“It’s a good thing Batman dresses in black,” AP reporter-critic Dave Germain wrote yesterday. “[Because] he could be a popular guy on Hollywood’s black-tie circuit come Academy Awards season.”

Oh, bullshit! I mean, okay, maybe Germain is right but I hate that lead about Batman wearing black, etc. That alone has me almost hoping that The Dark Knight Rises will get shut out of Best Pic competish. Because if it doesn’t get nominated, German can then write, “Gee, Batman had his bat-tux all pressed and waiting at Holloway Cleaners, and now he has nowhere to wear it! Not to mention poor, broken-hearted Chris Nolan!”

“The Dark Knight Rises probably has the best chance ever for a superhero film to rise into the best-picture mix at February’s Oscars,” Germain wrote. “The film is the last in a celebrated trilogy that elevated comic-book movies to operatic proportion, and Hollywood likes sending finales out with a lovely door-prize (Peter Jackson‘s first two Lord of the Rings films were Oscar also-rans before the trilogy’s conclusion won best picture).

“It has the weight and scope — and then some — of 2008’s The Dark Knight, the Batman Begins sequel whose snub in the best-picture field helped prod the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to expand the category to more than five nominees.

“And in the snub department, academy voters are not likely to forget that Batman boss Christopher Nolan, one of modern Hollywood’s true innovators, has yet to be nominated for best director. So there could be an ‘oops, sorry about that’ sheepishness among Oscar types working in both Nolan’s and the film’s favor.”