As those who've been reading in the Dark Knight Rises thread know:

The Dark Knight

Still seems confused to me, and the more I think about it, less like Batman.

2.5 balls out of 4 hockey pads.

Mask of the Phantasm

Just felt like I needed to rinse my mouth out. Or something like that. Harmed only by its initial direct-to-video origins and time constraints, MOTP is one of the two complete Batman films, the other being Returns. Here every shot is telling a story while being extremely creative with the composition. Though one could argue that this is merely an expansion of an episode from the already mind-blowing Animated series, it isn't. (Subzero is however.) The story is rather simple and though the plot twist is visible early on, the sheer amount of subtext is fascinating. There is a reason why you can watch this little animated movie dozens of times and not be bored. Like Returns, you sit in the dark and can just drink it all in, wallowing in the thematic sorrows of the winged avenger.

And the Technicolor printing adds hues never seen on the TV screen, further separating this from the series.

I've never realized how shoddy the DVD is however. The full-frame version seems more of an open matte, revealing more image on the top and bottom but losing on the sides. The 35mm grain was heavily magnified in the transfer, and I'd be surprised if this wasn't simply the 90's LD master simply ported over. But it's got a freaking great Dolby Stereo surround track. I think this film is the reason why I still love Dolby Stereo to this day. This movie was my first theatrical Batman experience, and I much later realized that I saw it in one of the big state of the art THX built theaters. Talk about overwhelming to a 3 year old. Inside it was cold, dark, empty-much like the Batcave.

4 balls out of 4 dense long-chained macromolecular polymers.