Megan and Juliana need to see this.

Love the field notes. Although I must disagree with this:

Simply adding facial hair to Keanu can increase his Kean-u-meter by one to two points.

I found the movie so sad that I'm not sure I'm yet up to reading an in-depth analysis.

You mean sad as in a downer and not sad as in bad, right? If the former, I think that's why I don't have quite the energy to read it right now also. That, and (shameful admission) I HATE reading things that require serious critical attention on a computer. I have a similar problem with movies, TV episodes and such. I need a little distance to digest - words on some kind of paper, visions on a screen across the room, etc.

Absolutely the former, Frank. I really found the movie affecting.

Absolutely the former, Frank. I really found the movie affecting.

I did too. Plus, the first movie I felt compelled to see at a midnight show opening since... I think...Tim Burton's first Batman movie (which I did enjoy, but in those days I could shrug off the late-night factor of given I was in college at the time, and it didn't affect me nearly half as much).

I do wonder how much of that is the Heath Ledger factor (or the circumstances concerning him I should say, and I'm speaking as someone who only had a passing familiarity with him, having only seen a few early things he was in and not having seen Brokeback Mountain, mainly because I thought it would be a downer), but just about everything in the movie hit me like I was an open nerve.

The Heath Ledger effect was impossible for me to ignore, but the starkness of the ending was just about Gotham and Bruce and Batman and Harvey and Two Face. Oh, and Jim Gordon. I guess I mean it was wide-sweeping but Ledger-effect-free.

I had to retell the entire movie to both my parents, separately. I felt like such a seven year old, because anything with costumes is kiddie stuff to them, and I just wanted them to understand it didn't have to be juvenile just because some guy dressed as a bat and another wore too much makeup.

TDK is one of the few movies that I've given my full attention to every time I've seen it. Most movies, by the third repetition I'm really watching only a third of it. This one, I listen to every single word each time.

Oh my god, those Coraline boxes are sheer genius, and what a marketing coup they are, too. Raises my hopes for the movie, indeed.

Yes, those boxes are surely the best promo materials in the history of movies.

Oh my god, those Coraline boxes are sheer genius, and what a marketing coup they are, too. Raises my hopes for the movie, indeed.

If various bloggers are getting them, I have this hope that Jilli would get one for Gothic Charm School.

but the starkness of the ending was just about Gotham and Bruce and Batman and Harvey and Two Face. Oh, and Jim Gordon.

As a crazed Batman fangirl, I was *stunned* by how grim TDK was. And -- I read the comics still. I had no illusions that Batman was going to be an Adam West throwback. The comics are pretty grim, but still, TDK was unrelentingly grim.

Which it *had* to be to tell that story (which I maintain was really Harvey Dent's story all along, just as Batman Begins was Jim Gordon's story), but my god. I still haven't watched it again.

I came out of TDK reeling and babbling. I loved Batman Begins, despite a few issues with the length, but TDK blew me away. I know what you mean about watching it again, though -- I want to, but I feel like I need to ready this time.

It is very much Harvey Dent's story, I think. Totally agree.