My The Dark Knight Anxiety
>> 20 August 2008
Let's talk neuroses. And instead of me being a jerk and targeting someone else, let's talk about mine.
The things I'm going to talk about may make me seem more dysfunctional as an individual than the entire Bluth family on "Arrested Development" combined, but it's all good. We all have our eccentricities. Mine just happen to manifest themselves in trivial things like movies and sports.
I'm a movie guy. Love them. But I've experienced so many colossal disappointments when it comes to sequels, usually due to my own elevated expectations being combined with horrible screenwriting (some notable disappointments: The Land Before Time II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, the aforementioned X-Men 3, etc), that I knew in order to survive my heightened anxiety leading up to the premier of The Dark Knight, I needed to seriously manage expectations. It was the only way I was going to walk out of the movie and not slit my guts open in order to preserve what little honor I would have left.
I've spent multiple blog entries singing the praises of Batman Begins, so I need you to realize that as 18 July 2008 crept closer, I felt like I was doing alternating emotional shots of anxiety and excitement and chasing them down with sleeping pills. I guess so you can empathize with me a bit, try to recall your feelings before each of the following experiences that each of us have:
4. First date
They are all feelings of the "I hope I'm not overwhelmingly humiliated / disappointed after this is over"-variety, right? (I guess with example 3, there is the added "I hope I don't end up with a prison shank in my back" aspect to the feelings. But whatever). Those emotions are what I was feeling about seeing The Dark Knight.
So like I said before, in order to avoid disappointment, I needed to manage expectations. How did I do in the leadup? Well, judge for yourself...
As I sent out an email to my group of friends, checking on who wanted to go with me on opening night, I ended the email with a request that went something like this: "From here on out, I'm going black.² I ask that no one send me links to reviews, trailers, or anything related to this movie. I'm experiencing some anxiety for the first time in my life and don't need to have unrealistic expectations for how good it's going to be."
That's right. I went on complete radio silence from the media machine that was promoting the movie. Even those stupid Dominoes Pizza commercials warranted me quickly changing the channel. I didn't want to see any of it.
---Inexplicable Hayden Christensen Fear?---
About a week and a half before the movie came out, this crazy fear of mine started to develop that The Dark Knight would open with this sick action scene, the camera would move in on Batman, and then he would take the helmet off to reveal... Hayden Christensen. That's right. The whiny kid from Star Wars who's got that "I listen to Nirvana all day, why the hell do you think I'm always depressed?" face. It's probably because I had seen Jumper earlier this year (the absolute dregs of 2008 cinema), which solidified Christensen's Paul Walker status as a horrible actor. It would have been a perfect way for the movie to be ruined for me.
This fear of a horrible, horrible movie was only perpetuated when, on the night of the 17th, TNT was having a Batman marathon in anticipation of the premiere. Which movie happened to be on? Batman & Robin. It MAY -- and I don't use this classification lightly, so please realize the gravity of what I'm saying here -- have been on the same level as Battlefield Earth. I started thinking to myself: What if Christopher Nolan has gone nuts since Batman Begins, and decided to model The Dark Knight after Batman & Robin?? Did he request nipple-suits for the actors? Did he hire 5-year olds to draft his screenplay?
Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night.
Again. Me. Crazy.
---"What Are You Doing?"---
I usually don't do too well at work on Fridays. I have a short enough attention span as it is, and when the weekend is almost there, I get antsy. Pile on top of that everything I just rambled about, and I was getting fidgety come Friday afternoon of the 18th. I needed to blow some extra energy so I unwittingly started shadow-boxing in my cubicle.
"What are you doing?" One of my coworkers asked from my cubicle entrance.
"Shadow-boxing."
"Yeah. But why?" He looked at me like I was crazy.
I looked back at him like he was crazy: "Don't you know? The Dark Knight opens tonight."
2 - Anybody on this email chain can easily go back and see that I didn't type "I'm going black," but I wish I had. It just sounds better.
The things I'm going to talk about may make me seem more dysfunctional as an individual than the entire Bluth family on "Arrested Development" combined, but it's all good. We all have our eccentricities. Mine just happen to manifest themselves in trivial things like movies and sports.
I'm a movie guy. Love them. But I've experienced so many colossal disappointments when it comes to sequels, usually due to my own elevated expectations being combined with horrible screenwriting (some notable disappointments: The Land Before Time II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, the aforementioned X-Men 3, etc), that I knew in order to survive my heightened anxiety leading up to the premier of The Dark Knight, I needed to seriously manage expectations. It was the only way I was going to walk out of the movie and not slit my guts open in order to preserve what little honor I would have left.I've spent multiple blog entries singing the praises of Batman Begins, so I need you to realize that as 18 July 2008 crept closer, I felt like I was doing alternating emotional shots of anxiety and excitement and chasing them down with sleeping pills. I guess so you can empathize with me a bit, try to recall your feelings before each of the following experiences that each of us have:
1. First job interview
2. First public speaking assignment
3. First prison yard fight¹2. First public speaking assignment
4. First date
They are all feelings of the "I hope I'm not overwhelmingly humiliated / disappointed after this is over"-variety, right? (I guess with example 3, there is the added "I hope I don't end up with a prison shank in my back" aspect to the feelings. But whatever). Those emotions are what I was feeling about seeing The Dark Knight.
So like I said before, in order to avoid disappointment, I needed to manage expectations. How did I do in the leadup? Well, judge for yourself...*****
---"I'm going black"---As I sent out an email to my group of friends, checking on who wanted to go with me on opening night, I ended the email with a request that went something like this: "From here on out, I'm going black.² I ask that no one send me links to reviews, trailers, or anything related to this movie. I'm experiencing some anxiety for the first time in my life and don't need to have unrealistic expectations for how good it's going to be."
That's right. I went on complete radio silence from the media machine that was promoting the movie. Even those stupid Dominoes Pizza commercials warranted me quickly changing the channel. I didn't want to see any of it.
---Inexplicable Hayden Christensen Fear?---
About a week and a half before the movie came out, this crazy fear of mine started to develop that The Dark Knight would open with this sick action scene, the camera would move in on Batman, and then he would take the helmet off to reveal... Hayden Christensen. That's right. The whiny kid from Star Wars who's got that "I listen to Nirvana all day, why the hell do you think I'm always depressed?" face. It's probably because I had seen Jumper earlier this year (the absolute dregs of 2008 cinema), which solidified Christensen's Paul Walker status as a horrible actor. It would have been a perfect way for the movie to be ruined for me.
This fear of a horrible, horrible movie was only perpetuated when, on the night of the 17th, TNT was having a Batman marathon in anticipation of the premiere. Which movie happened to be on? Batman & Robin. It MAY -- and I don't use this classification lightly, so please realize the gravity of what I'm saying here -- have been on the same level as Battlefield Earth. I started thinking to myself: What if Christopher Nolan has gone nuts since Batman Begins, and decided to model The Dark Knight after Batman & Robin?? Did he request nipple-suits for the actors? Did he hire 5-year olds to draft his screenplay?
Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night.
Again. Me. Crazy.
---"What Are You Doing?"---
I usually don't do too well at work on Fridays. I have a short enough attention span as it is, and when the weekend is almost there, I get antsy. Pile on top of that everything I just rambled about, and I was getting fidgety come Friday afternoon of the 18th. I needed to blow some extra energy so I unwittingly started shadow-boxing in my cubicle.
"What are you doing?" One of my coworkers asked from my cubicle entrance.
"Shadow-boxing."
"Yeah. But why?" He looked at me like I was crazy.
I looked back at him like he was crazy: "Don't you know? The Dark Knight opens tonight."
*****
The good news is that The Dark Knight was amazing, I am going to see it in IMAX soon, and my life has returned to normal.
Bad news is that with college football just around the corner, the anxiety is likely to return.
1 - My agent said I should expand my readership by appealing to a "wider demographic." He suggested I begin with the incarcerated segment of our population.
The good news is that The Dark Knight was amazing, I am going to see it in IMAX soon, and my life has returned to normal.Bad news is that with college football just around the corner, the anxiety is likely to return.
2 - Anybody on this email chain can easily go back and see that I didn't type "I'm going black," but I wish I had. It just sounds better.
7 ideas preached:
It's funny, I was equally excited for the movie, but I didn't like it. The cinemitography (however you spell that) was awesome, but it is not one I could ever re-watch.
As for being anxious for football season, tell me about it! The worst part is that I'm missing all but one game of my team's season (of course it is the one that matters). Go Blue!!!!
I saw it in IMAX originally, then the regular version yesterday... IMAX is WAAAAAAY better. No comparison. You'll enjoy it.
I can't believe you had the nerve to dis on The Land Before Time VIII, that's probably my favorite movie ever!
the first step to solving a problem is admitting there is one. As someone who watched you work through your anxiety i have to say i am proud of for taking a stand against your fears and confronting them, rather than rocking back and forth in the fetal position in a corner of your room. well done, you're making so much progress...i had a much harder time dealing with my Land Before Time 'issues'...you are an inspiration
An interesting Land Before Time fact: The creator/producer was Don Bluth, a member of the Church in my parent's ward. The movie, along with most of the movies he is affiliated with, has gospel principles intertwined in the plot. And in Don's defense - he had NOTHING to do with the sequels.
As for the nipple-suits: Josh, we all know you were secretly disappointed that one specific actor didn't appear in his nipple-suit.
I always love reading your blogs, Josh. They crack me up!
Really glad you ended up liking the Dark Knight cuz I can only imagine the shell of a person you'd become had you not. Or the masses of crazed fans that would kill you over a negative review.
And I think that there is at least one LBT that is a repeat of one of it's predecessor. The movie people just threw it in there to see if anybody would actually watch and/or notice. I never made it past the first one, but I'd bet good money that #9 is a repeat of #4.
Hey Josh! Gotta love The Land Before Time...I forgot how much I loved that movie. And I enjoyed the shout out to arrested development, though I heard there are talks of an Arrested Development movie...which gives me a little anxiety, knowing that tv shows made into movies usually follow the same crappy lines as sequels do. Let's keep our fingers crossed for that one too.
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