Cinema Review

Anthony Lane, a writer for The New Yorker, published "Batman's Bane," a review of the newest Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

Lane's review, annotated by myself, can be found here.

Lane's review focuses very little on the cinematic and dramatic aspects of the film. Lane takes this opportunity to criticize director, Christopher Nolan. Lane criticizes the tactics and work of Nolan and expresses his ideas that Nolan did a very poor job with Batman. Lane rarely analyzes the plot, characters, conflict, setting, theme, point of view, mood, or symbolism in the movie. Acting, sets, costumes, and make-up are mentioned very little except for a few lines about the acting of Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway. Lane chooses not to touch on any cinematic aspects of the film except for Nolan's choice of music, which he sarcastically voices his opinion on. Lane is very critical of the film and follows a very vague outline. He begins to describe a part of the plot but then stops to express his opinion and take shots at Nolan.

For our reviews we should be required to touch on literary aspects, dramatic aspects, cinematic aspects, and voice our own opinion of the film. We should not base our reviews heavily on one or two of these components. We should be able to write in any structure we choose as long as we include all four components. I would prefer to have large amounts of freedom when completing this quarterly assignment to make this project more enjoyable. Being able to complete this assignment on any film would make easier to complete and much more fun.