KYLE: If you’re going to talk about roaming away from the herd, Christopher Nolan has to impress you for launching a vigorous, even blatant defense of the Bush administration in an unusually alert and thorny blockbuster, “The Dark Knight.” Batman ends that movie being chased by dogs, which is probably how President Bush will leave the White House. Heath Ledger is going to win the Oscar for reaching into the marrow of the Joker, playing him as an agent of pure, shivery chaos.

LOU: They may nominate him, but do you really think the academy is going to give an award to a deceased druggie? Ledger’s brilliance aside, I think “Dark Knight” is a wildly uneven movie that can just as easily be interpreted as a condemnation of Bush. You also divined a political allegory in “Hancock,” which to me was further evidence of Will Smith’s growing grandiosity. He takes it several steps further as a suicidal savior in “Seven Pounds” (Dec. 19), which I think should be more accurately titled “Seven Hundred Pounds of Schmaltz.” It’s like “Pay It Forward” with organ transplants.

KYLE: To me, “Seven Pounds” is simple but perfect, so classically structured that, except for the modern technology in it, it’s like a redemption fable handed down from the ancients.

LOU’S 10 BEST LIST

1. Slumdog Millionaire

2. Wall-E

3. Milk

4. A Christmas Tale

5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

6. Iron Man

7. Revolutionary Road

8. The Visitor

9. Synecdoche, New York

10. Waltz With Bashir

LOU’S HONORABLE MENTIONS (not ranked)

Frozen River

Frost/Nixon

Gran Torino

Changeling

Happy-Go-Lucky

Man on Wire

Rachel Getting Married

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Trouble The Water

Horton Hears a Who!

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

Religulous

W

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Married Life

We didn’t choose our usual five worst movies this year because this piece was coming just 10 days after my annual Turkey Awards — just in case you were wondering what happened to Steven Soderbergh’s “Che,” which Kyle will be reviewing for Friday.