Gratuitous Heath Ledger/Dark Knight mention: Movie reviewer explains Franken’s campaign troubles

SF Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle, like practically everyone else, gushes over the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, which opens today and seems destined to shatter box-office records and to transform Western culture as we have known it, at least for the weekend.

So how is it we’re managing to shoehorn a reference to the movie into coverage of the Minnesota US Senate race? LaSalle makes it easy:

"The truth is, Ledger’s death was a surprise to everybody, and The Dark Knight neither hints at it nor makes sense of it. Nothing could. [Yes. How true.] But shelve those outsize expectations, and, suddenly, Ledger’s performance opens up. He comes onscreen and electrifies the movie. With his smeared lipstick and painted white face, he is every clown who ever terrified a child. He speaks in a measured, Middle American accent, enunciating his words carefully, a voice that could tell bedtime stories in hell. (He seems, actually, to be imitating Al Franken.) His simplicity is fascinating, and as the movie goes on, that simplicity in itself becomes genuinely frightening."

Every clown who ever terrified a child? Bedtime stories in hell? That’s not exactly how the voter focus groups have put it, but it does seem to comport with the polls.