Daily Archives: December 16, 2011

Movie News & Opinions

#11 – Countdown to Christmas: ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS

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In 1985, One Magic Christmas was first released. It starred Mary Steenburgen (one of my favorite actresses of all time) as Ginny, a mother of two children, Abbie and Cal. She and her husband Jack (Gary Basaraba) are struggling to make ends meet, making the holidays a very stressful time for the family.

Jack has been out of work for some time, and likes fixing bikes. Although he cannot yet fulfill his dream of opening his own bike shop, he still does what he can for the kids in the neighborhood. Ginny is a grocery store cashier and does not like her husband’s idea of opening a store because they need funds immediately.

An angel, Gideon (played by legend Harry Dean Stanton), sees Abbie trying to mail her own letter to Santa Claus. He returns the letter to her because he believes she should try to get her mom to mail it. She almost gets hit by a car, but Gideon stops it from hitting her. He also tells Abbie not to be afraid of what may happen the next day and that she needs to help her mother to find her Christmas spirit.

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MOVIES

Hero Express: Dark Knight Station – My Own Reaction to the ‘Rises’ Prologue

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Welcome to Dark Knight Station, the Hero Express‘s main stop for all the news on The Dark Knight Rises.We’ll keep you up to date on all the biggest bat-news coming straight from Gotham City.

Mind the gap and avoid the shadows; This stop is the Dark Knight Station for December 16th, 2011.

This edition of Dark Knight Station is going to be a little different than the others. Last night I went to the midnight show of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Like most of the audience in the theatre, I was really there for the 6-minute prologue of The Dark Knight Rises. I’ll drop some info on the latest news below, but first I want to talk about the 6 minutes of Rises I got to experience. I’ll try to spoil as little as possible about what actually happens in the clip. I’m going to get right into it, here is my spoiler-free reaction to my first glimpse of The Dark Knight Rises.

Like the bank heist that introduced us to The Joker in the preview for The Dark Knight, the prologue is a high-tension scene that introduces us to the main villain, Bane. We’re dropped in almost mid-conversation and immediately start asking questions. If you followed the movie’s viral marking campaign, you’ll have a little more to go on, but suffice it to say that things escalate very quickly before taking an unexpected turn. Then it all goes haywire. The focus of the clip is to give us a sense of Bane’s capabilities and methods – again, it’s very much like The Dark Knight‘s prologue in that sense – but while The Dark Knight showed us The Joker was calculating in his ruthlessness, Bane makes it very clear that he has no love for subtlety or theatrics.

“Oh shit…”

That’s not to say that there’s no room for mind-bending action; the climax of the  preview is a sequence that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s guttural and physical, and the IMAX camera makes it look gorgeous. Think of the sequence in The Dark Knight when Batman flipped the semi, then go much bigger.

Continue reading Hero Express: Dark Knight Station – My Own Reaction to the ‘Rises’ Prologue →