Usually, when a movie gets as much press as The Dark Knight has, I have to think really hard about whether or not I really feel the need to add ‘yet another’ random voice to the din being created in the press, on blogs, and on websites everywhere. Basically, if I get sick of hearing about something, I generally can’t be bothered writing about it myself. However in the case of THE DARK KNIGHT I think that just about all of the praise being heaped upon it is absolutely deserved… So, rather than add another voice to the choir, and sing along with (deserved) praise for Heath Ledger’s portrayal as The Joker, I’ll just make a couple of quick comments about the film and then shut the hell up about it.

It’s pretty obvious to anyone who reads the junk that I post here that I’m a Marvel guy when it comes to comics, but that’s not to say that I’m not a fan of quite a few DC characters too. In particular Batman has always been one of the DC titles that I’ve gravitated towards and, with the release of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins in 2005, it finally felt like the uninitiated got to see the character that readers of the comics had been familiar with for decades. To paraphrase myself, from a conversation with friends recently, Nolan (and writer David S. Goyer) had done something that neither Tim Burton or Joel Schumacher had felt necessary when they directed the Batman movies during the late 80’s / early 90’s. And that something was actually bothering to read a Batman comic.

In The Dark Knight, Nolan (along with Goyer and Jonathan Nolan) introduce film-goers to the real Joker: a psychotic anarchist who is far from the previous on-screen incarnations (not taking anything from Jack.. you gotta love jack!). But the Joker and Ledger have been getting far too large a slice of the accolade pie as far as I’m concerned.

Again, not wanting to take anything away from Ledger’s penultimate performance, but it really frustrates me that, while calls for Ledger to be nominated for an Academy Award ring out across the internets, there is little (read: virtually none) noise being made about the best director Oscar being thrust in Nolan’s direction. Since his nomination in 2000 for ‘Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen’ (which he shared with Jonathan) for Memento, Nolan has been essentially overlooked by the Academy.

With The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan has not only presented fayboys everywhere with the greatest graphic-novel adaptation to date, but with The Dark Knight, standing on the shoulders of Batman Begins, Nolan has created a giant piece of cinema. Alone, The Dark Knight is a masterpiece which holds its own alongside any of those movies that people like to recite the names of when they want to sound like they know what great cinema is.

Rock solid performances from the entire cast of a movie don’t happen by accident. A brilliant script and even better direction presented Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Gary Oldman the opportunity to capture the screen in the same way that consummate professionals like Morgan Freeman and Micheal Caine can as a matter of course. But it’s so easy to be distracted by Ledger’s Joker — hell, you miss him when he’s not on screen — that many have overlooked the finely crafted offerings from the rest of the cast.

Behind Ledger, who was granted the most neon of roles and blinds the audience with darkness at its most brilliant, stand some of the most praiseworthy performances we’ve seen in recent times. For mine, most impressive was Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent. Eckhart, who I’ve always considered something of an ‘also ran’ manages to hold his own with the best of them…. and the best of them, are in this film.

Now, I’ll shut up.

As I discovered last month, Japanese horror movies (aka J-Horror) are beginning to get a run for their money from the movies of a similar genre coming out of Spain (or Sporror movies, as I’ve decided they should be called!). After the brilliance of The Orphanage though, I was seriously doubting that I’d be as impressed by the next Sporror movie (see, it works) that crossed my path. And while I wont say that REC comes anywhere close to being as mind blowing as The Orphanage, it’s completely unfair to even compare these movies, given that the only thing they have in common is their country of origin… oh, and that they’ll make you crap yourself if you’re not careful.

Knowing that REC is shot in a one camera, shaky-cam style, similar to CLOVERFIELD, could be something that would put some people off the idea of watching this film. However the premise — at least as far as why we’re seeing the events in the this film from a one camera perspective — are a little more plausible than the idea that one idiot simply refuses to put down his digital-camera. Reporter Angela and camera man, Pablo, work on a fairly unglamorous reality / documentary television show titled “When You’re Asleep”. The show’s premise is that Angela and Pablo (who, being a camera man, remains unseen) expose the efforts of those whose late-night jobs require them to work, while the rest of us sleep.

We, never actually see the final product, however we witness the raw footage, shot on the night that Angela and Pablo join up with one of Barcelona’s local fire stations. At first the filming starts out as expected, with interviews and the odd out-take, but when a call comes in that an elderly woman is injured and trapped in her apartment, the team accompany fire-fighters Manu and Alex on this, non-fire related, call-out. What initially appears to be a rather routine job suddenly becomes a fight for survival when things with the old lady take a horrific turn.

I generally have a pretty high tolerance for shaky-cam shot movies, and I’m not often bothered by them, although I know that some people find them almost impossible to stomach. Perhaps it was because of the fact that Pablo is supposed to be an experienced camera-man, or perhaps I was able to hold on to the subtitles to steady myself a bit? Whatever the case, this film barely registered on my accelerometer. That’s not to say things don’t get a bit hectic during some of the more intense scenes — of which there are many — but to me, they felt very much in keeping with the reality of the sequences.

The cause for the terrifying events that take place in the apartment building are… well, not so much explained, as they’re given an origin. The ultimate explanation however, is left up to the viewer. Spiritually, Rec could almost have been considered a prequel to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s excellent 28 DAYS LATER. It certainly tries for a similar level of intensity, however Rec is far less ‘epic’ than the 2002 ‘rage-zombie’ flick and doesn’t quite achieve the same, stomach-knotting, impact. To be fair though, some of Rec’s character development may have been lost in translation and, for me, I always find horror films to be far more intense when I’ve build a bond with the characters. So considering that, Rec deserves bonus points for being as intense as it is.

Rec owes much of its intensity to the performances of the cast. Given that this film is intended to play out from a ‘fly on the wall’ perspective, the performances, more so than usual, had to be natural and spontaneous. To achieve this, director Jaume Balagueró kept much of the script from the actors and filmed extra scenes which were never intended to be used, just to keep the actors confused. Balagueró even went as far as to not tell the actors about sudden, unpredictable events and special effects, to make sure that they were truly frightened by their occurrence. This is no mean feat, considering that many of the movie’s sequences are done using long, continuous shots. The end result however, is that the film really does have a spur-of-the-moment feel about it.

The great news is that there’s a US remake of Rec on it’s way, titled QUARANTINE… what makes that great is that the makers of Rec are attempting to get REC 2 released before Quarantine hits cinemas. Which means we wont have too long to wait for more great Sporror! [source]