7 Quick Takes Friday, Vol #8

- 1 -

Dad of the year. That's right sweetie, its a PS3 controller.  FUS RO DAH!!!

 - 2 -

First Child turning 1: I thought people were exaggerating when they talked about how much your life would change once you had kids.  I really did.  As a guy who never thought much about babies I never seriously thought through the thousands of diapers, the nights you stay up at 2am and 4am and 5:30am, the constant supervision required, trying to figure out why she's crying, worrying about an oncoming illness, losing most all free-time, and being truly and honestly exacerbated and flabbergasted multiple times per week.  I never counted on my life changing so much in one year.  I thought people were crazy.

I also thought people were crazy when they talked about how much love was added and how much the changes were good.  I was wrong there too.

- 3 -

The nice thing about parties for a baby:  You get to pick the party theme, their cake, who to invite.  Funny how my daughter's party is going to be beach themed (which her parents love), she'll have an ice cream cake (which her parents love) and everyone coming over is a friend of ours or a family member (whom her parents love... most of the time).  This will be a far cry from her birthday party in about 5 years, where she'll pick her own theme (by that time it'll be space-age iPod ninja fairies), she'll want her own flavored cake (a space-age iPod ninja fairy decorated bubble-gum and sour patch kids flavored cake) and she'll want to invite her little friends over (including the snotty-nose kid who is too old to not be potty trained and too young to know the cuss words he uses).  

I'll enjoy this while I can.

- 4 -

Bat-Plans:  As much as I want to watch the Dark Knight and Bane duke it out, some things are more important.  My daughter's first birthday is one of them.  Hopefully I will catch The Dark Knight Rises sometimes in the next week.

- 5 -

Multiple Super-Villains:  I've read that Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow is appearing in TDKR. Kinda cool to see him appear in all three movies.  That got me thinking about how Nolan has handled multiple villains in his Batman films compared to last Batman film series (Batman 1989-Batman and Robin). Especially in regards to Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, the villains had to have equal screen time, they had to "team up" and generally they just never appeared as threatening. 

Nolan has done a great job balancing all of the villains in his movies. In Batman Begins, Ra’as al Ghul is a great, if often shadowy, main antagonist. But throw in Jonathan Crane and Carmine Falcone and you've got a thick world with multiple villains occupying different strata, all threatening, but none of them have that cookie-cutter feeling to them and it makes the main nemesis appear that much more threatening by comparison. The same goes for The Dark Knight: the Joker is a sick, psychopath... and he shines all the brighter against the mob bosses (especially that weasel, opportunist Maroni), Lau, the corrupt cops and (in limited fashion) Jonathan Crane again. Heck, the Joker is incredibly sinister as he had a hand in bringing down Harvey Dent. And Harvey Dent, while perhaps not the menace the Joker was, was way more frightening to me than Two-Face was in Batman Returns. 

Nolan knows how to layer multiple villains and I think he will do a great job again with (what I'm sure is limited screen time for) Jonathan Crane, and any flashbacks/involvement with the League of Shadows/Ra'as al Ghul/Talia al Ghul.

Oh... and Catwoman (whom I imagine will just end up being an anti-hero hero).

- 6 -

Article of the Week:  Great article discussing the themes of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, and how they relate to the writer's prediction (as he had not seen the movie at the time of writing the article) that Batman would be killed in the last movie.  The article, "Why Do We Fall?  Speculating Batman's Fate in the Dark Knight Rises" is a well-written and insightful look at this series and worth a look.  

I promise, next week I won't fill my 7 Quick Takes with Batman write-ups.  I also promise to try and figure out why my fonts aren't working correctly???

- 7 -

Joke of the Week:  Removed... before the picture police arrested me.

Read the original at Conversion Diary.