Rant of the Week: Empire Magazine is just a bunch of Monkeys with Typewriters

So it looks like Briton based film mag Empire is making a run at dethroning ESPN for the title of Most Retarded List of Excellence Ever Accumulated.

We're Retarded

A year and 1/2 ago Empire came out with a list of the Greatest Movie Characters of ALL TIME.  And wow, to put it like our friends across the pond might, it was one piece of rubbish alright.

Sure it was almost two years ago now but I just saw it yesterday so it is new to me.

Now, the whole list was an atrocity but lets take a look at some of the highlights.

#1 Tyler Durden.

The guy from Fight Club.  Seriously?  Wow.  I mean it was a cool movie and all but... wow. Just... This must have been a readers poll, right?  Please tell me it was a readers poll.

Hi, I'm the greatest, most interesting, complex, and charismatic character ever created in film. I'm also Brad Pitt, wanna see my abs?

#3 The Joker (Dark Knight).

Classic case of people having the memory of a goldfish.  If this had come out a year earlier this would have been Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men.

#8 Captain Jack Sparrow.

Oh, but this makes sense. Yeah, twenty years from now everyone will talk about the Pirates of the Caribbean series and compare it to Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Die Hard.  Yeah, its just as good as those movies...

#16 Neo.

Yeah, cause Keanu Reeves is what everyone loved about the original Matrix movie.

#22 Ellis "Red" Redding (Shawshank Redemption)

Really?  I'm more surprised that anyone knew this character's full name than anything else.

It Ain't Easy Being Dane Cook

I'm a stand-up comedian. And if there is one thing I know about comics, its that they hate dead crowds, couples that make out through your whole show, Carlos Mencia, and Dane Cook. Dane Cook is the go to dump on comic for any given situation in stand up.

Things aren't going well? Wanna make fun of the guy who went on before you? Dane Cook is the answer. He's always doing that with his fingers. What the eff is that supposed to mean? Retardedness To be honest, part of me wants to defend the guy. Because I really do think his first album, "Harmful If Swallowed", is pretty decent. I mean, its not George Carlin, but it gets the job done.

But when it comes down to it, Dane really is a victim of his own success. He just got too big for his talent. It was the perfect storm. Cook's material pandered directly to college kids just at the time when file sharing on campuses was in full swing. He's got jokes about Kool-aid and Slip-n-Slide and he spreads like herpes in Paris Hilton's phone book.

Before anyone knows it, they guy is the obnoxious side-kick in crappy raunch-coms and he's got an HBO special. This is about where the shit really started to hit the fan for Mr. Cook.

His limited talent began to show in a big way.

Even when he started appearing on t.v. shows to promote himself he almost exclusively did material from his first album, a tell tale sign of a lack of material. His second album was a huge disappointment, and he turned out to be a pretty horrible actor.

Since then, Daney boy has suffered a pariah label that a comparison for can scarce be found in the modern comedy world. Even guys like Larry the Cable Guy get enough respect to be left alone and since Carlos Mencia's show got cancelled the world seemed to just forget about him.

I'm not saying he isn't deserving of a lot of his criticism. I hate most of his stuff as much as the next frustrated comic. But if you asked me if I would trade careers with him... I'd say yes faster than Dane can take his shirt off. So this is a tough call. With compelling arguments, by me, on both sides... I'm going to be forced to say: Dane Cook: You're Rated Right!, wow.

The Dark Knight: You Really Ain't THAT Great

Now if you know me, and if you're reading this you probably do, you know that I am not some Batman fan boy wishing Heath Ledger was still alive so I could suck his dick.

I liked The Dark Knight as an action film.  Its exciting, its fun, its got explosions, and a solid villain that would make Hans Gruber proud.  But the more times I catch it on HBO and Cinemax the more plot holes I discover in what I am increasingly realizing is a seriously flawed movie.  

Alright, Ledger was pretty good, But the rest of the movie...eh

Don't believe me?  

You want a break down?  

Well, I hope so cause you're about to get one.  (And I'd like to note that all of these observations are completely off-hand).

#1: The Harvey Dent fundraiser.

The Joker and his boys show up and crash Wayne's party for Dent.  Okay, I'll buy that they could get in and wreak a little havoc, no prob.  But then after they throw Rachael Dawes out the window and Batman follows where do they go?  They just leave?  It isn't explained or discussed at all later on so the audience needs to assume they did.  Why?  They were there for Dent, did they just assume Dent wasn't there?  What the hell?

#2: Gordon faking his death.

Now I'm not going to sit hear and complain about the Batmobile causing collateral damage and I'll even buy that the mayor of a city will choose to show solidarity for the police force and show up to the commissioner's funeral despite the fact that he has a credible threat on his life floating around (which would NEVER happen in the real world), but why in the hell did Gordon fake being killed here?

It makes no sense at all.  Seriously.  Please try to make sense of it.  You can't.

#3: Gamble's thugs didn't search the Joker's men before they brought the "dead" body to Gamble.

This is minor, but still, is this amateur hour?  I guess it is if you wrote this script.  (OHHHH! Snap!)

And you thought THIS was ridiculous

#4: The whole sequence with Wayne's accountant.

Alright, this part really pisses me off.  First of all, why the hell would they move the accountant from the secure location of the news studio into a mobile car?  Second, when Wayne "saves" them by causing the accident he claims he was trying to "Make the light."

First problem, the light wasn't green and changing to red, it was red (thus the police caravan was idle waiting for the light to change).  What the hell was Wayne talking about... trying to catch what light?

Second problem, why the HELL is a police caravan stopping at a red light!?!?!?!  I live in NYC and I've seen a police caravan before, and they don't stop for shit.

#5: The Joker in the HQ or wherever.

Alright, you remember the part where the Joker insights that guy into a fight in the interrogation room, kicks his ass in 3 seconds, then comes out and asks for a phone call?  There are cops all around him pointing their guns ready to blow him away.  Well the Joker blows up the bomb and then "poof" every cop in the room is magically gone!  Not on the floor dead, or wounded, just gone.  Except the Joker is still there, standing in the middle of the room.  WTF!?!

#6: No one fires a single shot during the final showdown between the Joker's men and Batman/Gotham Cops.

Not a single shot from either side.

Watch out, I'm about to defy all logic and reason!

#7: "Five People Dead" - Gordon.

This line is the topic of a debate heating up on IMDB.  Gordon says it at the end to Batman referring to the carnage Dent caused.  Who the eff is he talking about?  Many Knight fan boys try to pass this off as Gordon misspeaking, but as a writer I can tell you it makes zero sense.  Until someone definitively explains this line I will just credit it to more sloppy writing.

#8: The Ferry Boat sequence.

Alright, Lets assume for a second that the people on the Ferries have no idea how untrustworthy the Joker has been in the movie up to this point.  That he lied about where Dawes and Dent were to Batman.  That he lied about bombing the bridges.  Betrayed the mob.  Blew up the hospital without knowing if the accountant had been killed.  

Lets assume that these people are taking the Joker at his word that the detonators won't just blow up both boats, or their own boat (what I thought was most likely).  So they don't want to blow each other up, fine. But why are they just sitting there?  Boats usually have lifeboats, or at least life vests.

Get off the fucking ferry!

Even if there aren't any lifeboats, hand out the vest and jump overboard!  You worried the Joker is watching?  Would you rather take your chances on the boat with the 1,000 pounds of explosives in the engine room?

I can see how this might present a problem for the ship with the prisoners on it but the fact that the other boat never even considered this is absolutely maddening to the point where I think they deserved to die.

So yeah, those are just a few little issues I have with this movie.  I guess, all I'm trying to say is... Dark Knight you might be a little: OVERRATED!!!