• watching V for Vendetta on a Spanish-language cable channel. better than watching Telemundo. almost. #
• am hoping to find a wifi connection at the beach to record our “Dark Knight” show #

• @hiddenloop Wall-E is fantastic - can’t recommend it highly enough! #

This will be a short post today, Dear Listener. While the Maestro (and if he gets to call me Professor Doctor, the least I can do is return the honour) suns himself on an Argentinian balcony, I am stuck here in cold and greying Belfast, with only a £6.50 for two nights deal on renting two ‘premiere’ releases and one ‘favourite’. And I need your help, Dear Listener, over a matter that may initially seem simple, but on closer reflection may well be the unanswerable question:

Justin Timberlake lip-synching to The Killers

Jon Lovitz as a racist cop

Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star investigative journalist

Dwayne Johnson as a much more famous version of himself

Wallace Shawn and Miranda Richardson together at last

Religious visions of the apocalypse and consumerism will eat itself scenarios

Some of the most striking visual images in US cinema of the past ten years

‘Strange Days’ meets ‘Memento’ meets ‘Blade Runner’ meets ‘Donnie Darko’ meets ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’

I think.

So, to the question: can anyone tell me what the hell ‘Southland Tales’ is about?

It’s well-known (and obvious from watching it) that this movie has been cut to ribbons - which didn’t harm ‘Across the Universe’, a movie that I felt could have lost a couple more scenes and still been breathtaking; on the other hand, I still wait in vain for a director’s cut of Billy Bob Thornton’s ‘All the Pretty Horses’, which I genuinely think could be a masterpiece if the studio hadn’t exercised their prerogative to make great things worse by dividing them in two. ‘Southland’ comes from Richard Kelly, who in ‘Donnie Darko’ proved himself capable of both smart philosophy and cinematic poetry - sort of a Ferris Bueller meets Ingmar Bergman kinda guy; and so I want to believe that his next film is more than the sum of its parts. But watching it last night was … how should I say this? Confusing to the point of monotony? Maybe, but I’m open to a re-viewing with new lenses: and this is what I need you for, Dear Listener. Is there any one among you who can tell me what I should do with ‘Southland Tales’?

• Replying to comments on the TFT site while stranded here at the Ft. Lauderdale airport on my way to a Central American Isthmus #

• @tinythoughts nice try - but that’s not it! (re: the influences on the dark knight) #
• @goodonpaper Yep, we just recorded the Wall-E show and let me tell you there wasn’t a dry eye in the house! #
• @ibmobl Yep, it’s killin’ the good Dr. that he has to wait to see the Dark Knight. #
• @ibmobl good guess - but heath ledger is basing his performance on someone else…it’s uncanny! #
• @ibmobl that’s why i can’t wait to hear what he has to say about the film! #
• just upload Part 28 of The Film Talk - Journey to the Center of Hellboy! http://tinyurl.com/5qm2tu #
• @icedcoffee i understand TFT is good while doing the dishes or hoovering! #

• off to see the 9am showing of Batman at the local IMax theatrer #
• just got back from dark knight - #
• writing up the notes for this week’s recording session: Chapter 29 - Wall E #
• @digmo don’t want to give spoilers/after you see it ask yourself - who is the real hero in the film and who’s the star?answer is not obvious #
• @tinythoughts have 2 wait to record batman next week=gareth hasn’t seen it!noticed 2 big things that no one else has mentioned so am excited #
• @ibmobl yes…but who was heath ledger impersonating? will reveal in chapter 30! #
• @ibmobl i realized within the first couple o min - i couldn’t believe it - a dead-on impersonation #

Wow how cool is this? You can now leave video comments on the site!  Just click on the handy ‘record video comment’ below to leave us that special message that can only be expressed through the miracle of motion pictures.

Maybe I should kick off the process by recording a comment of my own.

Oh. Wait a minute.

I don’t have a webcam.

Damn.

Disclaimer: This is a risky post; I’m indulging in something I have no gift for: predicting the future. So, Dear Listener, if I prove to be entirely wrong, please forgive me.

So, I’m as much of a Batman fan as the next person - and I love Christopher Nolan (my genial co-host the Maestro was not enthusiastic at all about The Prestige, but I think everything CN has done has just the kind of texture I want in a meaty drama; and, lest we forget, he’s just about the only fim-maker today who is giving Michael Caine work with a purpose other than funding his property empire). So, when The Dark Knight finally emerges in Belfast in the middle of next week I’ll be anticipating something very special indeed. I am, as you Dear Listener, are well aware, a bit of a sentimental bloke, and one of the consequences of this is that I am naive enough to sometimes take other people’s reviews seriously - so the exceptional acclaim for this picture is generating real excitement (even the fact that the film is already at number 4 on the imdb poll has to count for something [sorry Jett]).

BUT

I have picked up a few subtle senses about the movie that raise the question that I think pre-occupies more than any other: what is the place of violence in the world? The oldest document in existence, the Epic of Gilgamesh, include the Enuma Elish, the creation myth of the Babylonian Empire; and enshrines what has been called the ‘myth of redemptive violence’ - the notion that violence can not only stop conflict, and bring order out of chaos, but somehow cleanse the world. There’s a very strong case to be made that all human interactions have this myth embedded within them (or at least the threat of its being put into action). Every action hero - from the ’softer’ hues of Superman and Indiana Jones to the recent darker incarnations of the Hulk and Bruce Wayne - lives by this myth. On rare occasions, something other than meeting force with force is offered as an alternative - such as in the astonishing climax of ‘Spiderman 3′, when the bad guy is forgiven and released by the hero. But the overwhelming superhero narrative is the one in which evil is eradicated through violent force. (Think Popeye minus Olive Oyl plus Bluto plus lust times Spinach equals Bluto brutalised plus Olive Oyl strangely not traumatised minus Popeye ever remembering to eat the Spinach before Bluto tries to kidnap and abuse his wife.)

So, where does this leave us? I expect I will enjoy ‘The Dark Knight’ immensely; I imagine it will be a tremendous drama, with emotional depth. I suspect Heath Ledger’s performance probably is as good as everyone is saying. There may well be some exploration of Bruce Wayne’s inner struggle; but I might hazard a guess that this struggle is limited to whether or not he can ‘have a fulfilling personal life’ while also ’standing up for justice’. And in this, the film may well be worthy of applause - it goes beyond the superficiality of pre-Casino Royale James Bond, who could behave like a psychopath playboy without ever sitting at home and weeping into his Scotch. However, if, as I often say, Ben Okri is right - that the stories we tell ourselves shape our vision of what is possible in life, merely offering the opportunity to franchise out our violence to a man in a black suit keeps us trapped in the polar dichotomy that has been the most dangerous burden of the human race: the notion that the only way to respond to violence is to return it in kind, or to run away. I look in vain for a superhero movie that offers a third way. It might be melodramatic to say that the future of humanity depends on it. But it might also be true.

• Still watching Eyes Wide Shut - a film w/novelistic depth. #
• still still still watching eyes wide shut - the show is gonna end up being 10 hours long! #
• watching generation kill…not bad #
• Getting ready to record the TFT ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ Appreciation Show #
• @icedcoffee EWS is a neglected masterpiece - guess ya gotta listen to find out why! #
• recorded the Eyes Wide Shut show - it’ll be 90minutes long! #
• limbering up to edit TFT Part 28 - Journey to the Center of Hellboy! #
• installing the twitter on facebook - ideally i’d like to show up in the TFT facebook group! #

• about to watch Le Samourai! #
• http://tinyurl.com/5kkpft #
• @tinythoughts ouch! #
• @davedelaney hmmm…plurk. #
• @tinythoughts be careful! #
• gettin ready to watch rest of Le Samourai #
• starting to watch ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ for a TFT Kubrick Appreciation Special #
• @talktennessee sorry to hear that! #
• @christopholies i miss chattanooga too - got to visit again someday! #
• @evilrooster have been waiting on my Mac to arrive for months (stuck in some shipping container somewhere! #