Interesting. As I started to get to your take down of the Dark Knight, I was all ready to defend it, but the problem is you make more than valid points. I really liked the movie, but if I were being honest with myself, it really was little more than a summer fun movie with the marked exception of a brilliant performance on Ledger's part (having not seen Brokeback, I won't argue which role was better acted, but I do disagree with you on the level of the Joker performance and its significance and artistic value and quality).

But even before this, there were parts that niggled at me about this movie. One was the disagreement between the "agent of chaos" and the Swiss watch intricate machinations of said agent of chaos. Also, while Ledger's performance was astounding (at least in my mind), he was surrounded by a cast that was lackluster, at times even laughable.

It's a sad thing to say, but the main character of the movie was ultimately a joke. I like Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, but his Batman is god awful and has provoked my favorite afternoon radio show into constantly insulting the BatVoice.

But I really didn't want to talk much about the Dark Knight. What I did want to mention was that as I neared the end of your piece, another movie popped into my mind; Silence of the Lambs.

Now that was a MOVIE, and one that really did respect in many ways its viewers. Part of its success was the nature of the story. It was a dark psychological thriller, but as opposed to the modern day definition of the sub-genre, what we mean by psychological thriller is that actual (or perhaps fantasy, I'm no psychological expert so I admit to not knowing), psychology. Motivation is, thusly, a centerpoint of the movie. You know EXACTLY why Wild Bill does what he does because the lynchpin relationship of the film between Lecter and Clarise is centered firmly on understanding Wild Bill's motivations in such a manner that those motivations could be used to actually catch the man.

There's of course some of the hyperbolic fantasy involved. Lecter, much like the Joker, seems a bit too pressient, too capable of predicting human nature to the point where he can plot out strategies that would hinge on seemingly random events and decisions. But the movie doesn't go nearly as far as modern fare does in this regard.

The other thing that really makes SotL is that the movie making was phenomenal. Direction and cinematography were brilliant, and instead of just having ONE actor turn in a star performance, the entire cast brought the house down.

I'm an avid fan of Monk, and even though I've got five seasons on DVD, and watch each new episode religiously the moment it's available on the internet, I STILL get this weird feeling every time Ted Levine(sp?) comes on screen.

So I dunno, I just figured I would interject that what you are looking for, it would seem, is that the summer blockbuster machine would look more towards Silence of the Lambs for inspiration than for perhaps the latest greatest comic book movie to come down the woodwork (though, to defend the comic book movie genre, there have been a couple few that have been excellent as well. The first Spiderman, I thought, was very well done. I liked Iron Man because that really was the kind of movie you could write off as a summer fun movie without also trying to defend its artistic qualities. And, to be fair, I think the motivations for the characters in Iron Man might have actually been more believable than those in Dark Knight. And I will urinate on anyone who speaks ill of Sin City. ANYONE!).

The last point I wanted to make was that I think one of the things that has degraded the quality of the major blockbusters has been technology. I don't mean just CGI special effects, though that is a big part of it. But you know, the big movies have always had a certain feel to them. There's a certain polish on the production in a big movie, and once you cross that threshold of polish, it's like you are automatically leaped into a-movie status.

What with technology being what it is today, with digital pictures, and computer special effects, and even music composition taking a 2.0 flavor, you can take the biggest heaping turd and spruce it up to cross that imaginary threshold.

I dunno, it just seems like the turds are a lot shinier and that is really making a difference.