of her alcoholic and thieving mother. Early on, she demonstrates a detached relationship to her own sexuality. One scene has her deciding which stranger to sleep with in a bar and when based on a coin toss. Therefore, when she answers an ad in the student paper (!) for a job in the sex industry that involves a full-body inspection and a threat about the consequences of indiscretion, she's not too thrown.

Lucy begins her new job by wearing lingerie at dinner parties and serving wine and brandy to tuxedoed old men, and is eventually "promoted" to the role referenced by the title--she drinks a tea spiked with the mother of all sleeping pills and lies naked in a room where clients are ushered in, admonished not "to penetrate or leave marks," and left alone with her for unspecified amounts of time. If this sounds at all erotic, I'm not explaining it right. We see what a selection of the men do (it ranges from the poignantly mundane to the pathetically, and ominously, dominant), but Lucy remembers nothing, and earns enough for a sweet penthouse apartment.

And here's where the comparisons to Magic Mike come in--Lucy, baffingly, despite making major bank, does not quit her other jobs as a waitress, copy girl, or university research subject. (The latter requires her to be, ahem, orally penetrated by some sort of esophageal balloon.) The reason, I think, is a not-quite subtle indication to the audience to realize the work is basically the same. All of it requires Lucy to disassociate herself from her body because the jobs are so soul-crushingly repetitive (and/or physically unpleasant) and to disassociate herself from her mind because she doesn't need a brain to do any of it. Herbert Marcuse, with his theory of surplus repression, would have a field day with this movie. The late great Frankfurt school philosopher argued that the modern world had to repress the body over and above what was necessary for social development because if it didn't, we would all go freaking crazy over how unsatisfying and unappealing our jobs are. To translate this argument into the sphere of erotic freelance work, which is supposed to be about pleasure, is actually pretty interesting.

Also, much like Channing Tatum, it matters that Emily Browning has a beautiful body, and the camera does not refrain from lingering over it, naked and clothed, for a good 30% of the movie (ballpark). Which, of course, implicates the audience in her objectification, and possibly her exploitation. Though Claire, the icy madam, promises her clients they are "safe" in the room with Lucy because "no one can see," of course we can. But Lucy can't. Her inability to connect with the experience in any way begins to drive her mad, indicating that the less literal iterations of alienating work will have a similar outcome. Sleeping Beauty is a pretty clever and cutting economic critique in an erotic fantasy's lingerie.

True Adolescents: Camping with an Apatovian Peter Pan

I love the twenty-first century cinematic exploration of male perpetual adolescence just about as much as anybody. But there is always a moment when I'm watching Knocked Up or Forty Year Old Virgin or Role Models where I have to willfully not mind that the hero's emotional immaturity is defined against and made to aspire to a female character's more normative (and usually more uptight and way less funny) adult ethos. True Adolescents, written and directed by first-timer Craig Johnson and starring mublecore kid made good actor/writer/director Mark Duplass, imagines a different equation for how a juvenile thirty-something finally grows up.

Duplass's Sam hits all the major chords of an Apatovian man-boy. He's unemployed, he fantasizes about being a rock star, he performs the bare minimum of personal grooming, and he's a bit of a dick. But rather than position Sam against a love interest with more ambition and/or money (which seem to be metonyms for maturity in this genre), True Adolescents places him in juxtaposition with two, well, true adolescents: his teenaged cousin Oliver and his best friend Jake. After moving in with Jake and his mom (a predictably excellent Melissa Leo), Sam reluctantly agrees to take the boys camping after Jake's dad bails. The next three days expose, challenge, and recalibrate Sam's assumptions about what is valuable in his personality.

And that's what I really loved about the film. Rather than have Sam transform into a person radically unlike who he was before, the time he spends alternately joking with and bullying his companions, and the way he has to take control when Jake goes missing in the woods and he and Oliver get lost looking for him, forces Sam to emphasize aspects of his self--and his latent adulthood--that were there all along. To the film's credit, these woods are not metaphorical. They are dark and cold and dangerous, and Sam's stronger body, as well as his capacity for good-humored leadership, are crucial to surviving the night. True Adolescents argues that the reason Sam can become a man (and I'm using this gender designation because the major players were all male, though the film doesn't explicitly suggest this model is available only to boys) is because it's necessary. His maturity blossoms when it's needed--sort of like the seeds that only germinate in the heat of a forest fire. And, just like those trees, there's no going back once the process has been activated. The film concludes with a series of scenes that demonstrate the extent to which Sam isn't the same "greasy little bastard" he was at the beginning.

Another truly valuable--and, to my knowledge, unique--element of True Adolescents is its rigorous treatment of the casual homophobic language that serves as default slang in so many films of this type. The teasing-by-way-of-gay-slur that comes so naturally to Sam, and is already becoming second nature to boys Oliver's age, is shown to have real and potentially devastating consequences. Watching how this damage is thoughtlessly inflicted, and the attempts at repair, is one of the most moving tropes of the film.

Many thanks to the President and Creative Director of the Jonathan Alexandratos Movies You've Never Heard Of Collection for the recommendation.

Step Up Revolution

Step Up Revolution (heretofore SUR) is as good as it was going to be.  If you can keep that in your mind while watching, then you'll enjoy every minute of it.  It you head into it thinking it could, should or would be something more, then you'll be disappointed.  I have a deep appreciation for movies that know what they are and don't try to be something else (ahem, Showgirls).  This was one of those movies.  They didn't try too hard with the traditional aspects of filmmaking (story, directing, acting, etc.) but they excelled with what they knew would work (choreography and hot actors).

Ok, let's just go ahead and address the story.  Yes, there actually was one or an attempt at one.  It's nothing new.  A rich girl makes friends with the poor kids in town and decides to help them save their community center/dance studio.  If that sounds familiar then you've seen classics like Honey (save the dance studio/youth center) or the actual classic...Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (save the community center).  Also, if you've seen these, WE SHOULD TOTALLY HANG OUT SOMETIME!!!  So yeah, the kids in this movie were desperate to save an entire neighborhood in Miami from the big bad developer who also happens to be the dad of the rich girl trying to help.  (Ooops, should I have said "SPOILER ALERT" before I wrote that?)  Granted no one in SUR is named "Ozone" or "Turbo" but there is a "Moose".  Oh yes, there is a "Moose".  But I'll get to him in a minute.

Soooo the story wasn't anything new.  The acting was sub-par and the film's heavy hitting actor was none other than Sandy Cohen.  Now I love Peter Gallagher and think he's a fine actor indeed, but he literally is the only person in here who has a semi-recognizable name.  That does not bode well for any movie.  I was anxious to see how Kathryn McCormick (above right) would do since I was a big fan of hers when she competed on So You Think You Can Dance.  Unfortunately she seemed uncomfortable almost the entire time.  This is her co-star, Ryan Guzman's (above left), first film too, but he was way more confident onscreen.

However, one does not go to movies such as this to see fine performances in acting.  What one goes to this kind of movie for is DANCE!  Who cares if the story was unoriginal and the cast happened to barely manage their dialogue?  I certainly didn't because the dancing was superb.

"The Mob" first dances for fame and money

Later "The Mob" dances for protest.  Ahhh, how very deep.

As I said, the dancing was great.  I was truly impressed and I see a lot of these kinds of movies and watch a lot of dancing shows.  Not that I'm any kind of judge but I felt like they really brought some new stuff that you don't see all the time.  In fact I'm actually disappointed that I didn't see it in 3D.  I bet it was pretty freakin' cool in 3D. 

Lastly, if you're a fan of the Step Up movies you know it wouldn't be the same without Moose!  I'm ashamed to say that I actually cheered out loud when he finally showed up.  I'm a goofball, I know it.  Oh and I'm going to buy the soundtrack.  It was dope, or sick, or whatever the kids these days say.

How can you not love MOOSE?!?!?

"The Thin Dead Line" (Angel 2.14): Ezra Pound Edition

If you've ever had the pleasure of reading Ezra Pound's annotations on early drafts of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, you know he was a) a great editor (il miglior fabbro indeed) and b) a bit of a shit. One passage is marked, and I'm paraphrasing, Pope did it before. If you can't do it better, don't. Which brings us to this week's episode of Angel, in which weak sauce zombie cops threaten teenagers. Basically every major move of the episode has been done better (not by Pope, and not necessarily before, but still). For example:

Episode: Angel continues his co-dependent and self-destructive relationship with a blonde in a position of power, going to Kate the Boring for help with reports of violent L.A. cops, and doing some research in a graveyard.

Where it was done better:

There is only one blonde Angel needs to hang out with in graveyards when he's feeling co-dependent and self-destructive.

Episode: The teens at Anne's shelter describe the abusive cops to Gunn, whom she has commissioned for help, using borderline offensive "ghetto speak." Wince along with me as you read this transcript:



RAY
The cops are trippin', G. GUNN
Define "trippin'" for me. CALLIE
Out for blood. Les here got her arm
busted up. RAY
Cops stopped me few nights back, went
for his gun looking to put a cap in my
ass. If I ain't outrun the doughnut-eatin'
dude, I wouldn't be sitting here talking
to you. 

Where it was done better: Oh, the possibilities are endless, but let's go with Attack the Block.

Episode: One of the clues that the cops are zombies being puppet-mastered by some unknown force is the way they mindlessly recite Miranda rights despite being beaten right and good by a vampire.

The way the decapitated head kept talking was another clue.

Where it was done better: If you're going to monkey with Miranda, it begins and ends with 21 Jump Street.

Episode: Wes gets gut-shot by a zombie cop, and has to hole up in Anne's shelter while some more zombie cops storm the place.

To be fair, this was a pretty shocking moment.

Where it was done better: Well, if we're going for an injured Scooby in a house under siege, how's about this?

Xander's funny syphilis!

Or, if you prefer to focus on zombies attacking a house, we not only have this:

Ain't no party like a "Dead Man's Party."

But also, of course, this:

The classic.

Or Jesus, even this:

What I did like about the episode was the way that Gunn/Wesley/Cordelia worked one side of the zombie cop problem, while Angel worked the other, unknown to them, mostly by walking on a lot of rooftops. Which, as Jenn points out, we haven't seen in a while. They're getting closer to reconciling, methinks. But the audience is left with kind of an important question--what about the girl with the eye in the back of her head?

Pictured: A problem that doesn't seem that urgent.

The Dark Knight Rises: So You Say You Want a Revolution

Alisa has already provided an awesome and substantive review of The Dark Knight Rises, but I can't resist throwing my two cents in as well, mainly because watching the film left me with a lot of questions (which is a good thing). I'm going to attempt to remain as spoiler-free as possible, but I will be discussing plot points that the Frank Costanzas of the world (who want to go in FRESH!) would probably rather not know.

I was particularly struck by the way Bane appropriates the rhetoric and performance (using that word on purpose--more on that later) of revolution, particularly Occupy Wall Street and, even more so, the 1789 French Revolution. Having formed a cult of personality cum suicidal army, he announces his intentions to "give Gotham back to the people," and dismantle the power structures that depend upon exploitation and (explicitly) financial inequality in order to function. Prisons are stormed, homes are looted, kangaroo courts are convened to punish the wealthy and formerly powerful, and barricades are constructed in order to isolate, and ostensibly liberate, the city. But Bane isn't really a radical socialist. He's a tyrant wearing the mask of a revolutionary.

Whereas Heath Ledger's Joker (still the most compelling villain in the trilogy, if not in the whole of the cinematic superhero genre) fed on chaos, Bane is a deliberate and practiced deconstructionist. He wants to tear down the city not to see where the breaking points are, nor for the pleasure of watching it burn. He wants to take the pieces of Gotham and fashion something new--a prison that mirrors the dank dungeon that in many ways birthed him, and that he believes will "fulfill" the incomplete vision of his and Bruce Wayne's mentor, Ra's al Ghul. And deconstruction, after all, includes both the impulse to destroy and the directive to create. Bane's is a distorted and demented version of creation, but creation nonetheless. Similarly, Bane has created a body, voice, and posture that embody this project. He speaks and walks like an English lord but fights in a body that is in and of itself armored. (Hardy got huge, y'all.)

The trope of masking, both literal and figurative, is crucial to unpacking the politics of The Dark Knight Rises. Bane and Batman's masks are markers of their strength (Bane's is literally life-giving, Batman's allows him to protect those he cares about), and, for the same reasons, their physical and emotional vulnerability. Both masks get dismantled at key moments in the film for each character. But what the movie seems to argue is that the most dangerous and deceitful masks are the ones that you can't take off, that can't be broken. What the film categorizes as evil is the sort of disguise that seeps into the skin itself.

Which brings me to authority. In some ways, The Dark Knight Rises has a healthy conservative streak. The film's final epic battle scene (which is dazzling in its brutality) demonstrates a robust endorsement of civic institutions and a real mistrust of power outside the system. But then there's The Batman, who irrefutably does exert power on the margins. And I think it is the very portability of The Batman persona--the removable mask and cape--that excuses the character from the sort of chaotic power that all the films in the trilogy demonize. (And I believe that ultimately, the film argues that the authentic revolutionary spirit that animated the Occupy movement and the French Revolution is the "good" kind of power. I'm using a reading from a particular novel at a significant moment towards the end of the film for evidence.) And it is in that sort of fluid authority that we, the mere mortals, can place our faith. The human capacity for faith and belief is another pervasive and complicated theme in the film, and it is similarly portrayed as changeable, rooted in the evocativeness of a symbol, and as strong as the Batsuit itself.

"Crush" (Buffy 5.14): Spike's Got 99 Problems

And the bitches are like, #1-3. This is the episode where we get the big reveal re: Spike's feelings re: Buffy. And, as Jenn points out, the results are a bit underwhelming. So here's the meh Buffy guide to dealing with a love that ain't requited. Spoiler alert: Spike doesn't follow any of these rules.

DO try not to be too fucked up. And here's where Spike earns his first major fail. First of all, he dresses like a prepster doofus.

Are those khakis? I blame Riley.

Second of all, he engages in some utterly perverse role playing with Harmony.

Where has she been lately, anyway?

DON'T disregard the foreshadowing. Tara fulfills her usual role this season of being incredibly insightful, even when she doesn't know she's being insightful. (So is that just "sightful"? Whatever.) She might think she's discussing The Hunchback of Notre-Dame when she says that the love story would never work out because the hero acts out of selfishness and "you can tell it's not going to have a happy ending when the main guy's all bumpy,"  but methinks there is a second meaning there.

Oops.

DO avoid falling into bad patterns with old lovers. Dru takes a break from growing back her skin from the Angel flambe and makes a little trip to Sunny D. She wants to snag Spike for the Her and Darla Army (since Angel slaughtered the last group of recruits), and goads him into eating the recently dead female half of the, as Jenn points out, least sexy maker-outers ever seen in The Bronze.

It's like they're slow dancing in junior high.

And, if you are going to be fucked up, DON'T let the crazy show.

Pictured: Crazy showing.

DO take a hint. And this goes for Harm, too. Both Spike and Harmony love in a way that completely disregards not only the actions, but the actual articulated rejections of their crushes. Buffy basically dry heaves whenever Spike professes his love for her,

The expression everyone dreams of seeing when dropping the L-word.

and Spike, in turn, freaking tried to stake Harmony not that long ago.

Um, awww?

DON'T forget about the key. It's actually Dawn's crush, on Spike, that for me is what makes this episode relevant for the season and series. Buffy is revolted at her sister's fixation because Spike is a vampire without a soul.

Unlike this guy.

But Dawn's glib "same dif" when comparing Angel's soul to Spike's chip is pretty provocative. Does the prohibition against Spike's bloodlust give him the space to choose an ethical and human life? As Drusilla tells us, vampires can love, "quite well . . . if not wisely."

It's the line of the episode.

Let's keep an eye on this question, shall we? Is a soul materialistically ontological (you have one or you don't)? Or is it existential (about the choices a vampire makes)?

Adaptation Angst: Dracula

Frequent OMwG guest-blogger and full-time partner-in-crime Nat alerted me to this upcoming 10-hour adaptation of Dracula NBC is planning. Here, in no particular order, are the elements that give me pause:

• This quote: "This latest version of “Dracula” will be set in London in the 1890s, with the count transformed into an American businessman interested in bringing modern science to Victorian society." Um, what? I like that they're preserving Dracula's "otherness," as part of the power of the novel is how the supernatural count is used as a literalization of anxieties about Britishness intersecting with the foreign, but American? Not exactly a threatening alterity. And a businessman? Okay, if you're going to do some sort of bloodsucking capitalist thing, but what up with the "modern science" angle? It's not like Victorian society was, you know, unfamiliar with or disconnected from encroaching modernity.

• Jonathan Rhys Myers has been cast as Drac. Myers is cute and all, 

See?

BUT, I haven't seen him work the oily seductiveness you need for Dracula since Velvet Goldmine. True, I haven't seen The Tudors, but it seems Henry VIII has a different, shall we say, leadership style than the count?  As an aside, while researching this post (see what I do for you people?) I discovered today is his 35th birthday. No hard feelings and many happy returns, JRM!

• No one else has been cast yet. I'm seeing visions of Kelsey Grammar as Van Helsing and Miley Cyrus as Mina. 

Angst Level: 8

I've got Olympic FEVER!

I love the Olympics.  I try not to use the “L” word too much unless I mean it.  But in this case, it totally fits.  I LOVE THE OLYMPICS.  If not for my annual trek to San Diego every year for geek mecca, I would use my vacation days to stay home and watch as much Olympic coverage as possible.  I would set up all my TVs in one room and have each one set to one of NBC’s many channels covering events.  This is not to say I don’t burn out quickly but I always manage to stick it out to the less impressive closing ceremonies. 

Thankfully the coverage at NBC is pretty good.  They’ll let you know who won handball, who bounced around impressively on the trampoline, and if any weightlifting folks peed themselves that day.  Plus one can always rely on the interwebs to find just about anything Olympics-related.  My biggest problem?  Well that would be avoiding coverage during the day while I’m at work.  I’m usually pretty good at just checking in during my lunch break.  As soon as I’m home though, it’s all Olympics all the time.

I love the background stories telling us what hardships each athlete has had to overcome to reach this international competition.  The more emotional a story we get the better. Of course being in the U. S. of A. we tend to mostly get stories about American athletes.  However, I want to know more about the international athletes.  Sure, I’m desperate to know every blessed detail there is about Ryan Lochte.  Heck, I want to know more about that guy than he knows about himself. 

So I've been trolling the London Olympics page to see what I can find out about the non-US competitors.  Sadly not everyone has a paragraph describing life on a farm with at least one dead parent and/or 15 younger siblings to care for.  I found Oteng Oteng, a boxer from Botswana.  What’s his story?  What hardships has he overcome in life?  Where exactly is Botswana?  Oooh, how about purple-haired Phillip Boy from Germany?  He’s a gymnast and having purple hair makes him automatically interesting, right?  Will NBC tell me anything about him?  Is he a Katie Perry fan and is honoring her with his hair style?  Did you know there’s a trampolinist (is that a word?) from China, er, People’s Republic of China, named Dong Dong?  Hannah Storm should do a story on athletes with redundant names.  I bet there are more than just Dong Dong and Oteng Oteng.  Will they mention that there are 7 athletes named Li competing in table tennis?  Jiao Li (39) and Jie Li (28) are both from the Netherlands.  Are they related?  Will someone please tell me?!?!?! 

If ever there was a year that I wanted to go to the Olympics it was this year.  I love all things English and would have LOVED to be there for all the festivities.  I bet London is CRAZY right now.  Did you know my beloved Brits even have a sitcom about the team responsible for getting the city ready for the onslaught of Olympic hopefuls and fans?  It’s called Twenty Twelve and stars Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey and Jessica Hynes from Spaced (one of my other favorite British shows).  It’s funny and frustrating and I love that the Brits can make fun of themselves like that.

The opening ceremonies are tomorrow night.  Will you be watching?  Apparently they’re expecting no rain so I hope that’s true since the stadium has no roof.  Want to know who is expected to perform?  Too bad.  They’re keeping tight-lipped across the pond.  But BBC has some hints if you're interested.

The Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking, or, Shut the Hell Up, Michel Negroponte

I left New York yesterday with a lot of reluctance and a copy of Jupiter's Wife from the Jonathan Alexandratos Movies You've Never Heard Of Collection. I snagged it because the subject of the documentary--a homeless woman in Central Park who claims to be the wife of Jupiter, but also is remarkably articulate and well-read amongst all the crazy--sounded intriguing. I did not select it because I was interested in what narrative director and voiceover narrator, Michel Negroponte, might impose over Maggie's own voice and story. Too bad it ended up shaking out to about 60% the former, 40% the latter.

The elements of the documentary that follow Maggie as she and her pack of dogs navigate the city, charm powerful strangers (including the director, but also a wealthy Upper East Side maven), and reveal a past both groundbreaking and heartbreaking, are pretty fabulous. And I understand that it was Negroponte who does the legwork to fill in the blanks of the "haunting real-life mystery" of Maggie's actual past, so he probably deserves a substantial presence in the film. But what bothered me was the way he seemed to co-author Maggie's understanding and articulation of her present.

As evidenced by the film's title, Maggie is fascinated by Roman mythology, and her disease (probably schizophrenia) partially manifests through layering the stories of the gods over figures and events in her own life that are, for various reasons, intolerable to her. This palimpsest is, as to be expected, incomplete and incoherent as a personal system of meaning. But almost as if to force this desperate and disordered psychic strategy into a stable narrative, Negroponte extends the metaphor through his voiceover, and connects different elements and people in Maggie's life to other elements of Roman mythology (deeming Central Park "Avernus," for example) in a way that felt not just obtrusive but proprietary and unethical. Maggie's way of understanding her world, distorted and delusional as it may be, is and should remain hers alone. Negroponte stumbled, quite literally, across this compelling figure and chose not to let the film follow where she might lead (as chaotic, but also as beautiful, as that might have been), but instead shaped the movie into a mystery he would solve, which necessitates casting Maggie as a puzzle, not a damaged human being.

This to me is worse than another documentarian pet peeve--the propensity to know what story you're going to tell before you start to tell it. (Looking at you, Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock). Even if I agree with the ultimate argument made by such films (still looking at Moore and Spurlock), one of the things I love about documenatries is the way a director's sense of discovery and possibility can become a joint experience with the audience. You know, I don't think anyone was shocked to learn that McDonald's is bad for you, though watching Spurlock prove that was undeniably entertaining.

I think an instructive point of comparison for Jupiter's Wife is my man Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. The latter film also features Herzog serendipitously discovering a subject fascinating in his bizarreness, Tim Treadwell, a frustrated and lost man who compulsively films himself living amongst wild grizzly bears in Alaska, with which he imagines a mystical communion. Herzog maintains a strong presence in the film, narrating and documenting his intersection with Treadwell's life. But he never tries to explain or appropriate his subject's personal mythology (which makes about as much sense as thinking you're married to Jupiter--trust me). Instead, his narration becomes a conversation with his absent subject, an invitation to the audience to take Treadwell seriously as an autonomous individual worthy of respect despite his self-destructive mania, modeled through Herzog's baffled but curious and compassionate commentary. Jupiter's Wife would have benefited from the same sort of approach. Why can't Werner Herzog just direct everything?

The Dark Knight Rises

Now that was a good movie. I didn't love it as much as I loved The Dark Knight but that would be pretty impossible.  I think what I did love most about this film is how it built on the previous two.  It incorporated characters and stories from its predecessors, which really gave it a feeling of a trilogy. They tackled the legacy left by Harvey Dent.  Characters from Batman Begins (yay Scarecrow!) and The Dark Knight appeared along with the introduction of Bane, Catwoman and the real protagonist of the movie, the child of Ra's al Ghul.  But to discuss the latter would get all spoilery for those who haven't seen it.  Also spoilery would be to discuss Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Blake, so I won't go there.  But I will say...I SO TOTALLY CALLED IT RIGHT AWAY.  I managed to avoid any and all discussions on the net about whether that character was in the movie so I was glad to see they went there.   

So the story...Batman has been in hiding for 8 years due to taking the blame for the murder of Harvey Dent.  Of course we (and Commissioner Gordon) know the truth.  Actually now that I think about the plot, it's a bit heavy and contrived as far as the bad guys go.  It was kind of a shell game as to who was really the biggest bad in the movie.  First there's the literal big, bad Bane. Bane seems to answer to this one thug who answers to this dude on the Board of Wayne Enterprises who wants to take control of said company.  Well that's not the case at all and the person orchestrating things is supposed to be a bit of a surprise so I'm not going to go there.  Bane takes over and wants to be the speaker for the 99%. He manages to shows us just what would happen if we took down the detested 1%.  However I didn't see much spreading of the wealth after the upper class were tried and inevitably exiled from New Gotham.

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne decides to put his trust in two of Gotham's hottest.  One is Selina Kyle, master cat burglar, who he knows deep down has some good in her.  I just want to say I loved the way they gave her the cat ears.  Clever, clever, clever!  The other is Miranda Tate, a wealthy do-gooder who Bruce puts in charge of Wayne Enterprises.  Silly Bruce, never trust women with agendas. 

Bane breaks Batman's back and then leaves him in the prison where Bane spent his formative years.  Bruce has to get better so he can travel back to Gotham to save the city he loves.  Or loves to hate.  Or hates to love. Meanwhile the cops are no help ("It's a TRAP!") except for Gordon and Blake.  Seriously, I'd want Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in charge of my city.  It was nice to see police officers not behave like the Keystone Cops for once.

Lots of death and destruction aside, I really dug how things played out in TDKR.  The plot moved along at a good pace and at 164 minutes it could have lagged at any number of points.  And somehow they managed to insert some emotion into the story too.  Bruce is all sorts of upset about how things turned out when he was only trying to help.  He lost the love of his life (Rachel) and took the blame for a murder he didn't commit just so the city would have a hero to look up to.  I also liked the twist that harkened back to Batman Begins and his mentor from the League of Shadows, Ra's al Ghul.  They really managed to tie things up nicely in what turned out to be one of the best trilogies ever. 

I really don't have much else to say.  The acting was spot-on by all involved. Tom Hardy was great as the brainy and brawny Bane.  Anne Hathaway was delicious as Catwoman.  She managed to give her a fragility that's come off as comical in the past.  Bale was great as usual as the tortured hero.  He's able to seem tormented without whining about it and that's appreciated.  The effects, both practical and special, were great.  There maybe was a hair too much on the destruction side but audiences love explosions so I can't fault them for that. 

I'm definitely going to see this again.  What did you guys think?