superhero movies don't suck anymore.

I'm incredibly excited about seeing the Dark Knight this weekend. Its funny, because you'll remember way back on June 25th, I mentioned that I had a suspicion that Heath Ledger would get nominated for a posthumous Oscar for his role as the Joker, and within the next few weeks, the movie started screening for critics and pretty much every review I've read has said the same thing. The only thing is, I was basing this assumption on the fact that the publicity surrounding his death would force the extremely shallow Academy to give him the nomination, no matter how good the actual performance was. But from what I understand, Ledger really did turn in a performance for the ages, and most critics seem to agree that he would have gotten the nomination whether he had died or not. In any case, I am chomping at the bit to see what Christopher Nolan and that absolutely insane cast has accomplished, the gushing hyperbole surrounding the movie has been so intense that I am pretty much expecting to see one of the greatest movies of all time, and anything less than that will be a profound disappointment. Yet somehow I have a feeling it is going to live up to those impossibly high expectations. I guess I'll find out this weekend.

Its really quite astounding how seriously studios are starting to take superhero movies. You have Marvel creating this true cinematic multiverse with Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, and their upcoming plans for Thor, Captain America, and the Avengers, you have Christopher Nolan pretty much doing whatever the fuck he wants with the Batman franchise and making a movie that people are seriously comparing to Heat and the Godfather II, and now you also have a Hollywood studio actually making an Alan Moore adaptation that looks to be a faithful interpretation of the greatest graphic novel of all time:



Things are really looking up for geeky fanboys like me. Now we just need an epic, sweeping adaptation of Robert Kirkman's the Walking Dead, directed by Peter Jackson. That would actually make me cry a little.