text:
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Director/Coscreenwriter: Christopher Nolan
By Roderick Heath
My antipathy for British-gone-Hollywood director Christopher Nolan and his brand of filmmaking—top-heavy, arrhythmic, moodily ambitious, yet often strangely hollow—has threatened on occasions to become irrationally intense. But it's hard not to react vehemently when he receives such popular adoration in comparison to the modestly plastic virtues of his films. To his credit, as displayed by Inception (2010), Nolan is one of the relatively few directors in Hollywood who has been trying to use the modern industry's financial resources, technical teams, and special-effects warriors with a sense of creative wonder to assert will over the personality-erasing tendencies of the CGI houses, and make them serve a fresh vision. The various sequential stunts of Inception were certainly sound and fury signifying nothing, but they were marvellously made sound and fury. In his best film to date, The Prestige (2006), he managed to bind together his themes in a tale where the trickiness actually managed to stand in for the emotional binds and sadomasochistic competitiveness of his characters.
But always, in scratching the polished surfaces of Nolan's films, the same disappointment. The silly plot gimmicks. The leaden dialogue. The confused, contradictory, and just plain gutless concepts that profess to populist profundity. The declarative placards of theme, character relations, and emotions in place of convincing dramatic depictions of each. The attempts to sustain high style ruined by muddled, even random-feeling filmic syntax. Just as Inception turned the psyche into a place of ponderously literal video game rules and sucked out all hints of sensuality and polymorphic possibility, so, too, his versions of Batman have reduced the iconography of the original comic books and other takes from surrealism-infused pop art into more theoretically realistic fare that feels no actual responsibility to realism.
Looking back at my 2008 review of The Dark Knight through the prism of a second viewing, the film fell apart for me, and I wish I had written a harsher commentary. Still, I concluded with a line that, in light of the new film, is relevant:
It may take a new, revved-up Catwoman to drag a reaction from this Batman that doesn't sound like he merely needs a cough lolly.
The Dark Knight Rises does indeed sport a new, revved-up Catwoman, though she's never referred to as such, in the lissom form of Anne Hathaway (more on her later). The Dark Knight Rises sees Nolan's franchise reach ever more optimistically for a mantle of epic import, and to be fair, the scope of its story does in some regards justify such aspiration. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) finds himself not only up against marauding supervillains, but also his own aging body and calcifying emotional reflexes. For eight years, Wayne's been hiding out in his rebuilt mansion, having officially retired his Batman alter ego and let it take the blame for the murder of DA Harvey Dent and the deaths Dent caused in his lunatic final hours. Now Wayne limps around on a cane in a Howard Hughes-lite routine. Meanwhile, his former collaborator in crime fighting, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), has become Gotham City's police commissioner. Gordon harbours guilt over the way a lie was used to venerate Dent's name and enact the Dent Act that has seen Gotham cleaned up at last. During a political rally held at Wayne's estate, but without his participation, cat burglar Selina Kyle (Hathaway), posing as a waitress, breaks into Wayne's private safe and lifts both his mother's pearl necklace and a set of his fingerprints. Wayne catches her in the act, but she casually knocks him about and slips away in the limousine of a congressman (Brett Cullen).
Wayne and his admirable Crichton, Alfred (Michael Caine), swiftly track Selina down, but she proves to be not simply a free agent, but enmeshed in a conspiratorial vortex where rival businessman Daggett (Ben Mendelsohn) is trying to take over Wayne Enterprises and bankrupt it at the behest of hulking mercenary Bane (Tom Hardy). Bane was once, and may still be, linked to the League of Shadows, a terrorist organisation whose boss, Ra's al-Ghul (Liam Neeson), trained Wayne and whom Wayne turned against in Batman Begins (2005). In one of the most ludicrous action sequences I've ever seen, Bane kidnaps scientist Pavel (Alon Moni Aboutboul) from a CIA rendition plane in mid-air by rappelling from another plane, and it was all to make it look like Pavel died in a crash. Bane then sets himself up in Gotham's sewers to stage-manage the destruction of Wayne/Batman before subjecting Gotham to a punitive purge.
Wayne, who has expended most of his fortune on developing a fusion reactor that he mothballed when he learnt it could be turned into a nuclear weapon by Pavel, is left further shorn of his previous privileges as his company is bankrupted by Bane during a raid on the Gotham stock exchange. Soon, his belongings are being repossessed, and Alfred, afraid this time Bruce is biting off more than he can chew, abandons his boss mid-fight. Wayne gets Selina to guide him to Bane's hideout, but this proves exactly what Bane wanted: he traps Wayne, beats him to a pulp, and breaks his spine before exiling him to the same don't-say-it's-Afghani prison where Bane himself once resided. Bane is then free to terrorise Gotham, setting off bombs all over the city, bringing down bridges, clogging up tunnels, and managing to trap most of the police underground, cutting Gotham off from the outside world, and taking it over as a supposedly revolutionary city-state.
As per one consistent flaw in Nolan's screenwriting (penned as usual with his brother Jonathan), he writes about 10 characters and three plot threads more than he can handle. Chief amongst the busy sprawl of supporting figures is John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt), a young rookie cop who grew up in a home for orphans once funded by Wayne Enterprises. Early in the film, Blake invites himself to Wayne Manor and reveals that he's guessed Wayne is Batman because he's noticed before that Wayne, like him, wears a mask of courteous contempt for the world (if it was that easy, shouldn't there be at least a few more who have made the link, including Gordon, who's still oblivious to the point?) and wants him to rejoin the fray. In another development, Alfred deliberately hurts Wayne by stating Wayne's great, deceased love Rachel Dawes was planning on marrying Dent rather than him. Caine almost makes this poorly written and emotionally incoherent moment (is disillusioning Wayne and leaving an existential void where his romanticism used to be supposed to make him less likely to commit to a foolhardy course of bravado?) work purely by the force of his time-tested emotive quaver. Wayne seems to barely notice his life-long companion's departure: Caine does return for a few seconds towards the end, with a show of emotion that sadly only made me want to wince for the ham-handed reintroduction. His place is momentarily filled by the agreeable form of Marion Cotillard's Miranda Tate, an investor who seems to stick by Wayne in his travails, agreeing to help get his reactor working again—both the one he's built and the one in his pants. Mendelsohn's Daggett is cringe-inducing as both a piece of acting and of characterisation.
Normally, as anyone who reads my commentaries regularly knows, I go with the flow of action films: they are, after all, partly about their own absurdity, their freewheeling insolence towards the laws of physics and human feeling. But I find myself critiquing to different rules when the filmmakers obviously want to cloak themselves in a mantle of down-to-earth immediacy and relevant meaning, and when audiences so nakedly want to reward them for lending a tiny bit of viability to their adolescent fantasies. The film does some stunningly jerky, artless leaps of storytelling—or rather story-stating—early on, including Blake's confrontation of Wayne and Wayne's locating of Selina, chiefly so it doesn't have to bother detailing such moments in a procedural fashion; that would demand care in staging. These are marvellous examples of Nolan's info-dump idea of exposition. Even more clumsily handled is Selina's "kidnapping" of the congressman, whom she brings as a cover to a meeting with Daggett's slimy interlocutor Stryver (Burn Gorman, who suggests a middle-management edition of Skelton Knaggs) and still moans in lovelorn fashion after she abandons him on the floor, dazed and…what, drugged? Hypnotised? Shagged into perpetual confusion? Anyway, Selina will later be arrested and incarcerated for this crime.
On a realistic level, the plotting and story development of The Dark Knight Rises ranges from the infantile to the frankly stupid. To name a few plot holes the size of small moons: Why is Bane's method of snatching Pavel and faking his death so ridiculous? Why doesn't it take about 30 seconds of solid police work in conference with some decent computer operators to find out what Bane did in the stock exchange and hack in to reverse it? How does Bane get Wayne to the prison? How does Wayne get back into Gotham after escaping the prison? Why is it that they can get enough food and supplies down to sustain 3,000 trapped policemen, but it's so hard to get them out? What's up with that whole trapped policemen thing, anyway? Can't the highly trained police officers think of a better battle tactic than to march in ranks up a narrow street facing automatic weapons? Why did Wayne chicken because his reactor could be made into a bomb? Was that so frightening, as opposed to the several thousand other nuclear bombs and fission reactors in the world that could be put to the same use? So, after having one's back broken, it only takes a bit of clumsy quack medical work and some push-ups to come back as a fully functioning superhero? I'm sure all the paraplegics in the world will be happy to hear that. I dare say there might be explanations for many of these points (and I'm sure someone's just eager to tell me), but it's clear that The Dark Knight Rises isn't interested in clarity, but in relentless forward motion.
More to the point, Nolan still has no fundamental feel for the expressive rhythms of a film. Whilst all of his movies revolve nominally around emotional cruxes—romantic and familial tragedy are at the core of Memento (2000) and Inception and part of the background fabric here, whilst ferocious jealousy drives The Prestige—these seemingly vital aspects always remain sketches for empathy and involvement rather than the real thing. It's like a 12 year old writing a tale of grand romance: we're told what it is, but it is never felt. The Dark Knight Rises is supposed to tell the story of its hero's complete fall before, yeah, rising. Which would be all well and good, except that Nolan and Bale's Batman remains a blank space where a hero should be. The motif of his proving insufficient to take on Bane lacks force because Bale refuses to suggest any undue cockiness, frantic determination, or any other specific emotion to fight his insecurities apart from terse resolve. Similarly, his struggle to rebuild himself after Bane's shock-and-awe annihilation of his physical, fiscal, and social prowess lacks any real moment of despair, of bottomed-out feeling or self-indulgent sorrow. Wayne lolls about in his prison bed and looks hairy and dour and then, a few push-ups later (crying out to be scored over with Team America: World Police's immortal "Montage" song), is ready to try to climb out again. Nolan belabours rather than extracts any kind of thrill from Wayne's repeated failures to escape. Critic Simon Abrams intelligently compared the insufficiency of these sequences with a forebear in John Frankenheimer's French Connection II, but I'd rather cite a better superhero movie.
In spite of all the heady camp buzzing around its hero, Superman II (1980) still manages to offer up a singular scene where the newly human Kal-El is suddenly faced with his loss of strength, his unutterably human degradation, after he's beaten up by a common barroom lout, spitting blood and attempting to maintain his good humour even as he trembles with pain and fear now that the world doesn't bounce off his skin. By comparison, Wayne's struggles here are so perfunctory, mechanical, and lacking personal passion that he seems far more alien than Superman ever has; Nolan can't give us such a simple, well-felt emotional refrain. The Dark Knight Rises is less a work of epic storytelling than a three-hour montage—an approach that could be exciting if the montage work was at all about stretching the cinematic form, but here serves only the cause of pummelling event and exposition. It's all too tempting to conclude that for general audiences, storytelling as an art is dead; they are now into the era of stuff happening, and lots of it. There is so much incident, it becomes incidental.
What can one say about the pretences of The Dark Knight Rises? Class war and anger are repeatedly invoked throughout. Selina is a demimondaine who has risen through thievery and possibly prostitution; her garb hinting at kinky exploits, she's repeatedly seen hanging around with Jen (Juno Temple), more clearly a hooker and, judging by the way she hugs Selina at some points, something more for her. Bane and his fellow villains are the spirit of the oppressed surging for a spot of nihilistic insurrection. The French Revolution is clearly invoked as the wealthy are assaulted and dragged from their houses, a Bastille-like prison is broken open to release its criminal occupants, and citizens chosen as enemies of the people are given trials clearly meant to evoke the worst moments of the Reign of Terror. These parallels fascinated me deeply, chiefly because they reveal how pig-ignorant Nolan is of political history and how easily he can get away with assuming that of his audience, too. At one point, Gordon reads out the concluding passage of Dickens' French Revolution novel A Tale of Two Cities, but unlike Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which used that book to invoke the transcendental glory of sacrifice for a common good, this film's common sacrifice turns out to be a fake. More specifically, Nolan buys into Dickens' knock-kneed English liberal vision of the Revolution as badly shaven creeps in seamy, raffishly worn uniforms dragging random citizens to trial in an orgy of bloodlust, and bypassing the specific background of political paranoia, war, and high-profile defections, which turned the Revolution's moment of transformative energy into a grim spiral of political homicide.
Not that there isn't a good film to be made channelling the Revolution's example into a contemporary context, but as in The Dark Knight, Nolan pays only the merest lip service to actual political relevance. Like Heath Ledger's Joker, Bane and the League of Shadows have no genuine political programme in mind: they are determined to exact…revenge? Punishment? Ritual cleansing of perceived sins? Anyway, they actually intend to destroy Gotham and themselves in an auto-da-fé via the fusion reactor-bomb, an act which makes the rest of their actions pointless. Why don't they just set the bomb off at the start and leave a big smoking hole in the ground where Gotham was rather than jump through all these ridiculous hoops? I could buy it if their kangaroo courts were being broadcast for the sake of inspiring fear and loathing in places other than Gotham, but they aren't: they're just giving their opponents time to rally against them. Rather, their intention is an act of nihilism, which frees Wayne and his allies in the police force and the system they maintain from any culpability, for the opposition is reduced to a perfect bogeyman of inchoate nastiness, and, by implication, anyone opposed to the settled order is seen as similarly, childishly, wantonly destructive. In short, the vision of good and evil proffered in these films is, far from being more ambiguous and questioning than the usual run, actually every bit as black and white as any cornball grayscale print from the '40s. The key moment of disillusionment, when Bane reveals the truth about Dent to the city's populace, has no apparent result.
Perhaps this could be handled in a way that suggests more a conflict of essential spirit— communality vs. anarchy, group will vs. individual, etc.—but I'd still like it to make a lick of plot sense, and the film's flat-footed imagery and insistent literalism doesn't communicate it as symbolism, anyway. The constant pseudo-biblical invocations of the villains are meant to sound very impressive, and they do admittedly call to mind the similar language of Osama Bin Laden and others of his ilk. But in the real world, the use of such phraseology tends to be deeply entwined with less abstract concepts, like resentment over historical injustices and inequality, whereas here there is no substance standing behind the statements. The process hinted at throughout these films, that the name "Gotham" is actually standing in for "America," is now completed. Whilst the opening scene seems to cast a livid eye on the brutality and risky morality of the War on Terror's renditions, the film goes on to conflate the Dent Act, which is in danger of being repealed or expiring through lack of interest, with the Patriot Act, and just at the point where it seems irrelevant, a handy threat comes along to revalidate it. At last, the martial defenders of order must reassert authority and cohesion in the face of terrorists who are either domestics left out of capitalist triumphalism—the army of orphans and outcasts Bane has assembled—or hazily foreign insurgents who have spent formative years in that prison in "one of the world's more ancient countries." So, under its surface, the depiction of Wayne as the toppled tough guy who must overcome his privileged coddling to get back on top becomes as naked a metaphor for resurgent American triumphalism as Rocky IV (1987). Selina, who styles herself as a Robin Hood of the underworld, ultimately has to make a choice between the sides, and goes with the guy with the shit-hot car.
Incoherent and suspiciously conservative-pandering political dimensions aside, The Dark Knight Rises could still work, if given room to breathe, as a fable. That is, essentially, what Nolan is trying to make, in spite of all the trappings. In this regard, he does make it part way to the heights he's after, especially in the all too obviously symbolic climb Wayne has to make to escape the jail. (In yet another instance of Nolan's weak visual exposition, he never bothers to analyse for the eye why escapees can't just keep climbing up the safety rope they have tied to them instead of having to make a dangerous leap to a distant ledge.) In a pretty nice bit of narrative switcheroo that would be worthy of one of The Prestige's protagonists, the child we've seen escaping from the prison proves to be a girl rather than a boy: Talia al-Ghul, alias Miranda, the real engine behind Bane's efforts, born of Ra's' lover in the prison where she was cast by a warlord. Bane was her jailhouse protector and surrogate brother, a late touch that finally gives Hardy's hulking villain role a touch of pathos. Bane has the body and mask of a Mexican wrestler, the accent of a James Bond villain, and the wheeze of Darth Vader. Nolan clearly wants to endow him with something of the mixture of gentlemanly cunning and perverse intelligence and feral ferocity of a good Bond opponent, but Hardy is awfully hamstrung by having to communicate personality through said mask. Cotillard similarly barely registers in her role, betraying the Nolans' permanent embarrassment in contending with the intimate in her romance with Wayne. She does at last find purpose when her villainy is revealed, but by that very late stage, it can only be exerted in the most blunt and curtailed of expressions.
Nolan's sense of scene grammar and expositional logic haven't improved: characters go in and of focus, disappear for long stretches and then come back with a startworthy suddenness, travel around the world in the blink of an eye, and turn up where they shouldn't be. Cillian Murphy's Jonathan Crane, alias The Scarecrow, from Batman Begins, turns up presiding over the revolutionary court out of nowhere. Presumably, he's been released from the prison, but he then disappears, his presence just another momentary diversion for the eye that feels a little like a Laugh-In sketch; here come the judge, indeed. Selina tells Wayne that she's led him into Bane's trap because she's afraid his men will kill her, and Stryver does indeed try to do that, but later Selina is able to move among Bane's cohorts and even give orders to lesser underlings: why and how she can do this is again left frustratingly fuzzy.
In spite of the general problems with his filmmaking, Nolan does have a talent for weaving together some striking individual scenes and movements, and here is where The Dark Knight Rises ultimately does offer interludes of nagging power. Batman's first return to the fray is a little rousing, and Nolan goes to town in the lengthy sequence in which Bane's plan begins to move, commencing with his breaking of Wayne, and then moving out for a spot of mass terrorism, causing grandiose carnage at a football game that sees, like some particularly malicious gag from The Simpsons, a player making a dash for the goal line only to turn and see the entire field and his fellow players swallowed into a crater. Here, at least, Nolan's perpetual-motion editing strikes the right notes of frantic dissolution of order as Gotham falls to its conquerors. Hans Zimmer's score works best here, too, though elsewhere it combines with the barrage of sound effects to form a wall of bullying, Pavlovian noise. Ultimately, whilst it clearly wants to rise to the level of the Star Wars films and the best moments of James Bond's long franchise, The Dark Knight Rises felt to me more like the capper for another pop phenomenon I could never warm to, The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Like that film, it attempts to sustain the superstructure of a genuine saga, and yet still manages to wind up with a fist fight, preluded by Batman and Bane swapping the most laboured taunts I've heard in all my born days.
What does finally keep this film afloat, however, is Hathaway's presence and performance as Selina. It probably won't prove as much of a lightning rod for neo-punk fervour that Ledger's Joker did, because the sex appeal of spunky female characters so often tends to get in the way of more general appreciation and because she's less of a gnomic force. But in many ways, Selina is an even better play on the familiar comic book character, transferring her essential spirit from the sources intact. In her inevitable skin-tight outfight and dominatrix heels, every inch of her is deadly in one fashion or another: in one of the film's wittiest moments, one of Dagget's henchmen asks her, "Do those heels make it hard to walk?" Selina promptly cripples him with a kick of those wicked spikes and asks ever so coldly, "I don't know, do they?" She alone finally brings to Nolan's series something of the essentially Freudian edge of the comics, where every character feels like pieces of a schizoid personality, the feminine, criminal flipside to Wayne's masked warrior, a perfect mirror-mate. Whilst not as keenly self-aware as a self-constructed icon of antipathetic sexuality as Michelle Pfeiffer's great incarnation from Batman Returns (1992), Hathaway sharpens to a point the character's sense of impudent humour and strident, self-willed individuality, as well as her edge of fetishist provocation. In so doing, she gives The Dark Knight Rises some desperately needed comic relief and the Dark Knight himself a desperately needed personality, by dint of having enough for two. The only problem is that Nolan doesn't always know what to do with her: Selina disappears from the movie for a great chunk of running time, and she's almost buried under a heap of unnecessary gimmickry, like her efforts to get hold of some doodad that can erase her past. Finally, however, Selina gets to play Han Solo to Batman's Luke Skywalker, coming back to save the day in the nick of time. In spite of her faint Sapphic associations and proclaimed contempt for good, she falls enough for our hero to share a marvellous farewell kiss with him, representing the first time in this series I've ever felt a hint of emotion with a protagonist. Selina is good enough a thief to steal the movie out from under everyone's noses.
5th/08/2012 to 9:27 pm
Ugh. I had a hard time with The Dark Knight Rises. But, then again, I always do with Nolan's films. It's Nolan. I suppose I could add on in agreement to your assessment of the film's sketchy sociopolitical themes or further criticize the whole enterprise, as many have done, for sucking dry any sense of fun and escapism from the comic book premise.
Yet my issue with this film is something more core: Nolan is a bad visual storyteller. When he's not using the cinematic medium for noisy spectacle, he's merely using it as a recording device for check-listing "script stuff". I've said this before about the two predecessors (along with Nolan's other films) and I reiterate, with even greater emphasis, that The Dark Knight Rises is about as visually/narratively/dramatically engaging as major, Hollywood budget episode of Law & Order, which is a roundabout way of calling the film cinematically bland. I understand that Nolan wants to immerse audiences into a Batman world of urban realism and, admittedly, in an art-directorial sense, he does pull off his postmodern aesthetic with panache. But his idea of the docudramatic visual aesthetic lacks actual technical talent and ends up feeling derivative of aforementioned TV procedural dramas.
If you want an example of loosed camera work artfully capturing the vitality of intense moments, observe Michael Mann's Miami Vice or Public Enemies, where the handheld is alive but never disorientating; tittering and unstable while still maximizing the frame end-to-end with evocative compositions and deep focus perspectives. Nolan, however, does very little with framing. I find it rather ironic that a director who's constantly showered with praise for using IMAX grandeur is so infatuated with monotonous medium to medium close-ups, laboring through a one-thing-at-a-time visual report via awkward and often unnecessary coverage/inserts coupled with erratic editing.
Also, for a film that relies so heavily on plot logistics, Nolan seems utterly incapable of properly, let alone interestingly, telling a story geographically: various characters jumping around locations during citywide mayhem or when trying to track a superball atomic bomb, for example, feel less like sequences playing out excitingly through well storyboarded action and more like directionless motion in constant need of someone explaining at any given moment, with audit-like dialogue, where's where and what's what. It's clumsy.
On a larger storied level, instead of visualizing his themes with grace, Nolan prefers to bludgeon them (and us) with ham-fisted monologues.
Yet The Dark Knight Rises is not without its qualities. Easily for me, the film's best set-piece is the first confrontation between Batman and Bane. This is the one extended moment that stands apart almost entirely from the overstuffed subplots, exposition and histrionic performances, striping the film down to its basic and best storyline: Batman fighting Bane, and losing; what that means for the character, where it leads him psychologically and what he has to do to make it back. It is this moment in the film where the story isn't being telegraphed through plot-points or thesis-speak, but is actually playing out through action and straight narrative. It's raw and primal. And for once Nolan's visual approach somewhat benefits the nature of the scene, the desperate futility of Batman yelling and punching into the monstrous wall that is Bane. I like how our hero is tossed over a railing and dowsed in water in a way that completely robs him of his dignity, leaving only an aged mortal man in cumbersome body gear. I like how Bane mocks his toys and tactics; a villain who laughs at Batman in the dark? Talk about emasculating.
I just wish the rest of the film could have remained as focused both visually and thematically on what's important. I actually have a lot of respect for Nolan as far as his ambition goes, I simply do not dig his storytelling sensibility nor his filmmaking technique …or lack thereof.
5th/08/2012 to 10:03 pm
I had a serious problem with the sound, because much of the soundtrack is ominous sounding bass tones. Combined with Bale's hoarse voice and Bane talking through a mask, this made much of the dialogue hard to hear.
I was thinking that if you shot the bomb with a missile, it would be destroyed without destroying most of Gotham City. (It's not that easy to sustain a fusion reaction.) I wouldn't want to try this myself; that's what delegation is for.
5th/08/2012 to 10:20 pm
Cannon: Your experience of Nolan is fundamentally similar to mine: in spite of my criticisms of Nolan's intellectual pretences, his visual lacks are my first and last issues with his cinema – the whirlwind leaps between long shots and close-ups, the hazy geography, the incapacity to vary his rhythms. I particularly appreciate your comments relating to Michael Mann's visual stylistics, because whilst Nolan does indeed ape Mann's sense of urban steel, concrete, and gun-barrel-grey chic, as was much remarked upon at the time of The Dark Knight, he completely fails to grasp the specifics of Mann's style. I insist that a film should be a repository of plastic (in the original sense of the word) beauty in some form or another, but Nolan has simply struck an uncomfortable balance between the cubism of Paul Greengrass and the minimalism of Mann in the name of immediacy, and what we are finishing up with, increasingly, is "point camera in the same basic direction as what we should be paying attention to, and edit when you feel like it." Nolan does know how to do visual patterning, as is plain in Memento and The Prestige, but he loses his grasp when it comes to placing the actual weight of action on his camerawork.
I appreciate that you got something from what Nolan was going for in the first Bane-Batman confrontation, with its dire consequences – that sense of pummelling, immediate endangerment for our hero is alarming, as there was something of a dinosaur-like relentlessness to Bane's strength, making it clear that Bane could kill Wayne if he wants, but doesn't want to; the effect of Bane's potency both in his body and his sneering contempt, was strong enough to linger for me through the rest of the film, and I will admit to having anticipated seeing his ass kicked, which was partly answered in the finale even if in the dumbest of fashions. The whole idea of the scene, borrowed as it is from one of the comic books, is quite marvellous. But somehow I feel that Nolan again fumbled it with his lack of technique again, in how to capture the import of the moment: he plays the motif of Selina's watching it all with growing disquiet, but frankly it needed more; more drama, more pain, more shock. It just…happens, just as Batman then just happens to come back.
Syd: Yeah, the sound was often fuzzy, especially when you had music on top of ambient noise on top of dialogue, without the slightest bit of care of design. But, you know what? I had no trouble understanding Bane. I got the feeling that Nolan and Hardy had worked over his bits a lot to make his voice muffled but audible, and I could often understand him better than other actors. But who said anything about putting the fusion reactor on a missile?
5th/08/2012 to 11:31 pm
Nobody can complain about being short changed by a Rodney Heath review, especially when he's been irked. As I was reading, I kept making mental notes of things I wanted to say, but like a French infantryman discarding his weapons on the retreat from Moscow, my mind could only hold on to a few bare essentials.
I think the review was particularly acute on the shortcomings of Nolan as a director and writer. Somewhere I said that I thought Nolan had a vision, but lacked the cinematic flair to realise it. This probably puts it better: "More to the point, Nolan still has no fundamental feel for the expressive rhythms of a film."
For me, Nolan flirted with some interesting ideas, but failed to score with any of them. I was intrigued when at first the film appeared sympathetic of the idea of the have nots being justified in taking from the haves, but it quickly retreated into trusting to the noblesse oblige of our elites and their lieutenants. Did this confusion mirror the lack of clarity in Nolan's own thinking or, should we givie him the benefit of the doubt by allowing that he was probably constrained by the material and studio and audience expectations. I mean, just what is the subtext of a fucked-up rich guy being our saviour?
I also agree with Rod railing at the unexplained leaps in the narrative, which I found to be either lazy, cynical or just plain bad filmmaking.
And I felt sorry for Michael Caine for having to lend feeling to scenes that lacked emotional imperatives or consistency.
6th/08/2012 to 1:23 am
Jeez, Jeremy, after more than a decade arguing on line, don't you think you could get my name right? 😉
"…it quickly retreated into trusting to the noblesse oblige of our elites and their lieutenants."
Well said.
"Did this confusion mirror the lack of clarity in Nolan's own thinking or, should we givie him the benefit of the doubt by allowing that he was probably constrained by the material and studio and audience expectations."
A bit of both, I think. Frankly I don't think it's that hard, morally or artistically, to give Bruce Wayne the right grounding that makes his noblesse oblige agreeable, and yet Nolan consistently fails to evoke it, and he also fails to give us any real meat for a more ironic take on it. The probing is constantly weakened by the assurances that Wayne is always a good guy – look, he's made himself nearly poor by funding a fusion reactor! What a fine, charitable, dingbat rich-guy thing to do. The tension would have worked better if the film dared to present Wayne as a compartmentalising, but no can do. Tim Burton easily and successfully synthesised a link between the big and low ends of town for his villains – Penguin's partnership with the fascinatingly self-deluding Max Schreck – whilst Nolan's boardroom baddies are entirely cardboard. So I can't let Nolan off the hook by saying, oh, that's just part of the general texture of the material. Nolan, and his audience, are so much in love with the idea of his villains as marauding forces of pure chaos, "delighting in whatever reaction he can elicit from a world numbed by modernity" as one description I read of Ledger's Joker just today puts it neatly (and yet this intent is not stated in the film; it's inference that others have made), that the reflections on vigilante justice and real-world context are rendered automatically defunct. There are always different inflections one can give a story no matter the production contexts. Nolan won his fumbled, pseudo-reactionary political message; he can wear it.
If I can congratulate Mr Caine on one thing, it's that his professionalism always shines through. He tackled every moment he was on screen like he was soloing in a Rachmaninov concerto.
6th/08/2012 to 4:02 am
Apologies, Rod(erick)
BOB: Well, what about Wodewick, then?
CROWD: Yes! Welease Wodewick! Welease Wodewick!
CENTURION: Sir, we don't have a 'Roderick' either.
PILATE: No 'Woger'? No 'Wodewick'?
CENTURION: Sorry, sir.
PILATE: Who is the 'Wodewick' to whom you wefer?
BOB: He's a wobber!
PILATE: He sounds a notowious cwiminal.
CENTURION: We haven't got him, sir. Mm hm.
PILATE: Do we have anyone in our pwisons at all?
6th/08/2012 to 4:52 am
Dammit, this requires the "like" button.
6th/08/2012 to 1:03 pm
I wrote (on spanish) my review about this low end to "The Dark Knight" saga by Mr. Nolan. Another false step in his career, like Inception.
One thing: The scene with Bane and his army in the Stock Exchange is by day. They escape inmediately and the chase-scene is by night. Are your kiddin' me?
Really nice, Rod.
6th/08/2012 to 2:29 pm
Outstanding evaluation. I found myself nodding my head in agreement with as I read your article. Most of Nolan's films leave me feeling cold, wanting something a bit more. TDKR was no exception. It was a breath of fresh air as I watched Inception, as it had some emotion to it, not forced like the rest of his movies feel. However, his storytelling is unparalleled to other directors in Hollywood today and I still look forward to his films…I just hope they have some life to them, like The Dark Knight.
6th/08/2012 to 5:59 pm
It's a movie I enjoyed but can't defend. As an old comics fan I couldn't help but be gratified by a lot of what I saw — though many other fans feel differently — but I couldn't deny the raw incompetence of much of the script. Your description of the film as a nearly three-hour montage sums up nicely the widespread feeling that it's bloated yet missing important details. Maybe a three-hour trailer would be more accurate. Nolan crafts great still images but in crafting narratives he seems to have gone backwards. Even the best parts — mostly those dealing with Selina Kyle — feel off because he's trying to achieve closure in three hours where the comics have cultivated mystery and pathos in the Batman-Catwoman relationship for seventy years. There's little point to giving them a happy ending without the feeling that they've taken a long, long time to get there. On Nolan's own terms, the wrap-up is plausible yet still feels abrupt and obligatory, as if the he expects audiences to fill in the blanks. Not everyone will, or will care to.
6th/08/2012 to 6:49 pm
Duroc: Google Translate tells me that on your page you have reviewed The Dark Knight Ascends. Thanks, Google Translate. You know, I hadn't even noticed the day/night thing, but now that you have…*forehead slap* I do recall it was still day when they first escaped the exchange, but yes, then night falls real fast. Were they really riding around for an hour? I did also dig your theory that Hardy's role in Bronson perhaps won him this part.
Alley: Like most of Nolan's work, Inception drew me in with an interesting set-up that the act of actually watching saw me grow gradually more frustrated and bored. Perhaps now that his obligations to Warner Bros and this franchise are over, Nolan will have time to sit down and properly think a movie through.
Samuel: "…because he's trying to achieve closure in three hours where the comics have cultivated mystery and pathos in the Batman-Catwoman relationship for seventy years…"
Well put. Also, was that Selina with him in Florence at the end? Given that Nolan wouldn't give her focus, preferring his throwaway glimpse of Wayne post-Batman, I was left unsure. Of course, I want it to have been her, and the thought of Wayne and Kyle living out their lives in an Italian bonkfest certainly appeals…I am certainly bewildered about how one can make a movie that is nearly three hours long and yet make it so rushed and lacking precision of detail. "A three hour trailer" does indeed fit just as well; in fact that film displays a trailer aesthetic – bombarding music, stentorian dialogue, striking but jumbled images – has essentially taken control of Hollywood product. Still, yes, I agree that Nolan does have a capacity to craft great images – those sandcastle skyscrapers in Inception are genuinely memorable and properly surrealist. Only the context lets them down. Perhaps if Nolan throws out narrative altogether and becomes an abstract film artist, then he will have found his calling.
7th/08/2012 to 5:18 pm
As a die-hard Nolan fan, I must say I agree and disagree with your review.
I agree that Nolan tries to handle more plotlines than he can, but when I compare The Dark Knight synopsis to The Dark Knight Rises, I much before the finale over the sequel. The Dark Knight rests solely on Heaths amazing performance, and there's nothing else that holds my attention. (Except for the horrible miscast replacement of Katie Holmes). The Dark Knight Rises, I felt, brought back more of what the original had for Bruce – an origin of overcoming his fears/failures, which ties the movie together. If I have to a choose between a film with little to no plotline vs too many plotlines that rushed to completion, I choose the later.
After the first scene with Bane in the airplane, I feel that much of the movie doesn't pick up again for me until Bane rules over the stockmarket, football field, etc. I felt that what the movie lacks in cohesive storylines, it balances out with the increase of characters…if that makes sense? 🙂
I must disagree that Anne Hathaway did not keep the film afloat for me. I'm not a Hathaway hater, and I quite liked her chemistry between her and Bale. However, her performance is quite uneven. In comparison of her scene stealing the pearls/the bar brawl scene to her scenes solely with Batman, there's an uneven and inconsistency with what she is trying to deliver as Selena. I felt she was awkward and incomplete as a character.
8th/08/2012 to 2:42 am
"Except for the horrible miscast replacement of Katie Holmes…"
You mean, Oscar-nominated, talented and adorable actress Maggie Gyllenhaal?
11th/08/2012 to 8:46 am
I've steadfastly stayed away from this thread since it posted nearly a week ago, not because it was alienating to me, but more that its erudite thrust was intimidating for a non-fan of the genre. Ha! I also balked on Sam Wilson's excellent piece on it a few weeks back. It another astounding piece of writing (though the word 'piece' seems wholly insufficient) on a film that certainly has been the subject of musch discussion since it's release, forever tarnished by some by unconscionable tragedy. While I am no big fan of the superhero movie, I have regularly been abducted by a family of maniacal fans, one of whom has exceeding talented in drawing, and who applies that talent on all his favorite superhero characters. Despite my general indifference to the genre I will concede this particular film was very well done (Nolan is easily the strongest director to ever helm any of the films) and love the final 40 minutes or so right up till that buffo Italian cafe scene with Michael Caine's wink. Caine and Hathaway were quite good, as was Bale, who finally and rightfully received the main focus.
In any case I am well-aware that my modest celebration must be tempered by the fact that you have penned a subtle but unmistakable takedown, one that concedes strengths but mainly takes Nolan to task for what you feel is a lack of connection to much of the material. I am hardly prepared and willing to go to the mat for this film (or any superhero film) as ultimately they are forgotten just a short time afterward, but aside from one disclaimer you make that I completely agree with (the visual pattern being more in line with a montage) I feel Nolan has in large measure elevated these kind of film like no other director who has taken the gauntlet. But you have painstakingly and with your usual incomparable skill made quite a case for the issues that you feel keep this film from achieving the exhalted level that many others feel is has achieved. Fair enough.
11th/08/2012 to 11:09 am
I can only sigh in exasperation, Sam. But thanks for still working up the will to comment.
17th/09/2012 to 2:12 am
It's been fun watching Nolan turn the comic book film on its head but its time to get back to some real work now. More excited about his next project (outside of Superman) to see where he goes after Inception.
3rd/10/2012 to 12:06 pm
"More specifically, Nolan buys into Dickens' knock-kneed English liberal vision of the Revolution as badly shaven creeps in seamy, raffishly worn uniforms dragging random citizens to trial in an orgy of bloodlust, and bypassing the specific background of political paranoia, war, and high-profile defections, which turned the Revolution's moment of transformative energy into a grim spiral of political homicide."
I'm sure this isn't what you were going for, but this sounds a lot like excuse-making for the atrocities of the Revolution. Sure, Robespierre murdered almost countless innocents of all classes and political persuasions, but hey, things were stressful and it made sense that he would start to see terror as "an emanation of virtue", right?
I don't take very seriously critics' complaints about the plot to TDKR; if something happens in the movie, then it happens in the movie, and if there's no explicit explanation, I don't mind letting the story move on with this lack of detail. What I DO take seriously are some of the political accusations being lobbed at the film. It's becoming almost a truism of critics that the film is some sort of right-wing nightmare about the terror of revolutionary uprising against the corrupt 1%. If this movie is actually a condemnation of revolution, then really it's the most polite possible condemnation of revolution. If it were actually going to be about the French Revolution, it would have to make a bunch of changes: random decapitations of authority figures; random terror and executions of all sorts of innocent people, not just the one-percenters like Daggett and Stryver who are obviously guilty as charged; the purging of society on genocidal levels, like we saw in Russia, China, and Cambodia. Since Bane's plan was to let the city prove its own decadence for five months before executing his wrath and destroying it, he seems less like a revolutionary reformer to me than a sheer nihilist. He's less Club Jacobin, more Project Mayhem.
I wish the film had been as bold as some of its critics claim it is. I wish it had made Bane a genuine revolutionary demagogue, rather than someone who simply mocks revolutionary pretensions. (Did you hear that sneer in his voice when he said, "We are taking power and giving it back to you… 'the people.'") I wish it had shown a full-blown reign of terror rather than just a quick montage. I wish, in short, it had made him a villain like the kind of villain we actually saw during the French Revolution (or the Russian one, or the Chinese one). But the theme of these films has always been hope versus nihilism (Bane is closer in spirit to the Joker than to Robespierre), not order versus revolution, so I guess that wouldn't have worked.
If you want to see a Batman story that's genuinely shameless about its anti-liberal-intellectual credentials, look at "The Dark Knight Returns," the Frank Miller story (and now movie). Now THERE is fuel for political argument.
2nd/01/2013 to 11:12 pm
Just read this, and I largely agree. I kept thinking that you had stated so neatly what I had previously felt.
The Dark Knight Rises (like many Nolan films) is a frustrating experience because you can still hear the strong basic ideas whispering at you faintly beneath the cacophony of incoherent exposition and action, not to mention Zimmer's mighty *bwaaaamp* score. But then you try to pick these ideas out and line them up into some sort of cohesive statement, and they don't fit together. Nolan himself admitted in an interview (regarding the politics of TDKR, but it certainly also applies to the film as a whole) that he just wanted to throw elements up and see what sticks.
Also frustrating is that Batman Begins actually had a sense of the personal and the mythic to it, which is mostly lost in TDKR, except in explicit callbacks—like the desert prison mirroring the well that young Bruce falls into, or the bats flying out and startling him as he climbs echoing the (for me at least) spine-chilling moment when he stands, surrounded by whirling bats, when discovering the Batcave.
I'm also interested in your more positive outlook on The Prestige, which I consider the perfect Nolan film in that it is a tight and clever puzzle that shares a wicked trickiness with its subject matter and protagonists. I would love to read any further thoughts you have on it.


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If I had the time I'd be a font geek. One of the Create Cloud features I enjoy most is the access to fonts.
Well, maybe I am a font geek after all. I enjoyed this talk by the man who designed Verdana.
In this Ted Talk, Michael Carter talks about the design of fonts to both achieve a purpose and address the limits of the available technology (eg for phone books or early PC screens).

subset: commoncrawl


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Footage of silk making at farm in Lullingstone in Kent.
Various exterior shots of Broadlands where Princess Elizabeth will spend her honeymoon.
Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth relax at Broadlands on their Honeymoon.
Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip on honeymoon at Broadlands. Romsey, Hampshire.
Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth spend the first part of their honeymoon in Hampshire.
The King and Queen on the balcony at Buckingham Palace acknowledge the revellers. Beacons are lit across the country to celebrate the Jubilee including a giant bonfire in Hyde Park.
Close shots of Queen Elizabeth II saluting.
Coronation of the Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey - ceremony in the Abbey.
Coronation of the Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey - Abbey ceremony & parade.
Soldiers lead horses to trough to drink
Artillery guns firing in field.
Events of 1914 - World War One begins and the recruits go off to fight.
Princesses riding their horses around grounds of Windsor Castle, their parents join them.


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Bubbly Creek Restrictions To Be Lifted FridayThe remaining clean-up will continue through Thursday. The work includes removing the boom, residual oil, as well as decontaminating boats and equipment.
Coast Guard Rescues Boaters, Dogs Near WilmetteA de-masted 37-foot sailboat was unable to get back to Wilmette Harbor on Sunday, prompting a Coast Guard rescue response.
Coast Guard Delivers Christmas Trees To Chicago Families In NeedThe U.S. Coast Guard delivered smiles on Saturday at Navy Pier after donating 1,200 Christmas tree to families in need.
'No Such Thing As Safe Ice,' Coast Guard Official WarnsFriday could be in the 60s, and that means things can get dangerous quickly, CBS 2's Sandra Torres reports.
Cable Behind Rhode Island Beach Explosion Has Cousins In Illinois, NationwideThe cable that caused an explosion at a crowded Rhode Island beach last summer, injuring a woman, may have counterparts lying under beaches, harbors and waterways at dozens of sites nationwide.
Coast Guard Cracking Down On Drunk Boating This WeekendBoaters are going to see more police and Coast Guard patrols on the lake this weekend, during a crackdown on drunk boating, reports WBBM's Mike Krauser.
Man Recuperating After Being Rescued By Coast Guard From Uninhabited Island In BahamasA 39-year-old man with ties to Illinois is recuperating at a Key West, Florida, hospital - after being rescued last night from a small island in the Bahamas.
Crews Have Nearly Raised Sunken Barge From Chicago RiverThe U.S. Coast Guard has made some progress raising a barge that sunk in the Chicago River last month, but it's unclear when it finally will be floating and moving again.
Highland Park Boy Among 3 Kayakers Rescued Near Door CountyA 9-year-old boy from Highland Park, his cousin, and his aunt were rescued from Lake Michigan on Friday, about 12 hours after they were reported missing while kayaking off Door County.
Search Resumes For 2 Still Missing After Boating AccidentFour people went into the water when their boat capsized about 7 miles off shore from the 31st Street marina around 7 p.m. Saturday. A fisherman rescued the a man who had been on the boat Sunday morning, and rescue crews found a woman two hours later, but she died.
Boaters Urged To Check Vessels For Electrical ProblemsAhead of the Memorial Day weekend, the U.S. Coast Guard and others were warning boaters along Lake Michigan and elsewhere about a hidden danger in the water.
Coast Guard, City Officials Urge Boaters To Use Caution On LakeThe temperatures might have been cold, and there was snow in the air, but city officials and the U.S. Coast Guard said those were perfect conditions to remind boaters the Lakefront can be an unpredictable place.


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Today's blog post was written by Rob Jasinski, Principal Developer at Sonoma Partners.
There are many occasions when you'll need to migrate a large amount of data from some outside data source into your Dynamics CRM or Salesforce environment. Both systems do have native import tools, but they have many limitations and can be difficult to use on a large amount of data. If your company owns SQL Server licenses, those also come with SSIS licenses and that can be a viable alternate solution to migrate data into CRM. This article will give you an introduction to setting up a simple data migration to get you started for creating your own CRM migration solutions.
First you'll need SQL Server Data Tools. This can be downloaded from this link. You should have Visual Studio installed, but if you don't this will also install a light version, enough to run data tools and allow you to create SSIS integration package.
Next, since you'll be migrating data to CRM, you'll need a third party destination component. Now you can write your own custom code, either in C# or VB, and code directly to the API of the destination CRM system, but this can be tedious and very time consuming. These third party tools encapsulate all the code into easy to use drag-and-drop components. They are very reasonably priced and will save a lot of time and frustrations. There are many third party components you can use from vendors such as CozyRoc, CData, and KingswaySoft. For this example, we'll be using KingswaySoft, but the other vendors would work fine as well. You can download the component used in this example from this link.
Once you have data tools installed, launch Visual Studio and choose new solution and choose "New SSIS Package."
This will create an empty canvas ready for you to start creating your first SSIS data migration.
Next you'll need to create a data source. This is the location of the source data that exists outside of your current CRM solution. SSIS has several options to pull data from many sources, including Excel, SQL Server, ODBC, CSV files, etc. For this example, we'll assume our data is located in a SQL Server database. So in the Connection Managers area, right click in that area and choose "New OLE DB Connection." Configure the server name, credentials, and database name, and click OK. In this example, I've renamed the connection to "Source."
Next drag and drop the "Data Flow Task" from the SSIS Toolbox onto the Control Flow canvas.
Double-click the Data Flow Task just created to open the Data Flow canvas. This is where you'll create the actual migration using source, destination, and transformation components (if needed).
Next drag and drop the OLE DB Source component from the SSIS Toolbox onto the Data Flow canvas and configure the component along with the query to pull the data that you need. In this example, we'll be pulling basic account information from some outside system into our Dynamics CRM environment.
Now you'll need to configure a Destination connection. In this example, we'll be using the KingswaySoft Dynamics CRM adapter for connecting to our CRM environment. Right click in the Connection Managers area and choose "New Connection." From the Connection list, choose DynamicsCRM and click Add. Also, you must have already installed the KingswaySoft Dynamics CRM adapter for it to appear in this list.
Next you'll need to configure the CRM connection. Choose the appropriate Authentication Type, depending if you're online or on-premise. Then enter the CRM Discovery URL, then any credentials and finally choose the appropriate organization name from the drop-down list. Since there are many environment configurations you may be using, please refer to this KingswaySoft documentation for further details on configuring this.
You should now have two connection managers. In this example, I've renamed it to DynamicsCRM. Most migrations you create will mostly like just have two data sources, one source and one destination. But there may be cases where you have multiple sources that are then merged together within the Data Flow process before migrating to CRM.
Next drag and drop the Dynamics CRM Destination components from the SSIS Toolbox onto the Data Flow canvas. Then manually connect the arrow from the OLE DB Source to the new CRM Destination just created. The component has a little red X displayed because it still needs to be configured in the next step.
Next double click on the Destination component to bring up the configuration screen. Choose the CRM connection manager you just created. For this example, we're migrating data into accounts, so choose that as the destination entity.
Next select the Columns tab and map the fields from the source query to the fields in CRM. Using a third party component, like KingswaySoft, it's that easy and no custom coding is required.
Press OK and you're done. You've created your first, although very simple, data migration of data outside of CRM into CRM. Now the nice thing about SSIS, it comes with many transformation tools out of box that allow you to cleanup, manipulate, or even de-dupe data. For example, here is a link that is a more complicated example of an SSIS data migration that also de-duplicates data. So from this simple example as a starting point, you can expand it to perform almost any kind of complicated data migration your business may require.


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AV1 Villa Special Bus
The AV1 bus service operates from Tamworth for Saturday & Sunday Premier league matches.
AVFC Car Share
Travel with fellow fans to
reduce fuel costs and parking charges by sharing expenses.
Stadium Tours
Visiting Villa Park?
Take a look at
Stadium Tours.
Seating Plan
Stadium seating plan and
savings with Season ticket
pricing information.
The complete range of
Villa kit plus a full compliment of Aston Villa merchandise can be found in the Villa Village
Virtual Tours
From the centre circle
to our premium seating
and executive lounges.
Download your guide to
the accessible features at Villa Park
To ensure you have an enjoyable matchday experience at Villa Park, we recommend you plan your journey to Villa Park.
Please also be aware that in the interest of pedestrian safety, a TRAFFIC EXCLUSION ZONE is imposed around Villa Park on matchdays.
Information regarding the exclusion zones and parking restrictions is covered in the parking information section.
To download our guide to accessible areas arounnd Villa Park please click here.
The two nearest train stations to Villa Park are Witton and Aston.
The information below is an approximate guide and we recommend you plan your journey at network west midlands or visit London Midland
Route end to end destination: Lichfield Trent Valley to Longbridge / Redditch via Birmingham New Street
Duration of journey: Birmingham New Street - Aston: 5 - 10mins; Longbridge to Aston: 27 - 30mins; Lichfield Trent Valley to Aston: 32 - 35mins; Redditch to Aston: 44 - 52mins.
Aston Station is approximately 15mins on foot from Villa Park
Route end to end destination: Walsall to Birmingham New Street
Duration of journey and frequency of service: Birmingham New Street - Witton: 9mins; Walsall to Witton: 15mins.
Witton Station is approximately 5mins on foot from Villa Park
The main two bus routes servicing Villa Park are the no 7 and no 11. In addition, services 65 and 67 also operate within walking distance of Villa Park.
For full timetable information, please call 0871 200 2233 or visit www.networkwestmidlands.com
We recommend you to check the timetables ahead of the matches for updated information.
Aston Villa also operates Villa Special Bus Services
Free parking for Home Coaches is available at BEAUCREST, located on Holdford Road via Nobel Way (near to Witton Train Station). Minibus parking is available at the same site at £12 per minibus.
Due to the traffic exclusion zone that operates around Villa Park from 75 minutes before kick-off, we recommend that COACHES looking to access the Home Coach Park use junction 7 of the M6 and access the site from North of Villa Park via ASTON LANE (turning left at Witton Island).
If you do use junction 6, make sure you arrive in plenty of time, and before the traffic exclusion zone is in operation.
BEAUCREST is only a five minute walk to the stadium.
Reservations for HOME COACH parking must be made 24 hours before kick-off to ensure a space is reserved.
The £12 fee for minibuses is payable in cash on the day to the third party that operate the BEAUCREST site.
For more information and to reserve parking, please email: Home Coach Park
Free parking for away coaches is available opposite Villa Park in the Away Coach Park.
Parking for Minibuses is available at BEAUCREST, located on Holdford Road via Nobel Way (near to Witton Train Station). Minibus parking is at BEUACREST is charged at £12 per minibus.
If you organise away coach or minibus travel to Villa Park, please notify the Football Liaison Department
located at Queens Road Police Station in advance of your travel arrangements on 0121 322 6077.
Birmingham is serviced by Birmingham International Airport.
From Birmingham International Airport, take the train into Birmingham New Street station
and hop on to a connecting train to Aston or Witton stations.
Alternatively, Villa Park is approximately 20-30 minutes by taxi from the airport.
Taxi fares vary greatly depending upon times of day, taxi company used etc.
Please see the bus section above if you choose to travel by bus from New Street Station.
Tick the boxes next to the transport icons to view the various transport options and parking zones.
Aston Villa
Football Club
Villa Park
Trinity Road
Stadium Map
Print out a
detailed map of
Villa Park
and parking
Google Directions
Enter your postcode or street name for directions from Google Maps.
Please note that bicycles and other items are left entirely at their owner's risk.Aston Villa Limited accepts no liability for any loss or damage from any cause whatsoever.


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Cool Stuff
Occasionally we stumble upon some pretty cool hot dog related stuff and wish to share this with our visitors. Some of the information on this page is related to companies which sell hot dog related items or services. These products/services and their respective companies are not endorsed by or affiliated with Hot Dog Chicago Style in any manner whatsoever. We do not benefit either directly or indirectly from the purchase of these products/services. Information for items we think are cool is provided as a convenience to our visitors. Now that we have the legal stuff out of the way, bring on the cool stuff!
The Hot Dog Song
Check out a song about Chicago Style hot dogs which was written by our friend Brian Morse from AquaMunkee Studios. Our website served as the inspiration for this song and is one of Brian's entries into this year's February Album Writing Month (FAWM) challenge. Click on the "play" button to listen. Note: If the player does not work, Click Here to listen.
Attend Hot Dog U's School of Mobile Food Service
Hot Dog University is the only business school where you can learn the knowledge and trade secrets necessary to successfully launch your career in the mobile food service business. This is the place to go if you are considering running a hot dog cart. We had no idea such a place existed until we were contacted by Mark Reitman, the founder and instructor at Hot Dog U. Kevin and I hope to one day attend their class and earn a diploma.
The Chicago Reader has an interesting article about Mark and Hot Dog U (click here). The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also ran an article about Mark (click here). To learn more, visit HotDogU.com
Our Visit to the Red Hot Chicago Factory
We were lucky to have been invited to tour the Red Hot Chicago factory to see how hot dogs are manufactured. We had a wonderful visit and enjoyed meeting Scott and Billy Ladany from RHC. Click Here to read all about our exciting factory tour!
There's an App for that!
Now there is an easy way to find a great Chicago Style hot dog while on the road. Introducing the Vienna Beef Hot Dog Stand Locator for the iPhone. Wherever you live or travel, you can search for restaurants that serve the authentic Chicago Style hot dog from Vienna Beef, then get directions, call them, visit their website, and add to your contact list. In addition, you can learn the history of Vienna Beef, review the key ingredients of a Chicago style hot dog and even report a "ketchup violation" to Vienna Beef headquarters. Click Here to learn more and also download this free free application for the iPhone.
Dog Gone Cool!
While visiting Scottsdale, Arizona, I stumbled across the "Green Monster". I was driving around looking for some lunch when out of nowhere a green SWAT-like truck with a hot dog guy on the roof caught my eye. Of course, I had to stop and check it out. The Green Monster serves Fenway Franks and is decked out with photos and memorable moments of the Boston Red Sox and Celtics sports teams. Unfortunately, the truck was just parked there so I did not get to try a Fenway Frank. After a quick Google search, I traced the truck to Foster's Seafood...a traditional New England seafood restaurant. I contacted the owner (Bill Deacon) and received the following response:
"I grew up in Boston as a fan of the Red Sox, and great hot dog stands that are everywhere in New England. I didn't realize until I came to Arizona that a top-split hot dog roll ONLY exists in New England. The famous Fenway frank features these great rolls, and since I opened a New England seafood house, I decided to bring both the dogs and buns in from New England. We use the truck for several charitable catering events here in the Valley, as well as Little League outings, etc. We keep the truck in front of our restaurant, and as you can imagine, we get many, many comments."
Hot Dog Vending Machine
This is really impressive! Click Here to check out the HD3000 hot dog vending machine from LHD Vending Products. This cool machine uses patented, advanced technology to serve a freshly grilled hot dog on a warm bun. It would be great if they could adapt their vending machine to produce Chicago style dogs. Their website has a very cool interactive graphic that lets you look inside the vending machine and learn about the various internal components. While visiting their website, check out the FAQ page for some good information about the machine and how it works.
Hot Dog Flavored Potato Chips
Mitch's wife was at Costco (Middleton location) and found some Shearer's brand Hot Dog flavored potato chips. Of course, we had to try them out. This novelty item was quite a hit at work. Many were eager to give them a try, but a few couldn't get over the concept of a hot dog flavored chip and passed on the opportunity. The overall opinion is that they are pretty good. It is difficult to explain what they taste like, but here is my best shot. Your first bite has a strong taste of mustard and then after the mustard subsides, you can actually taste some hot dog and relish. Here is a product description from the Shearer's Website:
The bases are loaded...and so are these chips! Shearer's Rippled Home Run Hot Dog Potato Chips are loaded with the classic, loaded hot dog flavor of plump, juicy Sugardale beef wieners smothered with mustard and relish.
Wherever you are, this special limited edition flavor will take you out to the ball game, because nothing goes better with chips than a hot dog at the park. Now you can get this taste doubleheader in one bag! Do the wave as you cheer on your favorite team - and your favorite meal - with wave after wave of rippled V's and the home team's favorite home run hot dog taste. Whether you step up to the plate and pour 'em on or reach right into the bag for "The bite with might™," you'll cheer these taste champions. Have them as is or turn any dip into a champion with Shearer's Rippled Home Run Hot Dog Potato Chips. Grab a bag, round third, and head for home.
Pizza - Hot Dog Chicago Style?
Really? Yes, it's true. While making some homemade pizza Kevin got the inspiration to create a pizza with a twist. Checkout Kevin's latest culinary creation. Click Here to see his Chicago Style Pizza masterpiece. There is also a recipe included so you can be the envy of all your friends and make your very own pizza at home. I can almost hear Julia Childs now, Bon Appetit!
Chicago Hot Dog Stands ViewMaster Reel
This is kind of cool. Grab your VIewMaster and check out some of Chicago's iconic hot dog stands in 3-D. One of our visitors contacted us about their Chicago Hot Dog Stands ViewMaster reel and booklet.
Chicago is said to have about 1,800 independent hot dog stands, more than all franchised fast food chains combined. Every neighborhood has its favorite local hangout, with a slightly different take on the classic Chicago hot dog, and its own unique look and style.
Read the story of Chicago's hot dog in the included 8-page booklet, and visit a few of the many interesting hot dog stands with this 3-dimensional photo tour. For more information, Click Here.
In the Mood for a Huge Hot Dog?
Head on over to the new indoor miniature golf course at Vitense Golfland and check out the Hot Dog slide! Your kids will love it...and so will you. The Madison themed course showcases many of Madison's famous landmarks and businesses. Although the Vitense website claims that the centerpiece of the course is the Capitol building, we would have to politely disagree and choose the giant Hot Dog. The Dog is topped with ketchup and mustard. Hey, it's not a Chicago Dog, but it still looks mighty tasty!
Vitense Golfland is located on the west side of Madison at 5501 Schroeder Rd (West Beltline and Whitney Way). Website: www.vitense.com Phone: (608) 271-1411
Speaking of huge hot dogs, check out this 7 pound, 16" long hot dog. It's not 100% beef so it is not suited for a Chicago Style Dog. The BigHotDog.com website states that this dog is great for tailgating, football parties, BBQs, family reunions, novelty gifts and for hot dog lovers of all ages. The BIG HOT DOG measures 16" long and 4" in diameter and is made of 100% veal, beef, pork, every Tuesday in Chicago, Illinois. The BIG HOT DOG differs from normal "tiny" hotdogs, in that it is 50 times bigger, weighs 7 lbs and has 50 servings. The company sent us a sample hot dog and we used it for a departmental lunch. Click Here to check out what we created with our 7 pound dog.
Oscar Mayer Wienermobile
Although we have never seen the bumper sticker, "My Other Car is a Wienermobile", there are a handful of people who can actually say that. We are pretty sure that everyone knows what a Wienermobile is, but in case you have been living under a rock, here is a brief rundown from the Oscar Mayer website: "One of America's most popular attractions, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was first created in 1936 to promote Oscar Mayer's products at grocery stores across the Midwest. As the company grew, it continued its record run, traveling from coast to coast until 1970. Then, in 1986, on the 50th anniversary of it's first run, the Wienermobile went on tour again, and it's been on a roll ever since!" The lucky drivers are called "HotDoggers". Every year, new HotDoggers are selected. There are about 7 Wienermobiles covering different parts of the country. Click Here for a blog run by the HotDoggers. You can hear their stories of life on the road with the Wienermobile and even see the current location of the Wienermobiles. Click Here to see some of our photos of the Wienermobile fleet.
Leaner Wiener - Downsized Wienermobile
Sing a long with me..."My Wienermobile has a first name, it's M-I-N-I. My Wienermobile has a second name, it's C-O-O-P-E-R.". Yes it is true, Oscar Mayer has unveiled a smaller Wienermobile built on a Mini Cooper S frame. Click Here for more information about it. While we're talking Wienermobile, there is a Blog that highlights some of the traffic related incidents with the Wienermobile. Click Here for the article.
We are Mentioned in a Book
In 2005, Mary Bergin, a writer for the Capital Times newspaper did a feature story about our Hot Dog Chicago Style website. At the time, we had just launched the website and had only a few dog reviews. In 2008, Mary published the book, "Hungry for Wisconsin: A Tasty Guide for Travelers", which included part of the original feature story. The book is desctibed as a guide for the hungry traveler, looking for wonderful culinary experiences or familiar and favorite comfort foods. Hungry for Wisconsin: A Tasty Guide for Travelers celebrates the people, places and foods that define this part of the world.We were invited to the book launch party. The book is available on Amazon.
A Hot Dog Program
Our friends at PBS have created a show all about Hot Dogs appropriately titled, "A Hot Dog Program". It's an all-American celebration of those fabulous and phenomenally popular little sausages in their soft little buns. Whether you like your dog with mustard and sauerkraut, chili and cheese, or with the "works," this program is sure to please. For more information, or to buy the DVD, Click Here.
What is the Proper Geometrical Shape Used to Describe a Hot Dog?
Well, this certainly sounds like a great topic for a philosophy class discussion. This question must be weighing heavy on many minds since a quick Google search found an abundance of sites trying to answer this very question. Here are a few of the answers:
- A cylinder with hemispheres on both ends.
- A truncated cylinder capped on each end by hemispheres.
- Circular Cylindrical Capsule.
If you would like to calculate the Volume of your Hot Dog, here is an Online Calculator.
At the Movies
"How can I trust a man who won't eat a good old-fashioned American hot dog?". --From the movie S.W.A.T., starring Samuel L Jackson.
"Nobody, but nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog anymore!". --From Sudden Impact.
"You look like the Fourth of July! Makes me want a hot dog real bad!" --From Legally Blonde.
"I can't forget it. I am sorry. I had no idea it was your cab. Let me make it up to you. How about a nice hot dog and a beer." --From Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
"Eat the hot dog, don't be one!". --From Steel.
"I want to buy eight hot dogs and eight hot dog buns to go with them. But no one sells eight hot dog buns. They only sell twelve hot dog buns. So I end up paying for four buns I don't need. So I am removing the superfluous buns. Yeah. And you want to know why? Because some big-shot over at the wiener company got together with some big-shot over at the bun company and decided to rip off the American public. Because they think the American public is a bunch of trusting nit-wits who will pay for everything they don't need rather than make a stink." --From Father of the Bride.
"Encased meat is my life. There is not an emotion on earth that can't be expressed through sausage". --From When in Rome (Danny DeVito)
What did the Zen Buddhist say to the Hot Dog vendor? "Make me one with everything".
You might already be a redneck if your idea of a seven-course meal is a six pack and a hot dog.
Why did the man put a sweater on his Hot Dog? Because it was a chili dog.
May the dragon of life only roast your hot-dogs and never burn your buns!
Hot Dog Festivals and Events
Nathan's Famous Forth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest. Every year, this competitve eating contest draws contestants from all over the world. In 2007, six-time defending champion Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi was beaten by Joey Chestnut, who won by eating a record-breaking 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Click Here for more information on Nathan's and their annual hot dog eating competition.
Frankfort, Indiana holds their annual Hot Dog Festival the last weekend in July. Come celebrate this favorite summer food and all the great puns that go with it! http://www.accs.net/mainstreet/festival.htm
Tehachapi, California All American 4th of July Hot Dog Festival:
West Virginia Hot Dog Festival: http://www.wvhotdogfestival.com/
Columbus, Ohio Great American Hot Dog Festival. http://www.hotdogfestival.com
Interesting Links
Although we do not recommend you necessarily do this to your Chicago Dog, check out the fun and simple way to turn a Hot Dog into an Octodog! Click Here.
Be a Hot Dog for Halloween! Click Here.


text:
Dr. Nancy Segal at The Creativity Post
The Creativity Post
| Twin Children of the HolocaustThe twin children of the Holocaust are a largely overlooked group of survivors, Their situation is examined with reference to a recent conference on Nazi medicine.
| How Similar in Personality are Unrelated Look-Alikes?Unrelated look-alikes are not alike in personality--resemblance between twins and other relatives is largely linked to their shared genes.
| Olympic Twins and More!Brief life histories of Olympic twin athletes are provided, followed by highlights from two research reviews on factors affecting sports performance.
| Twins Reared Apart: The Best Natural ExperimentTwins reared apart allow new insights into nature and nurture. A new book about the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart tackles this topic.
| 2012 International Twin Congress and More on Fraternal TwinsRecent events from the 2012 International Twin Congress are reviewed; new findings on fraternal twins are presented.


text:
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Locked in a bathroom inside the athletes village, U.S. Olympic bobsledder Johnny Quinn knew only one way to get out. Through the door. Literally. Quinn wrote on his Twitter account that he was taking a shower and the "door got locked/jammed."
A former NFL player with Green Bay and Buffalo, Quinn did some serious damage while tearing apart the door, which didn't stand a chance against the 6-foot-2, 220-pound athlete. Quinn posted a photo of a gaping hole in the destroyed door, saying "With no phone to call for help, I used my bobsled push training to break out. #SochiJailBreak."


text:
Sexless Marriages
If you are not in one you probably know someone who is. I am in one. Before I go on, less than 10 times per year or so is a sexless marriage. The Americans call it DINS. (Dual Income No Sex) - Don't laugh, it is real. For years I struggled with my obsession with sex until I realized the fault is not mine. I want sex, but I am not getting it and here is my epiphany. My revelation. If you look at a brick house (face brick or not yet plastered) what do you see? Bricks. In your marriage the bricks represent love and are the building blocks you need. Now look closer. Between the bricks. What do you see? Mortar, cement. It is what holds the bricks together. In marriage it represents passion, lust, chemistry. And that is far less than the bricks by such a huge margin, but take it away and the house will not be able to weather the storms. When you get married they say 'and do you promise to forsake all others'. And you do. But woman so often only heard to 'forsake all'. (Some men too) Now listen up ladies. (And men) No sex means no marriage! If you are not having sex you are not married. You are friends with a contract, or business partners. What is sex? Sex does not necessarily mean penetration. What's wrong with a good snog or a cuddle, with oral sex, massage, foreplay and naughty tickling? I want all those things. Men must realize that sex is more than penetration and that bad sex leads to no sex and as stated before no sex means no marriage. But woman are also responsible in the bad sex category. You must tell him what you want, what you like and dislike. If you do not you are expecting him to read your mind and I, for one, cannot! I want sex.
I want all kinds of sex and I want to experiment because I have not yet done all these things. I like blue movies because it shows me things I don't know and also because it turns me on to see naked people having sex (yes the ladies turns me on - get over it!). I know sex like a **** star is for cameras but amateur sex is like we all do it just kinky. I want to feel. I want my wife to have bedroom eyes now and then and seduce me or even force me. I want someone who talks to me and tell me how they feel or how I make her feel. No amount of love will ever be able to make a friendship into a marriage. You may love enough to die for each other but without a feeling of passion, lust, want, it is only a friendship. But this is no excuse for bad sex. If you think sex is humping like a dog you are wrong, boet. Try massaging her for half an hour before sex. Or oral sex till your jaw falls off. Try new things and different ways. At least try other things than just in and out. I don't care if you have a 35 inch **** as big you're arm. No foreplay still means one dimensional, boring sex. She may like it but I guarantee that another man with a smaller **** can excite her better and even give her a better ******. A woman has a mouth, breasts and a vagina. (And an *** for those who think I missed that) I know, they know, you know, we all know. Now get over it! That is less than 10% of a woman's body. What are you doing with the rest? Connect the dots and play. Tickle sensually. Caress. Massage Kiss her all over until she wants more. Tell her dirty stories and not just "Uhhh, I wanna f... you so hard, the neighbors will wake up" or "Suck my c.. b.. !" (If that turns her on, Hallelujah Brother! - but most woman want some level of intelligence - We left the hairy ape phase eons ago) Wake up and smell her body. She is beautiful and sensual and sexy and glorious and she is yours. Now it is true that sex cannot always be long and sensual. There is a place for a quickie in the closet. But if that is where you are at all the time you have to make a plan. And ladies please. We men need sex like we need air. I need sex, like I need air. If you continue to say no because you don't like how I do it I will go get it somewhere else and I will never know how you want it. If you screw my brains out I will be too tired and too low on testosterone to even look at another woman. If you make me sweat and let me share my deep, dark, dirty fantasies with you without judgment, I will be yours forever! On my word of honor. No jokes and no questions. If you feel fat and ugly, remember I still married you and I still need it from you and if it bothers you that much go on a diet and do something about it. Change you're make up even, but don't push me away because you got issues about you're looks that is actually no issue to me. I love you and I want to be with you. Push me away often enough and I will not come back. This does not mean that a healthy relationship where the man is just a sex maniac gives him the right to cheat. When we meet someone we check music taste and family trees and income and interests. But why do we never check sexual need? I like sex a minimum of twice a week. Less has to be made up at another time. I like giving and receiving oral sex. I like tying up and some spanking. I have a prostate and I know where it is and I like it. If you cannot live with that then maybe we are not meant to be together. Compromise is one thing but denying the truth because your partner does not like it means lying. And a relationship built on deceit can never work. If you are not being you're true self your wife/partner is living with someone else because its not you. You need to throw that bastard out and take your partner back or she was never yours. And if she then rejects you she never was yours anyway because she wanted the other man. The one you are not. This is no excuse to be a slob, rude, unkind, un-ambitious or just stupid. You can strive to be better and she may want you to be better but be upfront about what you are looking for. Write each others good and bad points down. Then write down what you want to change. Be honest. Exchange papers and either accept that this is the truth or leave. No honesty means no marriage/relationship can work. Ever. So, to sum up: No sex means no marriage. Fake sex (That includes fake *******) means lying and no marriage can work if built on deceit. Boring sex based on only one partners needs leads to no sex and we know where that leads to. Hiding your wants and needs, means you are lying and deceiving your partner. Love is not enough. Neither is lust. But together, they build a home. If you read this and agree with it copy and forward to as many as you can If you want to say something to me mail me at firstname.lastname@example.com. Insult me or agree. Tell me your story or just add a comment. Scream and yell I don't care. This is how I feel. And I am alone. And now I know why.
my marriage is over recently. it was completely sexless, I'm embarrassed to admit.
I smiled the entire time I read it! In my opinion, it's spot on! No sex...no marriage!
I wish u were my husband! Wow... if he would have ever said any part of what u stated, i think i would have literally melted to him forever.... u really sound amazing and hope u tell her this and if she does not comply, she .... omg i cant even type it! So much time is wasted thinking or fearing when all u wrote is so glorious.. no better feeling between two... u deserve someone as passionate as u are!!! U R Not Alone!
Wow. DINS, never heard that but so true. Early on we were always "too tired." We managed to have three children but only one sexual encounter since the last and he turned 18 yesterday! No begging, no refusal, just nothing. My wife was a self described "prude" so from the get go I knew I'd just be handed the basics which quickly grew boring, even before we were married. I could have handled that to the grave if it wasn't for the verbal assaults, unbridled spending and general insanity. Guess what? I grew some balls and filed for divorce, we will NOT be celebrating our 30th this October, thank God!!!
Menopause is a BS excuse. The brain is the biggest sex organ anyone has. Stimulate that and it is all over. I have thought long and hard on why people dont relate to each other and the need for comfort. I came up with a relaxation mantra on kissing, combined with sensation and imagery. The title is "mantra of comfort, kisses all over" The concept is based on the power of a kiss or touch to bring comfort, to communicate in a way that is safe, relaxing and pleasurable. Our parents kissed us, and so have lovers and spouses. Its powerful stuff, my friends ex husband was dying and in a coma and she used it on him to bring comfort when nothing else could be done and he responded by smiling. I rest my case.
Every word that you spoke is true. Well said!
A lot of issues covered very well, I agree with a lot of this.
I tend to agree with you. In all my relationships sex was a major part.But, there are many who are prepared to forfeit sex for the sake of the children. If there was an understanding for both to have their passions fulfilled elsewhere but, keep their affairs under wraps.
It is a tragic but true story that you have told us.
i agree sounds like my life, My youngest graduated HS i left with the blessings of my spouse. we remain friendly, but not friends.
so true so sad im lonely to if you wanna talk email me firstname.lastname@example.com
i think that you come from a place where the lack of sex is the problem, there could be that the lack of sex a symptom of something deeper (not pun intented).
I often wonder being in this same situation if maybe the solution is to find that woman out there in the same situation and together we could survive it all. The big question is, if it's all due to menopause will it ever pass.

My wife was a very active woman sexually and knows how to pleasure a man to the max and when I really tru;y need it , find it hard to understand how she could so easily be sexually involved with others and cannot or will not now.
well in my case, its my husband who runs away from sex... on one hand he boasts of all the weird places he had sex in with all the hot girls and on the other hand he says, he cant have sex with me till hes had a few drinks n is kinda drunk..

i mean iv been married only 2 months + no honeymoon and im complaining already. i tht men couldnt live wihtout sex. wat the hell is wrong with him. he can go a whole week or more without it n i cant imagine a day without it. i have politely discussed my urge for it n tht ************ doesnt help as i need him as I looovee him 222 much.

i go outta ma way 2 make things 4 him , surprise him loads , be all nice 2 him , dress 4 him but nothing seems 2 work. his excuse- im 2 stressed coz of work n watches tv 4 2-3hrs without a hiccup. iv broken down twice. he says its all in my head n stuff. im soooooo depressed n sexually frustrated. i dnt wanna cheat on him but hes makin it super easy 4 me.

if i dint love him this much - mayb i would have. iv cried n cried 4 days , been depressed. tried 2 mask my sadnesss n seem all happy 4 him , but he just doesnt get it. HHEELPPP :(
He doesn't deserve you. Think about yourself first before you keep yourself in a prison of marriage if you aren't truly happy. There are lots of people to love out there.
Great point of view, sounds very much like my situation and my thoughts. I'm sorry to read it, though comforted knowing many struggle with it - so it seems to be a common human condition. Like so many of these situations, the secret is discovering what to do about it - which differs by person and relationship. Thanks for giving me some thoughts and I hope I have your courage to report back soon....
Great point of view, sounds very much like my situation and my thoughts. I'm sorry to read it, though comforted knowing many struggle with it - so it seems to be a common human condition. Like so many of these situations, the secret is discovering what to do about it - which differs by person and relationship. Thanks for giving me some thoughts and I hope I have your courage to report back soon....
I think you should print this off and nail it to your headboard!
It is three years since that original post but it is good to see it still there -- story so well-told and, one fears, so common. Three years later, how did things resolve?
this is a wonderful story I agree with you totally.
You have more than summed up my thoughts! Brilliant, you're wife doesn't know she's born!
A wife who refuses to have sex with her husband is useless. This coming from a man who has a wife who refuses to have sex with him! Just last week, when I tried to get a groove on, I was told to wait until our upcoming anniversary (not that she wasn't in the mood or anything else, just that I'd have to wait for the appropriate day). That day came, I pursued it, and was told she was too full from dinner. There is always an excuse. What kills me is that she refuses to have sex but has the nerve to continue to ask me to give her backrubs. I stopped doing that years ago once I figured out there was no quid pro quo. We average about 4x per year and I resent the hell out my wife for this situation.
Wow, powerful stuff. Kind of puts it into basic terms. You hit the very core of the problems between me and my wife. I'd love to forward it to her.
This was awesome! very well put!

Thanks for sharing!

your story is not only true and i love the honesty. Very well said and i am sorry you were not able to work it out. I am starting to think divorce is going to be my only option. I wish you nothing but the best and good luck.
very well said ajatsea, couldn't of said it better myself, you make some really good points there.
Wow, your story is exactly like mine, I have lived in your shoes through two marriages, ashamed to tell you how long i stayed in both of them, went one stretch without sex for seven years, she use menopause as the seven year excuse and I fell for it, had two one night stands in that time, but nothing can make up for the long lonely nights and using mastubation as a substitute during that time. But the good news is I meet someone six months ago that I just clicked with, now for the first time in my life I have a regular sex life, we average three or for times a week with no let down in site so get the hell out of that marriage and find someone that has the same sex drive as you. there are women out there that love sex, are willing to experiment and as long as you please them be nice to them, tell them how beautiful they are and mean it from your heart, they will do anything you want
I agree with you, I am one of those such women, have hope everyone, there are women out there that want it "just as much" as men (and sometimes, in my case, more than my husband.) We deserve to be happy and have healthy relationships, which includes a good sex life.
So well said.. I always felt that within my marriage was the place to explore all those "naughty" things that I always wanted... I never thought I would be with a person who in turns tells me "you scare me sometimes" -- I am sorry things did not work out for you - I do hope you find future happiness with someone who does understand and agrees with your view point.

take care
I would think if she loved you so much and you two still wanted to live life together FOREVER she would agree to you having sex partners outside of her.

And NO I'm not kidding, I KNOW damned well that if for some reason I was unable to have sex with a man I loved I would NOT insist he live without that part of himself, Love means wanting the other person happy and satisfied.

I'm so sorry to hear of this story and this is exactly what makes life alone seem less alone for me.

People if you are NOT going to have sex with your partner and they are suffering so much for it PLEASE love them enough to give them that through another.
I wish my wife and I could agree to that one.
we watched a movieand there was a line, "only if the sex with him was not so amasing,,,," she had a damn good one with a married bloke and could not move away. my husband commented,, "I can not lieve only phisical could control the relationship,," I could not believe what i heard. that was exactly why i was so unhappy. we have no sex, if there was, bad one --for me, no touch, no kiss, no hug. if we had sex, he comein, done, he leave me alone, sleeep. no foreplay, no after talk, nothing. daytime, no, nothing happens, not even eyecontact!

it is not the most important bit in the relationship but like you said, relation made up with a lots of element and phisical relatinship is one of them, for me, sex is not that big deal if i have as many as possible or as little as posssible. but there need to be something good in it.
That is a great story Ajatsea..........

I look forward to hearing "the full story"

Sometimes divorce is the only option
Well...I'm impressed. What amazing honesty. Thank you for sharing your story.
I'll comment. Sounds like the relationship just isn't loving and fulfulling for you. Let her go if that's what she wants. Yes, I agree, what is a marriage without sex? Isn't that why people marry? To me, it's all about love. Loving someone means you don't need to read a book. You'll know what to do. Love and really knowing one another makes the sex wonderful. The reverse is also true.
I am new to this site but I am saving your story to read over again... So many years has passed since u wrote it... I wonder where u r today...and hope u r happy... I swore when I was first married i would never be one of those women who would use sex to get what they wanted or EVER SAY NO... I didn't kno he wouldn't want it... bless u


text: If you stop and think about it, when was the last time you visited some of the landmarks in your city? Well for me I haven't visited so many landmarks since I was a child. I'm talking years and years, which was exactly the case with the Los Angeles Public Library. I hadn't been here in such a long time, that when I stepped foot inside it felt like I was there for the first time in my life. And you know what? I'm glad I decided to make a return visit. This library is filled with so much beautiful artwork and epic halls that it's more like being in a museum rather than a library. Take this hall for example, just outside of the Tom Bradley Wing of the library. The high walls and ceilings have incredible artwork covering almost every inch. Most notable is this beautiful mural by artist Dean Cornwell, which shows visitors the different stages of California history.