What I've Thrown at the Web Lately

I just returned to Los Angeles from Chicago yesterday. Where I was exactly, what I was doing there, and why -- I can't say. I can say, however, that it was a wonderful experience, one that I soon won't forget and one that I hope to repeat even sooner.

And like the recent, albeit short, change in my physical location, this post is an update of my words' location on the Internet. I've been writing for FirstShowing.net for about eight months now. Within that time my words have been relegated to the day's latest film news. Providing the masses with their fix. And I enjoy it. Though, within the past week, I wrote two articles that I am particularly proud of. One, an obtiuary and commemoration of the recently late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. The other, an editorial waxing on Christopher Nolan's prospective third, and final, Batman film -- a film that would complete his Batman Trilogy and, in my opinion, complete what could very well be the greatest superhero trilogy to date.

Below, I've included excerpts from both pieces, as well as links to where you can read them in their entirety. I hope you enjoy both, though hopefully both for different reasons.

King of Pop Michael Jackson Dead at 50 from Cardiac Arrest

Michael Jackson ascended from child star to megastar to king. Jackson is the epitome of the modern-day multi-media megastar.

Best known for his illustrious music career where he wailed and moon-walked his way to over 750 million records sold and 13 Grammy Awards, Jackson also had a long-standing film career. From his breakout performance in Sidney Lumet's The Wiz where he played the innocent Scarecrow to his epic music video crossover films Thriller and Bad, the latter directed by Martin Scorsese, as well as the unforgettable Captain EO in 1986. Always full of life, even when his life was full of turmoil, Michael Jackson even had a brief, yet unforgettable, cameo in Men in Black II — poking fun at himself, the very man he so often wished to change.

His life was far from normal, though Jackson never truly had a chance to attain any semblance of normalcy — but it will be his successes outside the norm for which he is remembered: his signatures on the world of music and movies. Michael Jackson was one — neither one in one million, or a billion even — but one, wholly unique and never to be repeated. Nor should he be.

Christopher Nolan's Batman 3 -- It Starts and Ends with Time

Batman Begins is Batman's birth. The Dark Knight is both his rise and fall to a place even darker than he thought possible. Should, as I expect, Batman 3 continue to follow this classic biblical structure, it would be Batman's resurrection, his transcendence. The bread crumbs are there, resting atop Gotham's pavement.

But it is there where my thoughts, my ideas, my suggestions branch away.

It starts and ends with time. Time, rather a time jump, is a two-fold solution when applied to Batman 3. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are not separated by much of it at all. Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham and brings Batman with him in Batman Begins. We see the first effects of Batman on his city. We're hopeful. We're excited. Crime recoils, unsure and afraid. But, like Bruce Wayne, we are naive. Batman's very presence causes Gotham to descend even further into madness. When The Dark Knight begins, we're left to fill in the blanks: Batman has garnered a dedicated following. He's the very symbol he set out to be. He's more of a welcomed celebrity than the caped and cowled, distrusted vigilante. And then we see him fall, with Gotham close behind and the people of Gotham being pulled in tow. The small amount of time between the first two films is of necessity. They are two halves, each a side of the same coin, one polished, one scarred. But Batman 3 needs not follow that same dynamic. Could circumstances have been different, sure, Batman 3 could have easily picked up shortly after Batman speeds into the night. But it never had to. And it shouldn't have to now.

Batman 3 should take place years, if not decades, in the future. Who says resurrection has to be three days? By aging Gotham, it ages the characters (thus avoiding a contemporary recasting of The Joker). By aging Gotham, it raises the stakes. Gotham, the fallen city, having been sunk for years now. A city without any hope. A population without a hero. Batman, still a distrusted wild card. Batman, still torn apart by the loss of Rachel. Of Harvey. Of Alfred - he has to go. But we gain a more mature Batman. One who, in the decades passed, has now seen it all. One who has been continually hated by the very people he protects. One who won't let himself become good in their eyes, become that celebrity. One who truly knows how to use his rage, his torment, rather than the Batman we've seen who only thinks he does.

A longer stretch of time affords the creators a sizable amount of leeway. Sure, while we must lose Alfred, perhaps Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox would then fulfill that role. Not a butler, but a confidant and engineer behind-the-scenes working from The Bat Cave beneath the long-since rebuilt Wayne Manor. Perhaps The Joker was, in fact, captured and contained in Arkham for however long it has been between The Dark Knight and Batman 3, but he has only now finally escaped. The Joker wouldn't need to look the same, in fact he shouldn't. His already warped mind would be even more twisted. And Batman and Bruce Wayne both would finally have to confront the very catalyst of their descent. The singular reason for their own madness over the unseen time between films. Open old wounds that (though fresh for us, the audience) have been long scarred over but never healed underneath.

Time passed is story gained. It is permission to complete a tonally structured trilogy as originally intended — though perhaps not as originally conceived. It's also structure gained. It opens the story to the possibility of a more fractured narrative where we can be filled in through flashbacks about the state of Batman while also providing natural places within the film to include some more classic Batman fare — flashbacks that, while in tone, would further the story, explain the status quo, and also show us some action of his years passed.