July Film Club

Thank you to everyone who made it out to the first two films of our Christopher Nolan Summer Film Series.

Our next two films for the month of July are Batman Begins and the sequel, The Dark Knight.

Batman Begins will be showing Tuesday, July 5th at 6:00pm (please note: It is a Tuesday, not Thursday, and will begin 15 minutes early to accommodate the longer running time)

Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Batman, co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, and Morgan Freeman.  The film reboots the Batman film series, telling the origin story of the title character (Bale), from his alter ego Bruce Wayne’s initial fear of bats, the death of his parents, his journey to become Batman, and his fight to stop the villains of the film from plunging Gotham City into chaos.

The film holds an 85% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 267 reviews.  Roger Ebert awarded the film 4/4 stars saying this of the film in his review, “Batman Begins at last penetrates to the dark and troubled depths of the Batman legend, creating a superhero who, if not plausible, is at least persuasive as a man driven to dress like a bat and become a vigilante.  The movie doesn’t simply supply Batman’s beginnings in the tradition of a comic book origin story, but explores the tortured path that led Bruce Wayne from a parentless childhood to a friendless adult existence.  The movie is not realistic, because how could it be, but it acts as if it is.  I said this is the Batman movie I’ve been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn’t realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed.  The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment.  There’s something to it.”

Here's the trailer:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vak9ZLfhGnQ

The Dark Knight will be showing Tuesday, July 26th at 6:00pm (please note: It is a Tuesday, not Thursday, and will begin 15 minutes early to accommodate the longer running time)

The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan, the film is the second part of Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy and a sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins, starring an ensemble cast including Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Morgan Freeman.  In the film, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Bale), James Gordon (Oldman) and Harvey Dent (Eckhart) form an alliance to dismantle organized crime in Gotham City, but are menaced by a criminal mastermind known as the Joker who seeks to undermine Batman’s influence and create chaos.  Nolan’s inspiration for the film was the Joker’s comic book debut in 1940, the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke and the 1996 series The Long Halloween.

The film holds a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 314 reviews.  Roger Ebert awarded the film 4/4 stars saying this in his review, “Batman isn’t a comic book anymore.  Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy.  It creates characters we come to care about.  That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production.  The Dark Knight is not a simplistic tale of good and evil.  Batman is good, yes, The Joker is evil, yes.  But Batman poses a more complex puzzle than usual: The citizens of Gotham City are in an uproar, calling him a vigilante and blaming him for the deaths of policemen and others.  And The Joker is more than a villain.  He’s a Mephistopheles whose actions are fiendishly designed to pose moral dilemmas for his enemies.”

Here's the trailer:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXeTwQWrcwY