Yes, Peter Schorsch was one of the dorks in line for the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight.
Quite simply, The Dark Knight is the best movie of the decade. Better than No Country for Old Men, better than There Will Be Blood, in fact, this movie ranks in my Top 10, right next to Heat for Best Crime Drama not featuring a Corleone. It is certainly the best story about America in the Post 9/11 world as Gotham is shown as a city under seige by a terrorist who simply “wishes to see the world burn” ala Zaraqawi. And Heath Ledger’s performance as this freightening criminal mastermind The Joker is the stuff careers are made of, which is what makes Ledger’s suicide all the more tragic.
The perfection of this movie comes in the first moments of the film as director Christopher Nolan eschews a title sequence for an explosive bank robbery sequence that all but pays homage to Michael Mann’s Heat. “No fair giving away the mysteries of The Dark Knight. It’s enough to marvel at the way Nolan — a world-class filmmaker, be it Memento, Insomnia or The Prestige — brings pop escapism whisper-close to enduring art. It’s enough to watch Bale chillingly render Batman as a lost warrior, evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather II in his delusion and desolation. It’s enough to see Ledger conjure up the anarchy of the Sex Pistols and A Clockwork Orange as he creates a Joker for the ages. Go ahead, bitch about the movie being too long, at two and a half hours, for short attention spans (it is), too somber for the Hulk crowd (it is), too smart for its own good (it isn’t). The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination. It’s full of surprises you don’t see coming. And just try to get it out of your dreams.”
Fortunately for me, I did not dream of The Dark Knight until early morning. Why because this movie was so good that after I finished the midnight premiere I stayed for the 3:35 a.m. showing. I love going to the movies in New York.
