Your Hollywood Minute
LEDGER COULD BE OSCAR-WORTHY FOR JOKER PORTRAYAL
FITSNews – June 27, 2008 – As far as we’re concerned, Jack Nicholson’s cinematic rendition of “The Joker” in 1989’s Tim Burton masterpiece “Batman” was the be-all, end-all of movie villainography.
Sure it was “campy,” but it was supposed to be that way – and Nicholson nailed the part, providing the perfect foil to the “unexpectedly-effective-at-being-dark-and-brooding” superhero played by Michael Keaton.
Accordingly, we felt Nicholson’s pain when he publicly fumed last year about not being offered the chance to reprise his infamous role for this year’s Dark Knight, the first sequel to the Christian Bale-era of Batman, opting instead for Heath Ledger.
Yet even after the positive pre-hype for Ledger’s performance exploded after his untimely death this January, we were still skeptical of whether or not he would even come close to approaching – to say nothing of matching or exceeding Nicholson’s work.
Yet as the early reviews have started coming in for Dark Knight … it would seem that all the ostensibly “memorial” advance praise for Ledger’s performance was not only on target, but perhaps even low-balled the Brokeback star’s effort:
At times sounding like a cross between tough guy James Cagney in a gangster flick and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s fastidious Truman Capote, Ledger elevates Batman’s No. 1 nemesis to a place even Jack Nicholson did not take him in 1989’s “Batman.”
Nicholson’s Joker was campy and clever. Ledger’s Joker is an all-out terror, definitely funny but with a lunatic moral mission to drag all of Gotham, the city Batman thanklessly protects, down to his own dim assessment of humanity.
Spewing alternate personal histories for how he got the horrible scars on his face, the Joker hides behind distorted clown makeup that looks like a chalk drawing left out in the rain.
And then there’s this bit of pure “cross-pollinated” movie brilliance:
“You complete me,” the Joker tells Batman, dementedly borrowing Tom Cruise’s sappy romantic line from “Jerry Maguire.”
Let’s get one thing straight … we weren’t on the list of super-exclusive websites that got a sneak peek at the Dark Knight … which means when our own DJ Slick ends up reviewing it next month, you’ll be able to go see it and decide for yourself.
And let’s get another thing straight – we don’t believe in celebrating the performance of a dead actor just because that actor died. If we think something sucks, we’ll tell you we think it sucks.
But early reports are that Dark Knight – and in particular Ledger’s Joker – not only doesn’t suck, but might actually earn the actor the first posthumous Oscar awarded in over three decades.
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