"Both as Wayne and as super-Wayne he seems indifferent, as the films themselves are, to the activities of little people..."

"... and to the claims of the everyday, preferring to semi-purse his lips, as if preparing to whistle for an errant dog, and stare pensively into the distance. Caped or uncaped, the guy is a bore. He should have kids; that would pull him out of himself. Or else he should hang out with Iron Man and get wasted. He should have fun."

"Batman's Bane," by Anthony Lane. (No Aurora massacre content.)

That link is worth clicking on just to get to the cartoon — a guy in a bar looking into his highball glass says: "I don't know anything about global warming, but these ice cubes are melting like crazy."

By the way, I read a plot summary of "The Dark Knight Rises," because I'm not going to see it — I rarely go to the movies anymore and I experienced the last Batman movie an unpleasant chore (not out of fear of massacre) — and because I wanted to understand the connection to "Occupy Wall Street" politics. Anthony Lane pooh-poohs the connection:

True, we see a handful of rich white men being ejected from fancy apartments, but then the film coughs politely and moves on, as if recalling that nobody is richer or whiter than Bruce Wayne, and that his apartment is, in fact, a castle. Also, the outcome is positively Victorian, in that its dread of disorder far outweighs its relish of liberty uncaged; the throng is faced down and tamed by ranks of growling police officers.

Lane fails to contemplate the possibility that the movie is against the Occupy side. Here's Rush Limbaugh working that theme — Batman is Romney! Batman/Romney is "the rich guy, milquetoast, boring, dull," but if he "puts the uniform back on," he "saves the day."

In fact, the producer -- or the creator, Chuck Dixon -- says that the villain in this movie is almost... I forget his exact words, but he links the villain in this movie to Occupy Wall Street. And yet the Democrats are out there trying to say Bane is Bain. I think this exposes the frailty of their position.

So, as I said, I read the plot summary. It looks incredibly dull and over-complicated when distilled into forthright sentences, but it was all quite meaningless to me. If the film says anything about politics, I'm not going to be the one to figure out what.

***

That's not meant to say anything about the murders, which I don't think should be inflated with political imagination. Let's resist the temptation to say things that might entice delusional people to make the decision to act out. You could suddenly one day be the most famous person on earth, whose face everyone will gaze upon, whose mind everyone will contemplate. You could make the presidential candidates suspend their campaigns and command everyone to pray and pray over the dramatic changes you have made in their puny little world. Let's resist the temptation to create that temptation.