DARK BLIGHT

1. Batman: Dark Knight/WB Wknd/$155.3 Total/$ 155.3
2. Mamma Mia/Universal Wknd/$ 27.6 Total/$ 27.6
3. Hancock/Sony Wknd/$ 14.0 Total/$ 191.5
4. Journey To The Center… Wknd/$ 11.9 Total/$ 43.1
5. Hellboy II/Universal Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 56.4
6. Wall-E/Disney Wknd/$ 9.8 Total/$ 182.5
7. Space Chimp/Fox Wknd/$ 7.4 Total/$ 7.4
8. Wanted/Universal Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 123.3
9. Get Smart/Warner Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 119.6
10. Kung Fu Panda/Paramount Wknd/$ 1.8 Total/$ 206.5

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY KNIGHT
Batman: The Dark Knight kinda breaks records (these numbers are not adjusted for inflation) and opens at number one and kids, I gotta tell you, it takes the “Dark” in “Dark Knight” pretty damn seriously. Let me put it to you this way: LA Confidential has a happier ending. Basically, Christopher Nolan used his power and clout from Batman Begins to sneak out an incredibly dark mediation on the nature of heroism in a big mainstream package and if studio executives could actually read they might not have let this pass. If you’re looking for another movie where Batman comes in, kicks ass and takes names, then you’d better look elsewhere because this is two-and-a-half hours of evil and chaos bitch-slapping good and order around. Personifying this evil and chaos perfectly is Heath Ledger and yes, everything you’ve heard is true: he’s amazing. For a lot of you used to Caesar Romero or Jack Nicholson a seriously creepy murdering Joker is new, but he started off that way back in the 40’s, briefly became that again in the 60’s and 70’s, but was firmly locked back into that mode in the 80’s with Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s horribly overrated, The Killing Joke. But this Joker is more like the one in the 70’s who would threaten the city and murder its employees with impunity while Batman struggled and failed to stop him. He fails here too. Boy does he fail and that’s my problem. I didn’t pay to see a movie called “The Joker” much less Batman have his ass handed to him for two and a half hours and that what happens here on both counts. In the end he doesn’t so much defeat The Joker as merely survive him. Not to mention it should have been two hours, but there’s a twenty mention derailing of the film (after the amazing climax of the second act) that should have never been filmed to begin with and damn sure should have been cut. And anyone who tells you different is a wussy fanboy apologist. Christopher Nolan and his brother stumble if you give them more than 90 minutes and this is no exception. And can people stop with the bullshit comparisons to 9/11!?! Every time a building is destroyed it does not make the film instantly about 9/11. I’m pretty you didn’t about allegory and metaphor at Harvard if that’s what you think. Sometimes a bad guy blowing up a building in an action movie is just a bad guy blowing up a fucking building in an action movie! It’s like your broken hearted friend who insists that every love song reflects their life from “Muskrat Love” to “Gangsta Bitch.” And this darkness only hammers home the point I’ve made for years: Batman needs Robin and both Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale need to pull their heads out of their asses and understand this.

KNOWING ME, KNOWING YOU, NEITHER OF US SAW THIS
Mamma Mia opens at number two and do not be fooled. This is an amazing fucking opening considering no straight man was present and quite a few women and gay men were off digging a movie with Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger. But I will not front: ABBA is on my iPod and “Dancing Queen” has always held a special place in my heart, but I don’t like them this much. I also loves me some Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, but again, not this much. If the movie was only 90 minutes, maybe I would have given it a shot, but one second over is just not flying. And can you believe that’s the dumb girl from Mean Girls in the lead? And not just the lead, but the only person on the friggin’ poster. Is Meryl Streep going to make a movie with every cast member? In the meantime the only thing Lindsay Lohan is known for is her current experimentation in “the love that dare not speak its name.”

LORD TAKE THIS BADGE OFFA ME, I CAN’T USE IT NO MORE
Hancock is down to number three and I can’t believe took me this long to realize the connection between Hancock and one of my favorite comic books, Powers. Powers is set in a world where people with superpowers is just another part of life and such individuals have to register with the government. It’s done in a very film noir, hard boiled, pulp fiction style seen through the eyes of two detectives who work the “powers” unit of the police department. One of them, however, is an ex-power himself, but as the series goes on, you learn that he’s not just some guy who got superpowers, he’s had them since the dawn of time when he was just a caveman, though he can only remember the last few decades of his life. Similarly, Hancock is an immortal god, though with a mate he becomes human. In Powers, he tired of his life as a superhero and “accidentally” causes the loss of his powers and presumably his immortality. I recommend you go buy the very first Powers storyline “Who Killed Retro-Girl” rather than go see Hancock. It’s better written, more entertaining and quite frankly funnier. The scene where an 8-year-old girl asks the hero what a clitoris is in front of his female partner is pretty much funnier than all of Hancock including the head-up-the-ass scene.

THAT GOOFY LOOK IS MORE ACCURATE THAN YOU KNOW
Journey To The Center of the Earth is down to number four and Brendan Fraser is every writer’s nightmare of a producer. He speaks proudly of just changing things in the script to cut costs. Now, I understand why this has to be done having done it myself for my own little short, but I did it. Me, the writer. Not some dipshit producer (or dumbass actor who thinks he’s a producer) who doesn’t understand how the script fits together and in doing creates a plot hole big enough to push a planet through.

ON THE UPSIDE SHE’LL NEVER BE SOLD INTO SLAVERY IN DUBAI
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is down to number five and returning in this as Liz, the firestarter who is also Hellboy’s girlfriend, is Selma Blair, who like very, very, very thin people (she’s practically two-dimensional) is becoming more gaunt as she ages. Call it the “Teri Hatcher” syndrome. What’s funny is that she claims to have let herself go for Kath & Kim, the American adaptation of an Australian sitcom. Needless to say, she looks a million times better with that extra 5-10 pounds. Not so much like a skin stretched over a skull. She also complains about never being cast as “the pretty girl.” What she was really saying was, “Why do bitches less attractive than myself get the lead just because they’re blonde?” You know it’s true. She was third fiddle to Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate in The Sweetest Thing. She was the nemesis of Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. She’s manipulated by Sarah Michele Gellar in Cruel Intentions and loses Jason Lee to Julia Stiles in A Guy Thing. She’s technically prettier than all of them, but the only lead guy she gets is a big red devil.

I’M LOOKING FOR CLUES
Wall-E is down to number six and Pixar is notorious for place references to the previous film in the current film. If there’s a reference to Ratatouille here, someone please let me know, ‘cause I missed it.

MONKEY NOT ALWAYS FUNNY
Space Chimps opens at number seven and I almost saw this because I’m a firm believer that monkeys make everything funnier and they’re in space on top of it!?! Yeah, baby! How could this miss!?! But the very presence of Andy Samberg as one of the voices of the chimps pretty much let me know how funny it wasn’t going to be. No one looking to create an exceptional work hires that little douchebag. No, I don’t like him and I can’t explain why.

AND GUESS WHO’S KING? YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT I AM.
Wanted is down to number eight and this gives us a total of three movies based on comic books, four movies either based on comics or superheroes, five movies based on comics, superheroes or secret agents and eight movies based on comics, superheroes, secret agents or science fiction. It’s a geek world and you bitches just live in it now!

THE END
Get Smart is down to number nine followed by Kung Fu Panda closing out the top ten at number ten.

HIGHLY ANIMATED
To coincide with the release of Batman: The Dark Knight, there was also a direct-to-video release of Batman: Gotham Knight, six stories by six different Japanese animators, in the vein of The Animatrix, which also told different stories of The Matrix using various Japanese animators. The bonus to Batman: Gotham Knight is the return of Kevin Conroy as the voice of The Batman. He did it for the Emmy-award winning series, Batman Beyond and Justice League and all due respect to Christian Bale, he is the best Batman ever. It also has the advantages of having actually writers of the comic creating stories, so if you need a little pick-me-up after Batman: The Dark Knight, take a look at this.

ONE MORE TIME: MICHAEL KEATON SUCKED…HARD!
Speaking of Batman, just in case you’d forgotten how bad the previous versions were, they’ve been playing all weekend:

Batman: Ugly leading man, no plot.
Batman Returns: Still ugly leading man, still no plot and even longer.
Batman Forever: Attractive leading man wasted with a horrible director, lousy, lousy script and intentional homoerotic camp.
Batman & Robin: Another attractive leading man wasted with same horrible director, stupid all-star cast and an even worse script. It’s like an episode of Love Boat in rubber tights.

Ironically, it turns from bad to worse when pop music enters the scene. Seal’s “Kiss From A Rose” is in Batman Forever (actually it’s a soundtrack album worth having). And Batman & Robin has R. Kelly’s “Gotham City” which I hate, hate, hate myself for liking. If only there were a Batman in Chicago to beat down his statutory raping ass.

I WANT TO RIDE IT WHERE I LIKE
So I sold the bike. No, not because I’m a fat, lazy geek pig and it’s unnatural for me to do such a thing. No, it took me a while to truly face it, but I’d been played by that asshole and the bike sucked. I put it back up on Craig’s List, only I fully listed what was wrong with it. Some French guy came by, took it for a ride and bought it just like that. I got back exactly what I paid for it and promised myself that this time I was going to go cheap and efficient. Five days later I found myself headed out to Brooklyn yet again for a bike, only this time even further out, winding up on Ditmas Avenue, where you get one block from the train station and it’s like you’re in the suburbs. Actual houses on tree lined streets. And I mean real houses, not those half-a-houses you see in Queens. It was no scam artist this time, but a very nice couple type of alternative music couple, the kind you’d find in the audience for a Weezer show. I was told he’d just had a birthday and got a very nice new bike or otherwise he’d be keeping it. I rode it for a bit and could tell the difference between it and the crap job I had before instantly. $40 later---less than half of what I’d paid the first time---I was the proud new owner of a GT All Terra Outpost. Unlike the last bike, information on this was found online easily and the reviews were all good. I briefly considered riding back home again, but given I was actually a few stops below Prospect Park, that wasn’t going to happen. I instead took the train to Fulton Mall, hopped off and took another ride across the Brooklyn Bridge. Because this was a good bike, at no time did I ever have to stop and walk the damn thing. Nor did I hop back on the train. I rode up to St. Mark’s Comics to have a little pow-wow with my fellow geeks on Batman (only we know that the Smashing Pumpkins song used in The Watchmen trailer was on the soundtrack of Batman & Robin) and try to convince the manager he should see it, though he and his girlfriend had sworn a blood oath not to after Heath Ledger dissed the comics and every previous portrayal. Sigh. It warms my heart to see the next generation filled with even more irrational hatred and anger than myself. After that, I rode over to the west side and biked along the West Side Highway all the way home. And did I mention that this bike is ever lighter so hauling it up and down the steps of my apartment is easier too? Now, I’m just going to go to Craig’s List and post that the first guy is a rip-off artist and just harass him until I get bored.

BROWN SUGAR, HOW COME YOU TASTE SO GOOD…
So if you’re immersed at all in the fashion world you know there’s a continuing controversy about the lack of ethnic diversity in models (i.e., ain’t no sistas on the runway). In response to this Italian Vogue (which like other European versions of the magazine is infinitely more interesting) came up with an All-Black issue, meaning all the models in editorial layouts would be Black, though obviously the ads would remain as lily white as ever. From Alex Wek to Naomi Campbell, sistas on display with four different covers. Honestly, this lasted all of thirty seconds in my brain. Which was dumb. I should have known my sister, the fashion maven, would care. And sure enough I get a call begging for a copy since she can’t find it in Georgia. It’s sold out all over the place but I managed to find it at the second place I looked. But then her best friend from childhood also wanted one, so I went back the next day---to find it sold out. And sold out for the next three days though he kept insisting they were coming in. I also made the rounds of whatever magazine stores in the neighborhoods I was visiting. I should have known no store near FIT would have them or the West Village, but still I checked. Nothing. Finally, while actually out buying Limeade for my frozen margaritas at the only store in 10 blocks that sells it, a magazine store had just gotten 150 copies of the 2nd printing. I got another, so I’m done. At $16 a pop, I simply don’t love anyone else enough. If you want to see the entire layouts, Jezebel covered it and you can see it here. So now you’re probably asking, does everyone get their own issue? Will there be a Latin Edition? Asian Edition? Nope because Mexico and Korea and Japan already have their own editions of Vogue. For better or worse, there’s no Ethiopian Vogue.

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?!
I’m old so VH1 is my thing, and I really love their little Rock Honors shows. I was actually wondering where the new one was when up pops this big show devoted exclusively to The Who. I have to admit it was pretty good. They’re hit and miss with the choice of artists to cover the songs, but this was spot on. I hate Jack Black, but Tenacious D was perfect for “Squeeze Box.” The Flaming Lips were perfect to do a medley of the the “Tommy” songs. The Foo Fighters were perfect for “Young Man Blues” and “Bargain.” Incubus was a good fit for “I Can See For Miles” (not so much for “I Can’t Explain”) and Pearl Jam doing “Love Reign O’er Me” was fucking inspired. That song was perfect for those humorless fuckers. Oddly, I couldn’t watch the actual Who because…well, it’s not the actual Who. The fucking rhythm section is dead! How could it possibly be them? Not to mention Roger Daltrey’s powerful voice is long gone. It’s just sad to watch them now for me. And how cruel is it to never mention Kenney Jones, who played drums after Keith Moon died. No, he could never equal him, but who the fuck could? Cut him some slack. For me Pete Townsend is second only to Lennon and McCartney as far as rock songwriting goes (sorry, not a Dylan fan) and I’m happy to see I’m not the only person who believes that The Who were actually the world’s first punk rock band. I’ve been saying it for 20 years and now it appears everyone else has caught up. Oddly missing from the people making tribute comments? Their contemporaries. Where are The Rolling Stones who cut them out of their Rock And Roll Circus film because The Who blew them away? How about Sir Paul? Rod Stewart? Eric Clapton? David Bowie? Where are the other gods of rock? Does anyone really give a fuck what Coldplay and Oasis thinks? Why not ask fucking Miley Cyrus while you’re at it? I’m sure she has some equally wonderful insight.

ANOTHER REASON WHY I’M KING
And no, I have not watched Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Along Blog” because unlike most of you pathetic geek fuckers, I don’t have my head buried so far up his ass I think he only shits sunshine and candy. And the Buffy musical episode is overrated as hell.