Review

It’s not often I believe a movie deserves the praise it receives, and Hollywood suffers a fair deluge of not entirely undeserved criticism concerning its dearth of ideas lately. But The Dark Knight, oddly enough a “sequel” to 2005’s Batman Begins–the most recent in a long line of Batman based cinema stretching back to Tim Burton’s Batman from 1989 (I don’t count previous attempts)–proves the industry isn’t entirely staffed by unimaginative, self-gratifying hacks. That in itself is a significant win for the movie-watching public, and though the trend isn’t likely to continue, The Dark Knight is an excellent film, and future entertainment industry ineptitude is unlikely to rob us of this unexpected bounty.

I’m about 1/3 through Wicked, and having seen the musical adaptation, I’m somewhat confused. I know movies and musicals based on novels commonly encounter issues compressing the material into two hours of nonstop entertainment, but this example is such a ridiculous extreme, I wonder if they didn’t purposefully throw out 95% of the book to avoid confusion. I should note that I loved the musical, and I’m guiltily enjoying the novel, but suggesting they describe the same events would likely disrupt the space-time continuum and destroy us all.