Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Dark Knight = Dark Nightmares

Baby Girl had a slumber party with grammy and dapaw--mommy and daddy had a date with the Dark Knight!

What a great movie ... and what a theater full of questionable judgement. There were half a dozen or more kids who looked to be under 13. Good luck with the nightmares, folks.

Perhaps the questionable judgement belongs to the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

The movie is rated PG-13, but is really riding the edge of the guidelines for violence. Here's what the MPA has to say about violence in a PG-13 movie: "There may be depictions of violence in a PG-13 movie, but generally not both realistic and extreme or persistent violence."http://www.mpaa.org/flmrat_ratings.asp

Realistic, Extreme, and Persistent Violence describes the very essence of many scenes.Heath Ledger's Joker is a masterful piece of villainous acting. The Joker is a sadistic creature whose sustenance is violence and mayhem. The many closeups of his face are like a window into the soul of realistic and extreme violence. The grippingly persistent violence that holds you as he leisurely brushes his knife-edge across the faces of his terrified victims are certainly crossing that imaginary line.

Perhaps I am looking too closely through the refocused lens of a new parent (which is a whole blog topic in itself), but this movie seemed to be too much for the average 13 year old. But, as a co-worker said, every kid is different; one parent's 10 year old might be capable of handling the violent content, while another's 14 year old may not be.

With the movie ratings and review resources available on the Internet, I think there is no excuse for blind parenting in the movie theatre.

By the way ... this is really a great movie. By far, the best Batman so far on celluloid. Ledger has almost certainly earned a posthumous Oscar nod. And Christian Bale is quickly scaling the ladder of sought after leading men in Hollywood.

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