Regarding Things

Time magazine blew it. Big time.

I’m looking over Time’s “Best of Everything 2008″ issue. They have a lot of neat lists, and it is all interesting and I like lists and who doesn’t like lists and I am enjoying myself. I begin reading the Best Movies of ‘08 and am thinking it’s pretty legit. Then I get to number eight: Iron Man.

“Yeah,” I think, “Iron Man was a good movie.” But wait. What about Batman? What about The Dark Knight? Surely, they could not have overlooked the block buster powerhouse film. Ah, of course, they must have been weird and put it below Iron Man in spot nine or ten.

9. Speed Racer

What? No. I mean. Seriously, how big a bribe did it take to get Speed Racer even on this list. Especially if The Dark Knight was completely excluded?

Let me back up a bit. I’m not a fanboy here, complaining about my feelings getting hurt by some magazine not picking my favorite cosplay subject. I am a future journalist legitimately concerned that one of the largest magazines in circulation is, a bastion of the magazine world, has so severely bungled a simple movie list.

My I direct your attention to this piece about Knight:

1. THE DARK KNIGHT

The best superhero movie ever. It’s crowned by Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, but Christian Bale makes a great Batman, delivering a performance where dignity and despair are in perfect sync. The supporting cast (especially Michael Caine as Alfred) is wonderful. This is to cape-and-tights movies what Godfather II was to the gangster movie: a genre-defining event.

You know who said that? Stephen King. I don’t care what you think of King, the man knows good story-telling when he sees it. (Just ask the 300 million or so books he has sold.) And that one? Yeah, that is a “1.” for the top of King’s movies of 2008 list.

He wasn’t alone, Lisa Schwarzbaum and Owen Gleiberman, the Entertainment Weekly movie reviewers put The Dark Knight as second and third on their own lists respectively. You know what wasn’t on any of these people’s lists? Neither Iron Man nor Speed Racer.

I am sure that Entertainment Weekly was not alone in its glowing praise of Knight. However I am too lazy to go find more examples.

I’m not saying Iron Man was bad. But, um, who thinks that it was better than The Dark Knight? In fact, who thinks Iron Man could even exist if it weren’t for Knight’s predecessor, Batman Begins? Or what if I phrased it this way: Robert Downey Jr. or Heath Ledger?

It is not as if they thought to avoid putting superhero movies into the list. No, instead they put a good superhero movie on the list and ignored “the best superhero movie ever.”I just don’t know if I can trust the cultural judgment of a publication that overlooks something like that. If they can’t get this close to right, how can they get foreign policy coverage right? How can they give good analysis of economic trends or political movements?

I guess I might be getting myself into a tizzy over something small. I need to step back and ask myself: Why so serious?