MAGGIE IN AMERICA

If I Had Live-Blogged The Dark Knight Rises

4:00 Dad and I enter the theater. Ticket-taker insists on checking my bag. I don’t have any weapons, but I do have two large bags of healthy home-made popcorn that I am forced to toss.

4:05 Secretly happy that I get to eat concession stand popcorn.

4:10 Previews! One of my favorite parts of the movie-going experience.

4:30 The movie starts.

4:40 I’m trying to enjoy it, but I honestly can’t stop thinking about the Colorado shootings. My thoughts veer from paranoia that a shooter will enter this 2/3 empty New Roc theater on a Friday afternoon to general sadness/shock at what those Colorado theater-goers experienced.

5:00 The movie is pretty decent. Still in the Colorado frame of mind.

5:10 Anne Hathaway is doing a surprisingly great job as Catwoman. I also like that there aren’t too many gratuitous body shots. I can relax and enjoy her character (as well as how amazing she looks!) without being thrust into the role of a creepy, voyeuristic spectator, male gaze, blah blah blah.

5:20 The plot is beginning to thicken, but not in a good way. More like into an unnecessarily complicated gelatin.

5:30 I could take or leave Christian Bale, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a police uniform: yes, please! He is great. He is also referred to (multiple times) as a young “hothead” by an older officer. Budget for good writers: $50. Budget for explosions: $250 million.

5:40 More uncomfortable gun violence.

5:50 In the wake of the Colorado shooting, one scene is particularly eerie. Bane waits for a Gotham football game to begin, before announcing his plans to destroy the city. A young boy sings the national anthem. Bombs are blowing up across town. The contrast of this archetypal American scene (football game, enthusiasm, youth) with violence reminded me of this great piece called “Something To Cry About: Report from the Kitchen Floor” in the Crunk Feminist Collective. Referring to her mother, the author writes: “Her violence didn’t make her a monster; it made her thoroughly American.” 

6:00 Starting to get bored.

6:10 The woman playing Miranda Tate is stunning. [Just looked her up on Wikipedia: it’s Marion Cotillard! I had no idea.]

6:15 Despite the fact that Hollywood is so famously liberal, I’m a little disturbed by the implicit message in this movie. The villain wreaks havoc on the city by forcing all the rich people out of their homes and releasing innocent people from jail and arming them. In a post-Occupy Wall Street world, isn’t it a little backwards to have the villain orchestrate this kind of topsy-turvy faux-Communist revolution?

6:30 I’m definitely bored.

6:40 Some sort of side plot about a jail in a pit and if you can climb to the top and jump between two stone slabs, you’re free. My dad and I whisper to each other that it doesn’t look that hard. Also, once Christian Bale escapes, why not throw a rope down to those ancient prisoners? Seriously, they’ve been down there forever!

6:50 Just end already.

7:00 A baby cries. Seriously, people?

7:05 Mostly bummed that this movie is devoid of almost all humanity. The last movie struck a deliciously evil balance.

7:10 It’s over. I go home and watch Incendies with my mom.