batman backlash

Wow.

After seeing Dark Knight for a third time this weekend (my father-in law hadn't seen it yet & I was happy to oblige), I'm surprised at how much I still enjoyed it. The first time was to hear the story, see the plot play out in front of me in the IMAX experience. The second was to see if it held up on a normal screen, if I had missed anything the first time through, and to see certain things I loved again. This third time was a chance to sit back and savor the entire thing again, wait for the major points to play out and enjoy the transitions to each one. I was actually surprised that I didn't even notice the one thing that pulled me out of the movie the first two times (if you look closely, you'll see a Harris bank sign during one of the chase scenes); it felt like the third time was just to watch everything again, not to look for certain things and that was great. My only minor concern is that for the rest of my viewing-life, I'll wish it was on an IMAX screen instead of whatever I'm watching it on.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the current of Batman backlash that's starting up but I still am. I was never very good at interpreting actions for anything other than what they are, but there are some pretty crazy interpretations of this movie flying around the internets at this point. Yes any great work of fiction can be interpreted to match both current events and things going on in the audience's own life; that's what makes some fiction make the leap from good to great. Fantastic, even. And I would call this movie fantastic--I just took it very literally. I wasn't looking to read anything into what the movie's popularity says about sadomasochistic tendencies in today's movie audience or what the call to mayhem in the movie really stands for. Would this movie have been as interesting before 9/11? Are there obvious parallels to Batman's use of spying technology and a tele-com immunity debate in the Senate? Possibly. I just don't care to use the brain power necessary to make those connections. Sit back and enjoy the movie for christ's sake.

Beyond people bashing "Dark Knight" for what it says about the audience or pop culture or the government, really my major interest at this point is whether or not Nolan's 3 hour director's cut will be the first release of if I'll have to wait for a few releases to come out. Imagine an extra 30 minutes of pure awesome somehow crammed into this movie. Now that would be great fiction.

Current beer-scale: 4.6