entertainment

I had been anticipating the return of Batman to the silver screen after watching Chris Nolan's Batman Begins. The Dark Knight was entertaining and delivered much more than I expected. This film raises many great ideas, but in particular posed the question - can good exist without evil and vice versa?


The conflict between good and evil is one of the most common conventional themes in literature, and is sometimes considered to be a universal part of the human condition. Let's explore this by exploring some of the characters that are pivotal to the story of The Dark Knight:

The Joker is the villain in the movie. His aim is to test humanity. He isn't in it for the money, rather he wants to experiment to see how he can manipulate individuals. He has a strong interest in the human psyche - what drives us, what makes us tick? He is constantly testing society to find if good people can turn bad. We can see this with his experiment with Harvey Dent.

Harvey Dent represents the white knight. The good guy who wants to wipe out corruption and "fix" society. He's the pin up boy that everyone is cheering for, to clean society and bring justice against corruption using the power of the law.

Batman is the dark knight. The vigilante who does the work that no one else wants to do. He doesn't follow society's laws, but his own set of morals. Batman feels that Harvey Dent is the new protector of the city and the people will no longer need him, he can hand the mantle over to Dent as he is the white knight that Gotham city needs. Dent has the power of the law behind him and Batman recognizes his full potential to be the hero that Gotham wants.

The movie runs for about 2 and a half hours and is full of some great concepts and ideas, including the following:

• White knight vs. Dark Knight - The hero Gotham needs vs. the hero Gotham city wants.
• The idea that anyone given the right situation could turn evil.
• This is personified in the "Joker's" character. Was he insane or did his character personify just pure evilness? I believe, Alfred sums it up best:

“Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

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Overall, I think this movie has something for everyone. If you like a good story, you got it, if you like action, there’s plenty. If you want thought provoking tid-bits to talk about later, well you got that too. Definitely go see The Dark Knight in cinemas.

According to Wikipedia, Prince Al-Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (commonly known as Prince Al-Walid), is a member of the Saudi Royal Family, and an entrepreneur and international investor. He is likened by Time magazine as the Arabian Warren Buffet. As of 2007, his net worth is estimated at US$29.5 billion, according to the Arabian Business rich list published December 2, 2007.

I guess with all that money, it's no suprise that he is able to buy this car below. The car is a "Mercedes SL 600" with diamonds encrusted all over it, worth 4.8 million dollars! Apparently if you want to touch it, it will cost a hefty $1000. I think I could buy my own diamond (though it maybe small) for that price! I wonder how much this car is insured for, because you certainly couldn't take it out for a drive and park it anywhere you please. Ahhh, the lifestyle of the rich...

 

Pic 1: Front View of diamond encrusted Merc

Pic 2: Close up of Merc logo

Pic 3: Close up of Car wheels

Pic 4: Close up of Exhaust

Pic 5: SL 600 encrusted diamond logo

Pic 6: Back View of diamond encrusted Merc

A well know Australian Cartoonist is Bill Leak who creates daily political and satirical cartoons for "The Australian" newspaper. Below displays some of Bill Leak's view of American and Australian political news.

The first two cartoon images is an Australian perspective of what Hillary Clinton has been going through during the process of nominating the democratic candidate for the US presidential election:

Cartoon 1: Hillary Clinton wants to stay in the race

Cartoon 2: Hillary being consoled by Bill!

The next 3 political cartoons relate to Australian politics.
For a brief background, the Liberal party was in government in Australia for the last 11 years and was recently voted out in last year's November federal election. The current government in office is the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

Since then, there have been a lot of tension within the Liberal party between the opposition leader (Brendan Nelson) and his treasurer (Malcolm Turnball). As much as the opposition team tries to tell the Australian people of their support for each other, we have seen clearly that Malcolm Turnball wants the opposition leader's position. I think cartoons 3&4 below hilariously captures the backstabbing that has been going on:

Cartoon 3: Malcom Turnball with maschette (left) with Brendan Nelson (right) who has an amputated leg!

Cartoon 4: Role reversal, with Brendan Nelson (right) with maschette!

Our current prime minister Mr. Kevin Rudd has been very popular since his government won the election. But there has been a lot of environmental/climate change issues that has been asked of the current government.

Cartoon 5: Shows Australia' prime minister Mr. Kevin Rudd with a twist on being energy efficient ;)