{"id":4984,"date":"2012-07-30T20:01:12","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T00:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=4984"},"modified":"2012-07-30T20:01:12","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T00:01:12","slug":"dark-knight-of-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=4984","title":{"rendered":"Dark Knight of the soul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What to do? What to do?<\/strong> I\u2019m torn as to what my attitude should be toward <i>The Dark Knight Rises<\/i>, the new Batman movie. I haven\u2019t seen it, mind you. But as an internationally respected blogger, I think I\u2019m obligated to have an opinion. The question is, what opinion should I parrot? Two of my favorite bloggers have taken totally contradictory views.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, Andrew Klavan praised it to the skies in a column for the Wall Street Journal, which he links <a href=\"http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/andrewklavan\/2012\/07\/30\/my-take-on-the-dark-knight-rises\/\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The movie is a bold apologia for free-market capitalism; a graphic depiction of the tyranny and violence inherent in every radical leftist movement from the French Revolution to Occupy Wall Street; and a tribute to those who find redemption in the harsh circumstances of their lives rather than allow those circumstances to mire them in resentment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sounds great.<\/p>\n<p>In the other corner, in the white trunks, Anthony Sacramone at <i>Strange Herring <\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/strangeherring.com\/2012\/07\/28\/a-strange-review-the-dark-knight-stinketh\/\">hated it<\/a>.<!--more--><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>My friend Joe Carter says this is pre-Christian mythologizing of a postmodern reality. I just thought it was half-price Thursday. Which is probably why I don\u2019t review movies much anymore.<\/p>\n<p>Ah: Payoff time. Men in blue vs. miserable, envy-riddled masses. Send them back to their lower-working-class existences paying 8 percent on student loans where they belong! Pow! Zap! Zingo!<\/p>\n<p>Why is it that filmmakers love to blow up New York City? It must be the skyline, or maybe Mayor Bloomberg has decided to ban something again, like Mentos or something.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To whom shall I pander? Sacramone actually reviewed one of my books once. But Klavan called me a \u201ccolleague.\u201d To whom do I owe the greatest measure of sycophancy?<\/p>\n<p>I should see the film myself, you say? Ah, there\u2019s the rub.<\/p>\n<p>Problem is, I can\u2019t see this one because I missed the last one. I missed the last one because I heard a rumor of how it ended, and I lost my nerve. You wouldn\u2019t guess it, but I\u2019m essentially soft-hearted, and I just didn\u2019t want to sit through a long movie that ended that way. Now if I want to see the third movie, I\u2019ve got to do the second.<\/p>\n<p>What I need is a friend to hold my hand while I watch Number Two. And all my friends are guys, so that would just be creepy.<\/p>\n<p>I know what I\u2019ll do!<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll dither.<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What to do? What to do? I\u2019m torn as to what my attitude should be toward The Dark Knight Rises, the new Batman movie. I haven\u2019t seen it, mind you. But as an internationally respected blogger, I think I\u2019m obligated to have an opinion. The question is, what opinion should I parrot? Two of my &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=4984\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dark Knight of the soul<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-blogs-social-media","category-reviews"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}