Joblo.com alerted us that Warner Bros. has launched the teaser site for The Dark Knight which is the sequel to Batman Begins. Critics and audiences alike fully embraced this re-imagining of Batman, and anticipation of the sequel is growing. As Joblo pointed out, one thing that is really cool about The Dark Knight is that Warner Bros. is keeping to the script’s title and not throwing Batman anywhere in there.

The only thing known about the story is that The Joker will be the main villain and Harvey Dent is being introduced. Harvey Dent is the Gotham City District Attorney who had half of his face horribly disfigured when a crime boss he was prosecuting, Sal Maroni, threw acid on him. The mental anguish of his disfiguring created the split personality of Two-Face who became one of Batman’s greatest enemies. At this point, it is all speculation whether Dent will become Two-Face in The Dark Knight. He could be set up for the next film.

With Christian Bale returning as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Heath Ledger as The Joker, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, and all of the other minor characters/actors (except Katie Holmes who was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal) from Batman Begins also returning it is pretty much a guarantee that the acting in this film will be top notch. Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan and writer David S. Goyer also return, so my expectations of this sequel are pretty high. July 18th of next summer is the release date. I’ll keep you posted on any new info as it comes out.

Read Joblo.com’s take on the Dark Knight logo here.
Read the history of Batman here.
Read the history of The Joker here.
Read the history of Two-Face here.

It has been three years since filmmaker Michael Moore pissed off a large part of Washington, DC (mainly George Bush supporters) with his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Now he’s back with his latest documentary, Sicko, and guess what? He’s pissing off people in Washington, DC again. This time, though, the only pissed off people are those in the Bush Administration and pharmaceutical industry.

Sicko is a close examination of this country’s health care system and industry. The Weinstein Co. is releasing the film and says that while Fahrenheit 9/11 divided a lot people along political lines, Sicko is actually uniting them. Well, everyone except for Bush supporters which there aren’t many of these days. Sicko has been shown to Republicans and Democrats alike with a positive response coming from both sides. The big hub-bub about the film right now doesn’t actually have anything to do with what’s in the film. The controversy is about Moore taking ten ill 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba for medical treatment this past March. Moore claims the Bush administration’s healthcare policies have left these people and more completely on their own to deal with illnesses related to their rescue works on September 11, 2001. The White House is saying Moore violated the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. Since Moore fully acknowledges he took the ten rescue workers to Cuba, well, there isn’t much to argue. Moore does say the administration knew of his plans to do this way back in of October of 2006, and questioned the timing of the investigation being raised nearly two months after he went since Sicko is set to premier at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19th.

My opinion is that this is just another example of the poor decisions constantly being made in the White House. If they don’t want anyone to go see Moore’s film, then they should just not even say a word about it or Michael Moore. Before Fahrenheit 9/11 was released and the general public even knew what it was about, the administration raised all kind of hell about it in the media. That only raised public awareness and discussion of the documentary, made it the all-time top-grossing documentary ever at $119 million, and won it the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. This is going to do the same for Sicko. Moviegoers only had Spider-Man, Pirates, and Shrek movies on their mind before this. Now, you can bet Sicko will make a healthy run at the box office this summer. I had planned to see it anyway when it’s released on June 29th. I’m sure a lot more people will now, too.

Read more about this at MSN.com.
Read Michael Moore’s open lettered response to the White House here.
Read about Sicko here.
Read about Fahrenheit 9/11 here.

Entertainment Weekly came away with the exclusive first images of the armor suit for Iron Man. In the past, Director Jon Favreau alluded that more than one suit will worn by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). The original comic storyline had Stark going through different versions/styles of the suit, improving it each time until he settled on the classic red and yellow. This is supposedly the final suit Tony Stark will choose.

Personally, I think it looks pretty cool, but cool looks won’t matter if Iron Man doesn’t move and fight well. This is going to be tough for the FX team. Maybe go for a happy medium between Robocop’s movements and the Terminator in human mode ala Arnold?

Check out Entertainment Weekly’s article here.
Check out the history of Iron Man here.

“Quite clearly, the planet is dying, and we are dying on it”, Darren Aronofsky, as quoted in The Guardian.

The fascination with man’s existential awareness, and the attendant psychological burden, weaves it’s way through every Aronofsky film in some fashion. Painfully conscious of their own impending demise, Aronofsky’s dark anit-heros are pulled towards their fate; sometimes while kicking and screaming, sometimes propelled by their own force of will, but always forward. Aronofsky plans to return to that theme once again in an examination of another character who finds himself caught up in the anxiety of life and death, the biblical Noah. It’s not surprising that Aronofsky would find the genesis tale of unwanted heroism, holocaust and rebirth a tempting subject to explore. The director has had an attraction for the tale since youth when he won a poetry award at the age of 13 for a poem about the flood from Noah’s perspective. About his heavy take on Noah, Aronofsky says, “Noah was the first person to plant vineyards and drink wine and get drunk…There was some real survivor’s guilt going on there. He’s a dark, complicated character”.

How will film goer’s react to the director’s latest project? Foregoing any fundamentalist religious fervor, film fans have always divided themselves into two distinct groups – those who worship Aronofsky’s brooding visions, and those who find his works over-indulgent and emotionally cold. No doubt his interpretation of God’s first Armageddon will create the same strong reactions.

It’s a good day in geekdom. ‘Ain’t It Cool News’ has posted an early review of ‘Transformers’ from a test screening in Arizona. The review is very positive for the not-yet-ready Michael Bay production. Mr. Bay was present in the packed theater during the test screening. Despite some areas with unfinished CGI and a temp soundtrack, the reviewer praises the action sequences as “non-stop robot destruction- I honestly couldn’t tell you everything that happened because it was just so damn awesome I had a hard time even keeping up”. Click here to read the review. WARNING: The bulk of the review contains a synopsis of the movie’s plot. If you would rather be completely surprised when Transformer’s is released, don’t click the link.

I’ve written an article about the reason’s behind the box office failure of Grindhouse. The article’s been published on the site associatedcontent.com . You guy’s may want to check it out. Thanks!

You can read the article here.

Collider.com recently spoke producer Avi Arad about the upcoming movie The Incredible Hulk. Arad revealed that this Hulk movie will move in a completely different direction from Ang Lee’s Hulk. Arad said this will be “a new Hulk, new direction, new size, new color, new attitude. Anything that was done before is not in this movie.” This is creating speculation that the Hulk may be grey in the film which he has been several times in the comic book series. My guess is that he will be blend of the traditional green and the popular grey. Many people were not happy with Ang Lee’s 2003 film, so this attempt to recreate the characters and storyline has fans excited. The Incredible Hulk’s producers are making some good choices with Edward Norton being announced as Bruce Banner and Abomination chosen for the villain. Of course, there are a lot of other factors (mainly the script) that will decide whether this movie will live up to its potential, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Check out the article here.

Harvey Weinstein is furious with the anemic $12 million Grindhouse took in this weekend. Weinstein blames the three-hour plus running time of the double feature for poor turn out according to Deadline Hollywood Daily. “Our research showed the length kept people away. It was the single biggest deterrent” Weinstein said while revealing that they originally hoped to come in around two hours and 30 minutes. In the end, though, both Tarantino and Rodriguez ran long pushing the film over the three hour mark. With a $67 million production budget and $38 million advertising budget, the Weinstein Co. is looking at a long drought before seeing any profit on this film. Harvey Weinstein is so concerned that he’s reportedly considering re-editing the double feature into two separate full-length films and re-releasing them as separate Tarantino and Rodriguez branded products. Weinstein said he could do this in as little as two weeks at which point he would release the Tarantino portion. Several month’s afterward he would release Rodriguez’s re-edited half. Weinstein has already planned to promote the two film’s separately for the European release, but a final decision for the states hasn’t been made yet.