More Audiophile Musings

There are a few other characters I would have liked to have seen Nolan present on screen, but I suppose he did capture the most interesting of the bunch.

Incidentally, I still think Vin Diesel would have been ideal as Bane.

I am with you there, but Tom Hardy is a helluva good actor. I would rate Nolan as 4 for 4 with Batman villians so far -- Murphy, Neeson, Ledger and Eckhart were all good to great choices, even though some of them (like Ledger!) seemed odd choices at first. The final result will tell the tale.

True. And I'm sure Tom Hardy will do a fine job. It's just I like Diesel and he has the build and looks that are perfect for the Bane character.

Well, the Bane character as we conceive him from exposure to the comics. The version of the Joker in The Dark Knight borrowed elements from various tales such as The Killing Joke, but ended up being a character all his own. Ra's al Ghoul in Batman Begins was unlike any other version of the character -- having Henri Ducard (who was a character from the comics) end up being al Ghoul in disguise was not only a clever twist to throw off the comic fans, but in a way it provided the resurrection motif from the comics without using the more fantastic elements of The Lazurus Pits. "Killing" al Ghoul but having him return in a different guise achieved the same ends in an entirely different way. I still agree with you that Vin Diesel would have been MY ideal of the character as I know him (hell, Riddick practically IS Bane) but I will wait to see what Nolan does with the character. It may well be that Vin Diesel would no longer be suitable with their version.

Do you know if any CGI is being used to transform Bane, or will he be kept at a realistic size? I'm hoping for no CGI.

It looks like just the real bulking up that Hardy has done. There may be no Venom, either, but the exact nature of the mask has yet to be revealed. (Other than a line in the prologue, which I will not share until you see it.)

The mask struck me as a Hannibal-type mask, rather than an inhaler. Not sure when I will get to see the prologue, but you've piqued my interest.

Well, I will say this about the line in the prologue: it implies that he cannot remove the mask without suffering great pain.

I almost made it to see Ghost Protocol over the last two weeks, but ended up seeing A Game of Shadows and Tin Tin. Both are well done and Seajunior loved the latter. It is a safe adaptation, but the directing, acting and animation are polished.

We saw Hugo in 3D last weekend. It was an absolute delight, and the more that you know of film history the more that you will enjoy it. The kids in the audience seemed to be enjoying it, though I am sure that much of it went over their heads.

We also watched Warrior on Blu-Ray over the weekend and it was very good. Directed by Gavin O'Conner, who directed one of the best sports movies of the 2000s with Miracle, it may settle the question for you about whether or not Tom Hardy can play Bane. The character is very un-Banelike, but it is Hardy's physicality that is so impressive -- he is quite believable kicking the living shit out of some very hardcore real-life MMA figures. Combine his physicality in Warrior with his deviousness in Inception and you may have something! (By the way, if you really want to be impressed watch the behind the scenes features and see just how quickly he added all that muscle, despite having no real athletic experience.)

I had written Warrior off, thinking it'd be garbage. I will have to give it a look.

Hardy may have no real athletic experience, but he demonstrated in Bronson that he was capable of packing on muscle. I guess some guys just have that gift, or they train much smarter than the rest of us (maybe both!). Regardless, Hardy's physique now is a far cry from what it was in Black Hawk Down, as a comparison.

He is bigger in Warrior than he was in Bronson, especially with his traps. Holy cow. I can only assume/hope that he packed on even a few more pounds of muscle for The Dark Knight Rises. But I really was not talking so much about the physique as about the physicality -- they give him a quick-and-brutal fighting style in Warrior (partly to compensate for his lack of martial arts experience) and there is no suspension of disbelief required when he pummels everyone who comes in his path.

But the movie is well worth a look. It does not exactly transcend the cliches of the sports movie genre, but after thousands of sports films I do not know how you can avoid them. (Even an excellent film like The Fighter hardly escapes them.) That said, it actually does a few things a bit differently. The sporting event as a redemption story has been done to death, but this one ups the ante by really giving you three redemption stories: the two brothers as well as the father. And putting it in the family context is interesting -- the director said that his initial conception of the story was "intervention in a cage," which is really an accurate description that will make sense after you see it. Also, it takes a slightly different tack by starting the tournament at about the halfway mark into the film -- there are actually nine total fights in the second half of the film, and it does a good job of keeping them all interesting.

I've always had trouble developing my traps, so I can appreciate when someone else blows them up like Hardy did. Incidentally, here's an article on part of his workout:

http://www.cagepotato.com/check-out-tom-hardys-warrior-workout/

The description of bridges reminds me of my wrestling days. We used to do those exercises, but took it one step further. Once we progressed to the point where we were doing the bridge without any hand or arm support (i.e., head and toes only carrying the weight), we'd add rotations to the mix, where we'd do a 180-degree rotation from a back arch to looking down at the mat. And then we'd keep going for reps. That core strength is what gives you a chance to bridge and reverse an opponent if they get on top of you. Anyway, Hardy obviously has the genetics for developing traps and if he was doing these exercises, I'm not surprised they blew up.

As for the movie, I'm going to have to spend some money now . . . .

On one of the featurettes on the Warrior disc they show his trainers telling him that he needed to add 30lbs -- and then the weigh-in a couple of months later when he hit it!

I've read a few articles since you mentioned the movie and I read somewhere that he gained 28 lbs, which is pretty much the same as saying he gained 30. Either way, that's a hellava gain. Incidentally, I read that Joel Edgerton gained 20 lbs.

Edgerton was no slouch in the film. One of the really interesting things is that they tailored the fights to the actors -- Hardy had absolutely no fight experience so they made his fights all about quickness and power. Edgerton had seven years of martial arts, admittedly as a teenager, but he was still easier to train so his fights tend to be longer. But it all fits perfectly with the personalities of each character. (By the way, there is a brief but memorable shot of Edgerton as he is straining against his opponent to force a tapout where every single visible vein on his body is bulging with the effort.)

If I can swing it today, I'll be heading out to do some shopping . . .

Let me know what you think. It is not exactly a masterpiece, but it was a very good effort in a genre that rarely impresses me. (On the other hand, Eve thought that it was the best movie that she has seen in a long time.)

Picked it up, but did not get a chance to watch it this weekend. Too much drama and other stuff going on. But, at least it is just a case of finding time to sit down and watch it now.

I watched a heckuva lot of Blu last weekend. Straw Dogs (the original,) MI2, Hero, Mildred Pierce (the new HBO miniseries,) and The Treasure of Sierra Madre.

What did you think of Mildred Pierce? I quite enjoyed, but I found it a bit slow at times. Still, just thinking about it now makes me want chicken and pie.

It was hardly fast paced, but I actually liked the more leisurely storytelling. The material is melodramatic enough as it is -- we are talking about James M. Cain here -- so it feels less over-the-top when it is given some breathing room. Compress all of that material into two hours, and it will come off pretty heavy-handed.

I also finished my The Complete Jean Vigo Criterion over the weekend. Plus, I did finally pick up 12 Angry Men, but I did not watch the film yet. The disc has a kinescope of the original 1954 live television version and I watched that out of curiosity as I had never seen it before. While I love Criterion discs, their supplements can sometimes be a bit dull and have nothing more than "talking head" interviews rather than any true making-of features. But 12 Angry Men looks like it has a great set of supplements -- adding the television version is awesome enough, but they also include another live television drama that was directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Reginald Rose (the director and writer of the feature version of the movie.) Plus there are archival interviews with Sidney Lumet, who was always interesting to listen to, and many other features.