Explore and film
Sep. 7th, 2012 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethEmployee helped me check out the new building for college next week. It has new signs on it declaring it the Higher Education center or something like that. It also had a broken lift and a broken loo. And only pork sandwiches in the cafe bit. I am thus far unimpressed. Though on enquiring we were assured that once term starts properly there will be more food. Cheese sandwiches and salad. Joy. Also discovered that the nice chairs are not for taking drinks to even though they are right next to the drink selling place. That's just handy. The library substitute will order books in for collection. And the classroom for monday has a lot of computers, probably one per student. I'll bring mine anyway.
So then we walked from the new studying place up to the bus stop, which means going past Inanna's Festival and The Book Hive, and very close to Waterstones. After that I wanted to sit down but there were many more people in Norwich trying to sit down than there were chairs. Ended up all the way up at the library.
Then I decided to watch The Dark Knight Rises.
... I got bored.
For spoilery discussion
Was that supposed to be a twist? They stopped and explained it all as if it were a shocking twist. But in order to be a twist there has to be an alternate way to read all the other stuff, and ... no. I spent the entire movie waiting for Bruce to stop being a dumbass. Granted he was in the story and therefore his world has more than two women in it so he doesn't know how limited their roles will be, but, seriously, I didn't for a moment doubt she was the big bad. Which makes the film very boring indeed.
(No I read no spoilers, not a single review, hadn't heard anything about it. No prior knowledge, wasn't consciously applying comics. I've just watched a lot of movies, and hello, I know how this one goes.)
Bruce is pretty damn boring.
Also, not Batman.
I won't buy the basic premise. 8 years later and he's given up being Batman that whole time? That isn't Batman. Tragedy does not stop him. Nothing stops him. He's Batman. He can breathe in space. Dude does not curl up and do the recluse thing.
I managed the first bit of the movie by just taking it as an AU of what happens to Bats without Robins. Grim dark loser.
So Joseph Gordon Levitt was playing way the most interesting character for ages. ... actually, just the most interesting character. He was set up as Robin waaaaaaay before that name came up, he had that find out his real ID, orphan, get him back into the mission thing. And kicked all the arse. But because not a Name, no knowing for sure how it would work out, so could feel jeopardy.
Bane breaking the Bat... that is such a waste of the image. I mean, I know Batman got better in the books too, but he didn't do it by willpower in a stupid training sequence while everyone just kind of waited for him to get up.
Boring.
And what was Bruce's problem anyway? I mean, he lurks on rooftops in a non Bat capacity and does nothing for years because... what? Grief? That isn't what grief does to Batman.
What was it he was supposed to get over to get the cape back?
I don't even know, and I just watched the stupid film.
Angsty white rich guy is angsty. But no longer rich. So he fakes his own death.
That ending was so cheap. I mean, it's all 'hey audience, have feelings! oops, no, psych!'. And if you just read it as Bruce faking his death, why did he do that to his friends? The only meaning I got out of it was to make Alfred really sorry. It's a total you'll miss me when I'm gone move. Blah.
no, really, why would Bruce do that?
at that point he'd lost all his money, but there was a chance of proving fraud, right? his company would have, er, just a few difficulties, what with the big kaboom they built, but bailing out would not help with that. So all he did was leave scraps where he could have rebuilt and kept helping.
Oh, wait, I forgot, this guy hadn't been helping, this guy was a big stupid moping guy instead.
Not. Batman.
I did like the bit with the medical consequences of all the kicking.
I did not like the bit where he shrugged it off with willpower.
There were two women in this film. And that dude's wife for like three seconds. Everyone else was men. As far as I could see, that includes all the police. All. In the whole city. :-pppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
Catwoman... was boring. A clean slate? Really?
Bane's plan was elegant with the exploding concrete and the shut in police and the making the city cooperate by making them think they'll survive.
But then it kept going and going and going and going and... seriously, we're to believe that the only one who can make a difference was Batman? For that matter, we're to believe the only organised people in the city are the police? Once the scale goes that big it loses me. There's too many things that have to not happen to keep the story tense.
I think I'm just done with these exercises in 'wait for the rich white guy to save us'.
When you have Batman and Nightwing and Batgirl and Oracle and Robin and Robin and Robin and Robin then it's a totally different message. You don't have to wait. You just have to train.
When Batman is all Lone Dark Grim then oops, sorry, there's only one important person in the world and it'll never be you.
To be fair the whole Robin subplot was doing exactly what I just complained about, that's just a random guy who steps up.
But I'm grumpy and was quite bored for quite long and... seriously, we get Catwoman but no Batgirl? And not even a very good Catwoman, a manipulated and outsmarted Catwoman who makes a difference because Batman handed her some kit. Her only agenda is to stop being herself? Say what? Kicking does not a strong character make, and she did not have any of her own strong. Also, when Bruce listed the reasons for living in a crappy flat after stealing lots of money, he didn't mention the Robin Hood. Would it be so hard to have her be the one helping people after he's given up? But no.
Movies keep giving us victims, backstabbers, and bad girls.
I want to be the big damn hero for once!
Is that so hard?
Oh, wait, what was the other movie I saw at the cinema this summer? That Avengers thing. Where Black Widow saves the world. Because she kicks just that much arse. And outsmarts the smart man, reading the truth from the god of lies. And rescues her... whatever Clint is, I don't know, her damsel for that movie.
You know what I want to do right now?
I do not want to go rewatch the Batman films.
I want my Avengers.
Batman: FAIL.
So, bored and a teensy bit cranky.
On the plus side I remembered to ask if I can have disabled ticket + carer goes free even without the CEA card, and I can has, and they gave me paperwork for the CEA card for next time. So I didn't pay much for boring movie that makes me more bored the more I think about it.
next I will think of something to eat and attempt to spend no more brain space on boring Batman movie.
:-p
So then we walked from the new studying place up to the bus stop, which means going past Inanna's Festival and The Book Hive, and very close to Waterstones. After that I wanted to sit down but there were many more people in Norwich trying to sit down than there were chairs. Ended up all the way up at the library.
Then I decided to watch The Dark Knight Rises.
... I got bored.
For spoilery discussion
Was that supposed to be a twist? They stopped and explained it all as if it were a shocking twist. But in order to be a twist there has to be an alternate way to read all the other stuff, and ... no. I spent the entire movie waiting for Bruce to stop being a dumbass. Granted he was in the story and therefore his world has more than two women in it so he doesn't know how limited their roles will be, but, seriously, I didn't for a moment doubt she was the big bad. Which makes the film very boring indeed.
(No I read no spoilers, not a single review, hadn't heard anything about it. No prior knowledge, wasn't consciously applying comics. I've just watched a lot of movies, and hello, I know how this one goes.)
Bruce is pretty damn boring.
Also, not Batman.
I won't buy the basic premise. 8 years later and he's given up being Batman that whole time? That isn't Batman. Tragedy does not stop him. Nothing stops him. He's Batman. He can breathe in space. Dude does not curl up and do the recluse thing.
I managed the first bit of the movie by just taking it as an AU of what happens to Bats without Robins. Grim dark loser.
So Joseph Gordon Levitt was playing way the most interesting character for ages. ... actually, just the most interesting character. He was set up as Robin waaaaaaay before that name came up, he had that find out his real ID, orphan, get him back into the mission thing. And kicked all the arse. But because not a Name, no knowing for sure how it would work out, so could feel jeopardy.
Bane breaking the Bat... that is such a waste of the image. I mean, I know Batman got better in the books too, but he didn't do it by willpower in a stupid training sequence while everyone just kind of waited for him to get up.
Boring.
And what was Bruce's problem anyway? I mean, he lurks on rooftops in a non Bat capacity and does nothing for years because... what? Grief? That isn't what grief does to Batman.
What was it he was supposed to get over to get the cape back?
I don't even know, and I just watched the stupid film.
Angsty white rich guy is angsty. But no longer rich. So he fakes his own death.
That ending was so cheap. I mean, it's all 'hey audience, have feelings! oops, no, psych!'. And if you just read it as Bruce faking his death, why did he do that to his friends? The only meaning I got out of it was to make Alfred really sorry. It's a total you'll miss me when I'm gone move. Blah.
no, really, why would Bruce do that?
at that point he'd lost all his money, but there was a chance of proving fraud, right? his company would have, er, just a few difficulties, what with the big kaboom they built, but bailing out would not help with that. So all he did was leave scraps where he could have rebuilt and kept helping.
Oh, wait, I forgot, this guy hadn't been helping, this guy was a big stupid moping guy instead.
Not. Batman.
I did like the bit with the medical consequences of all the kicking.
I did not like the bit where he shrugged it off with willpower.
There were two women in this film. And that dude's wife for like three seconds. Everyone else was men. As far as I could see, that includes all the police. All. In the whole city. :-pppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
Catwoman... was boring. A clean slate? Really?
Bane's plan was elegant with the exploding concrete and the shut in police and the making the city cooperate by making them think they'll survive.
But then it kept going and going and going and going and... seriously, we're to believe that the only one who can make a difference was Batman? For that matter, we're to believe the only organised people in the city are the police? Once the scale goes that big it loses me. There's too many things that have to not happen to keep the story tense.
I think I'm just done with these exercises in 'wait for the rich white guy to save us'.
When you have Batman and Nightwing and Batgirl and Oracle and Robin and Robin and Robin and Robin then it's a totally different message. You don't have to wait. You just have to train.
When Batman is all Lone Dark Grim then oops, sorry, there's only one important person in the world and it'll never be you.
To be fair the whole Robin subplot was doing exactly what I just complained about, that's just a random guy who steps up.
But I'm grumpy and was quite bored for quite long and... seriously, we get Catwoman but no Batgirl? And not even a very good Catwoman, a manipulated and outsmarted Catwoman who makes a difference because Batman handed her some kit. Her only agenda is to stop being herself? Say what? Kicking does not a strong character make, and she did not have any of her own strong. Also, when Bruce listed the reasons for living in a crappy flat after stealing lots of money, he didn't mention the Robin Hood. Would it be so hard to have her be the one helping people after he's given up? But no.
Movies keep giving us victims, backstabbers, and bad girls.
I want to be the big damn hero for once!
Is that so hard?
Oh, wait, what was the other movie I saw at the cinema this summer? That Avengers thing. Where Black Widow saves the world. Because she kicks just that much arse. And outsmarts the smart man, reading the truth from the god of lies. And rescues her... whatever Clint is, I don't know, her damsel for that movie.
You know what I want to do right now?
I do not want to go rewatch the Batman films.
I want my Avengers.
Batman: FAIL.
So, bored and a teensy bit cranky.
On the plus side I remembered to ask if I can have disabled ticket + carer goes free even without the CEA card, and I can has, and they gave me paperwork for the CEA card for next time. So I didn't pay much for boring movie that makes me more bored the more I think about it.
next I will think of something to eat and attempt to spend no more brain space on boring Batman movie.
:-p