John Blake and Miranda Tate – Who are they, really?

Interesting article on The Dark Knight Rises in LA Times. This is the most intriguing part:

Entire essays have been written about the big-picture possibilities of Gotham cop John Blake (Levitt) and Miranda Tate (Cotillard) and they may actually be on the right track; again and again on the set those characters were conspicuously avoided conversation topics.

I wonder how strongly the studio pushed for 3D?  And I had no idea how all-encompassing digital shooting has become. At some point, manufacturers will stop making film stock if most people are not using them, right? What will Nolan do then?

The 41-year-old filmmaker is defiantly old school — not only did Warner Bros. fail in a push to close out the franchise with a 3-D release (as “Harry Potter” did) but here in the digital summer of 2012 the Batman movie is the only major popcorn project that was shot on film stock.

On the secrecy aspect:

Even Bale, an actor of austere intensity who has a low tolerance for Hollywood hype, said there’s been a special aura about this project since Day One. “I remember when I first read the script, of course it was all top secret,” Bale said during a break in the shoot. “I went round by Chris’ house, was shut in the room with the script — not allowed to leave with it — and it hit me that this was the last one. What Chris couldn’t believe was how slow I read because I go back and re-read until I have it all in my mind. I was in there six or seven hours. It was dark when I came out. And I was smiling.”

TDKR Stuff

Are people seriously discussing whether The Avengers will be a more memorable movie and/or will make more money than The Dark Knight Rises? Come on!! I love campy fun light superhero movies, but let’s get real here, how many people will actually remember what happens in The Avengers a year from now? The Iron Man movies were great fun, but I couldn’t tell you now what happened in them if my life depended on it. Chris Nolan’s movies are sometimes too humorless and cold for my taste (and enough dead wife/girlfriend already, Nolan!), but they’re always great fodder for in-depth discussions, and you remember them afterwards, even years later. On the box-office question, I’m still convinced TDKR has the edge, if only because of repeat viewings. The Avengers is not the kind of movie people go to see more than once (except for the most dedicated fanboys, I guess). Of course The Avengers is the one getting the most attention now, and people are “more excited about it compared to The Dark Knight Rises” etc etc, it’s opening really soon (in fact already opened in some countries), TDKR won’t be out till the end of July.

Apparently there’s a scene of Bruce Wayne kissing Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) in the footage screened for theater owners earlier this week. Uh oh! Look out, Miranda Tate, you’re not long for this world! Let’s see the track record – Memento (dead wife), Batman Begins (dead mother), The Prestige (TWO dead wives), The Dark Knight (dead girlfriend), Inception (dead wife). I don’t think the studio will let Nolan kill off Catwoman, so Miranda Tate (or whoever she really is, hehe) better watch out. Wouldn’t it be great if it turns out Tate is the real mastermind behind the whole Gotham takeover thingy? And Bane is just the frontman. Hubby hates this idea because it smacks of Batman Begins re-run (the whole Ducard/Ra’s al Ghul twist), but I think Nolan is capable of making it work in a different, more interesting way. Plus, I really, really don’t want to see Marion Cotillard reduced to playing the incidental love interest.

Texts from Catwoman

Well of course! That Catwoman stealing from a safe photo is just screaming for a meme. From the awesome site http://catwoman-cattales.com/gallery/texts-from-catwoman/:

Click for more Texts from Catwoman

Click for more Texts from Catwoman

And this one is from yours truly:

New Images from The Dark Knight Rises

From Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Review Issue.

Joseph Gordon Levitt as John Blake. Who is he, really?

Catwoman breaking into a safe. Cat burglar!

Dance the night away.

Nice dressing gown, Bruce!

Bane, doing something evil.

Link: http://www.examiner.com/pop-culture-in-oklahoma-city/bane-plots-while-catwoman-breaks-into-a-safe-new-dark-knight-rises-images

Summer of Superheroes

It’s Batman versus Spiderman versus The Avengers this summer. I was pretty certain The Dark Knight Rises would win this battle easily (dollar-wise), but the buzz for The Avengers seems pretty strong lately. The sheer number of characters in The Avengers can cut both ways – either it would attract more audience (hey, if you’re not a fan of Iron Man, there’s always Captain America, or Hulk, or Thor), or some people might be turned off by the shorter screentime for their favorite character. I don’t think The Amazing Spider-Man really stands a chance. From the trailer, it’s looking like a moody, angst-ridden high school movie. That’s what the Twilight movies are for, right? I’m not really interested in teenage angst in my superhero movies, thank you very much! And the tone seems uneven as well, the trailer starts off serious and moody, but then goes almost fun and games at the fairground. I’m thinking that it would be better to commit one way or the other. Either go full-on dark and disturbing like Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, or keep it light, fun and with a sense of levity, like the Iron Man movies.

The Avengers (opens May 4th in the US)

The Amazing Spider-Man (opens July 3rd in the US)

The Dark Knight Rises (opens July 20th in the US)

Another movie I’m really looking forward to is The Hobbit. I missed the trailer when it came out, but it looks awesome! But hey, wait, don’t try to distract me with Martin Freeman and the pretty, pretty shire – what the heck is Galadriel doing touching Gandalf’s hair and exchanging meaningful glances with him??!! Where did this come from?

 

“I can just go running off into the blue. I am a Baggins of Bag End”.

Hey, it’s that guy from Spooks (Richard Armitage) as Thorin.

But seriously, if I had not check the cast list, I probably wouldn’t have recognized him. Here’s Armitage as MI5 officer Lucas North in Spooks (no, not the older gentleman, the other one, heh).

New Photos from The Dark Knight Rises in Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly has Batman on the cover. In January, for a movie that won’t be out until July? Seems to early, but hey, what do I know, I’m sure the marketing people have done their research.

The cover photo. The Batsuit looks really weird in this picture, so fake, like it’s photoshopped.

I love the way the Batsuit looks here. Is it the lighting, or does he have another suit in blue??

Christian Bale and the Batsuit.

Commissioner Gordon.

Bane. Tom Hardy must be under a lot of pressure, after how well the late Heath Ledger did as The Joker in The Dark Knight Rises, there will be comparisons, even though Bane and The Joker are completely different characters.

Bane and Batman. Hey, this looks pretty tame!

Related articles: http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog/2012/1/12/five-new-photos-from-the-dark-knight-rises.html

                        http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20483133_20560756,00.html

The Dark Knight Rises Spoiler

If you’re trying to stay spoiler-free about The Dark Knight Rises, now is a good time to stop reading. This post contains spoiler about a scene in the movie.

So at some point in the movie, Bruce Wayne apparently becomes Bane’s prisoner,  and Catwoman is either working for Bane or pretending that she’s working for Bane to rescue Wayne. Not sure whether Bruce Wayne is in Bane’s captivity because Bane knows he’s Batman, or because he’s rich-guy-billionaire Bruce Wayne. The description of the scene from LA Times Hero Complex Blog:

Gotham City is a war zone. A ruthless madman named Bane has ripped away any sense of security and the citizens, haggard and clutching suitcases with refugee anxiety, sit behind barbed wire waiting to see what will blow up next. A hooded prisoner is dragged in – it’s Bruce Wayne, one of Gotham’s most famous faces – but the eyes of the crowd go instead to the woman in black standing at the top of the staircase.

“Sorry to spoil things, boys, but Bane needs these guys himself,” says sultry Selina Kyle, played here by actress Anne Hathaway, navigating the steps with stiletto heels that, on closer inspection, turn out to have serrated edges capable of leaving nasty claw marks in a fight. She also wears high-tech goggles that, when not in use, flip up and resemble feline ears.

I guess this explains the scene in the trailer when Bruce Wayne was shown bearded and unshaven, asking someone (is that Alfred? Have they captured Alfred, too?)  what the others were chanting. I thought that scene is a flashback to when he was training with The League of Shadows.

The article is actually about Anne Hathaway and her thoughts about playing Selina Kyle/Catwoman. The spoiler-laden scene description is just the opening. Definitely worth reading in full. 

Link: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/12/29/dark-knight-rises-star-anne-hathaway-gotham-city-is-full-of-grace/

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer and Poster

“There’s a storm coming, Mr Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”

I’m trying to stay spoiler-free as much as possible about The Dark Knight Rises, so I wasn’t really interested to know anything about the prologue attached to Mission Impossible. But then I found out that Aidan “Carcetti/Littlefinger” Gillen is in the prologue! Well, there goes my resolve. No Aidan Gillen in the trailer, but it looks amazing nonetheless, especially the Selina Kyle/Catwoman part. Shades of Occupy Wall Street and 99 Percent Movement, no? Does that make Bruce Wayne the Jamie Dimon of Gotham? But Chris Nolan and his brother must have been working on the script before Occupy Wall Street happened. Probably just a coincidence, or maybe they tweaked the script.

I’ve read some interpretations of this poster that Nolan is going to kill Batman. Nahh, I don’t think so, no matter how influential and powerful a director Chris Nolan is, Warner Bros. is not going to let him kill the golden goose franchise. Nolan’s Batman trilogy might be over with TDKR, but of course WB will revive it with some other director, probably pretty soon, too. Batman’s life is safe, I’m quite sure.

Mark Kermode and The Dark Knight

I’m not really a fan of the ferry scene in The Dark Knight, like BBC film crtitic Mark Kermode, I think the movie ends up having one moral dilemma too many (give up Batman or The Joker will start killing people, choose whether to save the woman you love or the person who can clean up Gotham, and on and on). But Kermode’s other criticism of the ferry scene is that it doesn’t make sense from logical stand-point. According to him, the mother who has her children with her on board the civilian’s ferry would definitely have snatched the detonator and blown the prisoner’s ferry, to save her children. “I’ll go to hell for this, but that’s fine, as long as my kids are saved.”

Setting aside the moral/ethical question of essentially committing mass murder to save your children, I wonder if the reason people on the civilian’s ferry hesitated is that they don’t trust The Joker – what if they push the detonator, and boomm, it’s their boat that ends up blowing up? The Joker did pull the bait-and-switch during the “save Rachel or Harvey Dent” dilemma.

I never thought a movie review can be more entertaining that the movie itself, but in Kermode’s case, that’s usually true. He’s at his best when he absolutely hates a movie – his rants are awesome!! (He actually liked The Dark Knight, except for his reservation about too many moral dilemma, and how it’s not better than Batman Begins). My favorite is this Sex and the City 2 review. I mean, how many movie reviews use phrases such as “corpulent filthy lucre”, “imperialist American pig dog of the highest order”?

He can be very frustrating sometimes – I think he’s too prejudiced against romantic comedy in general, and he thinks The Exorcist is the greatest movie of all time (uhhh, don’t think so). You can download his movie review podcasts here. But most of his reviews are also on youtube through the BBC official channel here, so it’s not against copyright or anything.