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.

Oh, I hope jilli gets one too!

That would totally rock.

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),

Lemme ask you though, Tep-- did you buy Harvey's complete fall from grace? This idea that he had been the "uncorruptable one?" That was kind of my one quibble with it-- that I saw glimmers of Harvey's dark side and I didn't completely buy him as the White Knight character that he's supposed to be, to make the fall into darkness that much more a victory for the Joker.

Mind you, I haven't seen it since I saw it in the theatre back in July and Lewis just bought it on Blu-Ray (he hasn't see it yet) so I expect we'll be watching it in the next couple of weeks. Maybe my mind will have changed by then.