Dark Knight Rising (but not for a while yet, and then some)

how many geeks does it take to bring a website to its knees?

I wish I could tell you, but as one of the many bat-fans that attempted to buy tickets for The Dark Knight Rises' IMAX run at midnight on Sunday, only to be faced with server busy messages and the like, I have no actual idea how many tickets were sold before BFI's website crashed due to the immense demand caused by eager and dedicated fans wanting to see the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's trilogy as it should be, on a massive bloody screen!!

I went to bed at some time past 1am, having been pressing refresh on several tabs on a couple of computers in the hope of bagging myself a ticket.

When I awoke shy of 5 hours later at around 6am, I checked again, only to find the IMAX site had been completely broken, much like Bane broke the back of Bruce Wayne way back in comic history....

at various points through the morning I checked the site again with no luck, attempted calling the booking line with no luck, and even read on the IMAX's Facebook page that to queue in person was taking an hour upwards to guarantee a precious ticket.

.... the good news is that the website eventually recovered, the bad news, by this point all of the prime seats of all of the prime showings had been booked up... leaving me with no choice but to wait nearly two weeks after the initial release to see whether The Dark Knight Rises is crushed under the weight of expectation, and to see just what Christopher Nolan has instore for the culmination of his own take on the Batman franchise

The weight of expectation

I don't tend to do movie reviews

I do however like to have a little moan when something that should be great turns out to be no more than mere trash

Take, for example, Green Lantern, or Watchmen...

and now, also Prometheus

Up until last week, I expected virtually nothing from it at all, I refused to be a sucker for the long, built up hype and viral campaigns, I hadn't bothered to tune into each newly released trailer as they hit the webnets

but the anticipation seemed to be growing around me, I could feel it, almost taste it in the air

I'll admit, having seen the trailer at the flicks, I was intrigued, and then last friday my social networks were filling up with talk of the film, and having already agreed to see it that night with a tribe of non-apologetic geeks, my height of excitement peaked

until I watched the film.

it was flawed. I shan't bother going into its flaws here, suffice to say, it was not what it promised to be, and neither was it what anyone really hoped for.

and now my summer is buckling under the weight of expectation

crushed by the disappointment of Prometheus, I wait with dread for the Dark Knight to Rise...

again, I've acted to avoid too many trailers and tidbits of gossip that have sufficiently proliferated the internet, and yet my own curiosity has occasionally got the better of me

but this isn't The Dark Knight following the modestly performing Batman Begins, even after the tragic loss of Heath Ledger, I don't think that expectations for the sequel were set too high until the film unexpectedly snowballed into critical acclaim and a widespread regard that it is now a benchmark for movies (not even just superhero movies) to measure against

and this leads us to where we are now, Avengers has cleaned up at the box office, Prometheus has shattered dreams, and now the final piece of Christopher Nolan's trilogy must take up the weight of expectation that is being put upon it, not just by geeks and comic book fans, but by... well, pretty much everyone.

Type Writer

I find a certain sense of freedom in writing, the chance to empty my brain, regardless of if anyone bothers to read my outpourings or not.

and my current writings are freer than ever

the last post I wrote on the floor of my spare bedroom, I was in there putting clothes away and the thought struck me to write, so I did

and this post is being beamed into the Internet from on the can, after having just endured watching David Cronenburg's Naked Lunch. it bored me terribly.

perhaps it is films about writers, I didn't much care for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas either, something about both films (and Hunter S. Thompson's book) just left me feeling cold

but the use of typewriters intrigues me still.... I used to use one when I was younger, it made me feel like a real writer, probably because I was told not to play with it, so I didn't play with it, I wrote with it, and I still have a handful of pages of a Batman story I began writing knocking around somewhere at my mum's house

I have a lot of scribblings, a lot of poems, jotted down on scraps of paper and in A4 paper refill pads, some I may have shared here and there, some will probably remain unearthed for a very long time

and now, in more recent history I have latched onto blogging, taking the time to sit at a computer and publish my thoughts, except that lengths of time away from a computer sometimes leaves nasty gaps in my continued online journal

now, and now I blog with a greater freedom than ever, from my girlfriend's parents sofa, from the spare bedroom floor or from the bathroom

maybe a I shall even have a crack at my next novel on this dandy little gizmo

and maybe it will be better than Naked Lunch and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or maybe it won't

leaving the demons behind

I felt burdened by burdens

I couldn't rest

and I was too worn down to live

it was a horrible state of affairs and I am glad to now be free of it.

I had been dragged down, run through the mill, tossed aside and a whole bunch of other things as I rode the topsy turvy ride of super-fun unemployment

and when the gleam of light shone by a job offer did appear, I could feel something inside me stirring to tell me that it just wasn't right

and it just wasn't right.


a pride that I placed upon getting back in the saddle was hiding my own uncertainties, and those closest to me I did not hide my uncertainties from at all, but I persevered, I have got bills to pay after all.

but it just wasn't right.

it was affecting me and my well-being, I wasn't who i am, and that is hard to deal with.

thankfully, the intense job searching has meant that more opportunities still lay before me, face to face interviews, phone interviews, more CVs and applications have been fired off

I may be back in the hole of unemployment, but at least I know who I am again.