Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

On a walk today at work, we discovered a massive ant war on the sidewalk fought between two colonies of ants. Many of the competing ants were locked in deadly embraces. Obviously, I lay down on the sidewalk and videotaped the event. I’m kind of bummed I didn’t have a macro lens on my camera…

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ant attack video (larger)

On Friday, a few co-workers and I ran an operation freedom (meaning we ditched work and watched a matinée movie.) The selected movie? Why The Dark Knight of course.

Some people think that movie reviews shouldn’t give away details to avoid spoiling the film for others. Well I disagree. If you want a movie review with no spoilers, go here.

Most of you know that I have ADD, so 2 1/2 hour movie is very difficult for me to sit through. Surprisingly, this movie (unlike any of the horribly-long Bored of the Rings movies) captivated my attention nearly the entire time. Let me be more specific, the Joker held my attention.

Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and the other characters were side acts, and massively overshadowed by the Joker (Heath Ledger.) For one, Batman insisted on speaking in a intentionally lowered, raspy voice which irritated me to no end. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) was confusing and one dimensional. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) becomes evil and his half-skeleton face is a distraction to whatever blather came from his mouth. Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) gets illogically upset when Batman builds a contraption to locate the Joker by listening in on cellphone microphones (it’s okay to run a muck and break laws as a vigilante, but, for the love, do NOT ease drop on people!!!) And there were other characters but I forget them all. None of them is as riveting as the Joker.

He is somehow likable as he cracks jokes and cavorts about like a little kid (for example, when he exits the hospital, dressed as a nurse and get flustered because the bombs he has planted don’t all go off immediately.) Even in his murderous sadist rages, he’s still light-hearted and laughing. In fact, he always seems to be snickering at something– when Batman pushes him off a building, he laughs all the way down. To be sure, the Joker is an evil, clown-faced lunatic sociopath hellbent on terrorism (his goal is anarchic disruption, disorder and suffering– not money.) He has an unlimited supply of henchmen and bombs and remote detonators to enact his plans (or his un-plans as he claims (”Do I look like a guy with a plan?”)) His macabre, caked-painted visage, the flick of his tongue as he licks his lips mid-sentence, his complete absence of compassion (as he violently slams a mafia man’s head into a pencil, for instance), his yellow hell-hound teeth, all serve to unnerve the viewer– he is at all times “completely believable, disturbing, and nightmarishly frightening.” The Joker’s spine-tingling performance will reverberate with you for days.

Joker: How many of your friends did I kill?

Cop: Six.

Joker: SIX? [grimaces] You know, you can tell a lot about a person in the moments before they die. I probably know more about your friends than you do. Would you like to know which ones were cowards?

This movie is epic. It’s a visually stimulating shoot-em up action flick combined with complex, thought-provoking moral dilemmas. It’s a dark movie that doesn’t leave you frightened, but instead dizzily introspective: is chance/chaos is the only thing that is fair in life? (because everyone has the same odds?), would you press a button to blow up a boat of criminals if you thought they might do the same to you?

Yes, Heath Ledger deserves an Oscar.

Factoid: Did you notice the Joker told two different stories about the origins of his facial scars (His dad, His wife)?