Their exploits were as black as sky-kissed crude showering down on the souls of harsh labourers who know nothing beyond their own mean sensory needs; as dark as leathery wings set against the midnight sky of a foul and stinking city rotten with crime. They were men of strong liqour and sharp edges; men who walked with purpose and furrowed brow; men grappling with righteousness in the dirt of humanity's soul, with lost, bright eyes glaring out into impenetrable doom.

One was an oil man. The other was Batman.

On Friday night we screened There Will Be Blood and The Dark Knight (in that order), something I've wanted to do since July and maybe since the day I was born. The results were mixed. While the company was excellent and the egg nog milkshakes were divine, the collision needed to be more seamless and I think the pairing probably required some discussion questions, perhaps in a little booklet, to be handed out. (Is the oil fire sequence in There Will Be Blood a September 11th touchstone, and if so are the two halves of the film, before and after, comments on the then-and-now states of America, and if so what is the significance of the image of the flaming eye?) I wanted to introduce Daniel Plainview to the Joker and see them move in a straight line - they share the same theme music, after all, and glare at one another from separate corners of the emotional and moral void of post-apocalyptic America - plus, I really wanted to sink into those thick blu-ray images. The blizzard outside was a good idea. But starting two two-and-a-half-hour movies back-to-back at nearly 9:00 robs the evening of a certain frisson. And starting with TWBB, though deliberate, is a little like what the Joker says about starting with the head - makes the victim all "fuzzy."

Next time.

Yesterday Sarafina and I went shopping on the busiest shopping day of the year, which was exhausting but surprisingly enjoyable. We found a Chairman Mao alarm clock that we could have had for peanuts, and enjoyed samples of a rather amazing vodka at the LCBO. (This is a thing now? Handing out free vodka in the middle of a Saturday afternoon? Our world is improving.) After mooning over a blu-ray copy of When We Left Earth at HMV and looking at more pairs of earrings than I know what to do with, all of my Christmas shopping is actually, really, genuinely complete. Nothing left now but to take the orphans to breakfast on the 24th, attempt to devise a gluten-free cheetsa recipe once I've made the regular version with my mom, and watch sixty movies on Boxing Day starting with Superman II. I wish the snow would stay. I am feeling snuggled.