CINEMATIC QUICKIES

Because I've got two long-ass pontificatory posts in the works, I'm going to err on the side of brevity for the forseeable future and crank out some knuckle children of bullet pointery.

• TERMINATOR SALVATION teaser trailer is up, and I'm a little ashamed to be excited by it.  With the mediocrity/franchise blasphemy that was T3 almost gone from memory, it's a lot easier to get jazzed about a movie chronicling the robot war to end all robot wars - yeah that's right Watchowskis, Terminators kick Matrix-sentinel ass any day of the week.
• Yes, I know the preceeding bullet point was incessently nerdy without any redeeming value.  Suck it up.
• THE DARK KNIGHT on Blu-Ray (since I passed on seeing it in IMAX) is a revelation of picture clarity.  The fidelity of image is really staggering, and I found myself more involved in the proceeding simply because everything filmed in IMAX just seemed to be happening before my eyes.
• THE DARK KNIGHT upon multiple viewings, on the other hand, completely fucking implodes.  Wanna test me?  Work your way backwards through any of The Joker's plans in the film and see if you can find anything resembling logic.  The movie's narrative demonstrates the kind of deductive reasoning seen regularly (and sublimely) on CSI: MIAMI, except here it's supposed to be taken seriously.  
• AUSTRALIA.  Not a great movie.  Maybe not even a very good one, I'm not sure yet, but I loved every second of it.  There's plenty to nitpick (and regular-pick) at, but overall I loved the movie for its exuberant movieness and urge to please.  The thing is entertaining on just about every level, even if it's only satisfying visually and viscerally.  Certainly worth seeing, and definitely worth your admission price to see on the big screen.  GO!  Baz needs your help.
• RED is a really trite concept for a movie that at every turn avoids triteness, sometimes at the last minute.  The movie leads the audience (perhaps intentionally) to expect the contrived, and again defies expectations by delivering a really terrific, nuanced character in the form of Brian Cox's Avrey Ludlow.  Every time I felt the movie careening towards a disastrous cliff of shallow sentimentality and cartoonish motivations, it surprised me by resisting the temptation that might've derailed a lesser film.  RED is a really terrific little indie thriller, which I've intentionally avoided describing so that you'll watch it cold.  Check it out (Netflixers, it's available to stream for free).
• Oscar hype continues to build around THE DARK KNIGHT.  Shudder.  Shit bums me out that Heath's going to get nominated for being dead and not for being good.  
• On that topic, I've come to the conclusion, after realizing that THE DARK KNIGHT is a terribly exciting movie that uses tension and speed to convince (at least for a while) its viewer to oversee or ignore its vast array of fatal flaws, that the people that do think that the movie's genuinely great* only say so out of some bizarrely morbid loyalty to Heath.  Lousy starfuckers.  More thoughts on that later (but probably not).

*Great in the David Lean**, Stanley Kubrick sense, not the (more enjoyable) Sylvester Stallone sense.

**Right there?  I just name-dropped a filmmaker who's movies I've never seen, in a footnote no less.  Whatta twat I am.