10th Anniversary

Christopher Nolan's 2008 mega success about Batman's attempts to defeat a criminal mastermind known only as the Joker.
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Cilogy wrote:
January 24th, 2018, 2:03 am
Good time for everyone to switch to 4K.

This film finally looks acceptable on home video.
It was incredibly ugly on Blu; is the switch to 4k so significant that it makes TDK pristine?

I'd consider the upgrade only if.

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Yes, 100%.

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Dear God.... it’s been 10 years.

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darkest_knight wrote:
February 1st, 2018, 1:39 am
Dear God.... it’s been 10 years.
that's what i said on my 10th birthday.

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There should be some kind of event with Nolan and cast & crew, like when Nolan was on the panel for Heat and was talking to its director & cast.

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Anniversary Edition ;)

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Esquire: 10 Years On, 'The Dark Knight' Has A Lot To Answer For

How one film taught an entire genre to take itself far, far too seriously

https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/film ... nswer-for/

Ten years on, and The Dark Knight is still the benchmark; the superhero movie directors are desperate to live up to or rebel against.

It changed the game back in 2008. Plagued by paranoia and ethical impasse, Christopher Nolan’s gloomy Batman sequel was lauded as the first ‘post-9/11’ blockbuster. For the first time in a long time, a super hero film was actually taking itself seriously. It won two Academy Awards and made a bona fide legend of the late Heath Ledger, whose depiction of the Joker was widely championed as one of the greatest villains in cinema history.

But above all, it ushered in a tsunami of big screen comic book adaptations that still shows no sign of rolling back. For that, it can never truly be forgiven. There have been 40-odd superhero movies released over the past decade, and that is obviously far, far too many superhero movies. Even Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher and co-writer of The Dark Knight, thinks that the "glut" should come to an end. "I certainly hope we get sick of comic book movies at some point," he told Digital Spy earlier this year. " I'm not terribly sure how well that genre will age. There's some weird subconscious stuff informing a bunch of actors dressing up in tights beating the crap out of people."

There's still such an appetite for comic book adaptations that even Ant-Man – Ant-Man! – got the treatment eventually. But the worst of it came in the summer of 2016, when the true victims of The Dark Knight’s inescapable legacy stepped up to bat.

We’re talking about Jared Leto and Ben Affleck.

Both actors were coming off the back of huge wins when they entered the DC cinematic universe. Affleck had earned plaudits for Gone Girl and Argo, while Leto recently bagged an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his role as a transgender woman in 2014’s Dallas Buyers Club.

Still, even in that kind of afterglow, it was ballsy of Leto to take on the Joker in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. It was widely seen as an impossible task, or at least a thankless one. Nobody disputed his ability, but how could he top Heath Ledger? The Australian actor’s Oscar-winning performance and untimely death had seemingly, charitably, put the Crown Prince to rest once and for all.

Most actors would shy away from such a challenge, but Leto – with the matchless confidence of a man who wears capes and ages backwards – had the perfect solution…
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He got the word “Damaged” tattooed on his forehead.

And why not? As the old acting adage goes: show and tell. It was just one of many ™-able tatts scrawled over Leto’s body in the film’s pre-release promo shots, alongside a neon green dye job and some overzealous fillings.

If the new-look Joker already felt like the most exasperating villain in cinema history, then stories leaking out of production only confirmed it. Leto’s infamous method acting process led him to play endless pranks on his co-stars, like that guy you flat out refuse to share a room with on a Faliraki stag-do.

Suicide Squad got the trashing it deserved upon release – and while Leto was widely commended for trying really, really hard, it was still the contrived, cringe-worthy Joker everyone expected. Director David Ayer was clearly inspired by Ledger's performance, but could only muster a kooky, cackling caricature. It didn’t help that Leto's dialogue solely consisted of toothless threats and the kind of lines you'd usually find on office coffee mugs (“If you weren’t so crazy, I’d think you were insane!” etc, etc).

Ben Affleck’s portrayal of the Joker's arch-nemesis in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn’t fare much better amongst critics. Early promo shots – showing our hero sulking at the pavement, too-old-for-this-shit stubble sprouting out of his cowl – indicated that director Zac Snyder's reboot was sticking to the gritty path laid out by Christopher Nolan.

The film bombed, and The Dark Knight is mostly to blame for that. Not just because Dawn of Justice was terrible by comparison, but because Nolan clearly inspired its worst qualities. Bat-fleck’s world is a relentlessly grim, nihilistic and joyless one. The bloated storyline tries to pitch profound moral quandaries at every turn, like The Dark Knight, but the only shades of grey Snyder can provide are the relentlessly dour backdrops of neo-noir Gotham.

Like Suicide Squad and many franchises that drew influence from Christopher Nolan's masterpiece a decade ago, DoJ took the film at face value and confused darkness for deepness. Can big-screen Batman eventually escape the shadow of The Dark Knight? Not as long as directors keep paying tribute to it, that's for sure.

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Polygon: We will never see a movie like The Dark Knight again
On the film’s 10th anniversary, Polygon looks back at the staying power of Christopher Nolan’s Bat-sequel
Smacking his lips from across the interrogation table, makeup smearing his face like acid wash, The Joker takes an existential swipe at Batman halfway through Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and leaves a scar. “I know the truth,” he blabbers. “There’s no going back. You’ve changed things ... forever.”

Shrouded by an iconic cowl, The Dark Knight’s version of Batman fights the blight eroding his world, Gotham City, by breaking the laws he vowed to protect. The Joker catches him in the paradox, and paints a picture of a world still festering. There are violent Batman imitators. There are “freaks” spawning each day. There’s the establishment, supposedly on his side, but righteous and ready to stab him in the back. Batman can try to be above it all, but in the end, his actions will have consequences.

At the time of the film’s release, Nolan told the L.A. Times that the interrogation scene was “so important and so central” to his vision, and one of the first scenes he and his co-writer/brother Jonathan Nolan needed to crack to understand how the rest of the movie should play out. Today the scene plays like a self-reflexive confession: As Batman and the Joker’s clash over the transformative power of extremism, Nolan seems aware of what he’s getting away with, and what impact his finished film could have on Hollywood. Nolan came to IP-driven blockbustering as a Batman, a determined defender of The Good Ol’ Days who had the fancy toys and symbolic mask to fly high. The Dark Knight challenged expectations, and as we know now, 10 years later, changed things ... forever. But could it help the industry revert to normalcy? Could anything ever replace The Dark Knight?
(continue reading here)

https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/16/17574 ... t-10-years

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10th anniversary today!!! Thought about a lot since TDK was released, love you all and all the memories I made with y'all.

Hope you're doing great! <3

To 10 more years, cheers.

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