The True Joker

From this weekend on it's official: Imdb.com has lost all credibility. The Dark Knight opened this weekend, making the biggest gross ever, as well as taking the number 1 position in Imdb's Top 250: the movie gets a 9.7 rating over 23.000 votes, with more than 80% of the voters granting it the full 10. Thanks for forfeiting the remaining bit of leverage as a film review site Imdb had left, and turning it into an exclusive nepotistic forum site. We won't have to bother with that anymore.

How can one claim this, without even having seen the film? Well, because it doesn't really matter whether the film is good or not. Whether it's better than its predecessor(s) or not. The rating is just so stupefyingly ridiculous, there is no sense to it at all. Even previous champions [The godfather, or maybe Citizen Kane] couldn't muster such stats. These stats are plainly impossible. There can be only one real conclusion to the common sensed: another election fixed.

It also doesn't matter how it was done. The hype comes like a tsunami. There have been many a flood current smashed on the barricades erected by the good people of Imdb to protect historical quality from the insanity of the daily hype. The fight to keep The Shawshank Redemption from the number 1 spot in the last couple of years, is just most manifest in a struggle to keep off modern day audiovisual pollution. A list of overrated movies since 1990 would have no end. No meaning also, for when time has told, time will heal. We want so much to be witness to the premiere of the Greatest Film Ever. We like to say it came in our time, and we were the first to see it. Only then can we die in peace.

While I don't have to see The Dark Knight to know it's not the best film ever, the people raving for it don't have to watch hundreds, even thousands of existing movies to know those are not the best ever. What's hard to comprehend is how people want to be pushing crap, without even being worried about losing their own credibility. Recommend just one more of your favourite newest-film-equals-best-ever to me, and I can dismiss you for good and be relieved. It's a pitfall to be convinced to have found the Greatest Film Ever. It would be like leasing truth.

Nobody likes to be a sour puss these days. Even serious film critics tend to suffer from that. After last year's over hyped blockbuster summer people were just so relieved to be not disappointed, that many thought The Bourne Ultimatum to be something special. This one ended up on many a serious film critics' year lists. The same critics who let themselves be surprised by The Simpsons Movie, while the real Simpsons fans were very much let down by less than 50% new jokes. Did these people even see the first two Bourne films? Because the whole franchise is made by the same team, and maintains a stable level of quality, but excels nowhere. And nobody dares to point out the popular fascist vocab (Identity, Supremacy, Ultimatum) indicative of Matt Damon's throw at portraying the definitive Ubermensch.

So it can be expected that if these critics wish to keep getting invited to future press viewings, they will mainly have to stick to the positive things they have to say. What is most striking then is the way people can start believing their own good reviews, when converted into such a mindset. It's also interesting what brings people to this kind of wishful thinking, when they tend to lose sight of the big picture. What is most interesting is that this cultural tendency doesn't exclusively apply to movies, but also to literature (story-telling in general), to music, and it extends even further into the realm of politics. One could worry about that. I speculate that this love for mediocrity by the average man actually originated from the realm of politics. There is some thing nice about having a president who could've been, well....you!

Get in line. Don't want to stand out, just to push to the front. The news medium pays for your ticket on the presidential candidate's campaign airplane. Staying on that plane is more important than asking difficult questions. Get kicked off and you'll get kicked out. Don't keep your own opinion, opinions are abundant, redundant. Start thinking for yourself and you will find yourself in isolation. Democracy dictates what is good, what is quality, what is truth. Must not be pig-headed, opinionated, bloody-minded, conceited. Must aim for broad support because cannot stand on own feet. Don't know good from bad, right from wrong, so if somebody please can explain it to me. Lay it out for me, tell me what to think. I'll be you and you'll be me and both we'll be so glad we can agree. And we can all be Batman who is in fact Harvey Two-Face who'll be the next president of the United States.

Think I'm joking? Thank you very much!