Posts with tag HeathLedger
Posted Aug 18th 2008 9:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Johnny Depp, Fan Rant
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While Heath Ledger's role as Joker in
The Dark Knight might go down as his last (and greatest) complete role, technically his final performance will come in Terry Gilliam's
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. In a weird way it's almost fitting that
Gilliam -- who's been cursed for years now -- would wind up being the filmmaker to last work with Ledger. Not only has Ledger's next-to-last film broken almost every box office record to date, but folks are so afraid of a Gilliam flick that even
with the marketing machine that is the death of
Heath Ledger, Hollywood still doesn't want to go near
Dr. Parnassus.
A story in
The Hollywood Reporter last week claims Ledger could be in a "position of having one of the biggest- grossing movies in Hollywood history out at the same time he's in a movie hunting for an domestic distribution deal." And the scary part of this is that when Ledger passed away, Hollywood heavyweights like Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell stepped in to finish the film for their deceased friend. With ALL THAT, it's still a risky movie to get behind. One "distribution guru" added, "For all the elements in this film, it is a Terry Gilliam picture, and as much as you want a movie of his to be good, you have to be careful." Poor Gilliam ... the guy just can't catch a break.
Well, unless you
want to see
Dr. Parnassus. Wouldn't it be kinda spooky if one death helped revive another's career? If we, as an audience, had the ability to choose between the doom and gloom of mourning an actor's death or the light and joy that comes with helping a beloved filmmaker get back on track?
Continue reading Fan Rant: We Want to See Heath Ledger's Last Film!
Posted Aug 12th 2008 10:02PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Obits, Cinematical Seven, Lists
For me, it started with the deaths of comedic greats like Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason. Death had become real and tangible, making the world and showbusiness finite. Since then, the numbers have gradually increased. We're slowly walking into the period where memorials and tributes aren't relegated to actors before our time, but to the names and faces that shaped our views of entertainment -- the people who we have spent so much time with on the big screen, and within the comfort of our own homes.
But we're not just losing people to age. 2008 has been a heavy year for Hollywood, losing both rising stars and big names with long careers. Considering the fact that we just lost two more, I wanted to take a moment and look back at this year's shockers. Some of these men were young, some of these men were older, but all of them have left this earth too soon.
Continue reading Cinematical Seven: Seven Men Gone Too Soon
Posted Aug 8th 2008 10:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Warner Brothers, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images
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If you thought that
Heath Ledger's Glasgow grin in
The Dark Knight was gruesome, consider that it may have actually been
tame. Peter over at
/film has scanned in a bunch of images from
the making-of book, and they illustrate a few of the early Joker ideas that were created in pre-production, before Ledger was cast (check out a couple in the gallery below, and more over at Slash).
It's always fascinating to see how a character came to be, particularly one that's proving to be as iconic as Ledger's joker. The facial scars were apparently decided on quite early, with varying degrees of severity, but the spiky hair was an interesting choice. I remember there was a lot of complaining initially about Ledger's long and "greasy" hair, but I prefer it to the short and spiky look, which says Mark McGrath more than clown-faced madman. I have no idea how much Ledger brought to the table in terms of his look, and it doesn't sound like that's mentioned in the book, either. Creepy stuff -- frankly, if this is how dark Christopher Nolan's team can go, I can't wait to see what they could do with a new villain altogether.
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Posted Aug 1st 2008 10:02PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: Action, Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Oscar Watch, Fan Rant
An editorialist named Eric P. Lucas says in Friday's
Los Angeles Times that since
Heath Ledger's death was the result of his own recklessness, he therefore should not win an Oscar for his performance in
The Dark Knight.
"It's time to stop the canonization of Heath Ledger," Lucas
begins. "He's just a pretty good actor who did away with himself and broke the hearts of his family and friends, and he shouldn't get an Academy Award to memorialize his death. ... Each year more than 100,000 Americans die of alcohol or drug abuse. It would be madness to commemorate one such death with the greatest honor in cinema. Please give the Academy Award to someone who's had the courage to stick around."
Lucas asserts that Ledger's performance isn't all that great anyway -- "a can-can dance of snuffling pseudo-psychopathia," he calls it -- but that's irrelevant to his larger point. It would seem that even if Ledger's Joker truly did represent the finest acting of the year, his personal behavior should disqualify him from Oscar consideration.
To Lucas I say this: Wanna watch me make this pencil disappear?
I actually agree with a lot of what he writes about how certain people's drug- or alcohol-fueled deaths make them more iconic than they would have been otherwise. Did Kurt Cobain's suicide rob my generation of its greatest poet? Nah. I think the only group that really suffered a major loss when Cobain died was the heroin industry. And I think it's silly when people talk about getting emotional when they see Ledger in
The Dark Knight, as if the death of someone they never met still makes them misty-eyed all these months later. So let it not be said that I am not a heartless bastard.
Continue reading Fan Rant: Ledger's Drug Use Has No Place in Oscar Talk
Posted Jul 29th 2008 1:03PM by Cinematical staff
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Obits
By: Kim Voynar (original publish date: January 22, 2008)(With the Cine-staff off on a late-July mini-vacation, we thought it'd be fun to bring you some of our favorite pieces from months past. This would probably rank among our LEAST favorite stories of all time, but it certainly was a memorable one.)
Cinematical's staff would like to take a moment to share our thoughts on Heath Ledger, who passed away today after an apparent overdose.Although Heath Ledger's best known film to date is
Brokeback Mountain, my favorite of his films was
Candy, in which he starred opposite fellow Australian Abbie Cornish. His performance in
Candy, as an artist and heroin addict in a mutually destructive relationship with Cornish's nice middle-class girl, was so riveting and raw, and it's one of those fest films that I've thought about often since I saw it. Like most everyone who's here working Sundance, I was deeply shocked by the news of his tragic death today. He touched us through his films, and we are saddened by the loss of his life, and the films he would have made in the future. His family, especially his young daughter Matilda, will be in our thoughts and prayers.
-Kim Voynar
My original feeling about Heath Ledger -- after films like
The Patriot,
A Knight's Tale, and
10 Things I Hate About You -- was that he was yet another handsome and likable matinee idol ... but not much more than that. But over the last several years, I was proven wrong ... several times. My favorite performance of his was the lead role in the underrated
Casanova -- and I'll be giving that film a second spin as soon as I get home from Sundance. He was a very fine actor who clearly took a lot of pride in his work, and I believe that the movie world has just lost a good soul. My heart goes out to his friends, his family, his fans, and also to the departed Heath Ledger; (If his death is ruled a suicide) I'm deeply sorry that he was so unhappy. (Regardless of the reason for the actor's death, it's a stunning tragedy.)
-Scott Weinberg
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Continue reading A Look Back: Cinematical Remembers Heath Ledger
Posted Jul 23rd 2008 9:32PM by Eric Kohn
Filed under: Action, Drama, Casting, New Releases, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Columns
Look, I thought The Dark Knight had a lot of strong selling points: Combine a deft pace with thoughtful characterizations and a whopping IMAX design that turns the entire experience into a plot-driven theme park ride, and you've got one hefty dose of Batman adrenaline.
Still, comparisons to The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn't foolproof -- in fact, no single movie in history is foolproof. The subjective experience of movie watching ensures that nothing can be universally liked by everyone, and rules of civility insist that humanity respect that truism. It's acceptable to feel passionately about a great work of art, and defend that perspective with rigorous argumentation, but much of the outrage over the minority perspective that The Dark Knight isn't any good has made such practical thinking impossible.
Deemed the first critic to pan the movie, New York's David Edelstein went out of his way to list the allegations against him sent along by various Batman fans. The House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, meanwhile, fielded over a hundred rants in the comments section following his astute critique of director Christopher Nolan's questionable portrayals of violence. What's particularly shocking about this frightful deluge of negative responses is that many of these people began posting their disapproval before they even saw the movie.
Continue reading Fan Rant: Critics of 'The Dark Knight' Are Allowed to Hate
Posted Jul 17th 2008 10:32PM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Noir, Warner Brothers, Theatrical Reviews, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Right about here is where all the gushing and excitement and enthusiasm should begin, because I'll tell you right off the "bat" that Christopher Nolan's
The Dark Knight is cause for celebration indeed. But then you'll figure out -- after only one sentence -- that I pretty much loved this movie, and then you'll head off to another, more unpredictable film critic. But it's the
WHY that interests me so much. What I enjoyed about
Iron Man,
The Incredible Hulk, and
Hellboy 2 could probably be covered in one lengthy -- and inevitably nerd-tastic -- conversation between the two of us. But
The Dark Knight... Well, clearly we're approaching a whole new level here.
Several of the pre-release gushings are accurate. Some say "Scorsesian" and others reference Michael Mann. Many spend paragraphs on the (truly amazing) penultimate performance by Heath Ledger, while others will revel in the grown-up tone or epic scope of the film. What amazed me most about
The Dark Knight, among several things, is that the flick's got more layers than an onion farm -- and yet it never loses touch with the idea of FUN. True that we're talking about a comic book fun that's decidedly more melancholy than the cinematic exploits of The Marvel Gang, but dang if
TDK isn't supremely satisfying for about a dozen different reasons.
Continue reading Review: The Dark Knight -- Scott's Take
Posted Jul 15th 2008 12:03PM by Eric Kohn
Filed under: Action, Casting, New Releases, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Obits, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Stars in Rewind
In the last twenty-four hours alone, countless news articles have compared the late
Heath Ledger to
James Dean. Of course it helps that the two actors -- whose careers lie fifty years apart -- bear physical resemblances to each other. The real reason for the frequency of the comparison, however, revolves around the possibility that Ledger, like Dean, might end up with a posthumous Oscar nomination.
Other than Dean, whose death in a 1955 car accident was preceded by two nominations back-to-back, six actors have landed the distinction -- but only one,
Peter Finch, actually won (for
Network in 1976). However, Ledger is now perceived an actor who possessed a potential he never quite realized, while Dean was already an icon by the time of his death (and he still didn't win the prize). If Ledger gets nominated for his performance as the Joker in
The Dark Knight, the award will also acknowledge the great career that never was. Dean surely would have followed
Giant with other wonderful performances, but his brief filmography also allowed the actor to reach a level of prestige that Ledger would have needed a few more movies to attain. So does this comparison really hold up?
The media certainly seems to think so. "L
ike Dean, he could endure as a mythic figure of talent silenced before his time," writes the AP. "People are aflutter over seeing the final performance of a new James Dean,"
reports The Huffington Post. " One quality that Ledger and Dean did share is rapid growth,"
notes the Baltimore Sun.Continue reading Discuss: Heath Ledger and James Dean
Posted Jul 14th 2008 10:03PM by James Rocchi
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Noir, Warner Brothers, Theatrical Reviews, Comic/Superhero/Geek
The pop-culture appetite for Batman seems inexhaustible; thousands of comic books, several movies, endless animated iterations, some of which are quite good and some of which are rather bad. Is there any real need to return to the character beyond the profit motive, though? After the financial and critical success of
Batman Begins, the powers-that-be behind
The Dark Knight could have made a safe bet of a sequel; a little more action, a few more actors, more of the same and a few extra explosions.
What's telling about
The Dark Knight, though, is how risky it is -- how it's bold and brave and truly exciting, full of rich and strong performances and some real ideas along the way. Why return to Batman? It turns out that for
Christopher Nolan, the reason to come back is that there's something to say about, and with, the character even after decades of stories and multiple reinventions. I was hoping
The Dark Knight would be good; I had no idea that director and co-writer Christopher Nolan was going to make a film that not only addressed the philosophical and political conflict between the rule of force and the rule of law but also takes on the timeless clash between order and chaos ... and, along the way, evokes everything from Michael Mann's
Heat to John Ford's
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. ...
Continue reading Review: The Dark Knight -- James's Take
Posted Jul 11th 2008 9:02PM by Eric D. Snider
Filed under: New Releases, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek
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Back in December we ran an
article covering some of
The Dark Knight's promotional activities, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but I posted what I thought was an extremely witty and observant
comment: "I'm just glad they're doing something to raise awareness of this small film that might have otherwise slipped through the cracks."
Admit it, that's probably the funniest joke you've ever read. Because
The Dark Knight isn't a small film at all, you see! It's a huge film that already has a great deal of public awareness! See how that's super funny?
Anyway, though we all had a good laugh at how funny I am, I also brought up a puzzling aspect of the Hollywood machinery. Warner Bros. is spending untold millions to promote
The Dark Knight, and expending a lot of creative effort, too, with viral sites and games and events and so forth -- and for what? To promote a film that
everyone was already going to see anyway. It's a highly anticipated sequel to a hugely popular film, it's gotten terrific buzz from those who have seen it, and it has the unfortunate-but-attention-getting Heath Ledger connection. You'd think the WB promotional team could relax a bit and let the film sell itself -- or, better yet, use that money to promote some lower-profile films that
do need the help. So why didn't they?
Bearing in mind that attempts to grasp the logic of a Hollywood studio usually end in frustration, we can generally trace the thought process back to one thing: money.
Continue reading Discuss: Why Do Studios Heavily Promote Films That Don't Need Promotion?
Posted Jul 9th 2008 5:02PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Mystery & Suspense, Fandom, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
I'm still a little iffy on the way this whole
Dark Knight thing was handled; how it was screened for press three weeks prior to its arrival in theaters, with Warners letting folks go crazy with regards to reviews, interviews and all that jazz. The pre-hype has reached an epic level, sure, but doesn't it sorta take away from films like
Hancock or
Hellboy II: The Golden Army? Shouldn't they get their time to shine? I feel like
The Dark Knight kinda stomped into town, shoved off a bunch of other films and said, "I'm here now ... a little early, so deal with it."
Well, we are dealing with it. And it's interesting to see how different forms of media are handling the promotion of the Bat-quel. Online, of course, you're getting all the geeky reviews -- with some folks stopping just short from calling it the greatest thing to ever happen to cinema in the history of the universe. Last night on TV, my local news did a whole piece on
Heath Ledger's performance and how everyone is talking Oscar and how, ya know, he's dead and stuff. I wasn't paying too close attention, but some of the ridiculous things they said -- about Ledger being dead and how that's the only reason why people want to see the film -- were just so overtly offensive to anyone with even a half an ounce of respect for the man. I was a tad disgusted, but then again I kind of expected it -- these news organizations don't look at people as human beings, they look at them as stories. Sensational stories.
But back to the hype ...
Continue reading Discuss: Will 'The Dark Knight' Suffer from Too Much Hype?
Posted Jul 9th 2008 2:02PM by Eric Kohn
Filed under: RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking
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Citing an unnamed source -- you know, one of those reliable anonymous types --
Showbiz Spy is reporting that
Michelle Williams plans to make a movie about her late ex,
Heath Ledger, in order to provide a record of him for the former couple's toddler, Matilda. No details have been released yet, which leaves a lot of questions up in the air. Is it going to be a straightforward documentary? A biopic? Some mixture of both? If this source is to be trusted, it seems unlikely that Williams simply wants to assemble family footage to screen privately for her daughter when she gets older. A Ledger film made for general audiences would probably reveal his unrealized career intentions and help solidify his posthumous James Dean-like reputation, but it's hard to say what approach Williams would want to take, since we don't even know what role she'll have in the production (producer? director? consultant?).
Based on the skimpy information provided by
Showbiz Spy, Williams' idea sounds somewhat similar to a recent documentary project that's been riding the festival to great acclaim in recent months:
Kurt Kuenne's devastating
Dear Zachary: A Letter to his Son About His Father, which begins with the documentarian planning to collect the memories of his murdered friend for the departed man's young child (the story takes a shocking turn after the first hour or so). Whatever the final product, surely Williams wants to avoid letting
E! True Hollywood Story have the final say on Ledger's myth. Who can blame her?
Posted Jul 7th 2008 10:02AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: New Releases, Warner Brothers, Fandom, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek
A bunch of bloggers and Peter Travers have already weighed in with glowing early reviews of
The Dark Knight, but you were justified if you reserved judgment. The bloggers who were
fortunate enough to get a look at the film were pretty squarely in the geek demographic -- which is not any sort of indictment, but just an indicator that they had a very specific perspective on the film. And
Peter Travers is... Well, he's Peter Travers. Now, though, come some reviews you shouldn't so readily ignore -- and they're gushy, (almost) unqualified raves.
This from Kirk Honeycutt in the
Hollywood Reporter: "[Nolan] builds movies around ideas and characters, and "Dark Knight" is no exception. The ideas here are not new to the movie world of cops and criminal[s], but in the context of a comic book movie, they ring out with startling clarity. In other words, you expect moralistic underpinnings in a Martin Scorsese movie; in a Batman movie, they hit home with renewed vigor . . . . With the film's race-car pace, noise levels, throbbing music and density of stratagems, no one will follow all the plot points at first glance. Not that the story with its double crosses and ingenious plans isn't clear, but to enjoy the full glory of these urban battlefield strategies, multiple viewings are required."
Whoo! And then
this from Justin Chang in
Variety:
Continue reading 'Dark Knight' Watch: Raves from the Trades
Posted Jun 27th 2008 12:02PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Awards, Newsstand, Obits, Comic/Superhero/Geek
I'm sure everyone expected
The Dark Knight to close with a Heath Ledger "in memoriam" after the fade to black. So it will. Warner Bros. has released the text of the dedication that will accompany the film, and it reads:
"In memory of our friends Heath Ledger & Conway Wickliffe"
Wickliffe (the IMDb has him as "Comway" but other sources, as well as the dedication, say "Conway") is the Maori special-effects technician who was killed in a stunt car accident last September. He was on a camera truck following the Batmobile around a racetrack when the truck spun out of control and crashed into a tree.
It's very classy of
Chris Nolan & Co., I think, to tribute Wickliffe in the same line as the far more famous and publicly-mourned Ledger. Their whole handling of Ledger's death has been on the money; they haven't shied away from showcasing his performance in the marketing, but nor have they given the slightest indication that they're attempting to exploit its profile. The result: going to see the movie doesn't feel the least bit skeevy or
off, at least for me.
I am a bit concerned about the possible posthumous Oscar campaign though, especially after Peter Travers semi-officially
got it off the ground last week. Since Ledger almost certainly wouldn't have had a shot at it for this role were he still alive, I'm afraid the notion of the "posthumous Oscar" would overwhelm his actual performance, which looks fantastic.
Posted Jun 26th 2008 10:02AM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Fandom, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
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Well, the day has finally come. No, you can't go see
The Dark Knight in theaters yet ... but you
can start reading what the critics had to say about it. First one in the batting cage is
Peter Travers from Rolling Stone, who opens his review with: "Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies." Yeah! Where's your exclamation point at the end of that sentence, Travers? Get those troops fired up, dammit! (Bored? Try saying "Peter Travers Travels to Transylvania" ten times fast. Bet ya can't do it ...) Anyway ...
He continues to say nothing but great things about the movie, calling
Heath Ledger -- and this is my favorite quote of the year so far -- "mad-crazy-blazing brilliant as the Joker." Of course, if someone is "mad-crazy-blazing brilliant," only one word can follow something like that up: Oscar. Travers says, "If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's
Network, sign me up." He gave the film itself three and a half stars out of four, and summed it all up by saying, "It's full of surprises you don't see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams."
All kidding aside, I'm stoked to see a very, very positive review right out of the gate -- and I, for one, seriously hope
The Dark Knight goes down as one of the best summer movies ever. But I do try not to hype it up too much, because that's always a bad thing. So forget we ever said anything.
Dark Knight? What's that?
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