Last Saturday night, Kim and Guy and myself went to see The Dark Knight. What an incredible movie! Heath Ledger absolutely stole the show as The Joker. It is quite a shame he isn't alive today to reap in the limelight of his performance and, no doubt, pick up his Oscar come Academy Award time. Here is an excerpt from a review by Rito Asilo of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I couldn't have said it better myself.But, it’s the magnificent Ledger who almost steals the show from Bale: The gifted actor’s dramatic achievement here is instructive, because his character isn’t even given an in-depth back story—The Joker just pops up from out of nowhere and, along the way, spills revelatory clues of abuse and grave misfortune from his bleak past.
To say the least, Ledger’s Joker is a scary creation far removed from the campy aesthetic of Jack Nicholson’s previous rendering of the character—a powerful performance worthy of an Oscar (something that, we still maintain, he should have won for his moving portrayal in 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain”). Unfortunately, an Oscar win may be a long shot—after all, Peter Finch is still the only actor to have won a posthumous Oscar (for 1976’s “Network”).
To say the least, Ledger’s Joker is a scary creation far removed from the campy aesthetic of Jack Nicholson’s previous rendering of the character—a powerful performance worthy of an Oscar (something that, we still maintain, he should have won for his moving portrayal in 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain”). Unfortunately, an Oscar win may be a long shot—after all, Peter Finch is still the only actor to have won a posthumous Oscar (for 1976’s “Network”).
This morning on the train coming into work, I could have sworn I saw The Joker myself, in the flesh, minus the makeup. A black man boarded the train at the Peachtree Center station. He was wearing loose bright purple pants, a bright red shirt, pull-on dress alligator skin dress shoes, and a bright green jacket (ie The Masters Tournament) draped across his shoulders. His hair was in braids, held in the air going every which-a-way by a brightly colored scarf wrapped around his head like a h
eadband. And to top off his attire, in the front pocket of the jacket was a rubber toy of some sort, stuffed in upside down so that only his tail was visible (it looked like a rat's tail). And as if that wasn't enough, he was carrying a very used (dirty, actually) stuffed pink pig that is actually a dog toy.Now, what do you make of that? Much like The Joker, this guy was quite a character!
