I feel lazy at present. So, this post will act as a musical interlude. We open with the dark:

And move onto the slightly strange and fantastical:

And finally, an entirely superior remix of an otherwise cancerously irritating piece:

A proper bassline makes everything alright, you see.

Or rather, The Dark Knight: A Review. In which there may be spoilers, so avoid if you’re interested in watching it uncorrupted.

Heath Ledger may well win an Oscar for his role as the Joker in the latest Batman film. And he may well be posthumously accused of winning that Oscar purely because of its posthumous nature. That’d be a shame - as he probably deserves it.

James made me promise not to include spoilers, so I won’t*. Suffice to say that Ledger’s performance dominates, from the enjoyably confused opening to the character’s eventual demise. From behind the smudged chalk mask which adds so much to the impression of mania comes sheer, random danger, almost throughout. It’s there in the movements, and in the voice. Ledger’s tongue lolls and flaps, barely able to stay inside the Joker’s mutilated lips. The body twitches in line with the character’s own mind, while limbs appear to have a mind of their own on occasion - look for an excited Joker, and they’ll be somewhere else. The voice, meanwhile, sums up the character itself; a low, unsteady croon skittering into gibberish in moments of excitement. Very dark, and very effective.

That’s not to say that the other performances are bad. They’re not; most involved either manage to pull of strong performances, or have roles so peripheral that it doesn’t hugely matter. Christian Bale follows his previous take on Batman well. Aaron Eckhart makes Harvey Dent so irritatingly perfect at first as to make Two-Face seem yet more vile. The rest of the cast - and the film in general - take Ledger’s dark lead, and work it into something worth sitting through. But Ledger’s Joker does set that tone, and so tends to dominate.

And, inevitably, there are problems. Some are mere irritances. Bale’s gravelly monotone when in Bat-mode pushes the stereotype a little too far, while at one point a defendent pulls a gun on the prosecuting attorney while in the dock. I’m happy to suspend disbelief for Batman, or the Joker, or anything that forwards the plot entertainingly - but sometime, it’s just not possible.

Other flaws are more serious. The film’s chaotic motif of fallen heroes and human fallibility should fascinate me; and yet it all felt a little tedious at times. Dent’s fall is done well, and the Joker’s psychotic tricks blur Batman’s lines of right and wrong enjoyably - but it happens to much. The film comes in at a very long 2 hours and 32 minutes and features dilemna after dilemna after dilemna for the forces of law and order. The moral mazes begin to feel forced, included for the sake of pushing character’s boundraries but failing to do so. And with that, the film drags at times. The contrast between the Joker’s capricious anarchism and Batman’s struggle with his conscience is compelling - but if it weren’t for the cracking action scenes that accompany each eruption of that contrast, they’d just get tiring.

Nonetheless, it’s a film worth seeing. Heath Ledger’s swansong as the Joker is superb, and the rest of the cast do enough to not look complete amateurs beside him. It might not be what the pre-release propaganda campaign hyped it to be, but it’s a fun little flick with lots of big explosions and dark plot hooks - enough to fill a long afternoon. And, probably enough for a sadly posthumous Oscar.

*(much)

If all goes to plan, I’ll be on a train when this posts - and away from the internet until Thursday. Through the wonders of modern technology, though, I’ve found a way to inflict my absent self on readers. We begin with a caption competition:

What do you think is going on? Suggestions in the comments…

Quoth Adrian Ramsay:

“Clearly, the doughnut is the best option on the table.”

With soundbites like that, how can I not vote for the man?

I despair, sometimes:

They miss the point somewhat. The focus being on saving the planet, rather than lining their pockets…

(Hat-Tip: Stuart Jeffrey)

No, I really don’t’ have an excuse to post this. Oh well.

Quite why am I reading Robespierre? Specifically, his Justification of the Use of Terror. It’s terrifying (hah…):

It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed. Let the despot govern by terror his brutalized subjects; he is right, as a despot. Subdue by terror the enemies of liberty, and you will be right, as founders of the Republic. The government of the revolution is liberty’s despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime? And is the thunderbolt not destined to strike the heads of the proud?

Emphasis mine. The doublethink inherent here boggles the mind. State-terror is justified should it be directed at enemies of liberty, he cries. That this terror requires a basic negation of liberalism appears beyond him. If some people are legitimate target of oppression, and others are not, then clearly freedom from that oppression cannot be a universal value. If that freedom isn’t a universal value, then we clearly aren’t born equal or free - and so on. Robespierre’s words are those of a tyrant.

They represent an extreme perversion; the enabling state gone bad. He posits that we must rid ourselves of tyrants to be free. True enough. But here he falters, with crashing rhetoric demanding an outright tyranny against tyrants. That requires a universal negation of liberty - and a restoration of tyranny. The enabling state exists to make basic freedoms viable for all. When, in order to create liberty, those basic freedoms are cut off - very literally, in Robespierre’s case - that concept ceases to make sense.

Now, let’s put this arcane rambling into a modern context. Quoth Robespierre:

Society owes protection only to peaceable citizens; the only citizens in the Republic are the republicans. For it, the royalists, the conspirators are only strangers or, rather, enemies. This terrible war waged by liberty against tyranny- is it not indivisible? Are the enemies within not the allies of the enemies without? The assassins who tear our country apart, the intriguers who buy the consciences that hold the people’s mandate; the traitors who sell them; the mercenary pamphleteers hired to dishonour the people’s cause, to kill public virtue, to stir up the fire of civil discord, and to prepare political counterrevolution by moral counterrevolution-are all those men less guilty or less dangerous than the tyrants whom they serve?

Emphasis mine. The same principles abound as before; some are permissible targets for Terror, and so liberty isn’t a universal value. We can kill some of you to make the rest free, and you’d better appreciate it or you’ll be next.

And guess where that logic crops up today? Substitute, “terrorism,” or, “anti-social behaviour,” for, “counterrevolution,” and it becomes clear. The same clear logic of the, “Justification of the Use of Terror,” runs through virtually all modern counter-terrorist thought.

Even the rhetoric matches, give or take the linguistic drift of 214 years and translation. Take that last question - on whether the servants of tyrants are as guilty as those tyrants. Doesn’t that sound just like Bush’s axiom that, “if you feed a terrorist, or fund a terrorist, you are a terrorist?” It’s exactly the same principle; if you’ve any connection with terrorism/counter-revolution, you are a terrorist or counter-revolutionary.

Thus, Melanie Phillip’s, “terrorist nation.”  A wall around the West Bank because Hamas exists there, regardless of the blameless children who also happen to exist there. Because, in this system, they’re not blameless.

And it goes beyond that. The enabling state and the values of positive liberty again become perverted. The 42 Days detention farce serves as the perfect example. Labour claims it protects the basic freedoms of life and liberty by introducing the measures; but effectively jeopardises those basic freedoms by allowing the police to grab a citizen off the street and hide them away for 6 weeks without telling them why. In a perverse twist of illogic whereby liberty becomes tyranny for liberty’s sake, liberty loses. And so do we.

It’s absurd to equate Revolutionary Terror with the present situation. But it’s the same thought that underlies both; freedom must be restricted for its own sake. It’s a perverse step which attacks the real purpose of the Enabling State. Certain intervention can make greater liberty available to all - but not when that liberty is undermined at a basic level. Modern politicians would do well to learn that, or face the consequences of their own petty tyranny.

And no, it’s not Ray Lewis. It’s our old hate object, Andrew Gilligan:

“The reason I fell out with Ken Livingstone wasn’t his cronyism, waste, or arrogance. The reason I, and I think many other Londoners, parted company with Ken was that he got rid of the Routemaster.”

He hasn’t at all referred to Routemasters as a “wedge issue” with which to batter Ken. No, it’s genuine now, apparently. And always was, oh yes…

Something has happened to the Torygraph. It should be a comforting bastion of reactionary idiocy; a pompous rag to lampoon mercilessly. And yet - note the author of this.

Not a Thatcherite.

I trust it’s a momentary lapse. Else, the world will be set out of kilter and the seas shall rise and Labour will win a 4th term…

“Sky News revamps website”?

Oh excellent, I’ll- wait. Ah, I see. Oh well.