You Can't Please Everybody

In Rich Johnston's always interesting Lying In The Gutters column this week, he includes a bit of commentary from Brendon Connelly explaining why he didn't like "The Dark Knight." (Scroll to the section with the heading "THE DARK KNIGHT REGURGITATES")

Wow. He really didn't like the movie, did he? I'd love to refute his arguments on why he thinks it's a bad movie, but I've got too much of an emotional attachment to the material to be able to objectively address his problems. I sort of wish I didn't have that attachment so that I could better evaluate how reasonable or unreasonable his complaints are. I tend to think he's wrong pretty much across the board, but I recognize my own bias here. That said, the fact that he seems to think that the 60's Batman movie was superior tells me that we're unlikely to agree on anything film-wise.

Still, I kind of know where he's coming from. Sometimes when you dislike something that the rest of the world is praising loudly, the dislike can be amplified a bit. I know I'm guilty of amplified and overblown dislike when it comes to certain movies. "Pulp Fiction" comes to mind. I didn't particularly like it, and under ordinary circumstances that might have been the end of it, but I seem to be the only one in the world not to like it. What's more, everyone else seems to regard the film as some kind of masterpiece, which I find irksome, and which amplifies my "just not my cup of tea"-level of dislike to "if it were a person I'd reach into its chest and pull out its still beating heart"-level of hatred. Not sure why that's the case, it just is.

So, while I disagree with Connelly on every level, I have to say I sympathize with him as well.