THE DARK KNIGHT (Why so serious? I will tell you!!!) & my beach trip recap!

First off...shut up shut up shut up!!!!

This movie, and these characters are NOT to be compared to Tim Burton's work on the batman series. I mean, come on!!! Were you even alive when 1989's Batman hit the big screen? It was as big of a movie as this year's Dark Knight! You could not go ANYWHERE without seeing that damn yellow and black batman logo, and the hype over Jack Nickolson, one of the worlds most prestine actors, stepping in such a daring role, and portraying the greatest comic bad guy, it was a perfect marriage!!!! And, remember how bad ass Jack was? Just when your sides hurt from his on screen antics, he turned downright malicious and evil. While Christopher Nolan created a brand new Batman, with more realism, and more human character (Which i appreciate immensely) Lets not forget that Tim Burton achieved the same success, that is, making a highly visual, very dark, very serious Batman, that only now, after hundreds of terrible attempts at comic book movie thrills, has met its match!!!!

The Spiderman series...looks like shit. Too much cgi. No realism. The pace of those movies is too slow, and there is too much story telling. There have been so many hyped movies, that ended up being so-so. Even the new Indie film, i loved it but i also knew it didn't come close to those old classics...

Jack Nickolson...he did an amazing job guys, and you have to leave that alone. He killed as many people as Heath's joker, maybe more, considering his attempt at mass genocide at the end of Batman (1989) and I loose myself, in an attempt to compare 2008 Joker greatness with Jack Nickolson. Both Jokers had us laughing, but had us scared at the unpredictability of what they would do next. Batman (1989) is a, gothic, dark, nihilistic COMIC BOOK CLASSIC, and Jack Nickolson, stole the movie, and did the BEST comic book bad ass for, literally almost 20 years. He has constantly been held in the highest order of on screen performances in all those years, and everytime we see an "ok" comic book movie we have Batman(1989) in the back of our minds. You all know its true!!!! For the times, it was untouchable.

all this to say...

Heath Ledger as the Joker

WHO THE HELL SAW THIS COMING???

In 2008, im proud to announce the winner for BEST super-hero movie EVER MADE!

THE DARK KNIGHT!

I do not have to say this, because just like 1989, you cannot go anywhere without hearing about the performance the late great Heath Ledger gave in this movie. He is literally stunning. This joker, like Jack in 1989, is a product of the times, and todays times are not very pretty. What I failed to believe in, was the possibility of a super hero movie that was good, let alone managed to remind us that there is still plenty of surprise elements unexplored. There is not a single scene in this movie that is skippable. The movie is about a half hour longer than "Batman Begins" but flows much quicker than that. Where Batman Begins failed, this movie took control. I loved Batman Begins, but felt it was too much story, not enough action, and certainly not enough Scarecrow. This movie is the total opposite. Tons of action. Tons of on screen insanity. Heath Ledger stole the movie. Hands down. His Joker will blow your mind. There are moments in this movie where I could not believe what I was seeing. He acted so well, i can only compare it to the greatness of Anthony Hopkins, in "Silence Of The Lambs". His charisma onscreen is so strong, you do not even realize its Heath Ledger. As much as i do not care about awards, I know, this one is going to give Heath an oscar!!!! Too bad he is not here to receive it.

Christian Bale was awesome too. He brings such a believable element to batman. There is a lot of story going on with him still, in this one, but its important to whatever sequel is next. Aaron Eckhart was awesome too. He plays Harvey Dent/Two face. His performance was really fun to watch as well, and really the entire cast is stellar. The action seems more violent. I am really surprised this film was able to get away with PG-13!!! Weird, it seemed so much more R rated than that. 

Jack Nickolson as the Joker from Batman (1989)

Understand that I can give away nothing about this movie. As much as i want to type away, line after line, of the quotes or sequences in this movie, you just have to experience it the way i did (twice)! You really have to let it sink in. There is a lot of weight to this script, and you won't grasp it fully with one view. This movie has a lot to take from and I suggest more than one view. My 2nd view of the movie, I caught on to much foreshadowing and things that I didn't even realize was there the first time. While everyone in this film is amazing, once more I really have to give a shout out to Heath Ledger. Dammit man, why are you not with us to enjoy the fruits of your labor??? Its a tragedy, and while watching the movie you cant help but feel sick about it. Heath's performance stands alone and deserves all of the attention he gets for it. Not because he is dead, but because he just delivered an on screen bad guy that I highly doubt we will see replaced ANY time soon!!!!

Ok...so...that said...

My wife and I went on vacation. Nothing crazy, just a few days at the beach. We had a great time. Odd thing, the weather was perfect 100% of the time, something I am not really used to. We drove down wednesday morning, took the wrong road in, and ended up nowhere near the beach, instead we ended up in Baltimore MD. Once we got situated, we finally arrived in Rehoboth Beach, DE. We decided to keep cost down, and camp out. We got ourselves a tent, and borrowed an external air conditioner from my dad. We found a great place just 2 miles north of the beach. Big Oaks campground

Big Oaks, had electric and water tent sites for only $38 a night. Since we are not typical campers, the addition of tv and dvd player, as well as an air bed and a/c "kind of" made it like a cheap hotel room. So, we slept comfortably during the nights, and during the days the temperature went to the high 80s, with low humidity....perfect! The facilities was really clean. Located in woods, so you kind of felt like you were in the mountains, and not 2 miles from the Atlantic ocean. The shower/bathroom houses were really awesome. Very private showers, that were single rooms. They had a cabin quality to them. Picture a single room with cabin wood surrounding you, no windows, just a fan and a light, and of course the shower. A lock on the door, hooks to hang your stuff. Very clean. The water was really hot if you wanted it to be, so it was just a really comfortable shower. The bathroom stalls were like normal public stalls, only the doors that closed you in were like real wooden full doors that went all the way to the ground. They were also very clean. The camp store, which we didn't use was really nice too. We did not spend much time there as you might already know, since we did plan on being beach bums.

DAY ONE:

(wednesday)

We got down there around 1 or 2 PM. We set up camp. Around 4:30, maybe 5, we decided to drive into town and get to know the area a little more and see where everything was. We drove south, along the beach, into Delaware Seashore State Park. We pulled into one of the fishing inlets, and sat on the beach for about an hour. Than we came back to the camp site and cooked some coconut style chicken over an open fire, followed by smores. Mmm. Than we closed up shop, got showers, and watched some of LOST season 2 before bed.

DAY TWO:

(thursday)

We woke up around 10 AM. Got dressed, packed some coolers, towels, and an umbrella, and headed for the beach. We decided to go to a spot in the state park, where Sara used to go when she was a kid, by these 2 towers. Not sure the name of the inlet. We payed $8 for a day pass, which included parking. Not bad. There were bath houses, a snack bar,etc. Not that I cared, because our plan for this day was to sit on the beach, end of story. So we set ourselves up in a nice spot. Sat and read, while a great summer beach mix I made on the ipod was playing out of these 2 little portable speakers we picked up. It was perfect volume too. After a few hours, we went swimming. Funny story...we were in the water, and we watched a life guard paddling out with one of his floating devices, straight out into the sea. He was roughly a quarter mile out, give or take. My mind started playing with me. I began saying to Sara "that guy is nuts, he is gonna get eaten by a shark" and i just stared and watched. Suddenly, a hundred feet closer to the beach than the lifeguard, emerging from the water, was a large fin. I started flipping out. "I sware im not crazy, i saw it, i saw a big fin, there is a freaking shark out there, he is going to die" then, suddenly, I saw the lifeguard flip off of his board, and then quickly got back on. I thought "Oh lord, this is horrible news" but we saw nothing else. Knowing that i definitely saw a fin, i just stared for a few minutes, while the lifeguard was coming back in. Then I realized that, a hundred feet or so, to the right, was a bunch of dolphins, swimming and jumping. I thought to myself "It just haaaaaaaad to happen that way didn't it..I just had to see that fin like that, didnt i"? 

After a few more hours (and a cat nap) on the beach, it was dinner time. What a beautiful time that was. We packed up, went to Grotto Pizza for dinner, went back to the camp, got clean, watched more Lost, and went to bed.

A picture i took of Rehoboth Beach.

DAY THREE:

(friday)

We decided that since the new Batman movie was opening, we would make friday a kind of, date day. We got up, ate cereal. We drove to Ocean City, MD. Caught the 1PM showtime of "The Dark Knight" then we drove back to Rehoboth. We went to The Lighthouse restaurant, where Sara ate a TON of snow crab legs. I had ribs and chicken. We were so full. After our early dinner, we headed over to the board walk. This was normally stressful, but since this vacation was working to our advantage the entire time, we actually found parking only a short distance from the board walk, where everybody tries to park, but never finds a spot. We paid the meter, and walked up to the beach. We decided to sit on the beach for a while and let the dinner settle. We laid there for a while, falling asleep. I awoke to a bunch of people on the beach yelling "Whoooooaaaaaa" and I jumped up to see that the high tide wave was about 3 feet from us and quickly pacing toward us. It was funny. The waves and water were several feet from us but as we slept for a quick 20 minutes, the water managed to reach us. After our quick wake up call, we moved back and sat some more, watching these stupid girls in bikinis, getting photography done "sports illustrated" straddling the surf board all sexy like. It was a joke. Sara and I made fun of them all. Finally we went back up to the board walk, and walked around for a while. We went into Rehoboth's infamous haunted mansion ride (tradition), and did the bumper cars. After that, we just walked around a bit more, and got some desert. Sara got really good ice cream from "The Ice Cream Store", which is that place with the crazy flavors, etc. I got a fresh peach smoothie. Mmm. After the boardwalk, we went back to camp, got clean and watched "The Royal Tenenbaums".

DAY FOUR:

(saturday)

Nothing crazy here. It was check out day, so we woke up at 9:30, and tore down camp. We got packed and ready to check out around 11. We checked out at the office, and went to Burger King for lunch. After that, we went over to the Candy Kitchen, got our usual order of salt water taffy, and some gummi sharks/cola bottles. The taffy was for Sara's grandmother, aunt, and her brothers and sisters.

The gummi sharks, and gummi cola bottles....all ours!!!

After that, we pretty much decided it was time to go home, but something felt wrong. We scratched our heads a bit. Suddenly we realized what it was...we needed to see the beach one last time. We drove back to the same place we were the night before. I was kind of half interested because I knew that with the weekend traffic, we DEFINITELY would not get a parking spot. We drove up to the board walk anyway, and crazily enough, we found a spot in the very front, but it was half our only parking. Since we were just coming up for a quick visit anyway, it was perfect. Then as we were paying the meter, we realized it was broken. We asked the nearby meter patrol what was wrong. They said "Ah go ahead, we will just fix it at some point and throw a few quarters in for you". So our last bit of trip was still working to our advantage, and now since nobody could pay, we could stay longer. So we hung out for a bit, until we had enough, and that was that. We drove home, and arrived around 4:30PM

and still had time to hang out with Desiree and Justin and grill some burgers.

My favorite highlight was that I got to spend a week with my wife, undistracted, and we had a blast! Kept the cost down real low, and managed to never touch our bank savings!!!

What a great week, eh?