My wife wanted to go out last night. My choices were taking her some place expensive to eat or a movie. Since I really wasn't in the mood to discuss some minor defect in our relationship over and over again I opted for the movie. I don't see a lot of movies at the theater due to the political correctness of Hollywood. Don't take that the wrong way. I'm not one of those right wingers who don't go see a performer because of their political beliefs. If I were, I would be limited to Ted Nugent and Toby Keith concerts and Tom Selleck movies. I don't like the Dixie Chicks because they are to country music what the Backstreet Boys were to pop: contrived treacle. I generally don't go to movies in the theater because I don't enjoy sitting in a dark room with a bunch of yahoos who haven't figured out how to shut off their cell phones or shut their cake holes for two hours and paying eight bucks for the privilege. If I want to hear commentary along with my movie watching I will find an old episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

A few years back minority pressure groups started to complain whenever members of their group were depicted as the bad guys in movies. So no matter how illogical it might seem if you make a movie about terrorists attacking New York, you better not make the bad guys Arabs. If there is an inner-city drug dealer, he better not be an African-American or Hispanic. Woman's groups and gay organizations also started whining about how they are "stereotyped." It has gotten to the point that whenever you see the straight white guy in a movie you know he's gonna end up being the villain.

But we went to see the new Batman movie The Dark Knight. Inadvertently, my wife got the other thing she wanted because we stopped by the concession stand and got two sodas and a box of popcorn for just $12. I was hoping Dennis Kucinich or Henry Waxman could start an investigation into this senseless price gouging.

The movie was actually pretty good. The cast was top notch and included my old Chicago drinking buddy Ron Dean as a crooked cop. Talk about stereotyping, like every Chicago cop and politician is on the take. Maybe Chicago politicians need an advocacy group to help them clean up their image, if they could only find a clean, well spoken guy from the Windy City to champion their cause. Anyway, the acting was great, there was plenty of blowing up stuff and shooting people. Batman's sidekick was happily absent so the entire homoerotic nuance of the George Clooney-Batman era was gone. The casting director did a great job of finding an actress who looked a lot like Katie Holmes-Cruise to play her part since she was too busy with Scientology to take the job.

Still Hollywood couldn't resist taking a few liberal swipes with references to the Patriot Act and torture. I am about to discuss some of the plot so if you are fussy about that kind of thing stop reading right now. Batman builds this big eavesdropping device and his R and D guy Mr. Fox, played by Morgan Freeman gets all moral even though it ultimately saves the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people and leads to the Joke'rs capture and the end to his reign of terror. Perhaps someone should take Barack to see this. He might get the message about fighting terror or drop out of the presidential race to take that Chicago job.