Holy clone, the resemblance is so uncanny I can barely tell them apart.
BATMAN: Tormented over the tragic mistakes he’s made.
BUSH: Makes jokes about the tragic mistakes he’s made.
BATMAN: Has Lucius Fox and Alfred to ensure he stays on the right track.
BUSH: Has Karl Rove and Cheney to steer the country down the wrong track.
BATMAN: Acting on false intelligence, destroys the lives of his loved ones.
BUSH: Acting on false intelligence, destroys the lives of other people’s loved ones.
BATMAN: When Gotham is attacked, steels himself with the courage to take charge.
BUSH: When Manhattan is attacked, pisses himself and reads My Pet Goat.
BATMAN: Tracks down and kills captures the Joker.
BUSH: Drops the ball and loses bin Laden.
(read more after the cut, or add your own)
BATMAN: Takes responsibility for his own misdeeds and punishes the crimes of others.
BUSH: Takes no responsibility for his own misdeeds and pardons the crimes of others.
BATMAN: Spends millions of dollars of his own money for his obsessive vendetta.
BUSH: Spends billions of dollars of taxpayer’s money for his obsessive vendetta.
BATMAN: Hands over control of surveillance system for eventual suspension.
BUSH: Demands retroactive immunity for telecoms so surveillance can proceed unheeded.
BATMAN: Reckless moral confusion results in corruption of Gotham’s highest ideals.
BUSH: Reckless moral confusion results in corruption of America’s highest ideals.
BATMAN: Stitches up his own wounds.
BUSH: Chokes on pretzels.
BATMAN: Endlessly fighting the same deadlocked battles for 70 years.
BUSH: Endlessly fighting the same quagmire wars for 100 years (oh, wait; that’s McCain)
Batman didn’t kill the Joker, just captured him….oops is that a spoiler?
well, you sure spoiled my neat little snit, AJ.
(thanks, I was off on an obsessive vendetta, and got sloppy.)
Well i guess we can assume Mr. Adams is voting republican this year lol. I love the unbiasedness very proffesional, very classy lol
Brilliant, Ryan.
hmm they’re both rich….someone with some wit take over from there…
hmm let’s see batman has the batsignal….
bush has fox news….
BATMAN: Suspends his pursuit of the Joker in favor of a bigger, easier target (the mob), thus allowing the Joker to gain strength and become an even more dangerous enemy.
BUSH: Suspends his pursuit of Osama bin Laden in favor of a bigger, easier target (Saddam Hussein), thus allowing Osama bin Laden to gain strength and become an even more dangerous enemy.
batman… i’m not gonna see the dark knight….
bush… i didn’t vote for him….
impressive chris…
Nice, Ryan. I would add:
Batman: thinks and cares
Bush: doesn’t think, doesn’t care
Pathetic Chris… how’s that whole Iraq war going these days??…WHAT? IT’s going WELL?? Get a memo to Chris, he’s living 18 months ago.
Hmmm…this post is clearly making a liberal political statement, but there is an ad at the top of the screen for the John McCain campaign. Looks like Awards Daily will take money where ever they can get it.
Mike, “well”?
Does that mean the Iraqis can operate a post office without fucking up or needing our help? Do they not need us to hold their hands?
No?
Quit living 16 months in the future, and think of now.
“BATMAN: Acting on false intelligence, destroys the lives of his loved ones.
BUSH: Acting on false intelligence, destroys the lives of other people’s loved ones.”
Or “BUSH: Acting without intelligence,” if you will…
imagine this…another member of the liberal press attacking bush? you communist pigs truly never let up. you disgust me.
*hey obama, hitler gave great speeches too*
Communist? Dude, not even the Communists are Communists anymore. I mean come on, you’re embarrasing the Right, i.e. former frat brothers like ME, by reusing slang that went out of value at the same time as Vanilla Ice’s career.
Be goddamn creative, please? Go to NewsMax and get a new talking points dictionary of bitchslappings or something.
Considering that you compared Hitler to Obama, and Obama has been compared to Reagan….
Reagan=Obama=Hitler?
Way to go ASSHOLE, you just called Reagan a Nazi! How dare ya! Wait till the Conservatives and the National Review hear about this you traitor!
Both of them are also only where they are because of their parents!
obama has the press in his back pocket. if no one wants to stop these crazy liberals running (or should i say, spinning) the news, we will be forced to suffer through another eight years of a democrat lying and changing his views in the white house.
(and yes, i know bush is not a democrat. i say another because i am referring back to bill clinton.)
NObama, last I checked, Clinton was a moderate Democrat who took conservative stances on several issues (Death Penalty, that paranoia Act to keep marriages from being legitimized outside of the state), so really since 1980, we’ve had in varying degrees a conservative Executive Branch…which is what, 28 years?
The last true liberal President was what, LBJ 40 years ago?
Hey conservative-wannabe, look at 1946, and Carol Reece, the GOP Chairman who scored the Republicans Congress back. How?
A chief reason is that the New Deal Democrats at that point were still using the SAME fears and write-ups that they had been using since 1932, still linking Republicans to Hoover….except 14 years later, with WW2 over, the Soviets our chief rival for world supremacy, and the Great Depression of sorts depressed by the war economy….Nevermind the Communist insurgencies in Greece and Turkey.
My point is, don’t use the same bedtime ghost story over and over, for the kid will grow tired, and not be made afraid by the story anymore.
Come on NObama, if you have any brains worth a shit, instead of using O’Reilly’s latest Talking Points or Beck’s latest rant, be creative in your argumentative approach.
Or to quote the Joker….HIT ME!
Honestly Ryan, I love the site, but I completely cringe whenever you go on a stupid political bent. And I’m a liberal. It just gives all the Bush haters on the site an excuse to form a mob and do some mindless vitriolic harping, nobody ever bothers to post actual intelligent criticism. Plus their annoying harping gives the few neocons on your site an excuse to whip their reactionary rhetoric out. Isn’t this supposed to be a site about the Oscars?
oh im sorry, i forgot that the people that actually read this kind of stuff are all the california liberal idiots who are all going green and boarding the obama train. maybe i am not as informed about all this political stuff as you all, but let me tell you what i do know. i hate seeing all the tax taken out of my paycheck. i worked hard to earn that money, and now obama wants to take even more of my hard-earned money to give to people who milk the government for every penny. hes giving my money to people who have less. last time i checked, thats communism.
“maybe i am not as informed about all this political stuff as you all, but let me tell you what i do know.”
No fucking shit, Sherlock.
If knowledge is a weapon, my brain is a fucking Atomic Bomb, and yours is as limp as a noodle, or as weak as France. So pathetic you Frog.
USA!
USA!
USA!
S.T. Stevens, would you feel better if I said that everyone’s political opinions are stupid?
Anyway, the Oscar season is in a duldrom until Venice…or maybe not. It’s filler-times like these when we need more reviews.
*Someone cues the RRA Signal into the night sky*
Looks like this is a job for The Critic!
mr. rra, you truly represent the symbol of the party you are championing, an ass.
pick on someone who knows politics as well as you. dont belittle them or cuss them out.
The symbol of my party is the Statue of Liberty, but since you assume I am a Democrat, I can’t help but laugh.
Ignorance of Others is bliss for those who aren’t Ignorant.
*=Me being a Democrat is as likely as Ryan Adams voting for McCain.
“S.T. Stevens, would you feel better if I said that everyone’s political opinions are stupid?”
Yes, as a matter of fact, I would.
I would then appreciate it if we all went back to movie talk, and reserved the political banter for the message boards of CNN, Fox and MSNBC.
I think it’s hilarious to hear a liberal talk about someone else operating using “false intelligence” and “not taking responsibility”. False ideals and pseudo-intellectualism are the building blocks of modern democrats… lots of fluff and speechifying… “you all should do this”, “you need to do something about the environment”, “you all need to be less materialistic”…
Yet we have Al Gore living in a energy-sucking mansion, Obama eats only arrugola salads from trendy organic health food stores and Michelle Obama rakes it in as an administrator for a hospital.
As for “being responsible”… hmm… how do I listen to someone affiliated with a party which generally supports bailing people out of things they should normally be responsible for, like getting a job, paying for their own health care and giving birth to the children they conceived rather than pre-maturely sucking it out with a vacuum because it’s “inconvenient”?
NObama, nobody is a fan of taxes but an essential purpose of government is to pool resources of the population to best provide services for the more unfortunate members among us — and to elevate the standards of living for everyone. (See Denmark for a good example of how this works).
The only alternative to taxes are having a filthy rich ruling class who (for now) might be feeling benevolent. (See Dubai for a bizarre example of this type of government in action).
The alternative is a government with inadequate resources to assist in even the most basic needs of its citizens. (See any destitute and mismanaged country in the world.)
This is why humans come together in societies, NObama — so we don’t all have to wake up every morning worrying about hunting for our breakfast in the woods.
One would think that conservatives would have a deeper and more significant question to ask about their taxes. Why isn’t that money being spent at home to help me and my family, instead of being funneled by the trillions to a far-off land we keep blowing up, rebuilding, blowing up, rebuilding?
And why are war profiteers like Haliburton and Blackwater swimming around in the money you worked so hard for, while the infrastructure of our own country is going to hell? (See New Orleans; see the Midwest Floods; see our outmoded internet system.)
If you’re so concerned about your tax dollars, why are you not bothered by the palatial US Embassy compound being built in Iraq — while the construction for our soldiers’ barracks is so shoddy they’re getting electrocuted trying to take a shower.
Where is the $8 billion delivered in stacks of cold hard cash on shipping palettes that just vanished into thin air? Nobody knows what happened to it; just up in smoke. Makes the Joker’s mountainous bonfire of a few million look like a backyard barbecue.
Maybe you don’t have kids, NObama, so you don’t worry that every single kid today is being born with a debt of $70,000 on his infant back, thanks to the money being borrowed to spend $430 million per day on the oil-greed war that brought us all these super-low gas prices.
I know it’s old news but the Democrats left this country with billions of dollars in surplus in our treasury. How long will it take to pay off Bush’s war debts, do you think NObama?
Enjoy that paycheck now (while it still exists) and hope that somebody with some fiscal discipline can help avoid the looming Depression your tax-free Republican have orchestrated, squandering America’s wealth for the past 8 years.
Last time i checked, we were all Americans first and foremost. And half the reason this country is in this state is because everyone is more worried about being a Democrat or a Republican than they are about doing what’s best for our country. Instead of sitting here bickering with each other about what to do, why don’t we instead demand that SOMETHING be done, so that we can rise above all the bureautic bullshit and actually make a difference in the world instead of just talking about it.
Sam, I realize you’re probably more than a little slow to understand, but it’s a woman’s right to choose, not the decision of a nosy and self-righteous rightie stooge like yourself. The righties like you truly are sickening, and I’m relieved you only have a few more months left in power, and once Obama gets in you’ll only have the power of a loudmouth chipmunk screaming out to no one in the woods.
There are a bunch of conservatives I respect, but anyone so pathetically brainwashed and soaked in knee-jerk ideology as to support a scumbag, world polluting, war criminal etc, etc, etc like the current President Oil-Whore really is a disgrace to this planet.
Oh, and AWESOME article, Ryan! I like it not only because it’s funny and accurate, but because I know it drives the few neocon bugs around here totally apeshit!
NObama said: “hes giving my money to people who have less. last time i checked, thats communism.”
When did you check? It’s called Socialism. I’m glad I live in a Socialist Finland where everyone is given a chance. With higher taxes we get “free” education and health care and those two things are what matters. Socialism also allows people get rich, so it’s far from Communism.
I pay approx. 20% tax and I don’t think it’s too bad. If I was a millionaire, I would pay 50%. I think it’s only reasonable that rich people pay more and the poor pay nothing.
Great post Ryan. :thumbsup:
Lets just keep political ideals off an oscar predicitions website, Ryan all youve done is cause republicans like NoBama to bitch, liberals like RRA (libertarian, watever) to bitch back at Nobama and all the democrats to gloat like jerks about how amazing this post was. All of you guys need to shut up and leave your political reviews to the forums, create your own topic and duke it out there, away from the oscar stuff. Ryan, you should be ashamed of yourself, leave your political reviews at home and try not to be completely biased unless journalistic integrity holds little weight to your morals
If people choose to bitch about political posts then let them bitch. Who cares? Does it really bother you that much? Scroll on past.
Adding my thumbs up to Ryan’s post. Can I just say, from now on, “yeah, what he said.”
The posts at Awards Daily will stop being political when the Oscars stop being political.
Well said, Pierre.
I smell a plant on this talkback. Shill much, Nobama? “Liberal” press? LOLOLOLOL
I just had to remark upon the utter lack of imagination or creativity that took to come up with the moniker “NObama.” But, hey, I’m all for transparency, so there. lol.
“Ryan all youve done is cause republicans like NoBama to bitch, liberals like RRA (libertarian, watever) to bitch back at Nobama and all the democrats to gloat like jerks about how amazing this post was…”
You forgot one category Tyler – holier than thous like yourself who have zero tolerance for others expressing their political views in a thread that has deliberately invited such discussion.
Great post on the parallels between Bush and Batman, I know that they included some subtle political commentary in the movie. Don’t forget Batman compromising the privacy of the entire population to find the terrorist.
My hunch is that conversations like this one have been had for years. Today, one of the venues simply happens to be online, Internet forums. And they also happen to be occurring in a USA presidential election year. Cheers to that.
My problem with various replies to this particular post is not that they are inaccurate interpretations of the film and/or the director’s vision. That’s not for me to judge, as I am only one viewer. My problem is that the replies are too bloody sensitive and insulting. Many of the replies here are arguments on ideas — even strongly worded ones. Those I like. Many others, unfortunately, insult the authors of other posts (self-righteous, holier than thou, limousine liberal, etc.). Those I don’t like. Not because they lack conviction; they have plenty of that, just like our current President does; just like Ryan Adams does; just like Christopher Nolan does; just like Batman does, etc. Rather, I don’t like the replies that attack authors because those replies don’t advance the dialogue.
For example, right-leaning people who fear heavy government intrusion on lives and liberty, and fear intrusion on more loosely regulated enterprise shouldn’t attempt to silence those who disagree. They should make arguments that disagree and attempt to “win the case”. The left-leaning people who favor government support in order to ensure liberty, despite the limits such regulation places on other liberties, shouldn’t attempt to silence those who disagree. They, too, should make arguments that disagree and attempt to “win the case”. And, as one of those who has read the previous replies, the personal attacks appear to silence. Seriously, not too many political philosophies support silence. People who support one side or one interpretation are no more evolved or aware or intelligent than those who support another side — or even more evolved, aware, or intelligent than those who see a movie and call it, simply that, a movie. Such people are merely different from one another. Zero tolerance is not a good philosophy in the long run and, verly likely, in the short run too. I think the respondents have shown that. I just try to be careful not to engage in zero tolerance to make my arguments. I hope I have succeeded here.
Surely it’s not a surprise that an argument that anchors itself firmly on one side of the political spectrum would find easy and immediate detractors from those who reside on the other side. Right? So why not simply join the fun and add a reply based on observations and visions of art, instead of joining the barrage of negativity to insult the previous respondents directly. We can disagree with a respondent’s viewpoint without denigrating the respondent’s humanity. Right? Perhaps some who have responded to the original post here — and those who have read those responses and might have responded — now realize that anger and insults (to those who have posted, to those who are president, and to those who might be) don’t carry the conversation forward anywhere near as much as a more pure exchange of ideas would. I’m thrilled that we have the dialogues we have today. I love politics and will not reveal my voting tendencies here because they are not necessary for my point.
Art in ALL forms has made commentary on public life for centuries. (Check out Sophocles’ “Antigone” for a phenomenal and timeless example of the tragedy that ensues when two family members with very staunch and opposite viewpoints are unable to see and respect an alternative view. They are products of what they do see — different things even with the same facts in front of them.) We aren’t startlingly new to be drawing the connections from art to politics today. In fact, we are who we are based on our experiences and based on what we see around us; this includes the reaction to and interpretation of art. Cool!
I have always used film to escape maddening reality. But I came to discover a couple decades ago that art is a reflection of artists’ realities. It is also a reflection of viewers’ and participants’ realities. I am thrilled to be a viewer and a participant. Thanks for allowing me to join the fun.
This had me laughing, partly because Rush Limbaugh supposedly spent most of his show yesterday claiming that Batman is made into a George W. Bush allegory.
Sophocles’ Antigone is a timeless masterpiece.
i think it’s incredibly ignorant and simple-minded to suggest that Bush is anything worse than a not-so-smart guy who got saddled with one of the toughest jobs in the world. I mean seriously, do you ppl honestly think the guy is an “evil” war criminal. You can criticize his policies and whatnot (heck I dont agree with most of what he does either), but I cringe at the thought that there are so many people out there that actually believe the guy is a bastard. If he was such a bad person his family would have left him a long time ago.
By the way, if anything, The Dark Knight may actually be a little pro-Bush. Believe it…so was 300.
I think I will stay out of this.
Rob
tony rock, I believe Bush is a “not-so-smart” guy who’s surrounded by people with little regard for international law. Bush may not be “evil” — evilness is not really a prerequisite for being a war criminal — but he’s allowed himself to be manipulated by powerful groups who’ve taken advantage of his ignorance to use him as a puppet to perpetrate criminal acts. And the results have been pretty evil.
The fact that these individuals believe in their agenda doesn’t make their domestic and international crimes any less grave. Don’t most war criminals act within deluded notions of nationalism to justify their crimes?
It’s supposed to be off limits to mention a certain group of fervent nationalists who were “saddled with some of the toughest jobs in the world” in Berlin, Auschwitz and Dachau. (and I’m guessing quite a few of those in charge in 1940′s Germany would fit your cute description as being “not-so-smart”.)
How are the estimated 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths not part of your consciousness and conscience? These are real kids on their way to school, real mothers making dinner, real fathers working as fisherman or taxi drivers, tony rock. They’re dead because of someone’s “not-so-smart” decisions. Does Bush’s stupidity excuse those deaths and make their fate any less horrible that what happened to the Jews in WWII?
But those are not even the “war crimes” in question, tony rock.
We can’t prosecute the Bush administration for 1.2 million murders, but torture is a war crime, and so is the “aggressive invasion of a sovereign nation.”
You say, “If he was such a bad person his family would have left him a long time ago.”
Your opinion of his family’s standards of decency is a lot higher than mine. The Bush dynasty has been “not-so-smart” for generations, and their illustrious history indicates a hereditary inclination toward criminal stupidity:
Thanks Pat, for a very level-headed and well-reasoned comment. You inject a dose of sensitive objectivity into a touchy topic and bring up some excellent points.
One of the first serious articles about movies I ever read examined the political undercurrent running though movies of the early ’70′s (Chinatown, The Godfather I & II). I was just a kid, and a lot what it said was way over my head, but that article had a big impact on my appreciation of what movies are able to do — and what they might be trying to tell us beyond their surface narratives.
Years later, in a Freshman film class, one of our texts was Sigfried Kracauer’s “Caligari to Hilter: A Psychological History of the German Film.” (U. of Princeton Press, 1947)
So I’m totally onboard with you, Pat, when you say, “My hunch is that conversations like this one have been had for years.”
Yesterday, even before you posted, I was digging around trying to find an example of similar discussions about movies that might relate to a Democrat president. In the interest of balance; just trying to be fair. Ran across a set of comparisons which is very much like my own formula for this post. (For the record, I based my construction on a recurring sketch Letterman does, drawing ironic parallels between “this vs. that.”)
So for the conservatives among us, here’s an apparently well-known comparison between Bill Clinton and Titanic.
Aggravates me a little that this one is funnier than what I wrote — but I wasn’t really trying to be funny.
Besides, blowjobs are inherently funnier than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths.
“I cringe at the thought that there are so many people out there that actually believe the guy is a bastard. If he was such a bad person his family would have left him a long time ago.”
They’re… afraid?
Batman: has a black suit
Obama: has a black dad