Look, I thought The Dark Knight had a lot of strong selling points: Combine a deft pace with thoughtful characterizations and a whopping IMAX design that turns the entire experience into a plot-driven theme park ride, and you've got one hefty dose of Batman adrenaline.

Still, comparisons to The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn't foolproof -- in fact, no single movie in history is foolproof. The subjective experience of movie watching ensures that nothing can be universally liked by everyone, and rules of civility insist that humanity respect that truism. It's acceptable to feel passionately about a great work of art, and defend that perspective with rigorous argumentation, but much of the outrage over the minority perspective that The Dark Knight isn't any good has made such practical thinking impossible.

Deemed the first critic to pan the movie, New York's David Edelstein went out of his way to list the allegations against him sent along by various Batman fans. The House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, meanwhile, fielded over a hundred rants in the comments section following his astute critique of director Christopher Nolan's questionable portrayals of violence. What's particularly shocking about this frightful deluge of negative responses is that many of these people began posting their disapproval before they even saw the movie.

What can you expect from the MPAA when you make a movie with "some some graphic sexuality"? Yup, the kiss of death. Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno has been slapped with a rating of NC-17 by the MPAA, according to a list posted today by The Hollywood Reporter.

The rating was posted on the MPAA film ratings site at least as early as last Saturday, but News Askew noted that it was marked as "pending appeal" and had received the rating for "some graphic sexuality." I just checked the MPAA's site, and now the film doesn't show up at all. What happened? Was the appeal lost? Will cuts be made to secure the R rating? Who made the "some some" typo -- the MPAA or THR?

The ratings tussle is not entirely unexpected. Seth Rogen complained about the MPAA last month because of the film's difficulty in securing an R rating, and Smith took down a raunchy online-only teaser until the MPAA approved it. I would imagine that Smith is contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated version, but I wonder what nightmares he faces to please the MPAA?

As it happens, Smith will appear at Comic Con on Friday evening to talk about his film, and I'm sure he'll have something to say about the rating. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is still due to hit theaters on October 31.

We've had the racy private photos, then the controversial Vanity Fair shoot, then wishes for a new Sex and the City. Now, Miley Cyrus' name is being attached to yet another racy-themed gig. According to MSNBC, sources are buzzing and rumors are mounting about a new project for the itching-to-age actress -- one that's making the whole racy mag shoot seem like a stepping stone into adult work.

Rumor has it that she's interested in starring in a big-screen adaptation of the annoyingly spelled Undiscovered Gyrl, a novel by Allison Burnett that is currently being shopped around. The novel is a blog from a suburban girl "who descends into a life of reckless partying and promiscuity," and there would definitely be nude scenes. Charming. Chances are, this is a buzz-generator for the book, but it could also be a buzz generator for Cyrus. Even if she doesn't take on this gig, she's getting lots of mileage out of the "Miley wants to grow up" rumor mill.

But really, if she wants to break out of the tween girl persona, the best bet is not raciness and a Britney Spears life path, but rather a few good films that give her some drama, or smarts, at her own age. You can break out of family fare without stripping and showing off the merchandise.

Whenever a good idea comes along, it doesn't take much time for people to claim they thought it up first. That seems to be the case with Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, the Joss Whedon-created miniseries that streamed online last weekend and is now available on iTunes. Spout reports that legions of commenters calling themselves the Army of Toy Soldiers have been pummeling the site with complaints that Dr. Horrible is a direct rip-off of Dr. Steel, an online show that's several years the senior of Whedon's program. Wired spoke to Dr. Horrible co-writer Mauria Tancharoen, who said they've never heard of Dr. Steel, but don't mind that it exists. The Toy Soldiers, however, appear to be gearing up for a confrontation, possibly one that will go down this week at Comic Con.

Whatever. Dr. Steel offers plenty of entertainment value in its own right, and it does feature a maniacal supervillain with a catchy singing voice (see above). But it also contains more razzle-dazzle weirdness than plot, and Dr. Horrible is pretty much a straightforward narrative. One Toy Soldier member has argued that if they don't speak out, their silence will imply that Dr. Steel stole its concept from Dr. Horrible. That logic holds up -- but either way, we're dealing with two very separate programs here. If anything, the immediate exposure of Dr. Horrible can only help Dr. Steel gain more attention. Once noticed, people should be able to tell the difference.

Update #2: People.com says that Bale has been released this afternoon, and will return to the station in September.

Update: Christian Bale was arrested earlier today on allegations of assault. No, Batman. Bad Batman. Not when you do $158 million on opening weekend, Batman!

We try not to dwell on the tabloid fodder here at Cinematical, but considering the nature of the story and, more importantly, who's involved, this is a tough news nugget to let slip by.

According to the Associated Press, Christian Bale has been accused of assault by his own mother and sister just before the European premiere of the record-breaking The Dark Knight. Bale allegedly assaulted them at a London hotel on Sunday, and while the allegations were formally made on Monday, Bale was not taken in for questioning until Tuesday -- which leads some to theorize that the premiere was to proceed without interruption.

Naturally, Bale's various representatives are refusing to return calls at the moment, and while I have little doubt that Bale won't be charged, I also can't help but think that two members of his family would even suggest as much were there not an incident of some sort. What do you guys think?

First, he gets a mainstream comic actor to act in a contemplative art house narrative with Punch-Drunk Love. Now, he's putting two of them on a stage. According to cigarettes and red vines, Paul Thomas Anderson has written and directed a play in Los Angeles with Saturday Night Live stars Maya Rudolph (Anderson's partner) and Fred Armisen. It premieres at the Largo on August 5, but specific details about plot remain unrevealed. Still, the prospects of seeing Anderson's eerily detached style in a live performance are intriguing, to say the least. As Slashfilm points out, the production has a few logical attachments to the filmmaker's past: Anderson directed a short film for SNL back in 2000, and Rudolph starred in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, which Anderson may or may not have ghost-directed in parts.

Now that Anderson has proven he can craft epic period pieces of the raunchy (Boogie Nights) and morose (There Will Be Blood) kind, he's reached a point where audiences will basically allow him to take them wherever he wants to go. The dynamics of the stage, however, differ greatly from those of the cinema. Since the name and subject matter are a mystery, there's a lot left to the imagination. Will Anderson allow Rudolph and Armisen to unleash their comic potential? Or is that a milkshake I hear brewing?

There has been talk of a sequel to Boondock Saints since 2002. But if Troy Duffy is to be believed, it's going to actually start filming this August. This past St. Patrick's Day Duffy claimed, via his YouTube account, that Boondock Saints: All Saints Day had been given a green light by Sony. The video was removed within hours, and the news was never confirmed elsewhere.

But Duffy isn't daunted. He gave a long interview to Washington D.C.'s WJFK insisting that, barring a SAG strike, filming would indeed begin in August. He actually gave away the entire plot, so no one actually needs to go see it should it actually be made. The film will find the brothers in retirement in Ireland, living off the land, until a priest is murdered in Boston. They're framed for the murder, and they quickly fly off to America to seek retribution. Lest you think it's all wishful thinking on the part of Duffy, Geeks of Doom got their hands on the first production diary.

I'm still very skeptical this will actually be made -- and if it is, that it will be anything other than a direct to DVD thing. Between litigation and a bad reputation, I have a hard time believing any studio is really willing to back Duffy at this point. And while it's a fun movie, hasn't the time for a sequel come and gone? Even the Hot Topic t-shirt revival is over. What about the plot? After all the events in the first film, would the MacManus brothers really up and retire to Ireland to live off the land? Feel free to answer all or none of these questions, my readers.

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Death is the ultimate dramatic device, but great art doesn't emerge from strong devices alone. In Take, the directorial debut of Charles Oliver, the impact of a single, startling tragic death immediately conveys the sense of watching a gravely serious movie, which is definitely the case. However, having immediately provided a tone, Oliver fails to follow up with a story powerful enough to justify it. That's not to say that the experience Ana (Minnie Driver) goes through after her son dies in a freak accident before the start of the film isn't relentlessly bleak, but there's hardly anything distinctive about the circumstances to make viewers care any more than they would if they were glancing at it in the morning headlines.

Still, Olilver has made a quietly observant work solely driven by the specific needs of two downtrodden protagonists with completely believable motives. In flashback, we learn that Ana struggled with her son's elementary school, which wants to put him in a special needs program. Meanwhile, she has a hard time communicating with her husband and finding decent work to get by. Elsewhere, reckless gambling addict Saul (Jeremy Renner) destroys his life in a whirlwind of debt. His misfortune, as it's shown in early scenes at a prison where Saul awaits execution, will lead him to accidentally murder Ana's innocent child, Jesse (Bobby Coleman).

When you see the words "performance artist" in a news article, you can almost bet the words "publicity stunt" will soon follow, and I believe that's what we have here. A Beijing artist named Zhao Bandi, who uses images of pandas in all his work and walks around all the time carrying a stuffed panda, is suing DreamWorks over its offensive depiction of the animal -- the Chinese national symbol -- in the recent animated hit Kung Fu Panda.

The film has been successful in China, too -- or, as Variety puts it, "has done boffo B.O." -- which suggests the average Chinese citizen doesn't find it insulting. But Zhao says differently. His two major points of contention? First, Po, the panda voiced by Jack Black who is the film's protagonist, has green eyes, and green is the color of evil. (I have zoomed in on the eyes in the picture so you can see for yourself how evil they are.) Second, Po's father in the film is not another panda but a duck. (Well, Zhao says he's a duck. I thought he was a goose. If I'm right, will that technicality invalidate the lawsuit?)

Variety quotes Zhao as demanding to see DreamWorks' "creative meeting records" to explain Po's green eyes, which he insists must be a "conspiracy." As for the duck issue, Zhao says this: "Drawing the father of the giant panda as a duck is an insult to the Chinese people. In a few years time, I'm worried some young Chinese people will think their ancestor is Donald Duck." I confess I don't see why thinking you descended from a duck is any worse than thinking you descended from a panda, but my knowledge of Chinese culture is somewhat limited.

Sometimes a movie's concept tells you everything you need to know about it. Other times you hear one and go "well, that's kind of weird -- I wonder what they'll make of this." Surprisingly, Will Ferrell's latest project fits into the latter category. It's a dramedy called Two Face, written by X-Files vet Vince Gilligan, who also had a hand in the Hancock screenplay. The pitch: Ferrell will play a virulent racist who develops a split personality after an accident, and his alter ego turns out to be a bleeding-heart liberal.

I think the success of this concept depends on how frankly they're willing to approach the racism angle. Obviously there are certain things you're not supposed to say even in unflattering portrayals of racist characters, and certain things that Will Ferrell probably doesn't want to say for the sake of his career. (Side note: I find it a bit curious that period movies can get away with patently offensive displays of racism while movies set in the present tend to shy away, as if we're all pretending that we've solved the racism problem. Any counterexamples? Monster's Ball, maybe.) There's a lot of potential for trenchant satire in something like this, and a lot of potential to make something anodyne and boring, too.

No word on what comes first, this or Sherlock Holmes.