So, I used to read Salon, kind of a liberal site about politics and pop culture, quite a bit. They’ve got lots of good stuff- interesting blogs and articles- but for some reason I sorta lost interest, and sometimes when I visit I’m reminded how it just wasn’t a good fit. It’s weird for me to feel like a “mainstream” American being annoyed by snoody liberals but somehow Salon keeps fulfilling that stereotype for me. Here’s a bit from their movie blog, in response to the site’s review of the batman movie:

It’s a pileup of incidents and episodes that never congeal into a story, a succession of striking murky-but-clean images that never create a convincing temporal and spatial universe.

I’m on shaky ground when accusing someone else of not making sense, but I just don’t understand what that sentence means.

The rest of the post makes more sense but is a little bit meaner.

It’s a cliché to say that “Dark Knight” is a teenage boy’s idea of a serious film, but of course that’s the source of its immense appeal. (One could call the source material, Frank Miller’s revisionist Batman comics, a teenage boy’s idea of literature.) I’d go a step or two further: It’s either a teenage boy’s poorly executed idea, or the teenage boy in question has a “Memento”-scale case of ADD, and maybe all the fogeyish, clueless protestations about how video games are ruining the youth of today are actually true.

Low blow! Ouch!

Dude- chill out. I like all kinds of movies. I can appreciate contempletive depth. But this is an action movie! Not appreciating action movies in un-American, and with them the whole point is to move quickly and for shit to blow up. You can’t criticize an action movie for being awesome!

I’m still impressed by the creative skill exhibited, by how the story was a commentary on current events and their meanings and implications. It’s more of a fairy tale than a novel; it’s cool if that’s just not someone’s taste but give the rest of us a break- not every movie needs to be directed by Ingmar Bergman.

I’ve cherry-picked four excellent little movies to catch — OK, one of them is almost 10 hours long! — …

Heheh, case closed! ;)