Summer Blockbusters… and I miss Heath Ledger already

written by: Allison, who else here would miss Heath Ledger

As the critics and those with “the trained eye” have said -Heath Ledger’s performance in Batman, The Dark Knight, was amazing. I’ve loved him since his first movie that I remember, interestingly enough titled, A Knight’s Tale.
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With Christian Bale as Batman (after his first role as Batman in the 2005 Batman Begins) and Morgan Freeman’s dry yet comforting soul and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the female in the love triangle, this film really had it all. It was everything they said it would be.

I don’t want to give away the movie, that is not my purpose here, if you want to know the details call me or Google it for yourself or go buy a $10 ticket , $6 popcorn and a $4 2-gallon diet coke and sit back and feel the darkness that is The Dark Knight.

Warner Bros. initially created their viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screen shots of Heath Ledger as the Joker. After Ledger’s death in January 2008, however, the studio refocused its promotional campaign. 

Before I saw the movie I saw my brother’s friend wearing this shirt:
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I did not know what it meant until I saw the movie. In this politically and emotionally charged election year, an image like that could mean anything. And maybe, just maybe, that was the idea. Maybe a fictitious character is better than the real-life options…. but I am  not saying anything. I pay for my $4 per gallon gas once a week like everyone else.

The Dark Knight was long, almost 3 hours but it never felt like a 3 hour movie – I just wanted it to keep going!

I love that people can get lost in a story and focus on the big screen for a few hours, its as if everyone in the theater is part of a family that is all entangled in watching the same drama unfold before our eyes.

As far as summer movies go, I’m pretty caught up on them all, we’ve seen just about one movie every weekend for the past few months. That is a ton of movies I realize, but its also a great way to beat the heat for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. I could do a write-up for tons of movies, from What Happens in Vegas with Ashton and Cameron to Iron Man, Hancock, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Wanted (awesome flick), Indiana Jones –Part 4 lol and of course Sex and The City. I saw that on a sneak preview (free tickets!) with my friends before the rest of the world even saw it.

Sometimes watching movies, especially ones like this – not comic book movies – but good guy vs. bad guy – or a movie like Wanted  (with Angelina) it makes me wish I was part of something BIGGER.  I have a proclivity to be caught up in the emotion of the movie… and no, it doesn’t make me want to rob a bank, maybe I just want a little drama in my life. But honestly, we have enough drama dealing with our typical day-to-day activities. Sometimes I want to feel like I am part of something bigger, and then I have to tell myself that I am part of something big. We won’t know how big for many years  now, that’s all. Basically life is what you make it ~ if you want it to be big it will ~ but not by sitting on the couch LOL.

Now obviously Angelina won’t come whizzing by, and pick me up and put me in some high-speed car chase with rapid gun fire, and I am not going to buy an old car that is actually a transformer that was sent to save the earth, but for 2 hours a week, its nice to watch it happen.