Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Existential Popcorn


The Dark Knight (2008, Warner, $29, 157 minutes) was probably the mainstream movie hit of the year, loved by fan boys, the intelligentsia, and the great unwashed alike. I can’t get over what a strange dose of populxe it is, centering around two fierce performances by Christian Bale (as a whispery and intensely coiled agent of good who seems to be operating with his nerve endings exposed) and Heath Ledger (a screechingly grandiose turn as a baddie who’s part walking nightmare and part unrestrained psyche), all of it wrapped in the most dystopian of on screen settings, mixed together with guttural violence and eye-popping effects, a huge, smoldering, broken-off piece of bleakness, popcorn fodder sprinkled with a heavy dose of null and the void. Obviously, that’s an ideal commercial and artistic mix for the America we live in.

1 comment:

Goose said...

wasn't it: Batman = Bush/Joke = Bin Laden?

Or am I reading waaay to into it?