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Back Seat Producers Season 07 Shows

BSP Episode 244: The Dark Knight Rises

Sausage Fest 3 is next weekend!  We’ve reached out first goal of exceeding last year’s pre-event donations and there’s a rumor that Tony might shave his head if we hit $2,000 before October 13th.  Check out sausagefeststl.com to donate and check out the perk levels!

 

Release date:  7/20/2012

Warner Bros.

Directed by

  • Christopher Nolan

Produced by

  • Emma Thomas
  • Christopher Nolan
  • Charles Rovan

Screenplay by

  • Jonathan Nolan
  • Christopher Nolan

Story by

  • Christopher Nolan
  • David S. Goyer

Based on

  • characters by Bob Kane

 

Cast

Christian Bale

  • Bruce Wayne

Gary Oldman

  • Commissioner Gordon

Tom Hardy

  • Bane

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  • John Blake

Anne Hathaway

  • Selina Kyle

Michael Caine

  • Alfred Pennyworth

The hosts review:

Quick and dirty to start things off… all the hosts liked it.  They drift off for a few minutes to the Avengers, whether one was better than the other, possible future Avenger projects and general TV commentary.  David thought it wasn’t as good as The Dark Knight, but Deuce disagreed.  Tony didn’t really get the full effect of the movie until a few days after seeing it, mostly because some of the timelines in the story were compressed and some weren’t.  He brought up Bruce Wayne’s time in prison as a prime example.  David thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s John Black character was unnecessary; not because of bad acting, but just the character in general.  The argument was that Blake is the young character who will carry on the story.

Deuce said that The Dark Knight Rises should be viewed (and reviewed) as a trilogy, not just as a stand-alone film.  What follows is an in-depth discussion about whether Christian Bale is fat or muscular… and the best part is that there isn’t one single female partaking in this discussion!

Tony thought that Bane’s plans shouldn’t have worked and, more than that, both of his plans were terrible (he also thought that The Joker’s plans shouldn’t have worked, either).  Deuce compared the three movies of the trilogy, likening the 1st and 3rd to Bond-type films with gadgets, terrorists and espionage, except that in The Dark Knight Rises, it takes you half way between a superhero film and a Bond-type film.  They also get into a discussion as to whether Superman and Batman can exist at the same time and place.

David thought that every character in the movie rose to the challenge except Batman… everyone else disagreed.  Deuce brought up that part of the story of this film is that Batman can’t be Batman forever.  Tony said that Wayne’s biggest challenge was breaking out of prison.  Part of Wayne’s “rise” is going from a state of action to inaction, rising above vengeance to live as a person and not a superhero, and that’s where the disagreements come in.  In the end, Wayne is comfortable enough to be able to walk away from (rise above) Batman.

Beginning the discussion of acting performances, David thought that Christian Bale was good, but not in the film very much.  Darrell thought that the two best performances came from Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway, but there was a little bit of disagreement with Tom Hardy because his face is covered throughout the movie.  Two other fantastic performances, according to David and Tony agreed, were from Michael Caine and Gary Oldman.

Talking about the three movies as a whole, they thought up that The Dark Knight was more about the characters.  Each movie had its own set of flaws, but each one is entertaining as a whole and on its own.  They said that it was a credit to Christopher Nolan that he was able to elevate each movie.

They loved the Bane character – he wasn’t a thug, he was as intelligent as Batman.  They also agreed on the Catwoman character – well played, especially because they put a lot of focus on Selina Kyle and not just Catwoman.  Regarding the women in all three movies, they were all in agreement that Katie Holmes was the least talented.  They also liked Marion Cotillard’s Miranda character.  They thought SPOILER REDACTED.

Trivial bits ‘n pieces:

Around 10,000 extras were used to shoot the Gotham Rogues scene in Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A number of Pittsburgh Steelers played football players, as well as a former Steelers Coach and the mayor of Pittsburgh.

Tom Hardy described Bane as an absolute terrorist: “He’s brutal, but also incredibly clinical in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed… it’s nasty. It’s not about fighting, it’s about carnage!”

Hardy said he based his voice for Bane on Bartley Gorman (1944-2002), an Irish Traveller who was the undefeated Bare-knuckle boxing champion of the United Kingdom.

This movie brought together a number of actors from “Inception” – Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy.

Nolan said that this film’s theme deals with “Pain”. For Batman Begins, it was “Fear”, and The Dark Knight was “Chaos”.

 

Your Producers for this episode were:

  • Tony
  • Tony/Deuce
  • Darrell
  • David

This episode was recorded: 10/3/2012

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