Power to the People

As much as I weary of continuing to talk about THE DARK KNIGHT, I’m beginning to believe it will be inevitable not to mention it at least once a week until September can arrive and provide me with other distractions.

So I’m sure by now many of you have heard about the fact that iMDB users have voted TDK as their top movie of all time. That’s right folks…forget CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA, or THE GODFATHER. According to the movie geeks at the net’s biggest movie go-to, none of them can hold a candle to a movie that’s a mere ten days old.

I can’t really act surprised, since the internet is filled with geeks on soapboxes wanting to proclaim their opinion to the world (Hi – nice to meet ya). Truth be told, the other four films that make up iMDB’s all-time top five I couldn’t possibly argue against (THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, GODFATHER 1 & 2, and SHAWSHANK). However, I do have a problem with how THE DARK KNIGHT rose to such heights.

According to SlashFilm, over the last few weeks an inordinate amount of iMDB users have been rating THE GODFATHER with an amazingly low score…many of whom have gone so far as to give it a score of “1” as in SHOWGIRLS-shit poor. What bothers me about this, is that when it comes to the law of averages, a score like a “1” is hard to bury.

Think back to your school days…to a course that you usually aced. Did you ever drop the ball and suddenly land yourself a “C”? remember how hard it was to work that off and bring your average back up to an “A”? Right – now imagine trying to bury an “F”.

I’ve been in a voting situation where the average was sunk by someone giving a deliberately low score, and the fact is that it seems mean. As EW wrote this week, it turns the voting process into dumb-ocracy, and belittles the achievement of what the winner accomplishes.

Smarten up TDK fans…this isn’t the way you want to see your film rise the chart.