Welcome back, In Other Blogs! I’ve finally recovered from vacation, so look for Unwatchable and Summer of ’78 to return next week. (Please, hold your applause until the end.) So what happened while I was away? Any current movies being discussed out there in the blogosphere? I mean, besides Mamma Mia?
A little research reveals that one or two bloggers had the bad manners to say some mean things about The Dark Knight, which provoked some even worse manners from the movie’s sizable contingent of rabid defenders. Filmbrain has noticed this as well. “Why so serious indeed? If ever a tagline was perfectly suited to a film (and the critical/audience adoration of it) it would have to be this three word gem created by a marketing superhero for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the film that currently sits at #1 on the IMDB Top 250 films of all time, and has been proven to cure cancer, put an end to all wars, and solve erectile dysfunction. As with most long-underwear films (why must superheroes wear tights?), it's not uncommon for the legion of fanboys (and girls) to take it as a personal affront when confronted with a dissenting opinion…Yet with The Dark Knight, the seething anger and raging bile that's been ejaculated on dozens (if not hundreds) of pages of comments all over the Interweb far exceeds the typical zealotry… Critics who refused to swallow the red pill have been treated as enemy combatants. About.com's Jürgen Fauth and The House Next Door's Keith Uhlich (both friends, I should add) are two such critics. Neither of their reviews was intended to provoke, nor were they playing the contrarian — they simply didn't like the film. As of this writing there are 938 comments in response to these reviews…Some go no deeper than Fag!; some are actually amusing - Keep your head in Little Women and Suffrage texts you pansy, but others are downright ugly.”
Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule has noticed these things, too. “Just how big an offense is it to not love (or lurrrrrrvvvvv) The Dark Knight? Well, David Edelstein and Keith Uhlich might have some thoughts on that. I have not yet seen the film myself, and though I very much appreciated Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s first foray into Gotham City geography, I find it strange how predigested the anticipation has been about this blockbuster, so much so that fans who hadn’t even seen the film yet were roasting Edelstein for not rubber-stamping their excitement and the other pre-release raves. And of course those that had seen it and took exception to a dissenting view let both Edelstein and Uhlich know just how unqualified they were as reviewers because of their opinions… The commenters are, essentially, pissed off at these guys for taking this movie seriously, something which, I suppose, would be okay if their own views on it were being validated… Does a spectacular with a $185 million production budget, probably at least that much in an advertising budget, and a record-breaking opening weekend really need such a vehement, hypersensitive defense?”
On the other hand, there are non-fanboys out there who have been won over by The Dark Knight, as this Cinema Blend rant reveals. “Superhero movies make me sick. More specifically, they make my manhood shrivel up and hide. I hate Superman and his annoying, homo-erotic Narc persona. I hate the Power Rangers and their goddamn color-coordinated outfits. I hate just about everything about every superhero ever created or yet to be created. I'm not a fanboy; I'm not the guy inside the comic book shop; and I'm definitely not the guy who pays to see superhero movies.”
Of course, with the gazillion dollar success of The Dark Knight, another Batman movie is a certainty – which means we need another villain. Already there are rumors of Johnny Depp as the Riddler and Angelina Jolie as Catwoman, but OMGLists has 8 Great Villains We Want in the Next Batman Movie, including some more obscure choices. Of Deacon Blackfire, they write: “There really isn't anything too unusual or improbable about the deacon to warrant not including him in the movie.” Now there’s an endorsement!