“Even if you have a long-run deficit problem — and who doesn’t? — slashing spending while the economy is deeply depressed is a self-defeating strategy, because it just deepens the depression.” — from Paul Krugman‘s 3.31.12 N.Y. Times column, titled “The Austerity Agenda.”

I’ve spoken to three persons who attended one of the two screenings yesterday of The Dark Knight Rises in Manhattan. Without being specific or spoilery it seems fair to generally summarize at least some of what they said. So here are the main observations, starting with the most positive and working our way down:

(a) “It’s going to be huge…dramatically and thematically a very powerful film,” says one. “It’s a special kind of blockbuster,” a somewhat younger media guy says. “The Avengers is a joke next to this…I know a good movie when I see one.” Another claims that “it’s better than both of the Joel Schumacher [Batman] films and the two Tim Burton versions put together.”

(b) One responder feels that “the best thing about it are the performances by Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon Levitt.”

(c) The geekboy known as “c*mfckn*w” who tweeted after last Friday night’s junket screening that “if this does not break the mold and win Best Picture, no comic-book movie ever will”…this guy is delusional, I’m told. TDKR will be a box-office behemoth, but like TDK and BB before, it’s just not Best Picture material. Certainly not as the average Academy member defines that term.

(d) It’s strong but quite long, and in one person’s view “not that compelling…there’s a really solid 115 or 120 minute drama with action in there [but Nolan] has made this huge bloated thing that runs two hours and 40 minutes.”

(e) Tom Hardy‘s Bane is an unmistakably strong figure in and of himself, but he’s no match for Heath Ledger‘s Joker. He just doesn’t deliver the same bark and spark that Ledger gave to The Dark Knight.

The rest of the reactions are too spoilery to mention.

The Dark Knight Rises was screened yesterday and last weekend to elite press, and will have its big world premiere screening next Monday while showing earlier that day for second-tier press, followed by an IMAX screening on Tuesday, 7.17. So it’s looksee time all around, and yet Warner Bros. publicity has decided not to show TDKR at Comic-Con 2012, which kicks off tonight in San Diego. I’m told they might be offering some kind of private-screening option to a select few, but there’ll be no big screening in Hall H or anywhere else in San Diego.

I’m the last guy in the world who could relate to average Comic-Coners, but this strikes me as, no offense, a somewhat unfriendly and inconsiderate thing on WB’s part. TDKR is almost certainly going to ring the bell for hardcore Comic-Coners like no other film this year, and it’s being shown left and right in NY and LA and yet WB publicity is blowing them off? The biggest, best-known convention in the world for geekboy fans of comic-book movies and fantasy CG fare? Really?

I realize that TDKR doesn’t “need” to be shown at Comic-Con, as a journalist friend pointed out an hour or two ago, and that director Christopher Nolan feels that he’s operating on a somewhat higher plane than other genre filmmakers, and that he regards TDKR as being a bit more artful and/or metaphorical, or generating greater voltage levels, than the sort of film that is usually hawked at Comic-Con. He’s not a “genre” filmmaker — he’s Chris Nolan, and he wears dark-blue suits and speaks with a British accent. He probably sees himself as a kind of Stanley Kubrick-like figure, and if he does he’s not wrong.

If I was running the WB p.r. campaign I would sit him down and say, “Chris? Like it or not but the ComicCon-ers are this movie’s base, and at the very least it would be good manners to show it to them during Comic-Con 2012. I know we haven’t screened our big Batman movies to them before, but this is the last one and we should this time. They really care, they really believe and while we understand your game and how you see yourself and the film, we still need to pay tribute and respect for the ComicConers. It’s the right gesture, all things considered.”

“Speculation that Katie Holmes was motivated by concerns about her daughter, Suri, being educated by Scientologists and initiated into a secretive group called Sea Org were given credence by the couple’s joint statement, in which they sought to ‘express our respect for each other’s commitment to each of our respective beliefs.'” — — from a 7.11 London Evening Standard piece by Joshi Herrmann.

If true, this strikes me as absolutely vile behavior on Cruise’s part. To expose his daughter to what amounts to a kind of Scientology-flavored Hitler Youth camp, the idea obviously being to indoctrinate children while their minds are soft clay, seems, if true, utterly despicable.

“An insider told celeb news site Radar [that] “Suri isn’t permitted to be exposed to anything Scientology-related, and this includes going to any Scientology churches, parties, etc. Katie made sure this was ironclad.” — also from Herrmann’s piece.

I always thought that this scene — this speech — conveys very succinctly the feeling of being trapped in repetition and regimented banality that leads married guys with a fierce creative bent to go nuts, like a dog in a burning box. What’s worse? Inflicting criticism upon yourself or upon your partner?

It’s a bit odd that Peter O’Toole, 79, announced his retirement from acting today. Isn’t it more or less presumed that an actor’s career slows down considerably and often grinds to a halt when they’re nudging 80 or so? Actors don’t retire — they fade away. Very few go down swinging like the Wild Bunch.

And I’m not sure if running career recap pieces is the right thing as it makes it seem as of those writing these articles now consider O’Toole to be more or less dead and gone. O’Toole should be left alone and treated like a man in good health.

Daniel Espinosa‘s Easy Money (a.k.a. Snabba Cash), a hugely popular Swedish-produced 2010 thriller that Espinosa a gig directing Safe House, finally opens stateside on 7.11, 18 months after it opened in Sweden. No more screenings or screeners — I’ll have to watch this one on the Mac also. Only 60% of Rotten Tomatoes…has to be better than that. Reactions?

18 or 19 months after opening in Denmark, Mikkel Norgaard‘s Klown will open theatrically and VOD via Drafthouse on 7.27. I missed the 6.27 L.A. press day so they’re sending me a link and a password so I can watch it with headphones on the iMac or Macbook Pro. The Todd Phillips-Danny McBride remake will probably emerge next summer, I’m guessing. Reactions so far from the HE regulars…?

Three or four hours ago it was announced that Sean Durkin‘s Joplin, about the last six months in the life of tragic-iconic rock-blues singer Janis Joplin, will star Tony-winning actress Nina Arianda (Venus in Furs). Her Ukranian heritage doesn’t allow for much resemblance, but Arianda, 26, has the emotionality and, one hears, the pipes. Durkin’s most recent film is Martha Marcy May Marlene. One presumes he’ll try to create a Joplin biopic that doesn’t feel like a “Joplin biopic.”

My Masters of Cinema Region 2 Bluray of Double Indemnity arrived yesterday afternoon. I popped it in and immediately noticed that it looked pretty good and very much like “film”, which is fine, but not what anyone or his brother or cousin would call dazzling. It looked as good as it could, I suppose, but not that much better than it did on DVD six or even fourteen years ago. I went right to my favorite scene:

PHYLLIS: You’re a smart insurance man, aren’t you, Mr. Neff?

NEFF: I’ve had eleven years of it. That and the extermination business.

PHYLLIS: Extermination?

NEFF: Neff’s Digital Mosquito Removal. Started it a couple of years ago.

PHYLLIS: Doesn’t insurance keep you pretty busy?

NEFF: Yeah, but there’s a need for both, and I’m good at both. Everybody needs insurance and…well, look around us right now, right here in this living room. You and I are covered under billions of digital mosquitoes. I love that anklet, Mrs. Dietrichson, and I love that towel you were wearing a few minutes ago, but I also like clean air. I like to see things plain. I don’t think it’s all that attractive to live in the middle of an Egyptian mosquito swarm 24/7. And I don’t like that weird feeling of mosquitoes in my lungs every time I take a breath. How ’bout yourself?

PHYLLIS: You’re saying I have a choice?

NEFF: You bet you have a choice.

PHYLLIS: You can get rid of them entirely?

NEFF: No, not entirely. Mosquitoes are the basic molecules of grain, and grain is what we’re made of. It’s what keeps us together, gives us unity and cohesion. But it has to be kept in check. I’m not talking about killing all the mosquitoes but a significant percentage of them. So they wouldn’t feel so oppressive. So we could clear the air a bit.

PHYLLIS: How would it work?

NEFF: Three visits, $25 a shot. We come in here with our special vacuum cleaners and suck up the mosquitoes. And then two more times to make sure they’re gone. Or all but gone, I should say.

PHYLLIS: So $75 then?

NEFF: Except you’d get a discount, of course.

PHYLLIS: A discount?

NEFF: That’s right. (Two beats.) You know what I mean.

PHYLLIS: Then I’d say we have something to talk about, Mr. Neff.

She sits down again, in the same position as before.

NEFF: I wish you’d tell me what’s engraved on that anklet.

PHYLLIS: Just my name.

NEFF: As for instance?

PHYLLIS: Phyllis.

NEFF: Phyllis. I think I like that.

PHYLLIS: But you’re not sure?

NEFF: I’d have to drive it around the block a couple of times.

PHYLLIS: (Standing again) Mr. Neff, why don’t you drop by tomorrow evening about eight- thirty. He’ll be in then.

NEFF: Who?

PHYLLIS: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren’t you?

NEFF: Sure, only I’m getting over it a little. If you know what I mean.

PHYLLIS: There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.

NEFF: How fast was I going, officer?

PHYLLIS: I’d say about ninety.

NEFF: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.

PHYLLIS: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time?

NEFF: Suppose it doesn’t take?

PHYLLIS: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles?

NEFF: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder?

PHYLLIS: Suppose you try putting it on my husband’s shoulder?

NEFF: That tears it.

This morning Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg and I kicked it around. I talked about The Amazing Spider-Man, and Contrino talked about Spider-Man numbers. We talked about Beasts of the Southern Wild, and then we finished off with some Best Picture spitballing. Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link.