Batman Begins

Nicole and I saw Batman Begins tonight. Darker movie! It’s hard for me to watch Christian Bale on screen without humming Newsies songs, but I managed this time. I love superhero movies, and my favorites are always the Making of the Hero movies, the Seizing of the Sword if you are a Joseph Conrad enthusiast. I love the first Star Wars, the first Lord of the Rings, first Spiderman, first X-Men, et cetera. I love watching the hero turn his back on his calling, try and reenter his regular life, then realize his destiny is outside the ordinary. The first battle when he gets his ass kicked, the next battle when he has the knowledge of his greatness and is able to thwart his enemy. The one weakness in Batman Begins then is that Bruce Wayne never really seems conflicted about his destiny. I mean there are token moments, but he never really seems to struggle. A true hero has to give up something dear to him in order to inhabit his new identity. Spiderman and Superman had to sacrifice their great loves- Mary Jane and Lois Lane, respectively- in order to protect them and meet their own hero potential. What did Batman give up? The whole premise of this movie was that he had nothing to lose, and to me that’s not very interesting. It’s also disappointing because in other films Bruce Wayne seems like a really complicated man. Maybe Christian Bale should go back to hawking papers.
So I’ve decided to retire from the rebound circut. Kissing boys is fun, but the shine is starting to fade a little. I’m not ready for a real boyfriend yet, and the lover situation is trickier than it seems. Better maybe to lay low, focus on school (which starts tomorrow!) and stick to winking at record store boys from afar.
On a parallel track, Jake has been on my mind since he got in the van and headed North. Now that I don’t have a cloud of anger shrouding his memory, I am flooded with fondness and wist. (Which is to say I miss him.) I look forward to being his friend. Suzy asked me if I would ever take him back, now that he’s realized his wrongs and apologized. As long as he is in California I can’t even consider considering it. But it will be nice to have him in my life again. At breakfast we talked about my blog, and my issues of transparency vs privacy, and he voted for transparency. Which is fucking awesome (especially since he is now the only man I write about without a pseudonym). I mean, he has more reason than anyone to be uncomfortable with the personal nature of Perfect Heart, considering my most emo entries have been about him. But he knows my need for confession, knows that my best writing comes when I don’t censor myself, and he supports it. That makes me so happy.