Duality, Dubya, "The Dark Knight" (again).

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Written by Alison Willmore, the all-seeing Indie Eye blog reads the news so you don't have to. (Well, maybe just the A & E section).

Alison Willmore

is the editor of IFC.com's film coverage and one of the site's video hosts. Follow her at twitter.com/indie_eye

Email: ifcblog (at) ifc dot com

By Alison Willmore on 07/29/2008

Filed under: Critic watch

According to /Film, IMDb was hacked last night, leaving "The Dark Knight" briefly but oh so metaphorically displayed as both the #1 best and worst film of all time. Good and evil! Heroes and villains! Batman is Bush! He isn't! You complete me! This comes after speculation from the same site that fans of the film have been deliberately voting down former champ "The Godfather" in order to boost "The Dark Knight" to the top of the charts, providing reassurance that no matter how many hours you lose to hangovers and "Law & Order" marathons, there will always be others out there doing far sillier things with their time.

But, since we're on the Man Bat, Dennis Lim at Slate has a great video slide show on the evolution of the fight scene and how it is shot and edited, inspired by "The Dark Knight"'s debatedly murky combat sequences.

And, quickly, elsewhere in the continuing turmoil:

Our own Michael Atkinson writes at his blog Zero for Conduct on the trouble with the superhero movie in general and "The Dark Knight" in particular:

The Dark Knight epitomizes the problem specifically not by simply being a Caped Crusader trifle masquerading as Paradise Lost, but because it failed to do the simplest things movies have always done: tell a fucking story. The film is quite literally one violent set-piece followed by a 20-second snatch of exposition, to explain what significance the set-piece is supposed to have, repeated again and again and again, for over 2.5 interminable hours.

"There seems to me no question that the Batman film 'The Dark Knight,' currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war," attempts Andrew Klavan at the Wall Street Journal. Cough.

Scott Timberg at the LA Times delves into the current breakdown of the divide between high culture/low culture hierarchies, while Pamela McClintock Variety put a different and more insulting spin on a similar idea, writing that "film critics have a reputation for championing difficult and obscure pics and turning up their noses at populist fare," but that this summer (yay!) they "seem to be getting more in touch with the public." She still warningly concludes that "The debate in Hollywood will probably never end regarding critics, and how much they really matter. One thing's for sure -- seeing their reviews in actual print may get more and more difficult."

New York's Vulture blog offers a handy pie chart of reasons why you might not have gotten around to seeing the film yet.

[Photo: Once again, "The Dark Knight," Warner Bros., 2008]

+ IMDB Hacked? The Dark Knight Now Worst Movie of All Time?! (/Film)
+ IMDb Watch: Are Dark Knight Fanboys Burying The Godfather? (/Film)
+ Let's Step Outside (Slate)
+ Throwing Down (Zero for Conduct)
+ What Bush and Batman Have in Common (Wall Street Journal)
+ High culture meets low culture in a mass-media world (LA Times)
+ Critics get in summer spirit (Variety)
+ Why Haven't YOU Seen 'The Dark Knight' Yet? (New York)