413 minutes worth of Looney Tunes cannot be bad. Why? Because I don’t think that there are 413 minutes worth of bad Looney Tunes cartoons. Even considering this thing, it is easy to be amazed at the quantity of quality being presented here in the sixth installment of Warner Bros. Loony Tunes Golden Collection. It is a splendid mix of the entertaining and the important, a balance of the short films that are engraved into the brains of most of us under 80 and cartoons which haven’t been shown since the end of World War 2.

This praise does come with a caveat: this set is for collectors. Each disc starts with a screen warning these are unedited cartoons which reflect some of the prevalent prejudices of their time. All things considered, it’s not that big of a deal. There is a less than flattering portrayal of Native Americans, a few insensitive stereotypes, and cartoons that might make the Germans uncomfortable.

(You won’t find Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips or any of the Censored Eleven here.)

This is a four-disc collection, each disc containing 15 cartoons as its main feature. Some have optional commentary or music-only tracks. Each disc also contains it own special features and 3-4 bonus cartoons.

Disc One – Loony Tunes All Stars

This is the disc which is probably the most entertaining to the casual fan. It contains the first appearance of Yosemite Sam, a Road Runner cartoon, a good amount of Daffy Duck, Porky, a Pepe Le Pew, and even a short from my father’s favorite, the Three Bears. Charlie the Dog gets some respect here too. (Fifty percent Collie! Fifty percent Irish Setter! Fifty Percent Boxer! Fifty percent Doberman Pincher! But, mostly, I’m all Labrador Retriever!”)

The contained cartoons are as follows:
1. Hare Trigger
2. To Duck or Not to Duck
3. Birth of a Notion
4. My Little Duckaroo
5. Crowing Pains
6. Raw! Raw! Rooster!
7. Heaven Scent
8. My Favorite Duck
9. Jumpin’ Jupiter
10. Satan’s Waitin’
11. Hook Line and Stinker
12. Bear Feat
13. Dog Gone South
14. A Ham in a Role
15. Often an Orphan

In addition to this, we are afforded two Looney Tunes Television Specials :Bugs Bunny in King Arthur’s Court and Daffy Duck’s Easter Eggcitement

The Bonus Cartoons here are:
1. Sniffles Takes a Trip (1940)
2. Hippety Hopper (1949)
3. Rabbit Rampage (1955)
4. Boyhood Daze (1957)

The highlight here, at least for me, is Rabbit Rampage wherein Bugs Bunny is tormented by the animator. Sure, it’s lesser Duck Amuck (1953), but I always loved those weird-meta-animator-as-a-trickster shorts.

Disc Two – Patriotic Pals

This is our disc of propaganda cartoons, most of which are a lot more entertaining than expected. If you ever wanted to see Bugs Bunny disguised as Hitler or Stalin, well, here is your chance. In fact, he impersonates both in the very first cartoon on the disc Herr meets Hare. Herr meets Hare is notable for having the first instance of Bugs commenting about that left turn in Albuquerque, for containing a proto-scene for What’s Opera Doc, and for featuring Hermann Goering as Bugs’s foil.

Apart from the war films, there are also pro-capitalist cartoons here. In Heir Conditioned, Sylvester inherits a fortune and must be protected from poor financial decisions and his mooching friends. By Word of Mouse was my first experience with economics, declaring the value of mass production and mass consumption by means of a city mouse explaining capitalism to an mouse relative from the old country.

The full set here includes:
1. Herr Meets Hare
2. Russian Rhapsody
3. Daffy the Commando
4. Bosko the Doughboy
5. Rookie Revue
6. The Draft Horse
7. Wacky Blackout
8. The Ducktators
9. The Weakly Reporter
10. Fifth Column Mouse
11. Meet John Doughboy
12. Hollywood Canine Canteen
13. By Word of Mouse
14. Heir Conditioned
15. Yankee Dood it

As a bonus, we also get a collection of Friz Freleng’s MGM cartoons from the late 1930s. We get:
1. Poultry Pirates
2. A Day at the Beach
3. The Captain’s Christmas
4. Seal Skinners
5. Mama’s New Hat

While those are a bonus and are cartoons, those are not our official Bonus Cartoons . Those ones are as follows:
1. The Fighting 69 1/2th
2. Hop and Go
3. Confusions of a Nutsy Spy

Disc Three – Bosko, Buddy & Merrie Melodies

This is a disc of older, black and white cartoons. As such they tend to be thinly plotted and heavy on the singing and dancing. Bosko, Foxy, and Buddy are in the spotlight here.

At one point, Bosko was a huge star. Bosko and Mickey Mouse were neck and neck, in a fight to be the most popular poorly disguised minstrel cartoon character. Oh yeah, Bosko is pretty much a blackface character.

The even more forgotten Foxy is also on full display here; two out of his three cartoons are included. Smile, Darn Ya, Smile, one of the better cartoons on this disc, is eerily similar to the classic Mickey cartoon Steamboat Willie.

Especially since Foxy looks exactly like Mickey Mouse with pointy ears and a big tail. (It’s more of a Swamp Thing/ Man Thing situation than a ripoff, if you get into the history, but now’s not the time for that discussion.)

The other black and white character getting the star treatment here is Buddy. I’ve always hated Buddy, whose cartoons were more boring versions of Bosko cartoons. His cartoons were so boring that Animaniacs dusted the character out of the mothballs to make fun of him. In their fictional history, the Yakko, Wakko, and Dot were created to liven up the notoriously dull Buddy cartoons.

The best short on the disc stars neither Bosko, nor Foxy, nor Buddy. It’s a Beans the cat cartoon called A Cartoonist’s Nightmare. In it, an animator gets sucked into his drawings and is forced to match wits with villains from his previous cartoons. If you watch the commentary track on this one, Jerry Beck points out which scenes were animated by Chuck Jones, which scenes were animated by Bob McKimson, and all the other future superstars involved on this project.

Here is the full list:
1. Congo Jazz
2. Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!
3. The Booze Hangs High
4. One More Time
5. Bosko’s Picture Show
6. You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!
7. We’re in the Money!
8. Ride ‘em Bosko
9. Shuffle Off to Buffalo
10. Bosko in Person
11. The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon
12. Buddie’s Day Out
13. Buddie’s Beer Garden
14. Buddie’s Circus
15. A Cartoonist’s Nightmare

We also get The World of Leon Schlesinger featurette gallery. This contains an Introduction by Martha Sigall and Jerry Beck , the 1930 short Crying for the Carolines, the title sequence for Haunted Gold and the Schlesinger Productions Christmas Party with Optional Commentary by Martha Sigall and Jerry Beck.

The Bonus Cartoons are as follows:
1. I Love a Parade (1932)
2. I Like Mountain Music (1933)
3. Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence (1933)
4. How Do I Know It’s Sunday (1934)

Disc Four – Most Requested Assorted Nuts & One-Shots

This is a random assortment of cartoons missing from previous collections. It includes the Warner Bros. version of Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hatches the Egg. We also get two “parents get the wrong baby” stories, once with a Martian and once with a giant.

Fresh Airedale is a deliciously dark cartoon about the evil yet beloved dog Shep who never gets his comeuppance.

The best cartoon here, though, is probably The Hole Idea, in which an eccentric scientist invents portable holes only to have them stolen by a professional thief.

Cartoons have never been the same since.

The complete list is as follows:
1. Horton Hatches the Egg
2. Lights Fantastic
3. Fresh Airedale
4. Chow Hound
5. The Oily American
6. It’s Hummer Time
7. Rocket Bye Baby
8. Goo Goo Goliath
9. Wild Wife
10. Much Ado About Nutting
11. The Hole idea
12. Now Hear This
13. Martian Through Georgia
14. Page Miss Glory
15. Norman Normal

This disc also treats us to an hour long documentary called Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thousand Voices. While it maintains a James Lipton level of fellatio, it really is an interesting look at the first voice-over superstar. The man has over 1000 imdb credits to his name, did 14 popular radio shows a week, reportedly had an 8 octave range, and was the first person to receive screen credit for voicing a cartoon.

Our Bonus Cartoons include:
1. Sleepy Time Possum [1951 WB Cartoon]
2. Punch Trunk [1953 WB Cartoon]
3. Wild Wild World [1960 WB Cartoon]
4. Bartholomew versus the Wheel [1964 WB Cartoon]

All in all, the collection offers over 80 cartoons, and is a must have for the serious collector.

Warner Home Video presents Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 6. Directed by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, etc. Starring Mel Blanc. Running Time 413 minutes. Unrated. Released on DVD: October 21, 2008. Available at Amazon

The opening quote of Cowboy Killer contains at least one typo. The film stars non-famous, non-actors. The sound effects are occasionally out of sync with the visuals. The visual effects are sometimes non-existent, and often unconvincing. The film is full of silly dick jokes, flat characters, and is generally crude.

Yet, there is something lovable about it.

More importantly, there is something oddly fascinating about the film. In a world of derivative studio films, mass-produced direct-to-DVD schlock, and insipid cable movies, there is something to be said for a truly independent cinematic experience. Even a jaded film critic can be surprised by this no-budget film evocative of the drive-in/grindhouse days of yesteryear, made by a generation raised on Clerks. It has a certain level of honesty, an authenticity, that is hard to find in today’s focus group driven climate.

Cowboy Killer starts out with a group of guys drinking and driving their way to a strip club before going to the homecoming dance. One of their girlfriends gets tired of waiting for her beau and accepts a ride from a stranger, a cowboy who claims to be going to homecoming despite being 30 years out of high school. This just isn’t any cowboy though. He is Roy, the cowboy killer.

(Perhaps he is more of a killer cowboy. Cowboy killer sounds like he would be a murderer who offs cowboys instead of a cowboy who murders regular people. Meh, to each his own.)

Quickly enough, the cowboy killer is making out with the girlfriend’s severed head in the front seat of his Ford F-250. In fact, Roy (quite randomly) kills a large portion of the cast. He subsequently fantasizes befriending them, having picnics, dinner parties and the like. Trying to stop this (surprisingly polite) madman on his demented quest are two slow-witted cops, two slower-witted cable guys, the staff of the local titty bar, the town drunk, and the lone survivor of the opening scene.

People are stabbed, shot, beaten, and old ladies are run over. Gratuitous nudity runs rampant. Characterization range from the broad to the very broad. All the while, the film plays with familiar tropes: the police chief makes the entire force (both members) turn in their badges, and we get a “trying on clothes montage” starring the serial killer.

It is remarkably entertaining, and has a strong potential for cult film status. Cowboy Killer is the bastard child of Basket Case and American Psycho (not as good as the former but better than the latter). It’s not something that you want to watch with your grandma, but would probably make for an entertaining evening with a group of drunken friends.

Surprisingly, the disc contains Special Features. These include the film’s trailer, a six-minute blooper reel, and a commentary track. The commentary track is the highlight here. It consists of a large group of the cast/crew pointing out the film’s mistakes, non-sequiturs, and which extras have been arrested for robbing banks.

No, seriously.

Cacchioti Productions presents Cowboy Killer. Directed by Jason Baustin. Written by James Camery, Ben Solenberger and Jason Baustin. Starring Paul Bailey. Running Time: 80 minutes. Unrated. Released on DVD June 17th, 2008.

The following review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will contain spoilers. I offer this tepid warning well aware of the facts that:

A) the film made a quadrillion at the box office, (I.e. everybody has already seen it)

And

B) things can only be said to spoil if they were, at some point, fresh.

Perhaps this is the biggest problem with Indy 4; nothing about the film feels fresh or new. . . well, at least not in a positive manner. At best, the movie feels like a sequel to The Mummy or National Treasure. At its worst, it is Indiana Jones fan-fiction.

This film does have the earmarks of fan-fiction. Indiana Jones has a secret son. An incongruous mythological structure is wedged into the proper mythos (read as: aliens WTF?). None of the film’s important characters are ever put into any real danger. The movie has a poor eye for details whether they be geographical (the Incas lived in Peru, not the Mayans), historical (Belize was not called Belize in the ’50s) or in terms of continuity (Wasn’t Mutt’s hand just cut open by a sword?). Finally, it all ends with Dr. Jones marrying the love interest from the first movie, having a healthy relationship with his son, and being promoted at work.

It’s almost as though the film’s central aim is to get its audience to yell “OH COME ON!” at the screen. It is truly a frustrating experience. The viewer is beaten over the head with constant and increasingly far-fetched action sequences without being afforded any reason to care about the results. If we were given any indication that Indiana Jones could be killed, there might be some drama to this thing. Instead, we are treated to a 65-year-old man who can fight through half dozen soldiers, swing on a whip like Spider-man, and crash through windshields without so much as a skinned knuckle. One of the most memorable parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark is looking over Indy’s war wounds before the big climax. In Crystal Skull none of what has happened in scenes previous seems to affect what is going on in the current scene. In wrestling terms, this film is like a bad Ring of Honor (ROH) match where both participants have been taking finishers for 10 minutes, and haven’t bothered to sell a damned thing.

As for the plot, well, I suppose something is there. The impetus for all this nonsense is the eponymous Crystal Skull. As far as I can tell, the story goes like this:

a) A bunch of pinkos steal a Crystal Skull from the Ark of the Covenant Storage Facility.
b) Indiana Jones is coerced by his son into finding a Crystal Skull by his secret son in order to save the son’s father figure/ Indy’s college roommate.
c) They find the skull and have to return it to someplace else in order to stop the commies from doing the same thing.
d) Eventually the mad power quest of the head villain leads to said villain’s demise via the same totem which they were seeking to control. (See also: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
e) They all live happily ever after.

Yuck.

Some of what went wrong can be found in the interminable special features. There are numerous things at which to point, but the long at short of it appears to be this thing: 20 years of development. Ugh, the special features. There are hours worth of Special Features on this DVD set, but trust me it feels like days worth. Features about development, features about pre-production, an extensive Production Diary, still Galleries, trailers, and all sorts of mind-numbing gibberish. Here is my re-enactment of some of these bonus features.

A member of the crew stands amidst a dusty background holding a hat.
Random Crew Guy: Well, we wanted to find the right hat for the iconic look of this movie. I found this guy that makes hats. These hats looked good. I says to the guy, “Can you make me 20 of these hats?” He says to me, “I can try to.” We started of with 5 or six hats. Steven thought the hats were good.

Fast-forward 5 minutes. . .

We see a different member of the crew in a similar background.

Different Random Crew Guy: Well, we wanted to find the right jacket for the iconic look of this movie. I found this guy that makes jackets. These were good jackets. I says to the guy, “Can you make me 20 of these hats?” He says to me, “I can make as many jackets as you want.” We put dust and stuff on the jackets. Steven thought the jackets were good.

HOURS OF STUFF LIKE THAT!

The only part of the extras that was different were the Pre-visualization Sequences. You get three of these things, which are basically computer renderings of some of the action sequences, part storyboard part bad N64 cut scene.

The special features were so bad that I questioned why anybody would want to watch them. They were so bad that I questioned why anybody would ever want to watch any special features, ever.

Paramount Pictures presents Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Harrison Ford, Shia LeBeouf , Karen Allen, and Cate Blanchett. Running Time 122 minutes. Rated PG-13. Released on DVD: October 14, 2008. Available at Amazon.

So take it away!

It is I who is me who is the Furious Gaming Geek. Because it is me who is the Furious Gaming Geek, it falls under and below my purview to comment on the various and sundry ways of the brother and sister media of Video Games and Movies. And it is because of this blood relation of Video Games and Movies that their offspring are inbred seven toed hillbillies like brothers and sisters would, upon taboo fornication, create such abominations as carnivorous Hill-eyed mutants. Truly it is an infuriating thing that set of movies which were spawned by games, and perhaps and even more infuriating thing to play those games which, like salmon, were spawned by Video Games. Many times during the course of playing a video game, fish have popped out of it. It happens a lot with the old 16 bit cartridges.

Because this is written for a section known as the Popcorn Junkies dot com, we shall focus on the films which were based upon video games, and not the video games which were based upon movies. We will not mention such horrifying NES games like Back to the Future, a game which makes less sense than a drunken Tom Cruise explaining the plots of all three Mission: Impossible movies in Pig Latin, which was not spoken by the ancient Roman pigs at all!

But, because the site is the Popcorn Junkies dot com, we are required, and by we I mean me, who is the Furious Gaming Geek, we and I mean me, who is I, will discuss my crippling popcorn addiction. At one point, I was eating 18 cups of popcorn per day, which is over one gallon per day of delicious popped corn to snack upon; it was a terribly crippling addiction, costing me nearly 16 dollars a week. It was all air-popped unbuttered popcorn, so it only has as many calories as two cans of coke. Come to think of it, that was the best addiction of my life, the life of me who is the Furious Gaming Geek. Chewing all the popcorn contributed and added to the mastication abilities of the Furious Gaming Geek, who is now capable of biting a quarter in half, but not in a true half, per se, as one side is oblate and the other side is crescent shaped.

After years of costly therapy, and rehab, the Furious Gaming Geek has managed to cut down to 16 cups, which is exactly one gallon, per day, which is approximately 24 hours, of wonderful popcorn. If you, who are all not me, squint, the word popcorn looks to be the word “popcom” which is not a real word in the real world at all, but perhaps should be. This new portmanteau word is sort of like romcom with pop in lieu of rom, thus making it the term for a popantic-comedy, one of the Furious Gaming Geek’s fifteen favorite genres of films.

One cannot mention video game films without mentioning Uwe Boll, even if that one is me who is the Furious Gaming Geek. Many people who are not the Furious Gaming Geek criticize those films of Uwe for myriad reasons. These reasons include, but by no means are limited to such things as factual inaccuracies about Desert Eagles, poor continuity, multiple instances of visible equipment, good actors giving bad performances, terrible performances by terrible actors, gratuitous Michael Madsen, scripts that read like fanfic with the gay sex edited out, the strange and redundant final reel of BloodRayne, and the fact that House of the Dead contained no House of the Dead.

But, you haters, hatererizers, and various and sundry drinkers of the Hatorade, which contains no electrolytes, do not realize something! Uwe Boll has produced fourteen movies since 2005! He doesn’t have time for things like continuity, fact checking, art or entertainment! Have you people no decency! You have no right to be livid, fuming, incensed, outraged, irate, angry or beside yourself. Some of his movies get FOUR STARS! Sure this is a four out of ten rating on imdb.com, but it is much higher than any of the Furious Gaming Geek’s films, which have been thoroughly rejected by imdb for having “no artistic merit” and for featuring “gratuitous violence against sparrows”.

The real problem with Video Game films is that there is no Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Sure, there are cartoons, but what is demanded by the movie-going public is a live action movie. It should not be CGI or anything like that either. We take a real hedgehog, spray paint it blue, and put it in red sneakers and teach it to run so fast as to be capable of running upside-down in a loop de loop fashion. Then it is both wise and necessary to have this spray-painted hedgehog fight robots and a mustachioed man, provided that the hedgehog lives long enough and doesn‘t die like those pigs that were spray painted or that Roy‘s childhood turtle from the situational comedy “Wings“.

This has been a message from the Furious Gaming Geek, who is me.

The Furious Gaming Geek.

The Post Script – It should also be noted that the general public demands Pong the movie.

Perhaps, I’ve said too much.

Of course, this service is far from perfect. As you can plainly see, or at least haphazardly guess, most of the films available to watch on Hulu suck.

To save you good folks some time. The following movies have the CPO seal of approval.

Coffee and Cigarettes
PROS – This movie will increase your indie cred. It’s very cool, starring cool people, and you can feel cool while watching it. In what other film can find Roberto Benigni next to Steven Wright?

CONS – It’s plotless collection of mostly unrelated shorts, often starring non-actors.

Why Watch it? – To feel cool, naturally. There are some good performances, and it’s easy to skip a story that doesn’t work for you.

Ghostbusters

PROS – It’s – wait a second. . . Is there anybody that doesn’t like Ghostbusters? Even I like Ghostbusters. NEXT

The Hollywood Shuffle

PROS – You can see how Robert Townsend got enough good will to make crap like Meteor Man and “The Parent ‘Hood”.

CONS – It gave Robert Townsend enough good will to make crap like Meteor Man and “The Parent ‘Hood”.

Why Watch it? – This thing, like Coffee and Cigarettes is a series of vignettes. Some are really funny, it’s easy to skip something you don’t like.

In the Heat of the Night

PROS – Just go watch In the Heat of the Night. NEXT

Jackass 2.5

PROS – “Jackass” in all its forms is a depraved celebration of life mixed with an odd sociological study.

CONS – It can be quite gross. Plus, you might find the need to make lame excuses for why you are watching this sort of thing.

Why Watch it? – Actually, you can watch the TV show on Hulu. That’s probably a better bet. Watch that instead.

Men in Black

PROS – MIB is an entertaining enough movie that doesn’t require much cognitive function.

CONS – It isn’t really art.

Why Watch it? – It’s the sort of thing to have on in the background while doing other things.

Moonstruck
Oh shut up; the dialogue is great.

Naked Lunch

PROS – It’s one of my favorite films. It features insect typewriters .

CONS – This film is not for everybody; this film isn’t really for any normal people.

Why Watch it? – To admit your abnormality.

Near Dark

PROS – It’s one of the better vampire movies of the last 30 years, though that isn’t saying much. It does serve as a good antidote to The Lost Boys.

CONS – The ending is really stupid. It’s really stupid.

Why Watch it? – Lance Henrikson is a badass. That’s reason enough right?

The Night of the Hunter

PROS – Robert Mitchum plays one of the most memorable villains of all time in this classic film noir.

CONS – The young people can find this flick a little hokey.

Why Watch it? – It is an important and often talked about film. Watching it is like learning. Everybody likes learning, right?

TO BE CONTINUED. . .

All right, so maybe Blacula has been dead for 5 years. (Did you know that he was the King of Cartoons on Pee Wee’s Playhouse?)

Maybe Super Fly is the one. . . Well, no he’s dead too.

Crap.

Cleopatra Jones is dead too. Gordon Parks Sr. (director of Shaft) died a couple of years ago, but at least he lived to be 93 or so. His son (director of Super Fly) didn’t even make it to 45.

Sid Haig seems to be doing well for himself. . .

Well, at any rate, we hope that Richard Roundtree, and Pam Grier stay with us for a long time. Chef and Lord Bowler will be missed around these parts.

In other news, Quentin Tarantino seems to be assembling the strangest cast around for his next movie, Inglorious Bastards. Look at this list, and see if you can make sense out of it: Brad Pitt, Mike Myers, Simon Shaun of the Dead Pegg, Eli “Maker of Hostel“ Roth, and B. J. “The Temp” Novak.

Normally you don’t get a cast that odd outside of an animated movie.

Take a look at any animated flick, and you are bound to see casting choices that would not be made in a live-action flick. That’ll be the game this week. I’ll name some cast members for a film, and you see if you can tell me the film. Sounds easy right?

We’ll do six, and I will offer you NO multiple choice. Half will be from cartoons. I won’t always name the leading man (or lady) just to make it a little more challenging.

Bragging rights are on the line.

1. Hayden Panattiere, Phyllis Diller, Denis Leary, and Jonathan “Dr. Smith” Harris.

2. Helen Hunt, Ben Stiller, Liam Neeson, Adam Baldwin, and Bill Paxton.

3. Mickey Rooney, Kurt Russell, Corey Feldman, and Sandy Duncan.

4. Kelly Lynch, Denzel Washington, Louise Fletcher, and Russell Crowe.

5. Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Robert DeNiro and Will Smith.

6. Keanu Reeves, Brian Cox, Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weisz.

I mean, you have the “tragic” death of the young celebrity. You have two former teen heartthrobs playing your two leads. You have geek dream girl Maggie Gyllenhaal as the female lead. You‘ve got the old respectable white actor in Michael Caine. You got the old respectable black actor in Morgan Freeman. You’ve got the somewhat less old, respectable actor of Gary Oldman; though his respectability is due in part to being confused with Daniel Day-Lewis. You’ve got one of the 10 most recognizable characters to come out of the 20th century battling his most popular villain. You’ve also got that character’s second most important villain. You’ve got Eric Roberts, star of DOA: Dead or Alive and Less Than Perfect. . .

Okay, so Eric Roberts probably didn’t draw much. . .

But Julia Roberts’s brother notwithstanding, we are still looking at a movie that brings in more money on a weekday two weeks after opening than most movies do on opening weekend.

It is an enjoyable enough flick, although a bit numbing. I only had problems with the characters, dialogue, plot, action sequences and themes. (I had no problem with the setting. Wooo! Go Chicago! Batman rode his fancy Batpod through the Metra Station by Millennium Park! Woo!)

Here are some Dark Knight Discussion topics!

1. How does the Joker scout his criminal henchmen so well? They have to be smart enough to remember directions, amoral enough to shoot their partners in the back, and dumb enough to think that the same thing won’t happen to them.

2. Does it really matter that Heath Ledger is playing the Joker? The character doesn’t have many of the Joker’s traits. He doesn’t have the bleached skin. He doesn’t have squirting flowers or joy buzzers. His victims don’t start laughing hysterically, and they don’t die with twisted grins. With the way that the film’s villain leaves esoteric clues for the Batman to find, he resembles the Riddler as much as the Joker. Seriously, why would the Joker leave DNA samples on a playing card in order to show who his next batch of victims are going to be?

3. And those folks that tested this playing card clue, did they just start matching this discovered DNA against everybody in Gotham?

4. And another thing about the Joker, do you think that the Nolans were reading a lot of Kohlberg moral dilemmas while they were creating this incarnation of the character? “I know, we’ll make him an immoral sociologist!” Seriously, I was waiting for the Joker to ask whether or not it is morally acceptable to steal medicine for a dying spouse.

5. So replacing Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal is like replacing Meg Ryan with Cate Blanchett. It’s like replacing a Big Mac with Kobe beef. Maggie Gyllenhaal is so much better for this part. She seems smarter, stronger and more capable than Tom Cruise’s child-bride could ever hope to be. Plus, she appears damaged enough to be a proper Batman love interest.

6. It’s nice to have a Batman love interest that seems strong, capable and morally upright. Unfortunately Rachel Dawes was killed off in order to jump start the third act. Such is life. Here is the thing, though: wouldn’t it have been cool if Dawes had become Two-Face? What makes Two-Face compelling as a Batman villain is the backstory. Harvey Dent was a good friend of Bruce Wayne, and one the earliest allies of the Batman. When he turns into Two-Face, the loss is two-fold. Now, in the film Dent has to be introduced to Wayne. Batman and Dent start to form a minor alliance. Movie Dent becoming Two-Face isn’t a loss to Batman/Wayne, it is a loss to Gotham city. Rachel Dawes becoming Two-Face would’ve been emotionally crippling. Comic nerds would’ve been upset, but hell, Marvel has been feminizing all their villains lately. Just ask that “I’m Just Saying” guy over at the nexus.

7. Is that Limey cocksucker Nolan making fun of America while laughing all the way to the bank? (I’ve seen somebody laugh 2/3 of the way to the bank once or twice. ) It certainly seems to be the theme of the Dark Knight that democracy, truth, freedom and civil rights are good ideas, but only when nothing is at stake. Let’s take a look:

A. Batman violates the sovereignty of a foreign nation, and kidnaps a Chinese national. A little more detective work of the Batman’s behalf might’ve avoided this potentially deadly international incident.

B. Batman violates the privacy of every Gotham Citizen with a cellphone with his improbable wiretapping/ sonar device. Batman needs to listen to Sherriff Andy Taylor about such things. (Okay so the video clip is missing now, but trust me, it was good!)

C. Harvey Dent, Gotham’s great white hope, fully supports the Roman notion of suspending democracy and appointing a dictator in times of peril.

D. The votes of the majority of people on both boats (each to blow up the other) go ignored like so many hanging Chads in Florida.

E. The symbolic reputation of a murderer (I.e. Dent) is deemed more important than the truth of the situation and reality at large. The movie says that people will be better off believing a big lie, or was that the big lie? All I know is that real Chicagoans in real Chicago come perfectly equipped to handle our politicians’ feet of clay.

F. Batman risks the health and safety of innocent Gothamites by making Mob money radioactive. (How did he do that again?) Doesn’t the Batman care about the McDonald’s worker who sells Fat Tony his daily McGriddle? Does Batman want that kid to die of cancer? What about the in-the-dark bank teller who has to count all this money and dies of radiation poisoning? Or what about the poor waiter at the Italian restaurant who stores his cash in his apron? He’s sterile now. Thanks a lot Batman!

8. What about that cell phone nonsense, anyway? Am I supposed to believe that 1 guy covering 10 million phones is going to be able to tell Batman anything useful? It’d be false positive city, population: Fox. Am I really supposed to believe that Batman can hack into all the cellphones in Gotham, even the ones with out of state area codes, and install sonar? First off, he’s killing the battery life of those phones, and probably using up all those people’s minutes. And how does this create a realtime 3d picture of all of Gotham again? (This is almost as bad as Daredevil’s radar sense picking up the cones and rods of Elektra’s eyes in that piece of crap.) And I know that there are a lot of cellphones in the world, but would the hostages, quickly removed from their hospital beds really have cellphones on them?

9. And speaking of those hostages, couldn’t Morgan Freeman have just called up Commissioner Gordon and told him that the clowns were the hostages? He has all the cellphones in the city coming in to him, but can’t get a line out? Shouldn’t the Swat team have known that those were the hostages anyway? Don’t those guys watch movies?

10. How in the blue hell does Gordon get to be Police Commissioner? In two movies he has never shown any leadership qualities or any assertiveness at all. He never stands up to Batman, and places his trust in all the wrong people. Movie Gordon sucks.

11. Speaking of Movie Gordon, how and why did he fake his death again? Was it a spur of the moment thing, decided after he jumped in front of the mayor? Did he plan on doing that ahead of time? How many people did he have to let in on this conspiracy? Certainly an EMT driver, and the medical examiner, and whoever was in charge of assigning him to drive the armored car, etc. I know that the movie tried to explain the why by saying that he did it to protect his family. Was Gordon ever threatened directly, or indirectly, enough to merit such a swerve? What was the point of this crap, aside from jerking around the audience?

12. And speaking of Gordon’s family, did you ever notice that he’s the only person in Gotham with one? Dent has a potential fiancée, but no mom or brothers or sisters or anything. Batman and Alfred have no family, naturally. Rachel doesn’t seem to have a family. The Joker doesn’t even have a right hand man.

13. Who was in charge of the quality assurance with regards to dialogue in this picture? The hero it has is the hero it deserves and not the hero it wants, but the hero it might get on the new moon when. . .

14. And speaking of dialogue, you too can learn to speak like Christian Bale’s Batman!

Step 1: Pout out your lower lip a la “Wanda the ugly girl” on In Living Color. Make sure all of your bottom row of teeth are visible.

Step 2: Do a bad impersonation of Richard Moll’s Two-Face voice from Batman: The Animated Series.

Step 3: Say a bunch of simplistic action hero lines like “You’ll be in a padded cell forever!”

There you go!

15. Wait a second, how can Two-Face just walk away from that horrifying car crash he caused? Did he get Darkman-esque burn victim powers? He was just in a hospital bed! He runs a high risk of infection with his exposed muscle tissue.

At the very least, he should be worried about his eye falling out.

16. How come Two Face was shoe-horned into the movie only to be killed off unceremoniously? Did they think he was Venom or something? Man, I bet the film-makers are kicking themselves for killing off the living actor’s character and not the dead guy’s.

17. Practical effects and stuntwork, these are nice things in a CGI reliant world. Although, I would’ve enjoyed that Semi flipping over a bit more had I not seen it 7,008 times previously in previews.

18. Speaking of the action, am I the only one that was confused as hell during the first action sequence? You know the one with all the Batmen and the pointless Scarecrow cameo? I couldn’t tell which was the real deal. We hadn’t seen the real Batman in the film prior to that scene. The fake Batmen looked as much like the Batman of my mind’s eye as Christian Bale does. Couldn’t a fake Batman have dressed in blue and grey Halloween costume style outfit or something, so I could tell these guys apart? Batman doesn’t even get his own theme in the movie because of The Dark Knight‘s fancy pants score.

I was just hella confused.

19. That Batman barfight, prior to him dropping Eric Roberts, was also terrible. All I could see were some random punches in the dark. It looked like some sort of multi-player melle version of Urban Champion for the NES. Batman has spent 20 years studying the martial arts; can’t he do better than that? Any given Batman cartoon has better fight scenes than that thing. I would rather have had a Pow and a Bam.

20. Did anybody else get the feeling that Nolan and company were just trying to make a bigger budget version of Heat with Joker and Batman replacing Deniro and Pacino?

All right, it is just me.