Swear to me!... AGAIN!

I just read over at CBR that the long-rumored sequel to Batman Begins has officially been announced. It will be titled The Dark Knight. The article now includes a copy of the official Warner Bros. press release.

Chris Nolan is back to direct (nice!) and Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman are all under contract for 3 Batman movies, so they'll be back too (triple nice!). Looks like David Goyer is also on-board to script again (nothing to shake a stick at, but seriously... Blade: Trinity was crap and he needs to make up for it).

There are 2 big news items in the official Warner Bros. press release that CBR reported on: first was that at least one of the villains in the film will be the Joker. No big surprise there since this was teased at the end of last year's Batman installment. I was slightly bummed when I heard that Batman Begins was going to deal with Ra's al-Ghul instead of the Joker, but the movie more than made up for it.

To me, the Joker is probably the single best villain in the history of comics. One of the best ever even! I liked Jack Nicholson's portrayal of him back in the 80's but I really hope this film will delve into the purely psychopathic genius that is the Joker. There's no two ways about him... he's pure insanity and that makes for some good storytelling.

Oh, and Mark Hamill did the best Joker voice ever! No contest.

So now for news item #2: Heath Ledger is playing the Joker. To this I say "BOOOOOOOOOO!" with a disclaimer that I have the right to recind that BOO without getting crap from everyone. I am happy to be proved wrong. Take Spider-Man for example. I thought Tobey Maguire was gonna suck, and he's great as Peter Parker. Awesome casting choice and proof yet again why I'm not a casting director. And it's not like I don't enjoy Heath Ledger's movies either. I really enjoyed A Knight's Tale. I just don't think he'll do pyscho-incarnate very well. He's a fine actor to be sure, but I worry.

To get over this, I have to put my faith in Nolan. He's a phenomenal director, even if I didn't really care for Memento, but hey, it was well made. I'm sure he'll get 150% out of Ledger, just like he did with Bale and the rest of the cast. I just need to keep thinking "Chris Nolan is directing" and I'll be fine.

To wrap up, here's my essential Joker reading list for you, in case you want to bone up on your Batman/Joker history: "The Killing Joke" by Alan Moore (the best Joker story, period!), "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller, and "Batman: Secrets" by Sam Keith. Each one will blow your mind in a different way. Now get reading!

Is this movie out yet?!?!?!?

Eureka!

Thanks to the modern marvel of Tivo, I didn't get around to watching this show until just now. The 2-hour pilot was fun, engaging, and... well... smart. Good pilots are hard to make, people!

Also, I've read some criticism of Eureka around the 'net, saying that it's unoriginal and unrealistic. Sure, some of the themes are derivative, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. And to all those who say it's unrealistic... GIVE ME A BREAK! It's on the Sci-Fi Channel for God's sake! It's not supposed to be realistic. If you're looking for realism, watch Discovery or something. Trust me when I say, you will NOT find it on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Anyways, if you like fun and silly sci-fi shows, check this one out. It's not going to make history, but it is a bright spot in the dank, dark hole that is summer TV. I'll keep watching for a while at least.

Vader Sessions

Put together by a mad genius, this is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. This 10-minute piece is a comp of several Darth Vader scenes from the original Star Wars with Vader's dialogue replaced with other James Earl Jones dialogue from his other movies. I'll admit, I only actually recognize 3 of the lines: 1 from Coming to America and 2 from Field of Dreams.

In case the embed didn't work, here's the link to the Vader Session on YouTube.

At this point, what I'd really like to find is "the annotated Vader Sessions" so I could follow along with what movies were used where. If anyone finds something like that, let me know. Otherwise, if I can't sleep tonight because of the sweltering heat here in California, maybe I'll take a stab at it, but don't hold your breath.

I wonder if James Earl Jones has seen this yet. If he did, I bet he laughed his ass off.

More than meet the eye

I just read over at AICN that it was officially announced that Peter Cullen will be doing the voice of Optimus Prime in the upcoming Michael Bay movie, Transformers, due out next year. As a major geek, I've been long worried about who would voice Prime, and I had always hoped Cullen, the original Prime, would provide the voice. Now I can focus on my worry about what the live-action movie will look like instead.

By the way, I am also the only one I know who thinks the teaser trailer is cool.

Me and a billion other people

...went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest this weekend. I will spare you a long drawn-out pseudo-review because there are enough sites doing that. Instead I will jump right into listing specific impressions and opinions that I had:

**SPOILERS** You have been warned! Although, some of this will only make sense if you've seen the movie...

In no particular order:
-Captain Jack Sparrow's "entrance" was excellent. Johnny Depp himself was excellent again. I wonder if he'll get another Academy Award nomination. He should win at least once for his characterization, don'cha think?
-Stellan Skarsgard and Bill Nighy made great additions to the cast.
-The woman sitting next to me literally jumped in her chair and screamed when the first of the natives attacked Will Turner.
-The fruit fight was out of place as was Jack's flip across the chasm, . All the other action in the Pirates films was fairly realistic, even if there were skeletons and sea monsters invovled. It just all seemed possible in that world. This stunt, not so much. That said, I will admit it was pretty funny.
-I think they went a little overboard (no pun intended) on the gross-factor when designing the crew of the Flying Dutchman. Definitely creepy, that's for sure. The things that grossed me out most were the rocks/crystals/whatever that were jutting out of Bootstrap's face.
-Keira Knightley is beautiful. I'm just sayin'.
-The water-wheel sword fight was fun, if not a little grandiose.
-Tia Dalma is a little hard to understand at times.
-The new villain, Lord Beckett, is really slimy... which he's supposed to be, so that works for me.
-It was nice to see a disheveled Commodore Norrington. Makes him more sympathetic, I think.
-The cliffhanger ending was awesome. The last shot of the film got cheers in the theater I was in.

Overall: good stuff. A very worthy sequel. Can't wait for Pirates 3!

Trailers annoy me

Not the vehicle-attachments, but rather the alternate name of movie previews. Now here's why...

I don't know too terribly much about the trailer-editing world, but from what I understand, producers and directors sift though the footage for their not-yet-finished film and select several different shots that they deem acceptable and sexy enough to be included in the trailer. Then it's up to the trailer editors to put together a really kick-ass preview to what we hope will be a really kick-ass movie. Trailer editors have tough jobs, that's for sure!

Let me also say that I LOVE trailers. If I miss the trailers before a movie, I feel slighted. I must be in time for the trailers. They're fun and exciting to watch and, let's face it, sometimes they're better than the movie itself.

So what annoyss me about trailers? It's not that they always showcase the best lines of any movie (although that does suck too). It's the fact that oftentimes, the trailers do not contain the same footage as that which ends up in the film. Take the 1995 film Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Good movie, really liked it. But do you remember the trailer? In the trailer there were several shots of Pfeiffer playing pool with her students, a montage that ended with Pfeiffer's memorable line, "Loser Rack!" It was one of the most prominent lines in the trailer.

The pool-hall scene was not in the theatrical release of the film. At least, not in the one that I saw.

See, along with the rest of the free world, I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest this weekend. Great movie, but that's another story. This is a movie that I've been so eagerly anticipating that I must've seen the trailers (all versions of them) about 50 times; enough times that I can probably recite them to you from memory. Sure enough, the trailers for Pirates 2 contain some different takes than were used in the film. Not many, but enough so that I noticed while I was watching the film... and they were all Jack Sparrow lines, ie. the best and most recognized lines of the film!

It annoyed me. Not overly, but enough. The last example may have been a little nit-picky, but for those of us geeks who have (modesty aside) an incredible memory and a tendency to quote every excellent movie we've ever seen, it would help if the trailers would remain consistent with the film, and vice versa.

If nothing else, it'll give me time to complain about other inane and petty subjects... like the current state of the Sourdough Jack at Jack-in-the-Box. When did they start putting so much ketchup on it?!?!?

Finally, a great web-comic.

I'm not really partial to web-comics. I don't know why really. I think maybe it's because I don't find that they can keep my interest on a regular basis. Most just don't seem very fresh and... well... interesting.

That is NOT the case with Planet Karen. Whether or not you read comics on a regular basis or not, check it out. I believe the site is updated daily with new comics and most are short (2-4 panels). I don't want to say too much about the comics because I think there are several different reasons that one would enjoy them, so take 2 minutes and see if I'm right.

See you there tomorrow!