BRUDDA! AMERICAN FOOTBALL

I guess all you got to do is add kung fu and it will be a great action movie. That is what I feel like the director made a loose intermediate adaptation and was thinking that by added kung fu to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that it would be a good movie and he was right. As long as you don't try to look for some deep hidden message in the movie it was a pretty good action flick. It a loose adaptation of the play, pretty much just taking the premise that there are two families feuding and their children will fall in love and try to stop the war. Also it looks into the cost or price of their feud and their greed. The director wasn't trying to recreate Romeo and Juliet, rather he used it as his foundation to create something a little different to what he wanted to see, but he stayed close to the play which makes this an Analogy film. Although he wanted something different you can watch it and still say that this is a Romeo and Juliet story and if you can make that connection than the director didn't stray too far from the play. I'm not gonna say it was a fantastic film (only if I let my nostalgia blind me I might) but it was still a good way to pass the time and it still is technically a Romeo and Juliet story.

Miller and the Bat

Batman Year One, the story detailing the first year of Batman and Gordon on the job in Gotham. Pretty much an origin story of the two and how their partnership happens. Between Frank Miller's Year One and its animated adaption with the same name was pretty much identical. The animated counterpart is an extremely close adaptation where it seemed as if they took the panels from the graphic novel and just animated it. In fact most of the lines spoken was also pulled directly from the graphic novel of the same name. Also the animation style was more clean and new, they tried to imitate and incorporate Frank Miller's design and look into the film including Batman's grey costume (different from the black or blue costume we often see today and the purple from the earlier Batman comics). No elements were dropped and some were added but the added elements didn't really mess with the story line, rather it served to help explain it a littler better (i.e why Barbara was with Gordon at Bruce's mansion or how Bruce was at the bridge to help save Gordon's baby). Repeating what I said earlier about how there was practically no difference between the graphic novel and the animated film, I feel that they were trying their best to illustrate the intentions of the text's author making the adaptation a Transposition. I think the filmmaker wasn't trying to create any new meaning with their film Batman Year One. It felt more like a tribute film to Frank Miller because they kept all his elements, character designs and even their camera angles looked as if it was pulled straight from the graphic novel. So to conclude, Frank Miller's Batman Year One is a must read classic and the art was ahead of its time and the animated film Batman Year One is also a great watch and it feels like you are watching a comic book .

Da-NA-NA-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na BATMAN!

      Batman the Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan...'nuff said. Loosely based off Allan Moore's and Brian Bolland's Batman the Killing Joke, it is a great movie that keeps the spirit of Batman and his fight against Joker. Although it doesn't follow the Batman legacy completely, rather it plants Batman into a more realistic environment but still follows the premise of Batman. For example, The Joker skin hasn't been mutated and bleached white, rather it looks like the Joker in Dark Knight went insane and (poorly) applied make-up to himself.
      Like I mentioned before, Batman the Dark Knight is loosely based off of Batman the Killing Joke. The movie Dark Knight doesn't have the Joker paralyzing Gordon's daughter Barbara or kidnapping Gordon and buying a carnival and torturing him or anything. But what the Dark Knight does have is the Joker trying to disprove Batman's moral code and belief that Gotham can change. Trying to show Batman that the people and their so-called "sense of moral" can be crushed and the people would be reduced to animals from the weight of their own code. Batman on the other hand is trying to stop the Joker and keeping his own code intact by not killing the Joker, thus he is a living proof that Joker is wrong and that people won't crack under pressure. Christopher Nolan did a great job of adapting The Killing Joke by showing just how human Batman is and how conflicted he is when it comes to the Joker. Like when Batman contemplates on killing the Joker to save more lives in the future since Joker will just get released when he rides his cycle straight on towards the Joker in the streets of Gotham in Dark Knight.
      One can say that the film Dark Knight is an analogy of The Killing Joke and I agree. Christopher Nolan wanted to create his own Batman world and he did a hell of a job doing it. It's just like real comic books where there are different worlds and different stories of Batman and Christopher Nolan just added another story to the Batman legacy. Batman is still trying to make Gothan a better city by ridding it of crime with the Joker constantly trying to show Batman the reality that he can't change Gotham since people are not what they really seem and hide behind their "moral code". Same old, same old and yet oh so different.