Present Batman and future John Connor Christian Bale--the trailers for next year's Terminator Salvation are currently preceding screenings of The Dark Knight, confirming whatever suspicions you may have had that there's a whole lotta Bale goin' on--has begged the media to "respect my privacy" as he deals with personal matters related to his arrest by London police on Tuesday, following "allegations he assaulted his mother and sister in a London hotel." Bale, who was in London for the local premiere of The Dark Knight, isn't letting the incident interfere with his schedule to promote the movie. He turned up in Barcelona yesterday for the Spanish premiere and signed autographs for fans and took questions about the movie, while steering clear of any comments on his "private matter." (Bale's camp did put out a statement saying that, after the cops took him in, he "co-operated throughout, gave his account in full of the events in question, and left the station without any charge." The most interesting thing about Bale's travails may be that they don't seem to be registering as hardly a blip on the cultural radar. At the very least, they aren't hurting the film--or, if they are, it's scary to think about how well it might otherwise be doing. The movie has made over $200 million so far, and while, given the current condition of the dollar, that might not seem so impressive, take a look at those crowds lined up around the theaters and imagine what'll it be like as the movie goes international and audiences that big start paying in Euros.

The Dark Knight is a moody, violent fantasia on post-9/11 themes, and it has one star who can't do press because he was buried last winter and another whose press conferences now begin with a reminder that he won't be talking about charges that he roughed up his mom, yet in terms of popular appeal, this two-and-a-half-hour, apocalyptic carny ride seems to be the most bullet-proof film of the season, maybe of the year. Ty Burr, calling the movie "a pop event" on the order of the Beatles appeaing on the Ed Sullivan show, field the question, Is it the best movie of all time, and answers, that it "has to be the best movie of all time because it feels that way right now, and because it feels impossibly exhilarating to share that thrill with everyone you know and millions of people you don't. Although hype played a critical part, this is less about hype than the gentle madness of crowds. The response to Dark Knight represents a perfect storm of studio publicity, public mourning, epic seriousness of filmmaking purpose, and the unspoken need for something in this crass tinsel culture to mean something." Burr is probably right in thinking that the reaction is largely tied to Heath Ledger's death, and in complicated way. It's not just that seeing Ledger's final performance all these months after the (surprising, at least to some of us) huge outpouring of public grief represents some sort of closure, but the truly amazing nature of that performance helps to validate the claims made at the time of Ledger's death for the unknowable, but presumed to be titanic, future that still lay ahead for the actor. The Dark Knight is a terrific movie, and that makes its success satisfying, but no movie is this successful just because it's terrific. "There's relief to be found," Burr writes, "in such pop-cult unification and also the elation of not having to think for yourself -- the joy of being picked up in a boundless groundswell of excited, committed response. That this has been brought about by a movie about people in tights blowing things up (all right, a thought-provoking movie about people in tights blowing things up), rather than any of the vexing issues of our actual world, isn't accidental. Not in the least. The Dark Knight is over in two and a half hours, and would that you could say the same about climate change or the presidential election."