But it doesn't change my visceral reaction that the movie is all sad and stuff when it's not boring.

Oh, of course -- I'm definitely not trying to convince you to like it. The movies work for me, but as noted my view of reality is on the bleak side. And if we all felt the same way, it wouldn't be a very interesting conversation.

So here's how you're wrong... (Kidding!)

Batman's not just taking the blame for Dent's death, he's taking the blame for the people Dent killed. And that actually helps him with a couple of problems: amateurs are imitating him, and bad guys have figured out that he’s got rules. If everyone thinks he’s a murderer, it stops what remains of the hero-worship and scares the criminals. And I don’t know that trashing Dent’s reputation would save Batman's -- his reputation takes some hits once the Joker says he'll keep killing until Batman unmasks.

I don't think there actually is a lot of time spent on the cell phone hack. But I get that it feels long, because it is pretty silly. Basically there's one scene of Fox harrumphing about how this is awful , and Batman’s all, “you’re the only one who can work it, so FACE” and then Fox says, “I’ll do this one time, but then I quit,” and then at the end the thing goes kaboom and Fox is like, “Oh, what a delightful prank.”

On Dent’s importance -- It’s stressed repeatedly that if Dent’s seen as yet another corrupt official, all of his prosecutions will be tossed out. And there’s precedent for Gotham loving martyrs, since the death of the Waynes apparently horrified people enough to halt the League of Shadow’s first attempt to smash Gotham. (Through... methods?)

I am amused that in BB the LoS sorta comes off like Wile E. Coyote. “We had this complicated long-term plan to accomplish our goal. It seemed to be working perfectly, but a one-in-a-million event caused it to go wrong. Instead of trying that again, we’ve moved on to a different, even goofier scheme!"

And the whole overblown "retard" kerfuffle, which, from my perspective operates much like the blackface parts might for you, ita. "Simple Jack" is like gimp blackface, and movies like that have been presented in all seriousness for, like ages now. So I thought the parody was pretty funny. Also, I think it was firmly established that these actors are pretty much idiots and nobody should want to be like or talk like them.

OH MY GOD the second picture done killed me.

[link]

Might need casket group-rates. Yowza.

ARMS. Such arms. Guh. (And I don't guh lightly.)

I'm going to have to watch The Hurt Locker, aren't I? And The Unusuals, also (which has the added draw of Amber Tamblyn).

The Hurt Locker bored me. however, The Unusuals is amazing! i was so sad when it was cancelled.

Can someone take a look and see if I'm missing something here? I read this article about Brave and thought, Huh, that's kind of interesting and I hadn't really thought about it that way, but I'm glad I read this. And then I went down to the comments (it's The Atlantic, so the comments are usually at least marginally above average) and I can't tell whether I spectacularly misread the amount of fail in the article, or whether the comment thread is itself the world's biggest stew of whiny fail in the history of ever. It's definitely a giant mess of Moff's Law. I just... the response is so overwhelmingly, ragingly negative that I'm starting to think I must have totally misread the entire article.

No, it's the comments.

Yeah...people are craxy.

I think the article is poorly written and leaves itself wide open to exactly this kind of criticism, but it's head and shoulders above the HOW DARE YOU IMPLY I MIGHT BE GAY?!?!?!! homophobia going on in the comments. So...both?