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I have got to admit that I adore The Book of Eli more each time I see it. I wasn’t planning on seeing it again in the theatre, but some friends wanted to go so I went along for the ride.

With every viewing I become a bigger and bigger fan of Mila Kunis’s character Solara. Even though Eli is the title character the point of the film is truly Solara. This film is nearly a modern Pilgrim’s Progress and Solara is the individual so intrigued that she tags along on the journey, slowly coming to adopt Eli’s faith as her own until the climax of the film when the tables really turn.

What I do love about The Book of Eli is that the treat the faith of Eli and later Solara with subtlety. Eli lets us know early on that God literally speaks to him and they never treat Eli as a freak or a person a few bananas short of a bunch; it’s taken as a serious point in the film and if you really watch you can pick up signs of Eli and Solara hearing from God as the film progresses. If you’ve seen the film and you’re not sure what I mean there is one crucial visual cue I can give you. Before Eli does any major action in the film (choosing which fork of the road to take, how to respond to a threat, etc.) he always takes a beat to pause and looks upward to the heavens…something Solara also starts later in the film. For lack of a better phrase they are receiving directions.

I hope The Book of Eli is released on DVD with a long rambling commentary. I want to know The Hughes Brothers and everyone else’s inspiration and motivation behind making this film.

I know it’s only February, but The Book of Eli may become one of my favorite films of the year. I love this movie and I encourage all of you to see it.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen another film by the Hughes Brothers, but after The Book of Eli I just might be a new fan. I am going to have to watch a few of their films to see how the men that did Menace II Society, Dead Presidents & From Hell ended up in the post-apocalyptic, religious future.

Denzel Washington was never really an actor I considered myself a fan of, and thinking of that now I’m a bit confused as to why I don’t follow him more. Every movie I can think of that he has been a part of I’ve enjoyed – with the exception of Training Day, that’s one movie I detested but it had nothing to do with Washington. Not only is Washington a great actor that make movies that I enjoy watching, but his off-screen persona is almost that of the boy next door; he seems like a down to Earth guy anyone could know.

But enough of my Denzel love.

Go see The Book of Eli. I repeat what I said last time, if you want to see how a movie about God & faith can be relevant on the big screen this is the movie you should see.

Eli: People had more than they needed. We had no idea what was precious and what wasn't. We through away things people kill each other now.

If you plan on seeing The Book of Eli don’t read this yet. If you don’t think you want to see it and need details to convince you – keep reading. There are spoilers in this, but it’s mainly a through look at the story, not the twists and turns.

I’m blogging out of order because I have to tell you about The Book of Eli during opening weekend; I have to tell you during opening weekend because I don’t know how many big screens this film will stay on after the box office nose dives next weekend. The box office will nose dive next weekend because The Book of Eli isn’t a typical Hollywood action film, post-apocalyptic film, or anything of the sort. The Book of Eli is about God.


Roughly 30 years after the flash destroyed the world Eli is walking across the ravaged United States to get to the west avoiding marauders and hijackers that want to steal his few belongings and more than anything trying to survive the harsh landscape that surrounds him. On his way west Eli passes through one of the ragged towns that has popped up, headed by Carnegie a despot enjoying his power. Carnegie sends out marauders day after day looking for a book, a book that only he knows and he won’t rest until he finds it.

When Eli comes through town he causes trouble and comes to Carnegie’s attention because of his expertise in defending himself and the fact that there are very few people left that are as old as he and Eli. Eli refuses the position that Carnegie offers him and flees town, intent on continuing west. But his plans are foiled as Carnegie realizes Eli is in possession of the book he desperately seeks and pursues. As if that weren’t enough young Solara has become fascinated with Eli and follows him out of town. Together the two flee Carnegie while Solara tries to understand the purpose behind Eli’s journey and conviction and Eli tries to keep the book safe so he can complete his task.

The Book of Eli has one of the most unique takes on a post-apocalyptic world that I have ever seen. What makes this movie entirely different is that it explores how religion would influence society in this wasteland. You see after “the flash” people began to speculate that religion, specifically Christianity and The Bible, was the cause for wars and violence and The Bible was burned world wide. Christianity was eradicated and The Bible disappeared.

Except Eli managed to find the last copy. He found this copy because after “the flash” a voice told him where to find it and set him on his path to protect it. He’s been protecting it ever since and following his path.

Where most films have religious sub-text there is noting “sub” about The Book of Eli - this is all text. Eli is the last follower of Jesus, a prophet of God set on a path. Just like Moses and the prophets before him he is flawed, makes mistakes and learns as he goes along, but knows more than anything else that God is real and has a purpose. The Book of Eli is not subtle. Eli is an amazing character and an extreme example of faith.

As powerful a character as Eli is he is matched by Solara. A young slave in Carnegie’s city she begins to get to know Eli when Carnegie tries to get her to proposition Eli. Instead of taking advantage of Solara, Eli takes the time to get to know her, shares a meal with her and even prays with her for the first time. Eli’s life and actions intrigue her so much that when Eli flees Solara follows him, trying to discover what it is about him that is so different and all the way he has to explain to her what faith means in a literal and religious sense. Her arch is natural and astounding.

I still can’t believe that Hollywood allowed The Book of Eli to be made. This film has Jesus all over it. I know it can’t be a hit in theatres for very long because as the movie went along the audience got more and more uncomfortable. As Eli and his path were revealed the audience clued into the message and did not want to admit that the film was about Christianity; in fact at one point during the credits an audience member actually got mad that it turned out to be a “Christian movie”.

Not everyone will like this movie, but those that believe in the message will absolutely love it.

Directors: Albert & Allen Hughes
Writer: Gary Whitta
Eli: Denzel Washington
Garnegie: Gary Oldman
Solara: Mila Kunis
Redridge: Ray Stevenson
Claudia: Jennifer Beals
George: Michael Gambon

Every time I watch The Dark Knight it holds up. It is just as tense, thrilling and masterful as the first time.

What I have to compliment Nolan and crew on most of all is how well they stayed to the mythos behind Bruce Wayne & the Joker while making the story their own. They spent the time alluding to enough of the comic book cannon that fans feel vindicated and honored rather than ignored; it’s something that only Christopher Nolan and Jon Favreau have done with the characters they’ve been given. No one has ever done this with Superman, and only slightly so with Spiderman, and a whole slew of other characters.

I hope Gary Oldman was not guessing at Comic-Con when he said the third film would begin filming next year. I want them to make a movie as great as the first two but I am quite anxious to see Bruce Wayne on screen again.

Harvey Dent: The famous Bruce Wayne. Rachel's told me everything about you.
Bruce Wayne: I certainly hope not.

The Order of the Phoenix is by and far a dark chapter in Harry Potter’s life in and out of Hogwarts. While Harry has been forced into spending summer at home in the muggle world the atmosphere around him has changed and not just because Harry knows Voldemort is back, the literal climate hot, stormy and depressed. One afternoon Harry and Dudley race home to avoid a sudden storm and are attacked by dementors forcing Harry to use magic to keep them both alive, an activity forebidden to underage wizards outside of school. Harry is expelled from Hogwarts and only allowed back in after a full trial in which Dumbledore manages to throw in Harry’s favor. Once Harry gets back to school he finds a distant Dumbledore, a Professor who is attempting to take over Hogwarts for the Ministry and he faces the fact that he and Dumbledore are being berated in the media as the Ministry begins a full fledged propaganda campaign because they refuse to believe Voldemort is alive. This means that Voldemort and his Death Eaters are running rampant and the world’s only defense is a small crew of wizards lead by Dumbledore including Sirius Black and the Weasley’s who refuse to let Harry, Hermione and Ron help and Harry learns there is a connection between he and Voldemort that goes deeper than a scar.

I will admit that as a book and a film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix grew on me; it is one of the darkest chapters in the Potter series and it takes me awhile to respond to that. This is the film where Harry begins to believe he is alone in the world, literally gets tortured by a teacher and is forced to grow up faster than ever before. However, The Order of the Phoenix is the film that David Yates took ahold of and proved that he is the visionary match for Rowling’s writing; all of the elements of fantasy, reality, light and dark were perfectly blended and all of the ups, downs, joys and pains that were going on in the film were as real as they were to the characters.

In this film Dumbledore and Voldemort come face to face for the one and only time in the present, and an incredible action scene ensues. However, what I love about this scene is that it is used as so much more than an action scene, it actually developes the characters. It paints the triangle between Harry, Voldemort & Dumbledore and the fact that it is Harry’s choice to be good or evil, he has just as much choice as did Tom Riddle or Albus Dumbledore did. The scene also climaxes with the vindication of Harry and Dumbledore in the eyes of the Ministry and the public.

This film is also a turning point for harry and his group of friends. For the first time they make the choice to fight because no one else will, they make the choice to go the difficult thing even though they know it may mean death for them. This is the first film where the students make fully adult decisions and face evil knowingly, not because they are roped into it, or stumble upon it – they make the choice and face the darkness head on.

I do think that each time I watch The Order of the Phoenix it will grow on me. As compared to the other Potter films this is only about the third time I’ve watched this film and I was surprised at how much it entertained me because I mostly remember an impression of sadness the last time I watched it. I genuinely think that this film is part of why I was able to love The Half-Blood Prince as much as I did, but that is a blog for another time.

Director: David Yates
Writer: Michael Goldenberg
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Sirius Black: Gary Oldman
Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Delores Umbridge: Imelda Staunton
Snape: Alan Rickman
Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Bellatrix Lestrange: Helena Bonham Carter
Voldemort: Ralph Finnes

Harry Potter: This connection between me and Voldemort... what if the reason for it is that I am becoming more like him? I just feel so angry, all the time. What if after everything that I've been through, something's gone wrong inside me? What if I'm becoming bad?
Sirius Black: I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.

In Harry Potter’s third year at Hogwarts life does not get easier. In fact he finds out that mass murderer Sirius Black has escaped Azkaban prison and is dead set on finding him. As the year marches on Hermione seems to be everywhere at once, the Divinity professor drives Harry & Ron crazy with forebodings of doom, and the three friends discover that perhaps there is a mysterious secret the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is hiding. Much to Dumbledore’s chagrin, the Ministry of Magic begins to interfere with Hogwarts by sending Azkaban’s Dementors to protect the school from Sirius Black.

Part of what I love about each installment of the Harry Potter series is the new cast that gets added to each film. In The Prisoner of Azkaban we get Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, Emma Thompson as Professor Trelawney. They are great characters and fabulous actors that become enjoyable parts of the rest of the series. Also, Azkaban is the first film with Michael Gambon as Dulbledore; Richard Harris died between films two and three and Gambon masterfully fills his shoes and still makes the role his own.

The Prisoner of Azkaban is also the first in the series to be directed by someone other than Chris Columbus, and let me say I shouted “halleluiah” when I found out he was not going to do all of the films. For this film the masterful Alfonso Cuaron took the reins and for the first time the Harry Potter series had something is never had in the earlier films – atmosphere. Suddenly, Harry was the dark, tousled boy he always was in the books, and the world was not as shiny and friendly as Chris Columbus portrayed it in the first two films. This film was a directorial turning point in the series, and while Azkaban is one of the weakest in terms of what it does to the franchise in continuity, it gave the series the starts of the tone that needed to be set.

While I do think that the front end of the Harry Potter films were weaker than the later films there is no bad film in the Harry Potter franchise. I am excited to see how the films finish out.

Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Writer: Steve Kloves
Harry: Daniel Radcliffe
Sirius Black: Gary Oldman
Ron: Rupert Grint
Hermione: Emma Watson
Professor Lupin: David Thewlis
Dumbldore: Michael Gambon
Professor Snape: Alan Rickman
Professor McGonogall: Maggie Smith
Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Professor Trelawney: Emma Thompson

Harry: He was their friend, and he betrayed them. He was their *friend*! I hope he finds me! Cause when he does, I'm gonna be ready. When he does, I'm gonna kill him!

When the hype about The Dark Knight began I was skeptical. I knew after Batman Begins that everyone in the production was capable of making astoundingly good films, but I thought people were probably over-hyping Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker a bit as it was not a posthumous role, and that there was little chance that you could surpass a perfect film like Batman Begins.

I was wrong.

The Dark Knight deserves every bit of praise it has received and more. This is not a comic book movie, this is a crime epic that tells a tale of a hero who has to make impossible choices in the name of doing what is right and defeating villains that are so evil they cannot completely be defeated no matter what he does. It is the most real crime film in that sense since Godfather and it pits a clown and a bat against each other.

We pick up with Batman approximately a year after he has begun to reform Gotham. The right things are starting to fall in place: the police are slightly less corrupt, Gordon has been promoted and is working with the Batman, Harvey Dent has been voted the new DA and is cleaning up the city, the mob is running scared, etc. Batman is creating inroads to change that are now taking root on the social level – the people of Gotham are trying to change their city.

The problem is that as Gordon predicted at the end of the first film escalation has occurred. Batman has begun to clean the streets, but created a criminal so devious that no one can predict his actions – the Joker. He has hits the scene hard and is at first regarded as a crazy know-nothing by the entire criminal world and Batman but soon has the entire city running even more petrified than before; he’s trying to create chaos and sees no one he should side with even amongst the criminals. He just wants to see the anarchy he creates play out. Singlehandedly he has made Batman question his position as Gotham’s protector, and made the underworld terrified of not just Batman, but him as well.

This is an artfully layered story crafted by people that obviously know that the Joker is the embodiment of everything that Batman strives to quell. The Joker wants to create chaos for the sake of chaos and Batman wants to create order for the sake of peace. They are polar opposites and will forever remain in struggle as Batman will not kill the Joker as that would change what he stands for, and the Joker will not kill Batman because he’d lose the best thrill of his life.

The Dark Knight is the best film about that struggle between being the needed hero and the wanted ideal that has ever been made. Bruce Wayne struck out to be an incorruptible ideal, only to find that striving to be incorruptible, to have rules, has made him vulnerable to the people he is trying to fight against.

I am the first to admit that when Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker I doubted Christopher Nolan’s skills at casting. I could see so many other actors working better as the Joker than Heath – and I was wrong. When you watch The Dark Knight Heath disappears and the only person present is Joker and he is everything that ever terrified you about the Joker. He has no rules, he is brilliant and scheming, he would do anything, and his greatest joy is watching the anarchy he creates. The Joker is such a perfect character that I want to see him in another Batman film, but I don’t know how you can recast a perfect performance. While watching Heath, no one even thinks of comparing him to Jack Nicholson – there is simply no comparison.

Just as phenomenal is Aaron Eckhart as Gotham’s new, tough DA Harvey Dent. Eckhart steps perfectly into the shoes of the man who dances around the line he upholds until he tragically takes the path of Icarus and flies too close to the sun…and plummets into the darkness he was fighting against by becoming Two Face. No one can blame him for his turn –he has lost everything, but by letting his pain take over he further destroys everything he stood for as Harvey Dent. It’s not an easy role, to go from being lauded as the white knight of Gotham to the criminal that decides the fate of his victims on the flip of a coin, but Eckhart makes it natural and just dark enough that we know that Dent is not coming back.

However, Christian Bale cannot be ignored in this film. His performance as Batman/Bruce Wayne is still why the movie remains so believable. He is able to take the character from brash playboy to lurking superhero in only a few minutes of screen time. The audience can see Bruce Wayne’s conscious lay heavier on him with every act that the Joker perpetrates.

The only detractor to this film for me is that it was shot in Chicago and you can tell. Gone is my beautiful yet-unlike-the-real-world Gotham and inserted is Chicago. I don’t know why they made this artistic choice and it is forgivable as most of Gotham is destroyed in Batman Begins but I miss it.

To wrap up my review I have only one thing to say. If I were on the Oscar committee Christian Bale, Robert Downey Jr., Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger would all be nominated for various Oscars – yes, for “comic book” films.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Christopher Nolan & Jonathan Nolan
Bruce Wayne/Batman: Christian Bale
Rachel: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Joker: Heath Ledger
Harvey Dent/Two Face: Aaron Eckhart
Jim Gordon: Gary Oldman
Alfred: Michael Caine
Lucious Fox: Morgan Freeman

Bruce Wayne: People are dying. What would you have me do?
Alfred Pennyworth: Endure. You can be the outcast. You can make the choice that no one else will face - the right choice. Gotham needs you.

I’ve been anticipating The Dark Knight for months and finally couldn’t take it anymore; since I don’t get The Dark Knight for two more weeks I watched Batman Begins. It is a testament to the skills of everyone involved in that film that it is just as enjoyable on the first viewing as it is the tenth viewing (though I am probably far past the 10th viewing as I saw it four times in the theatre alone).

As I know that her character has been recast, I inadvertently paid the most attention to the performance of Katie Holmes as Rachel. While I do like Katie Holmes, and don’t mind her performance in the film, I am genuinely excited that Maggie Gyllenhaal has stepped in to take on Rachel Dawes. Perhaps it is only that Katie Holmes “private” life has overshadowed the character, but in the whole film the only thing that seems to pull me out is Katie Holmes. I look at her and I see Tom Cruise jumping on a couch, or the happy couple toting baby Suri around, or Katie on Jay Leno saying she hopes War of the Worlds beats Batman Begins opening weekend. Katie Holmes just seems a little too light in such a dark world.

What also stood out to me was Gary Oldman. For years in the film franchise starting with the Tim Burton Batman, Jim Gordon was never right. They portrayed him as fat, sloppy and the cheesiest/stereotypical police officer ever who managed to become chief of police. The Commissioner Gordon that I knew in the comic books was lean, mean and would kick the ass of anyone who put a toe out of line; he was constantly thankful for what Batman could do and afraid of what Batman might be capable of. Gary Oldman embodies this in every way. He is how Gordon should be.

I could go on boring you all with my thoughts on the geek perfect storm that is Batman Begins for quite awhile; however, as The Dark Knight is just around the corner, I’ll wait for that one.

Bruce Wayne: Well, a guy who dresses up like a bat clearly has issues.